All the Personalities of a Rainbow

People are fascinating.  As they say, every person is so much likened to a snow flake as just as it should be, no 2 are alike.  That is a great thing. 

Do you ever think about communities that you belong to & the personality styles of the members?  It is pretty awesome having the opportunity for each of us to enjoy common interests or viewpoints with some folks & have other folks in the group expand our minds with their perspectives.

In one form or another, I have continued to learn & appreciate the uniqueness of personality & human behavior.  Although I have studied a myriad of behavioural models, my favourite is by Dr. Robert Rohm.  It is a simple, almost intuitive model to learn & it is delivered with pizzazz & humour.  Essentially, Dr. Rohm describes four primary personality styles.  Each person in his model has a primary personality style & a secondary one.  Some folks have more than 2 styles as well. 

The four personality styles described by Dr. Rohm include:  dominant/outgoing, intuitive & fun seeking, sparkly/outgoing, sensitive, sentimental, sweet/quieter, and logical,concise, orderly/quieter to paraphrase his many works.  Incidentially, if you are a parent, the book, “Different Children, Different Needs” by Dr. Rohm & Dr. Boyd is dynamite! 

Now all this talk about personality styles is not meant to provide an arena for labeling folks.  The purpose of having an outline of personality styles is to then take that knowledge & go out of your way to authentically meet others at their needs.  In order to meets folks at their needs, a person needs at least a basic understanding of what is important to others.

Please take a moment or two & think about what your primary & secondary personality styles are.  Then think next about the folks who are closest to you in terms of their style.  Finally, give some thought about the folks & their styles within other circles that you belong to (work, social, family, friends, etc).  It will not take long to see that we have a rainbow of personalities to appreciate within our community circles & that is a great thing.

My Dad’s dearest friend was our local fire chef, Dave.  Dave loved to make others laugh & feel special.  He let you know that he was “present” with each & every one.  He stood up for what was right & was a gentleman of character.  Dave’s motto in action within the fire department was, “I will go first”.  Every fire that the firefighters went to…well, Fire Chef Dave was into that burning building first.  Everyone in our town will forever respect & love Fire Chef, Dave.  In the spirit of “going first”, I will share that my primary personality style is sentimental, sensitive,creative & people oriented (vs task).  I do not read instructions (which sometimes gets me into funny situations & trouble alike) but rather rely on my intuition to figure stuff like electronics out.  My secondary style is that I love to have fun & laugh, have adventures & love life.  My husband has the other 2 personality styles:  he is a natural leader & gets things done & is extremely logical, concise & orderly.  You can imagine, that he is the guy who pulls the instructions out & reads them from cover to cover.  Thank goodness for that in our household because if I try to put anything together I have “leftover pieces” that were supposed to be a part of the project.  Too funny!

Our sons each have their very own styles.  Matt is creative, humourous, outgoing, spiritual and kind . Brian is logical, loves science & math & asks a bizzion questions. As an aside, here is a snapshot into Brian’s logical side.  When Brian was 5 years old, I was playing one of my many “imagination games” with him.  I said to him, I am picturing you right now flying a plane.  Brian’s hilarious response was, “no, Mom, I am not a pilot because I do not have my plane license & anyhow, I don’t even know how to get to the airport!”  Another time when Brian was 5 & Alex almost 3, Brian took it upon himself to try to teach Alex about spheres.  First, he tried drawing the shape on a piece of paper.  Very quickly, Brian told Alex that a sphere should not be drawn on a flat piece of paper.  Brian explained to Alex that they should go & get Alex’s baseball & then he could see for himself what a sphere was all about.  So funny!  Alex is “Mr. Happy” with a gentle, kind disposition & loves to snuggle & help with absolutely everything. 

The personality style that is least like our own can sometimes be the most challenging at first.  It is only challenging though as long as we do not understand the style.  Once we have an understanding of what is important or valued by other individuals, then we can try our best to meet them at their needs & vice versa.

Okay, so Saundie, what does any of this “personality stuff” have to do with diabetes or 365 health challenges?  Great question!  When we each choose the battle buddies (support team), we may want to consider including the full rainbow of personality styles.  It is easy as they say to include folks in our lives or on our team that are like-minded or similar in personality style to our own.  That is a great start.  How about also including the folks as well with the other personality styles?  Some folks may tend to be quieter & reserved yet isn’t it a blast to have a friend that is outgoing & gets others out when they otherwise would not go out to various events.  On the other hand, the folks that are great listeners can help those of us out who are having a conflict & be very comforting & supportive.  Now how about those individuals who are task-oriented & set goals & make great team captains & get things done.  Finally, the logical, task-oriented folks help immensely in offering great quality answers.

It is my heart’s devotion to always be “team building”.  That means to me that I need & want all the personality styles on my battle buddy team.  The folks that I learn the most from are folks that have a very different personality style from mine & that is a great thing.  The cool thing that I have learned along the way is that it is best to see the situation from the other person’s perspective & with understanding.  I learned many, many years ago that if a task-oriented person asks me a question that they are not too likely interested in hearing a sentimental, sit on the fence or long-winded answer.  A concise, quality answer delivered with little fanfare seems to be preferred…at least this is what I have found with interactions with my closest battle buddy.  My battle buddy in turn though also knows that it will not meet me at my needs if I receive an abrupt response.  That is the beauty of understanding one another & then doing something “with” that information.  The something “with” is doing our best to meet one another at our individual needs.

When you are adding another team mate to your team of battle buddies, my heart’s hope is that the rainbow of personality styles will be of benefit to you.  A team is always something worth building & so too is understanding.

Smiles, Saundie