Talking Points

Now that you have access to the spread sheet and know how to look through the second page, and now that I've had time to actually look through the assessments, here are my more personal thoughts for your pondering - some specific to your assessment, and some thoughts that were helpful to me when I was working through this process:

1) No personality is inherently better or worse than another, and the vast majority of traits are not "good" or "bad" in themselves. I cannot state this often enough or strongly enough. A handful of traits have moral implications, but the vast majority can be bad or good depending how they're used.

2) Your personality - strengths and weaknesses - is a gift set by God as is. I feel that often people take personality assessments or are asked to take them with the understanding that the purpose is to learn what to "fix" about themselves. That is NOT my heart in this, and I would be sorely disappointed if you felt that way about the things you're learning about yourself. My assessments helped me stop fighting myself and learn to thrive in who I am, and I hope you find the same.

Those seem really cheesy and simple, but I say them because 1) They're important and Satan is going to try to twist everything about this process to make you doubt your creation, and 2) someday I hope you have the opportunity to share this with someone else and they may need to hear it.

Looking at the big picture, I added some color coding to the google sheet assessment, which you already figured out, I believe. Green are blocks we matched exactly, yellow where we matched one pair, and red for opposite assessments of a trait (most vs least).

On your assessment we exactly matched 2 blocks (green), matched an additional 5 "most" assessments, 11 "least" assessments (20 total data points out of 56), and had 7 points where we came out completely opposite. When it came time to actually total everything up, you ended up with 5 different personalities. (laughing, even now)

On my assessment you and I matched exactly 7 times, matched 5 "most" assessments, and 6 "least" assessments (25 total data points out of 56), with 3 questions where we answered opposite, and all our type assessments matched each other.

Thoughts on this:
Possible reasons for discrepancy in yours:
1) as discussed, I know you in a fairly limited context, though I don't necessarily believe I would answer differently a year from now.
2) - and this was what I found in myself when I took this the first time - there may be a discrepancy between who you feel you are or how you believe you project and how those traits are perceived by others.
3) you have multiple personalities.

I really can't speak much more to this other than to say that culturally we are excellent at "helping people" by pointing out their weaknesses, and not so good at recognizing and developing strengths. It doesn't entirely surprise me that we would agree on your "least" characteristics over your "most".

You nailed my assessment. Even the ones where we answered differently or even opposite I felt were accurate. In the cases where we answered opposite, I'm at peace with those because I understand why you would see it that way, and in most cases I've been intentionally cultivating a different characteristic. For instance, the #25 example, I really thought you'd put cooperative as your least, which wouldn't have been entirely inaccurate, but I was so thankful you listed systematic and argumentative instead for the simple reason that I've spent the last 15 years trying to take the rough edges off these two traits and now you're seeing it! Enough that while they still define me, they define me the way I want, not as my moments of weaknesses.

And the same with the rest of the terms. I agree with each word you chose, and can understand why you would select that. It does make me aware of how lazy I can be at home about loving Brendan well, but I can't say I'm disappointed that you've seen me raw. And regardless the specific traits you see versus the ones I feel most strongly, we both have a very identical picture of who I am overall.

The one big difference I noticed on our assessments of you is how we see your natural dominance as a personality trait. I mention this for two reasons: 1) some of my assessment of this trait was based on the stories you've told me lately about not being heard. Dominant personalities don't really have that issue. 2) Being dominant puts a serious kink in your ability to lead well and contribute to a team, so if you find that you really are dominant, that will be a fat learning curve. BUT fear not:

it is our light not our darkness that most frightens us

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

—Marianne Williamson


So now it's up to you to weigh out who you are - not just who you think you are or who you think you should be. But are you who I see you to be? Are you who you see, and if so why do I see you differently? Most importantly, what are your powers?

Mine is discernment, speaking truth in love, and discipleship. That comes with a heavy dose of stubborn, in-your-face, Ezekiel 3 passion; being pretty sure I'm right allllll the time; and a constant inner fight to inform and encourage rather than manipulate. Ugh.

You will have to muster the same courage to call your strengths your strengths, even when they sound like things people would say are weaknesses. Own them. And watch them be used in ways you never could have imagined!