Learn Your Personality Type (Then Keep Going) – Everyday Fulfillment
No Vacation Required
The other day, we decided to forgo hiking one of our old favorites and find something new. We had a few hikes on our radar that we’d not yet gotten to, so we picked Mount Dickerson... or is it Dickinson (it’s actually Dickerman, which we failed to get right in this episode 😂). It turned out to be an excellent hike, which is always satisfying. But it was also incredibly satisfying just do something new.
For a while now we have been retooling our professional services to focus almost exclusively on personality. We’ve loved the more career-focused work we’ve done for nearly two decades now, but it was time for something new – even if that something new is actually leaning fully into something we’ve been doing for a long time.
This week, we are kicking off a brand new four-pack by diving into YouFinder – a service we’ve developed (and expanded, and retooled, and refined) to help you move from a one-in-sixteen label to a one-in-a-million understanding of yourself.
If you fell like it’s time for something new, give this episode a listen and then maybe decide to either learn about your personality or go deeper.
Onward and Inward,
COMMON QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE
❓Why haven't I learned about "facets" in my previous personality tests? Most corporate personality tests only use "Step 1" information, which gives you a basic four-letter type. Going deeper into facets ("Step 2") takes more time and analysis, which is why many organizations stick to the surface level.
❓What is YouFinder? YouFinder is our comprehensive approach to personality. It takes your basic one-in-sixteen personality type and overlays your unique facets to go deeper – showing you how you process the world, manage your energy, and navigate stress.
❓How do I handle getting a better job offer after I already accepted one? You always have the right to change your mind. While it can feel uncomfortable, you have to do what is ultimately best for your life and career. A company will find another candidate, but you only get one life.
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Mind Share: The joy of trying something new
(01:53) Why we are entering our "Legacy Era"
(02:49) Mailbag: Why haven't I heard this deep personality info before?
(05:59) Moving from a 1-in-16 to a 1-in-a-million personality
(11:07) Introducing YouFinder: How we unpack your unique personality
(20:00) Bonus Mailbag: What if I get a better job offer after I already accepted one?
SUPPORT NO VACATION REQUIRED
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LINKS AND RESOURCES
🔗 Hike Mount Dickerman
🔗 So You Accepted A Job And Then Got Another Offer
TRANSCRIPT
Kent (00:02)
After many podcasts of foundational work, we're ready to share how we unpack personality and bring it to life in YouFinder We start with type and facets because knowing your type is only the beginning, and the facets reveal the individual expression that makes your personality uniquely yours. This is where we move beyond the label and start showing you the person behind it.
Kent (00:26)
Caanan, I'm so excited for a new a new four pack, but before that, what's on your mind?
Caanan (00:33)
My mind share is kind of basic today because it really is just about doing something new. Right? So this week we went and hiked a new hike for us, Mount Dickinson. It's
Kent (00:47)
Dickerson.
Caanan (00:49)
Dickinson. okay. We don't
Kent (00:52)
See, we don't even know the name of it.
Caanan (00:53)
even it's so new for us we don't even know the name of it. But you know, we love hiking. We have so many amazing hikes in the region and we will
Caanan (01:02)
do the the same ones over and over and over. but somehow we've missed Mount Dickinson or Dickerson and it was an incredible hike. And I just think it's so nice to do something new and be surprised by something...
Caanan (01:16)
Yeah.
Caanan (01:17)
Especially when you're deep into something. It's a hobby or you know it well and you find something new. Isn't that so satisfying
Kent (01:25)
Yep,
Kent (01:25)
I love that. I remember thinking of suggesting we not do it and I thought, nope, doing new things is always good. You never know what it's gonna open up in your brain and yeah. Yeah, there's always something new out there.
Kent (01:39)
If our recent conversations about personality been helpful to you, please take a moment to subscribe. And if you're watching this on YouTube, please give us a like or share your thoughts in the comments.
Kent (01:50)
We appreciate it.
Kent (01:53)
Okay, so again, I'm so excited about this four pack, and I think it's gonna be our final four pack on personality. Yeah. We've been trying to do several four packs that get at the foundation of what we do and what we're passionate about, how we've shifted our work into this, what we call our the like legacy, the legacy time of our work or the legacy level, legacy era? What is it? I can't even think of what it is.
