Who Are You?

Do you know who you are? Do you understand why you react in certain ways to different situations and people? What makes you tick?

What makes you happy?

Philosophy

Philosophers have been pondering the nature of happiness and self actualization for centuries. What have we learned as a species? We know that a lack of happiness affects health. Stress and sadness and anger degrade our immune systems.

We have learned that employees who enjoy their work tend to be better at it. Companies with happier employees are more likely to meet their financial and operational goals.

Couples who are happier with themselves as individuals, and are happier with each other, stay together longer — and often make better parents, too.

Those who really understand themselves and know why they feel and think the way they do experience greater joy in the simplest of pleasures and spend far less time fretting and stressing about meaningless pursuits like keeping up with the Jones's and dressing more like their favorite celebrity.

So who are you?

Would it be worth the time and money to get a degree in philosophy? Is it worth the climb to visit a guru on a mountaintop to seek answers about who you really are?

Who you are may not be the right question to ask, and if you do ask it, one possible answer is:

You are the sum of your experiences and the collection of your aspirations and intentions.

The more important question might be:

Why do you think and feel the way you do?

Your personality, what makes you unique, is the collection of your natural, hardwired reactions and preferences to your experiences. You are the compilation of the activities and endeavors that make you happy.

The things that make you happy are what make you unique. We're not talking about the worldly things that make most people happy: Ferrari's and pumpkin spice lattes and game-winning touchdowns (although all of those things are nice).

We're talking about the fundamental components of your personality, your emotional DNA. Creating and connecting with others. Building and leading. Solving problems. Learning and acquiring knowledge.

It is your specific combination of these fundamental emotional building blocks that determine the pursuits and activities that will make you feel fulfilled and engaged.

It is your deep-seated drive for happiness that determines why you think and feel the way you do. It determines the personalities you are drawn to the most. It describes the vocation where you will be most empowered and successful.

What Makes You Happy?

What makes you happy is what makes you you.

When we discuss creating and connecting with others, building and leading, problem-solving and the acquisition of knowledge, we are describing four fundamental emotional building blocks, or core value energies.

It is your unique and specific combination of these four core value energies that define your personality. It is this combination of emotional energies that accurately and reliably describe what makes you happy.

Meet the Guru

You just climbed the mountain and met the guru sitting contentedly in sun-dappled robes beneath the wide-open sky. You ask, "Who am I?"

In a peacefully confident voice, you hear:

"The only way to objectively measure and describe the emotional energies that make up your happiness profile is to take a personality test."

"Seriously?" you pant (it was a long climb up the mountain).

The guru nods, smiles, and adds, "Not just any personality test, but the Core Values Index psychometric assessment."

Enjoy your enlightenment.