Who I Am

Your scores indicate you have INNOVATOR/MERCHANT tendencies. When you enter a room there is more wisdom and love energy suddenly in that room. You are the presence of loving wisdom. This is your assignment, to be the effective presence of loving wisdom. You look at the circumstances and situations around you through the eyes of compassion and truth. You operate from reason and intuition, seeing the way things are. Asking questions and deriving the right responses, best strategies and most workable solutions. This is balanced by your intuitive and reasoning capacity to see who people really are. You try to understand their needs and wants. You work to nurture and support them and yourself. Your highest and best contribution can only be made in situations in which there is a significant and constant need for loving wisdom.

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 Innovator 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 INNOVATOR core energy causes you to rely upon the following strategies for success and fulfillment.

Your cornerstone core value is wisdom. Understanding and compassion are central to your life strategy.

Strategic thinking is your forte. People see your ingenuity and resourcefulness. You pride yourself in seeing and understanding people and situations. Development of effective responses to situations is one of your primary contributions. You consistently observe and measure the worth of people and things. If different things can be brought together from different resources, you will do it. You strive to cause people and things to function well together.

You like to maintain a good mix of people, activities and things in your life. You like to communicate with visuals and descriptions. To invent new systems, processes and things is pure pleasure. You never quit. You have wit and creativity in your thinking. It is important for you to watch, look and listen before you act. Complicated situations and problems are not a threat to you.

Finding the best solution is one of your primary contributions. Your tastes are varied and diverse. You like to consider all the options. Rapid and clever exchange of ideas is a personal joy and a method of work for you. You are able to see the ways things are, and you know what to do about it. You are seen as a valuable resource for leading people toward the right ideas and the right direction. Acting foolishly or illogically is not a common experience for you.

You use everything that is available to meet requirements. You value and rely upon your mental abilities. Understanding others and working with them is a key asset of yours.

Your unique secondary MERCHANT core energy supports your dominant INNOVATOR 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.

Absolute proof, knowledge and understanding are not required in order for you to act. Nothing feels right when the people you value are distant or are in conflict. 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. 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. 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. You enjoy lots of different people and activities. 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. Being of high value to others and seeing high value in others is a prime concern. 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.

INNOVATORS-Your Dominant Core Energy

Innovators are the solution creators in this world. They can always think of another approach. "There's got to be a better way," is more than their motto; it is pre-programmed ROM chips in their brain's reticular receiver. Innovators enjoy the challenge of a problem, especially on a large scale. They are problem solvers. They enjoy this so much that they hate to settle on any one solution—"There's got to be an even better way." The statement, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" has no place in their awareness.

The power of innovators comes from their unwillingness to accept that there is anything they can't figure out. They are willing to put their ego at risk over and over again, staking their reputation that they will be able to come up with a plan, a solution, or an idea that will make things better.

Then, to top things off, innovators love to develop systems which ensure the continuation of their plans. These systems are the "monuments" of innovator creativity just as much as a pyramid is the monument of a builder.

When everyone around them is in a panic, the builder shouting orders, the merchant whining or up selling, and the banker preaching justice or patience, the innovator tends to isolate, grab a computer or white board and get set to work.

They are highly creative in their approach to problem solving. They inevitably are able to come at things from a new angle by adding elements, systems, or technologies that no one else has thought to add to the mix in order to achieve a true innovation.

While the solutions and systems that innovators create can be well founded and practical in concept, innovators themselves are not highly practical in their approach. They do not make good implementers because they want to perfect everything before acting. Taking action to them means coming up with another innovation, again delaying the implementation of their systems or new products.

Innovators love to have people around. This is not for team building. This is an audience for their creativity and a way for them to bounce new ideas around. They love to explore their latest ideas with people. They are so fascinated with each personally conceived "potential" solution that they want everyone to appreciate each and every subtlety. Just when they have their audience convinced that this new solution is brilliant, they love to add, "Wait, what if we...?"