Caanan (02:21)
Yeah,
Caanan (02:21)
our legacy era.
Kent (02:22)
Yeah.
Kent (02:23)
So today for this podcast episode and for this four pack, we are going to the end in order to start. And the end is usually where we do a Mailbag. But to get into the reason we're doing this particular final four pack is because of something we heard from a handful of people regarding our last four packs.
Kent (02:49)
And basically a bunch of people have gotten in touch and said, "Okay, yeah, I have done a personality test at work. Yeah. As you guys have talked about on the podcast" or whatever. But so many people said, "Where is all this great information coming from? I've never been told anything so detailed. So that's number one. And then number two is
Kent (03:11)
"And why haven't I? How do you guys do this? How do you know how to do this? Why hasn't my monster corporation gotten into this level of personality right that you're getting into?" So we don't want this podcast to be a bio, but we realize that we tend not to talk about us and talk about services. We we know that people will get there if they want to and that
Kent (03:34)
The podcast might serve as an inspiration for people to get there. But we realized with this interest and growing interest in what we're doing that people really want to know. Wait, give us more information on this because this is great. And I need to better understand why I haven't had this level of experience that you're talking about. So number one, the personality test, the likely the Myers-Briggs information that you're getting when you take this, most people take it
Kent (04:03)
with an employer. Yeah. Or they take it on their own at a free site where you get a quick glimpse at what your personality is. That's what's called step one information. And it's just bite-sized, consumable. Frankly, I'm surprised that companies don't go deeper. Now, to kind of confuse this,
Kent (04:26)
Deeper work is the kind of work we'll do, but a lot of companies, a lot of work groups just stick to that basic information that our emails are referring to, meaning I know my four-letter type. I have no idea of all these other amazing things you guys have been talking about for the last three months.
Caanan (04:46)
just to answer the question you weren't asking going beyond the quick four type thing, you know, it's a lot of information and it takes time and it takes analysis and it's a deep process. And I think a lot of corporations just wanna you know, they wanna give the most cursory information because they're checking a box – HR is going through a process or something.
Kent (05:08)
They're
Kent (05:08)
checking a development box Yeah. Yeah. So to keep
Caanan (05:10)
Exactly. Anyway, go ahead.
Kent (05:12)
this all simple and straightforward so we can get into the more actual like growth oriented and inspirational stuff that we like to do. That's all what is called in the industry step one information. We get into with our work groups and our clients what's called step two and actually beyond step two. And that's where you get into
Kent (05:34)
As we've talked about in our last four packs – And please, if you haven't, go back and listen to those four packs so you know more about what I'm talking about. If you know you're just jumping in right now – This is how we can get into the things that take clients from one in 16 to one in just over a million. And inherent in
Kent (05:59)
the questions we've been getting over these last months. Yeah. and Caanan, even in something you brought up, how do we know how to do this? What what's our story? So to give you that briefly, you can get all this information on our website, but I, Kent, got certified in MBTI, being able to administer the MBTI, a long time ago. Since then, I've gotten a graduate degree. So
Kent (06:25)
I'm currently educationally qualified to administer this personality assessment. So we spend a lot of time when we refer to in so many of our podcasts and in our four packs, like changing what we do to focus more on this. We spend a lot of our time working with individuals on very specific, usually career
Kent (06:53)
Oriented things where oftentimes a personality component would become a big part of it. We added that into our work because we realized people didn't know themselves. Similarly, we spent a lot of time working with companies and work groups doing career and work group-oriented work. And that's where, as we reference quite often, we also learned people just don't even know themselves. So we've always had this
Kent (07:20)
personality skill qualification in our hip pockets, but it wasn't a huge, huge part of what we've done. We've just made it an increasingly and increasingly and increasingly important part. And just in the last handful of years, we've decided, okay, this is our legacy phase. We are going to lean into personality
Kent (07:43)
Because people do not know who they are, as we say constantly, and when they learn who they are, we now have thousands of clients over these years we've been doing this. Thousands of clients who I can't think of many who aren't not only pleased but blown away by what is opened up when they know their personality. so we've got all the credentials.
Kent (08:11)
All the work experience and Caanan, too, comes with an SPHR certification which is the highest or the most prestigious level of yeah
Caanan (08:23)
HR certificate.
Kent (08:25)
of kind of knowledge acknowledgement and I think you know do you want to speak to how that helps shape how you look at the human experience?
