Tag / self awareness

by Nathan Coumbe

Are personality tests preventing you from being yourself?

If you’re like most people in the United States, you’ve taken at least one personality assessment at some point in your life.

DiSC. Myers-Briggs. StrengthsFinder. Enneagram. There are too many to name, but I’ll bet you’ve taken at least one.

On the DiSC profile, I’m a CSI, with an extremely high C. That means I tend to be:

  • Analytical
  • Slow to make decisions
  • Precise & detail-oriented
  • A rigid rule-follower

And I can attest that all of those things are 100% true about me.

But because I’m so rigid, I tend to take everything that I learn as a rule that can’t be broken.

For example, when I get “career results” back about what I’m ideally suited for, I instantly assume those are the only jobs I can do. It’s how my personality works.

So when the field of marketing was nowhere to be seen in my “ideal” careers, I immediately wrote it off as something not worth looking into.

Even though I was fascinated by marketing…

Even though I wanted to learn how to do it ethically, with a service-oriented style…

Even though I could use it to help make the world a better place. To help other people start and grow successful businesses…

But I couldn’t! Because a personality test told me so.

Doesn’t that sound ridiculous?

Personality tests are great for:

  • Developing self-awareness
  • Understanding your natural tendencies
  • Learning about your strengths and weaknesses
  • Discovering how best to relate to other people

But they do not define who you are or what you can do.

If anything, they help you learn how you would do certain things.

So now, years later, I’m involved in marketing—doing it and teaching it to others on a regular basis. And I do it in an analytical, detail-oriented, service-to-others way.

Remember that personality tests are tools, nothing more. One of my mentors, Ashley Logsdon, put it this way:

“Never make the profile bigger than the person.”

They aren’t supposed to define what you do, but HOW you do them.

This is just one of the many conversations going on in the 48 Days Eagles Entrepreneur group during our Monday Mentor Calls.

If you want to get into the right network to help you level up your relationships and career, join us now!

Click this link to see what all you get when you become 48 Days Eagle.

by Nathan Coumbe

Why write?

Why would anyone start a blog in 2020 (or in my case, 2019)?

Nobody wants to read anymore; no one has the attention span to read anything more than headlines, bullet points, and headers.

If we want information, a lesson, or an explanation of an idea, we just go to YouTube. If we want entertainment, we go to Tik Tok for quick, random snippets or Twitter for messages. No more than 140 characters, thank you very much!

So why write?

For me, it’s to stretch a muscle. It isn’t to get someone to buy something; it isn’t to persuade the entire world to change how it operates. Writing helps me organize my thoughts. It allows me to practice putting messages and ideas into the world in a coherent form; it allows me to argue points and prove or disprove my ideas with my own gathered evidence.

“Writing is organized thinking on behalf of persuasion.”

–Seth Godin, “Even if it’s not graduation week for you…”

Perhaps I’m trying to persuade myself.

So this blog I write, or try to write, everyday – what’s it for? It’s for me to learn, practice, stretch, organize, and try and make sense of the world.

If it helps you, too, I am thrilled.

You should write something.

Maybe writing isn’t for you, but it is a uniquely human endowment, and I advise you try it. However, be clear on why you are writing. Don’t write to get people to read; don’t write to get a following; don’t write to get money. Write for yourself, at least at first.

Write to examine your thoughts. Write to examine what you are learning and check your understanding. Write to get the massed jumble of ideas out of your head and into a physical form – you’d be amazed how much anxiety that relieves. Write to try and persuade one person that your idea might help them get better.

It doesn’t have to be good; it just needs to be done. And the more you do it, the better it will get.

Write something.

Join 904 other subscribers