10 Personality Hacks with the Core Values Index

The Core Values Index™ is the world's most accurate psychometric assessment / personality test. It has the highest repeat reliability rating of 97.7% as measured in longitudinal studies. That sounds impressive, but what can you do with it in your daily life?

1. Read someone's mind (by learning how to guess their likely CVI profile)

Although mental telepathy is still an elusive goal for psychologists and astrologists alike, the CVI can give you a leg up when trying to guess what someone else might be thinking.

Here's how: Study the CVI's four core value energies — Builder, Merchant, Innovator, and Banker. If you can correctly guess someone's likely primary core value energy, you'll have a pretty good idea of how they see the world and their behavioral preferences.

In a given situation, if someone is a Builder or Banker for example, you can bet there's a good chance they'll have a particular preference for how to act and communicate as well as the kind of activity they'd prefer to engage in.

The CVI doesn't quite offer the ability to read someone's mind, but it's very useful being able to understand where someone is coming from and knowing how they prefer to act and communicate.

2. Spot the leader in any group (identify what a Builder's characteristics are)

In group activities, it's useful to be able to spot which person is likely to be the natural-born leader. While anyone can lead depending on the circumstances, some people will naturally gravitate toward leadership positions and prefer to be the ones who take charge.

Here's how: Study the Core Values Handbook and learn to recognize those with Builder as their primary core value energy.

Although other profiles can lead, Builders will be the most likely to do so from the front.

3. Rapidly de-escalate an argument (by recognizing conflict resolution strategies)

Every person has a set of default responses to stress and conflict. There will be nuances, but in general they fall into four categories. When an argument arises between you and someone else, there are some easy hacks you can learn to de-escalate the situation.

Here's how: Learn the conflict resolution strategies of each of the four core value energies. The essence of these responses boil down to a challenge against what matters most to that person. For example, Builders are all about being the power in the room, so things that make them feel powerless will push them into their conflict resolution strategy of intimidation. Innovators like to be wise, so anything that makes them feel unwise stresses them out and puts them into a mode of interrogation. Merchants and Bankers have their own conflict resolutions strategies as well (manipulation and aloof judgment, respectively).

If you already know or have a good idea what someone's primary core values energy is, avoid words and behaviors that challenge that energy.

Don't make a Builder feel powerless or a Merchant feel unloveable or an Innovator feel foolish or a Banker feel ignorant. If the person goes into their conflict resolution mode, feed what they are lacking. Give the Builder a sense of power, etc. You'll be amazed at how you can avoid conflict and de-escalate things when it occurs by knowing this simple hack.

4. Land a great job (by identifying the career that best matches how you are hardwired)

This personality hack is about improving your odds, and it is surprisingly simple. The core of this hack (no pun intended) is to identify your strengths and pursue an occupation that plays to those strengths.

Here's how: Once you have taken the CVI and read your profile report, you should have the basic foundation of how you are hardwired. Look at your core value energies, especially your primary and secondary scores. Evaluate how your CVI points are allocated to get a sense for how much of those energies exist within you.

Your profile will tell you a great deal about the kind of activities that will naturally appeal to you and make you feel fulfilled. Your lower scores will also tell you the kind of activities to avoid. For example, if you have a very low Banker score, you likely will be unhappy in a job that requires a lot of detailed and tedious gathering and analysis of data.

Give thought to the responsibilities and characteristics of different jobs and see how they line up to your own profile. Do they match?

Focus on the primary aspects of the job and your own primary and secondary core value energies and seek alignment between them.

5. Teach anyone anything (by learning how people learn best)

Every person has a preferred learning style. No two people are exactly alike, but most of us have generalized methods of learning that are more efficient than others. Teaching others is all about targeting your teaching method to their preferred way of learning.

Here's how: In the Core Values Handbook — which is a free download for anyone completing the full CVI — you can learn the preferred learning style for each of the four core value energies. When presenting new material to another person, use what you can glean or identify about their likely primary core value energy and tailor your teaching style accordingly.

For example, if someone learns best through hands-on action, adjust your teaching style accordingly.

When teaching a group where there are a diverse range of learning styles, present your material in a way where each person can tackle the material in the way they prefer.

Don't use a 'one size teaches all' approach.

6. Stop wasting time (by avoiding what is counter to your personality)

Have you ever had a job or task that felt like you were constantly pushing on a 'pull' door? Then someone else comes along and they blast through the task with the ease of a hot knife through butter. Why does this happen?

It all comes down to hardwiring. How do you stop wasting time on activities that just don't seem to jive with your personality?

Here's how: As with most hacks on this list, it comes down to learning about your own CVI profile and understanding what each core value means to you. The CVI represents happiness, not aptitude.

