A Funny Thing Happened After Taking the Core Values Index

Back in May of 2014, I bought a Honda Fit. I had never paid much attention to them before, other than riding once or twice in a co-worker's 2009 model. After I got mine, I seemed to notice them a lot more often. Suddenly, it seemed, everyone was driving a Fit.

It's funny how that happens.

Back in July of 2016, I took the Core Values Index psychometric assessment. I had never heard of it before then, and was asked to take it as part of a job search. My initial impression as I took the assessment was, "How can this reliably assess my personality?"

After completing the test — a process that took only about 8 minutes — I read my initial results and thought it was fairly accurate but somewhat incomplete in how it portrayed the depth and breadth of my personality. I was woefully incorrect about that, as I discovered.

The CVI knew a lot more about me than I did.

Something funny happened after I took the CVI and I began learning more about how the CVI represents my personality's DNA.

My first milestone was learning who I was and how I see the world through the lens of my specific psychometric profile. I'm still learning about this today, which reflects quite highly on how thorough and comprehensive the CVI really is. The depth and breadth is there if you wish to explore it.

My second milestone was learning about all of the core value energies and how to recognize their presence or absence in other people. Understanding others is a powerful soft skill to have, even at the most basic level, and the CVI has proven to be extraordinarily useful to me in this regard.

With my new-found and continually growing knowledge of core value energies and how they are represented in people's personalities, I set out on a quest to understand past and present relationships. I speculated what the profiles were of former colleagues, teachers, and even my parents (who are both now deceased; I wish I could go back in time and have them take the CVI — that would be very helpful to me on a personal level).

Like buying a Honda Fit and suddenly seeing them on the road everywhere I go, after taking the CVI, I find myself speculating what the core value profiles are of everyone I meet or see on TV. I have even analyzed the CVI profiles of famous people and fictional characters like James Bond, Harriet Tubman, John Wick, Ferris Bueller, and even one of my personal heroes, Neil Peart.

The CVI is as deep as you want to go, and I am learning something new about the core value energies every day. I am fortunate to work with Travis Stovall, CEO and founder of eRep, and one of the top Core Values Index experts in the world. It's fascinating to pick his brain and be exposed to new insights about how our personality's DNA is represented so accurately by the CVI.

Take the CVI and gain access to Travis's webinar, "Introduction to the CVI," included free in your results package.

One of the things I am still working on is recognizing that I see the world through the lens of my own CVI profile. This influences my subjective viewpoints and opinions of others and how they should or shouldn't operate. Because of my profile, I automatically assume the rest of the world should have the same priorities and preferences as I do. The rest of the world should operate and function the same way I do.

As my knowledge of the CVI in general and my own profile in particular have progressed, I am opening my perspective and recognizing the fact that everyone operates based on their own psychometric profile. Unless they share the same CVI numbers that I do, they will have a different way of operating than me, some more different than others.

This is one of the most profound insights you can gain when taking the Core Vales Index psychometric assessment for yourself: you will understand the lens through which you see the world, and begin to recognize the wonderful and valuable contributions you and others can make, each according to their own human operating system.