Who I Am

Your scores indicate you have BUILDER/MERCHANT tendencies. When you enter a room there is more power and love energy suddenly in that room. You are the presence of loving power. This is your assignment, to be the effective presence of loving power. You look at the circumstances and situations around you through the eyes of faith and truth. You operate from pure intuitiveness, seeing what needs to be done and acting to create needed results without hesitation. This is balanced by your pure intuitive capacity to see who people are and what they need, and your willingness to support and nurture the real person in others. Your highest and best contribution can only be made in situations in which there is a significant and constant need for loving power.

Who you are at the deepest innate level of your human nature is the most important element in your life. Who you are at this deep level is, after all, the only thing you really contribute to this world. It is through right assignment and effective choices that you make your highest and best contribution. This is the universal mission of all people.

The more you learn about who you really are, and how to optimize your presence in this world, the greater will be your success, happiness and life effectiveness.

Your dominant Builder value energy is balanced by your Merchant secondary value energy. Your actions are routinely, almost equally, guided by these two core energies. In times of distress you will usually rely on the conflict strategies of your dominant core energy. In less critical conflicts you may use either conflict strategy given the situation.

Your unique dominant BUILDER core energies causes you to rely upon the following strategies for success and fulfillment.

Your cornerstone core value is power, the application of pure energy for Good. This primary driver is supported by a strong faith in your own ability to know what to do, your faith that your actions are for the Good, and your faith that once you create change, you will know what to do next.

Accomplishing tasks now is a primary drive for you. You are practical and willing to face the truth. You pride yourself in knowing what to do. Whatever you do is done without much hesitation. You are driven to get things done. You act as soon as you know what to do. You like to own those things that are important to you.

You work best when you have plenty of room to decide and act. You are strongly self-motivated. Giving directives comes naturally to you. You like to work with things that are real and tangible. You pride yourself in the energy you expend on projects. You value straight talk and frank discussion. Starting new projects and ventures makes you happy.

You like to set things in motion. If you can, you deal with things one at a time. You want the things you do to make a tangible difference. You like to put things and people to work. Knowing the cost and the gain for all actions is important to you. You like to work and you admire others who work. It is important for you to show good results for invested energy.

People work harder and more things happen when you set the pace. There are few situations in which you feel inadequate. You use your power, physical and personal, to get what you want.

Your unique secondary MERCHANT core energy supports your dominant BUILDER core energy.

Your second cornerstone core value is love. Building and sustaining relationships is central to your life's strategy. You are constantly working to know and understand the truth about yourself and others.

Your MERCHANT values are strong enough to bring balance into your life. Learning to shift your strategy to this in times of high opportunity or during conflicts will contribute significantly to your success.

You like to have a good sense of connection between what you are doing today and what you see in your future. Nothing feels right when the people you value are distant or are in conflict. You have a natural enthusiasm and like to be in situations that are fully engaging and energized. You want to receive good rewards and appreciation for time and energy spent. No potential plan, idea or possibility gets by you. A core strategy for you is to work effectively with others. Being acknowledged as a friend is important to you.

You like to work and others enjoy working with you. Share your knowledge and information with others; you enjoy it and others appreciate it. You are good at getting others to work for and with you. Feeling a sense of togetherness with people gives you confidence. Making presentations puts zest in your life. You like a new charge in your life and you like to be the charge in the lives of others. You like to trust people and to share yourself with them freely.

Charm and enthusiasm are part of your arsenal for success. Too much formality is boring and restrictive. Motivating others with your visions and ideas is very satisfying. Talking with others is your way to learn and to teach. Something new and inspiring everyday is the spice of your life. You seldom feel defeated; you see good potential in most situations. You have the ability to help people feel hopeful and courageous.

Your commitment to others and to your own life is an encouragement to others. It is important for you to see people and things as they really are.

BUILDERS-Your Dominant Core Energy

If you want something to get done in a business, make sure you give it to a builder. Builders are the "doers" of the world; a significant percentage of entrepreneurs and business leaders are builders and without them, little would get accomplished. If you are a builder, you are successful because you get things done. You know how to take action and get results. You take personal responsibility. You don't usually make excuses, and you are generally impatient with those that do. You make decisions on the fly and like it that way. Your focus is short term and driven by the sense of accomplishment in the moment.