You can probably accomplish any task required, but the trick is to only work on tasks that are aligned with how you are hardwired.

You will innately connect with the task's requirements and ideal methods and it will seem much easier to grasp its concepts. Conversely, don't waste time pursuing tasks or jobs that are counter to how you are hardwired. They will be nothing but a drain on your energy and will feel challenging the entire time.

7. Learn how to learn anything efficiently (by learning your own optimal learning style)

There is a lot of overlap between this and hack number 5, where we talk about how to teach others. This hack is all about you, though, and your effort to learn more efficiently.

Here's how: Reference the Core Values Handbook, specifically the chapter about your primary core value energy.

Look for the "learning style" section. It will explain in clear and simple terms the way you learn best.

You can learn new things via other methods, but this will identify the way you learn most efficiently. Easy.

8. Get promoted (by using the CVI and a bit of Dale Carnegie wisdom)

This one is a bit manipulative, we'll admit, and it's no guarantee you'll succeed. We'd also like to point out that we've gone on the record saying that just because you're good at something doesn't necessarily mean you'll be good at managing people who do that thing.

Management and leadership is a skill set that can be taught and learned, although some people are naturally hardwired to have an easier time learning those skills than others.

Having said all that, many of us still like to pursue promotion and advancement. Not all promotions are into positions of leadership, so adjust your expectations accordingly. After all that, if you still want to know how to use personality hacks to improve your odds of getting promoted, read on.

Here's how: The fact is, most hiring and promotion decisions are based on emotions rather than objective data. There is a lot of cognitive bias present in these kind of decisions and that can be used to your advantage.

To start, you need two pieces of information: the likely CVI profile of the person who can promote you, and an understanding of how they dress. Both of these bits of information come down to a single point: validation.

If you use your knowledge of the CVI to both feed and validate the psychometric profile of your boss as well as show that you have the profile appropriate for your desired position, they will almost magically feel more confident in their decision to promote you. They will feel a sense of comfort and ease when talking with you, because everything you say just seems to validate who they are and their role. They will feel like they are making the smart move.

Dale Carnegie, in his seminal book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, teaches us, "dress like the person who can promote you." The premise is that having similar attire subconsciously validates the other person's choices and makes them feel better about themselves — and they feel better about you.

This method of using your knowledge of the CVI and basic human psychology to manipulate others is a bit underhanded and sleazy. But it works. If you're in sales, this knowledge has the potential to make you Salesperson of the Year (your actual mileage may vary).

9. Banish boredom forever (by learning the kind of activities that make you happiest)

Who likes to be bored? It can be nice for a bit after having a hard day or week or month or year, but boredom gets old pretty quick. How do you keep from feeling bored?

Here's how: Doing something that is counter to how you are emotionally hardwired will make you feel several things: bored, frustrated, angry, agitated, deflated. The list goes on, none of which is positive. What's the opposite?

Do something that is aligned with how you are emotionally hardwired.

The first step, of course, is to determine how you are emotionally hardwired. Take the CVI and learn what your personality's DNA really is. Identify your core value energies and their relative ratios (your scores matter!)

The CVI doesn't define your aptitude, it defines your happiness.

Each of the four core value energies represents a set of behaviors and perspectives and ways of operating in the universe — we call your CVI profile the 'human operating system'. Select activities that play to your strengths and areas of greatest happiness as defined by your CVI profile, and you'll never be bored again.

10. Understand your kids or spouse (by identifying and honoring their CVI profile)

If you've read this far, you've likely noticed a theme with all these personality hacks. They come in two flavors: understanding your own CVI profile, and understanding the likely CVI profiles of others.

This final hack entails not only understanding the CVI profile of your spouse or children, but honoring them as well.

Here's how: Get everyone in your family aged 13 and older to take the CVI. Share your profiles with each other and discuss the basic components of how they describe your personalities.

Most importantly, recognize and acknowledge that there is no right or wrong psychometric profile. It's not a competition. Similarities are more rare while differences are more common. Each person's profile represents not aptitude or worth, but a reflection of perspective as well as a more tangible explanation of the kind of things that make people happy.

Every person in your family — and every person you meet — has something to offer that is unique.

You might meet someone who has the same CVI profile as you, but they have had a lifetime of experiences that combine nature and nurture, respectively, to make them a truly unique and special individual. Just like you.

Regardless of what you might know about someone based on their CVI profile, and regardless of the ways you can summarize their likely behavior and perspective based on what you learn of the Core Values Index, every person has a special contribution to make to the world. Honor that.

Core Values Index™ and CVI™ are trademarks of Taylor Protocols, Inc.