Caanan (08:34)
Well, my background prior to getting an SPHR was largely operations focused, but with a bent toward people and some people management in there. And through my career I found that it really was finding ways to make the experience for people better. I really didn't care about the logistics just for the sake of logistics. I really cared about
Caanan (09:02)
How it impacted people. I guess that's a very INFJ thing of me to do. Yeah. and so I ultimately decided to get my SPHR because I wanted to have the credentials to match my experience in people operations. And so that's why I got that. And it gives me an insight into how a lot of this works in the enterprise because that's a lot
Caanan (09:26)
Of what people are looking for, but that isn't my main focus. As Kent was saying, it really is about helping people understand who they are so they can be more effective in every aspect of their life. And as we always say, you have many roles, but there's only one you. And so we focus mostly now on the you.
Kent (09:49)
Yeah. So the one you. Yeah. So we don't we don't use a lot of our foundational experience. Just like those of you, many of those of you listening, you know, you you grow through different things, you add on credentials and experience, but you're not necessarily directly using every single thing you've done. You've just you're growing into new things. So the things we've done previously, both in terms of credential gaining and actual work experience, have helped us
Kent (10:19)
make this decision that this – personality – is our legacy work. Okay, so in the next segment we're gonna jump into l how we do that specifically, but I know Caanan wants to say some really quick.
Caanan (10:32)
Just wanted
Caanan (10:32)
to say that
Caanan (10:34)
I think our background specifically enables us to to really understand what people are going through in all aspects of their life and how this applies to their careers. Yeah. And, you know, it's so important to us that everything we do is applicable and usable and practicable – that it isn't just theory. And so I think that is really the beauty of the background we have is that it's realistic and we understand what you're going through.
Kent (11:07)
we're talking about people who got in touch and they wanted to to know more specifically about what we do, what we put out there, what we help people with, in terms of having this deep level of of personality information that we want to help you use in guiding
Kent (11:31)
really all the critical aspects of your life. So our core product is something called YouFinder And just to kind of sum up what we've talked about in I think the last three four packs, we in chapter one of this end product called YouFinder, really get into the specifics of what makes you that
Kent (11:55)
one in sixteen. Yeah. But then in chapter two, things really start to blow up in the best way in chapter two because we take you into those things that of course overlay on your core one in sixteen personality, but make you one in a million. And we divide that discourse up into
Kent (12:19)
mini sections that we found over our years and years of doing this are the things that people most want to know about the core way their personality can be applicable to their everyday lives. And keep in mind that you get a beautifully crafted guide based on our interpretation of you.
Kent (12:44)
But YouFinder also includes conversations and it's a very collaborative, directive thing, because our goal is that after our weeks together, you feel completely equipped to
Caanan (12:58)
Yeah.
Kent (12:59)
know how to utilize your personality
Kent (13:02)
in moving forward in life. So I want to have Caanan walk through what the five core things we get into regarding what makes you one in a million.
Caanan (13:12)
I'm chuckling to myself because of course the process is high touch. If you can gather anything from us, we're pretty warm and fuzzy and high touch. So we really want people to feel cared for. Anyway, in chapter one of YouFinder you get your "one of 16." You learn about your personality type. And this is the kind of information you can find elsewhere. But
Caanan (13:38)
even in chapter one where we're just talking about your one of sixteen type we go even deeper than you can find really anywhere. and so you get a nice type overview. But as Kent was saying, what we've learned is that people need to have this broken down into ways that they can apply to their everyday life. We do that by examining your type.
Caanan (14:04)
Through how you process information, how you process the world, how you get things done, how you manage your energy, your time, and how you connect with people.
Caanan (14:18)
How you create impact,
Kent (14:20)
Yeah.
Caanan (14:21)
right? Like how you leave your mark, what you can do, what your personality allows you to do. And then how you navigate pressure and change. And I think this is the one that really gets people because you know, we live in a very difficult time now. There's a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, we all feel it. And one of the most wonderful parts about knowing your personality is that you learn how you naturally respond
Caanan (14:48)
to different levels of stress and you can use your personality to navigate change and stress more effectively. So I think that that one really is really, really helpful.