Innovators may create problems just for the pleasure of working them out. Builders lean on innovators but often leave them standing in the hallway, halfway through an explanation about a possible solution. Bankers constantly feed challenges to an innovator's proposed strategies, keeping the innovator charged with new problems to face. Merchants listen attentively to innovators and lean on them constantly. This makes the innovator feel "heard." Since the merchant would never consider leaving an innovator standing in the hallway, innovators and merchants often become great friends. Their brainstorming parties can be endless. If left unchecked, they can actually become an endless drain of company resources.

Innovators are invaluable. They create new products and put together systems to solve production and administrative problems. They are never defeated and are able to come up with new strategies and approaches when everyone else has given up. They enjoy this so much that they hate making decisions, and they occasionally add confusion to the system by always inventing a better way. Nothing is ever good enough, especially if it was conceived by someone else, or if the solution has been in place for more than a few months.

Entrepreneur innovators can be highly successful. They are the people that create the mousetrap that brings the world to their door. The problem is, they really believe the world will come to their door. And since they love the process of problem solving more than the process of actually building and selling something, as soon as one product or service idea is implemented, they are off to create another better solution.

Innovator Challenges

The most deadly sin of innovators is their desperate need to continue perfecting a product or system long after it would fully serve its purpose. They get hooked on a specific solution or an interesting problem long after there has been a resolution to the problem.

Active innovators need a builder in them or around them to insist that they settle on one solution and complete it. They need merchants who will actually make someone else understand the value of the "solution" being sold. And they need bankers who will support them by completing the details, help them control costs and make profits.

Innovators can be very stubborn people. They may refuse to be moved until they feel their solutions are perfected. And since they also value assessment very highly, they not only like to create a new solution, but they want to be the one who assesses its appropriateness, its correctness, its cleverness and its perfection. In fact, they are certain that no one else could ever understand all the subtlety and complexity of their solution so they hate to let others really get into it and explore, for fear they may have overlooked some small detail.

Decisions for an innovator become a marathon of adding one more consideration into the equation, testing its full ramifications and announcing, "I can see how that will fit." Then, when everyone else considers the decision to have been made, the innovator may announce another level of considerations that must be explored prior to finalizing the decision. Innovators can be infuriating to merchants and builders who want to move on.

Innovators are very perceptive and open to change if they see and understand the tensions they cause. They are willing to act differently if they can only see how the different action is going to produce better results. For this reason, innovators and builders make wonderful teammates. They tend to keep good balance in the drive for action versus the drive for perfection.

The adaptiveness of innovators is also highly prized by all other players. Innovators make little distinction between what problems they are asked to solve. The process of deriving a solution is sufficient to make them happy. Innovators are a key element in every business situation where change is occurring. Their resourcefulness brings new methods, tools, systems, and mechanisms to bear. Innovators are always opening new opportunities for success.

An opposite tendency is also true for many innovators. They tend to become highly skilled at solving certain types of problems. Innovator engineers, for instance, may be geniuses when designing a new electronic circuit, but more like absentminded professors when it comes to developing business solutions for their departments.

When innovators are out of control, they get stubborn. They look for another way to go around you or to make you reconsider. They reconsider and may go on the defensive and resist making a decision. They may add another wrinkle to the equation to confuse you. They deny facts, challenge the validity or relevance of existing data, and refuse to take action, or sometimes just quit which may infuriate other core energy groups.

When all else fails, innovators resort to interrogation. They like to confuse the issue with side questions and tangents. They know how to ask questions, which are more accusation than question. They know how to get under the skin of other people, asking questions that shame and embarrass, that show the ignorance of others, or simply make others feel ignorant or confused and inadequate. Interrogation is just as powerful a strategy as the intimidation of builders, the "poor me" victim caretaking role of merchants, or the aloof, resistant, judgmental positioning of bankers.

Innovator/Merchants

Innovator/merchants are problem solvers first, needing constant puzzles to solve but working well with others. They see the big picture and lead from creativity. The power of an innovator/merchant is derived from an inexhaustible well of creativity. This creates a deep sense of optimism. If the merchant's dream or vision is not being realized, the innovator can kick in and come up with appropriate solutions. When the innovator's solutions do not align perfectly with the merchant's vision, a new vision is deftly formed which can encompass the solutions and systems that the innovator has conceived and still accomplish all of the basic values foreseen and desired by the innovator/merchant.