Builders have an internal drive that allows them to be decisive, to blow through obstacles and make decisions instantly and without hesitation. They are constantly turning their energies loose on an identified goal, and are not willing to accept defeat, at least not gracefully. The builder's drive is to see a problem and fix it immediately. They are not great problem solvers. They expect their energy and their work to be the solution.

Builders are powerful people. They act from their gut and trust their own judgment explicitly. This makes them very decisive. This can be very intimidating to others. In fact, intimidation is often inherently the builder's primary way of getting control in any situation. If the sheer power of their personality and decisiveness is not sufficient to maintain control, they may resort to anger or hostility. When a builder is out of control, intimidation is an effective tool to reclaim authority.

Builders can take the vision of merchants, the solutions of innovators, the information of bankers, and put it all into action. Builders have the power to make it happen.

It is obvious why builders make good business leaders. Bankers, merchants and innovators who have strong secondary builder characteristics also succeed very well.

Builder Challenges

The first weakness of builder leaders is that they tend to do everything themselves. They are not effective at teaching others because they are too impatient. Builders are so focused on getting things done right now that they typically create an environment of crisis. They thrive as firefighters, which is useful, since their style of management may create one fire after another.

Because of the apparent strength of builders, others tend to not stand up against them, especially when the builder is the boss. Secretaries and bookkeepers are running many small companies, or even departments in large corporations, because the builder strategies of these employees are allowed to exert inappropriate control.

Builders are not highly tuned toward reading the reactions and needs of other humans. Builders are not great team players nor do their strengths lie in building a team. If a builder is good at this, he is using the merchant (relationship) strategy or the innovator (solution) strategy to accomplish the team building "project." Builders approach team building the way they approach any project or daily task -- get started, get moving, get on with it, and don't wait for someone to motivate you to do it.

Builders value action and results above all other business factors. Their mode of teaching others is to push people out of the way, take the business tool in their own hands, and say, "Just watch me do it." They then leave and expect their "student" to be as proficient at the task as the builder. This often leaves the student feeling inadequate and leaves the builder confused as to why this is the case. If builders can understand that their mode of teaching may not be the best for the job, more often than not, wasted energy and confusion can be avoided on both sides. Builders often confuse taking an action with getting a result. Although they tend to be very pragmatic people and bottom line oriented, when it comes to their own performance, they are so focused on taking action that they often forget what their mission is. They sometimes lose sight of their objectives in the heat of the moment.

Taking an action feels just as good to builders as completing a project. Giving a command to get something done is a "result" for a builder. They have experienced their energy, enjoyed the work, and feel charged with new energy ready for the next task. They tend to overlook detail and often place less importance with results. They view too much information as an affront to their capabilities and are impatient with innovators who spend too long reasoning out a situation. They may also see merchants as unreliable.

Builders are impatient with the world and particularly with bankers, merchants and innovators. In other words, no one else's values or considerations are as important to a builder as his own when he is after a specific result or simply wants to take action.

Time is always paramount to a builder. Because builders consider merchants "light-weights" and "flakes," and because merchants value relationships so highly, builders are not good at motivating them. This often leads the builder to believe the merchant is wasting his valuable time.

Builders also have a low tolerance for giving instructions. They are so motivated and self-sufficient that such instruction feels like a waste. Besides, they don't know how to tell anyone how to do anything. They would rather get it done themselves.

Builders enjoy innovators immensely as long as the builder is boss. Innovators give builders solutions to problems, and builders are the best implementers around. This relationship feeds the builder's personal needs very well.

Blowing relationships up is a pastime of immature builders and has no more importance to them than blowing up ideas or disrupting systems that are too comfortable, or just commanding obedience to see if it can be obtained. Since bankers are averse to risk, want to know facts before proceeding, and hesitate with every decision, builders see bankers as brick walls that regularly need to be pushed out of the way and consigned to the "Back Forty."