Kent (15:01)
Yeah, and just looking at at a report here, you know, just we sought to put into this product exactly what we learned that people wanted to know. So even in those early years that we referenced a while ago where we weren't doing just this work and we were realizing, whoa, we need to expand this work. We went back and looked at our client projects and our notes and
Kent (15:29)
took all of the things that we know people wanted to know. So you get answers to questions, again, I'm looking at a report. What drives you? What comes most naturally to you? What feels most fulfilling to you? and then we go kind of deeper into each of those things, again, with the initial core intent of addressing how you process the world.
Kent (15:56)
How you get things done, how you manage energy, how you create impact, and yeah, how you navigate pressure and change.
Caanan (16:04)
And you know, I think this sounds a little bit like a sales pitch, and we never talk about our product really. We barely mention it, but I I don't mind that. It's a little uncomfortable for us, but I this information is so important. And whether or not you ever work with us, what I really want you to take away from this conversation today is this is the kind of information you should want to know about yourself and
Caanan (16:32)
however you can find it, access that.
Kent (16:40)
chapters one and chapters chapters one and two in YouFinder very much go hand in hand because chapter one as Caanan got into, gives you that one in sixteen. And then chapter two again is just kind of an overlay on top of that, but it shows you where and how that one in sixteen becomes
Kent (17:01)
One in just over a million. So you wanna talk a little bit about how that
Caanan (17:06)
Well, I'm just gonna reference our four pack, the series we did on facets. And really what chapter two is, is the same format as chapter one, but now we're using your facets and we're analyzing your personality in a much more granular level, and then we're
Caanan (17:26)
refining the information through chapter one based on our analysis of your facets. And so it's like a micro look into your personality and not the as we've been saying, not the one in 16. Now it's the one in over a million analysis of your personality. And this is where things get really exciting. As we talked about, facets are fascinating and
Caanan (17:51)
The information you can get from them is very exciting.
Kent (17:55)
Yeah, let me give an example here before we close out. for instance, the how you get things done at the facet level in chapter two, letting one of our former clients know that they're an agile strategist, letting them know they're all about clarity and intentional design, but they also don't mind pivoting when new info drops, building systems to give themselves freedom in order to not box themselves in.
Kent (18:23)
making sure a day flows smoothly without feeling rigid. So you know, I remember this client, I'm sure you do too. This gives them this very validating framework of how they get things done. And then that section goes on to talk about things they can do to lean into that reality. Yeah. And we have a really cool part that occurs throughout
Kent (18:50)
out the entire YouFinder process, where we also, of course, talk about potential roadblocks, potential tensions, how people might perceive you, even though you know X is your great strength, how people might perceive that as overbearing. So just to kind of set up where we're going with this this four pack, we then walk clients through how to best
Kent (19:18)
organize their personality so that it can be the most optimal, how they then in chapter four can best handle stress. And then in the final chapter, we talk about decision making. So
Kent (19:35)
Each of these things we have found extremely important to people – feeling equipped to use their personality in the best way possible. So yeah, this is what we're doing with this this four pack and come back for episodes two, three, and four where we give you a sneak peek into the other chapters in YouFinder.
Caanan (20:00)
Okay, Kent said that this entire episode was a mailbag. It is. So surprise bonus mailbag. What? I've got another one.
Kent (20:09)
Bling
Kent (20:09)
bling bling bling.
Caanan (20:12)
I was just looking through our stats and I saw this funny a stat jumped out at me that a blog post we wrote way, way, way long ago, back when we were largely focused on the career role. About how do I handle
Caanan (20:34)
getting a better offer after I've already accepted a job. Right? And for some reason despite
Kent (20:38)
way back.
Caanan (20:42)
this nasty economy, we get this this is like our most popular blog post ever. And it continues to be. So I wanted to answer that question in case this is a really great problem that you have where you've been offered a job and you get a better offer.
Caanan (21:01)
And I'm gonna reference something that Kent you just played for me yesterday, which was Oprah on a podcast saying you always have the right to change your mind. Yeah. Right? And it it doesn't matter what we're talking about, but specific to this question about a job offer, it doesn't matter if you've accepted an offer. You always have the right
Caanan (21:28)
Change your mind if you think something is going to be better for you. You always have the right to change your mind. Never feel like you've locked yourself in just because you said yes. And specifically with a corporation, it's a job. It's a job. They'll find somebody else. Do what's right for you.