This constant creativity makes the innovator/merchant an invaluable resource in companies where technologies are changing rapidly or competition puts new demands on the marketing and sales systems of the company. Innovator/merchants are often chosen as sales representatives. They can sell anything because they build relationships, understand their products, and know how to make them fit into a broad range of customer needs.

Innovator/merchants are not put off by any problem of any magnitude. In fact, their sense of personal esteem is often based in the size, oppressiveness and worthiness of the problems they have before them. They look for opportunities to demonstrate their prowess at problem solving or at turning around difficult relationships that are at risk.

Innovator/merchants like to be needed, either for their solutions and technologies or for their humanity, creativity and love. This need drives them to achieve relationships that are vision-based and growth-oriented, and to develop products or systems that enhance the richness of the relationships that are formed.

Innovator/merchants are go-anywhere, do-anything kinds of people. They are even able to function for extended periods of time in remote if not somewhat isolated situations as long as the sense of connection and personal worth is maintained for the merchant side of the core energy. For the innovator, the absorption into the problem-solving aspects of any assignment will carry him a long way as long as there remains an opportunity to observe others evaluating and appraising his work once it is finished.

Innovator/merchants, despite their ability to sustain themselves independently, thrive in a team environment. They are excellent team builders and great teachers. They are masters of context and relevance. They not only are good at planning a curriculum and basing it in logic and reasonableness, but they consider the bigger picture. They pay attention to their environment, entertainment, energy levels, and motivation. They enjoy creating exciting and provocative learning situations.

An innovator/merchant can be an incredible sales person or a powerful entrepreneur if he is balanced with just enough builder characteristics to actually complete the task at hand.

However, innovator/merchants, unrestrained, can be unproductive for themselves and society. They can get lost in the rapture of exploring big picture considerations. The merchant is constantly thinking of new possibilities for projects and new adventures, and the innovator thrives on such challenges.

Innovators hate to bring the process of problem solving to a close. Solving problems is their highest form of pleasure, arguably valuing this game above sex and movies. So an innovator/merchant keeps new things coming and everything that was stirred up before "in the works." If you are an innovator/merchant, be certain that you surround yourself with high energy builders who will push you to "get it done" and a few levelheaded bankers who will help ground your ideas by asking you the kind of questions you may be unwilling to ask yourself.

Innovator/merchants are constantly caught up in the seduction of new ideas, such as improving people systems. However, this concept and the strategy to create it are more important than the implementation itself to the innovator side.

Innovator/merchants, as company leaders, never quit selling and never quit solving the future. They sell themselves and others even when everyone has already agreed. There is little attention to detail, and since the next new idea takes 110% of all energy, things may be constantly left up in the air. Merchant/innovators tend to be able to keep so much energy swirling around them that they attract others. Builders and bankers also enjoy a symbiotic relationship.

But innovator/merchants may create as much disappointment as they do opportunity. No one can win from working with them for long, unless there are significant constraints in place, and a strong team of builders and bankers around them to enforce them. If you are an innovator/merchant, and you are still reading this, you must have just a little builder or banker in you. Make sure you nurture that part of yourself—NOW!!!

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

Your BUILDER 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.

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, you do without much hesitation. You act as soon as you know what to do. People around you know that you are generally on task. You are strongly self-motivated.

You value straight talk and frank discussion. Starting new projects and ventures makes you happy. You like to set things in motion. 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. You are not afraid to bring things to an end; when you're done, you're done.

There are few situations in which you feel inadequate. You use your power, physical and personal, to get what you want.

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.

The reliability of your words and actions is critical to your sense of self-respect. When things get messy, you may get testy. You surround yourself with facts, figures and data. Once started, you don't give up easily. You enjoy being the source of information and proven methodology. Knowing the past provides evidence for the future. Creation without effective written plans and process description is senseless.

You like to understand the details of situations and issues. Effective decisions are supported by analysis of similarities and differences. Zero wasted motion, zero wasted resources, zero wasted effort; this is what you strive for. You like to provide others with proven ideas and methodology. Your knowledge is generally available to others