Builders like action, activity, and energy, and they may sacrifice relationships, effectiveness, and stability to justify the end result they crave.

Builder/Merchants

Builder/merchants are project oriented, team-based, results driven, and commanding yet lovable people. When the situation calls for someone who will roll up his sleeves and get to work while always keeping high quality relationships and the long-term vision in mind, a builder/merchant has the best core energy for the job. If decisiveness, energy, heart, enthusiasm, strength, openness, and spontaneity are also required, the builder/merchant is unbeatable.

These people know how to work and how to get others to work with them. The builder in them is a doer. If there is too much work for one person, the merchant in them will motivate and teach others to join in and perform well. This valuable combination of action aligned with vision, training, results, and solid relationships create an irresistible force.

Their vision creates excitement while their action creates worth. Their teaching releases new energy and expands capabilities while their decisiveness generates bottom line results. Their care for relationships builds trust and loyalty even as their practicality demands respect. Their creativity builds appreciation and value.

Builder/merchants are not great in isolation; they need people around them. The builder side requires someone to show and command while the merchant side needs an audience and someone with whom to share the vision and all related successes and failures. Merchants also like to teach vision and worth (which for them is part of their monument building) and continuously strive to build quality relationships that in turn will create new and ongoing relationships.

If building a team rapidly is required, if opening a new sales territory is the task at hand, or if a new business enterprise is being launched, a builder/merchant is the most likely candidate to succeed.

However, builder/merchants tend to believe their own point of view and too easily fall in love with their own ideas. They may take dramatic actions that can leave a trail of quick starts, failures and disappointment behind them. They create an incredibly fallow field for innovators to play in and an endless vacuum of fact and balance for a banker to set straight. Builder/merchants can sometimes seem like two persons in one. One moment they are cajoling and joking and inspiring, then without batting an eye, switch to blustering dynamos of demand. "Just do it," they command.

A builder/merchant is prone to make a quick decision and set a course of action. Then, when challenged by his team, he may deny responsibility, change his mind, set a new course of action, charge the team with a requirement for results, and take off on a new idea all within the course of a few sentences and without missing a beat.

These people are explosive and exciting to be around. But, if you have a weak heart, you might want to avoid them the way people with pacemakers avoid microwaves. A strong builder/merchant is good at getting you to do things you don't like to do and make you believe you're happy doing it. Builder/merchants are the ultimate motivators.

Your third level INNOVATOR core energy gives you the ability to respond appropriately to a broad spectrum of situations.

Your INNOVATOR values are strong enough to bring balance into your life. Learning to shift your strategy to this core energy in times of high opportunity or during conflicts will contribute significantly to your success.

Strategic thinking is your forte. You see and understand the relative worth of people and things. Development of effective responses to situations is one of your primary contributions. If different things can be brought together from different resources, you will do it. Seeing potential and opportunity is a primary talent. You strive to cause people and things to function well together. To invent new systems, processes and things is pure pleasure.

You never quit. You have wit and creativity in your thinking. Finding the best solution is one of your primary contributions. You like to consider all the options. Exploration of new and better approaches keeps you interested. You are able to see the way things are, and you know what to do about it. Others look to you for your quick and responsive mind.

You are seen as a valuable resource for leading people toward the right ideas and the right direction. You use everything that is available to meet requirements. You value and rely upon your mental abilities.

Your fourth level BANKER core energy gives you the opportunity to live a balanced and successful life.

You do not rely significantly on BANKER values to create success. A ten percent increase in your focus on your personal values in this quadrant may dramatically increase your performance.

You do what you say you will do. The reliability of your words and actions is critical to your sense of self-respect. Chaos is your enemy. People and situations should measure up to commitments. You surround yourself with facts, figures and data. You enjoy being the source of information and proven methodology. It is important to reduce possible risks by questioning decisions and plans.

You care deeply when situations or the behaviors of people are unfair, or when your knowledge is used incorrectly by others. Your knowledge is generally available to others. You like to be the one who knows; being right and being able to prove it is important to you.