Guys, Josh here with a quick word on the Four Dominants personality types.
You might have tried the Briggs-Meyer personality test. But believe me when I say, these four personality types beat B-M hands down.
- Heart
- Smarts
- Guts
- Luck
When it comes to personality, everybody’s dominant in one of these personality types.
The trick is figuring out which one you are and rolling with it.
Please note: There are no crossovers here, no shades of gray, no commingling of tendencies. Some think that they can circumvent this well-established and scientifically arranged system by combining various personality types. That, friend, is fake news. Avoid the attempt.
“The loser says in his heart, ‘I shall win, but not if I lose the fourth blessing.’” — Lau Tsu, 11th century, China
“At least I got second.” — A loser, everyday
With that, let’s look at the four dominant personality types. Which one are you?
1. Heart-Dominant
Heart dominant personality types think with their hearts or their feelings.
Scratch that: when I say THINK, I don’t mean that they think, in the traditional sense.
This personality type is marked by a LACK OF THINKING.
What they do is feel. Feeling is the ultimate barometer. Whatever they feel is what is correct. Feeling is their gyroscope. If they feel, they are.
And it might be….
In 1947 a rocket scientist named Karl von Clauswitchickenstein shocked the engineering world when he said that the rocket he had designed, Bertha 1—named after his wife—was built using a hodgepodge of mathematical formulas and personal feelings.
No one was surprised by the mathematical formulas. Isn’t that what gets rockets off the ground?
But they took exception to the personal feelings. Said one onlooker, “Our scientists should be feelingless creatures who understand the difference between two plus two and ‘I feel sad’.”
What surprised most people is that the rocket attained an altitude of 37,000 feet.
What didn’t surprise anybody, however, is that the rocket then veered off course, plummeting at 800 miles an hour into a local farmer’s field.
The explosion was so belligerent that it killed the local farmer, who was just then planting that year’s potato crop.
If you missed point, it’s that sometimes feelings are correct. There is, however, no way to determine this, except through highly subjective analysis.
And let’s not forget that it was probably the mathematical elements of Dr. Clasuwitchickenstein’s efforts that got the rocket to 37,000 feet, while the feelings were probably responsible for the disaster that followed.
EVALUATION: If you are the feeling-dominant personality, you will have to spend long periods of time feeling over everything that happens, or could happen. You might also find yourself pondering just how you feel about pondering, thinking, and using your brain.
You might also find yourself trying to for a syncretism of fact and feeling. Well, just remember that once you reach your metaphorical 37,000 feet, the whole thing might come crashing down.
2. Smarts-Dominated
The Smarts dominated are most akin in their manner and thought processes to androids. They are the antithesis to the heart-dominated gang.
They feel nothing, sense nothing, lack empathy, and cannot understand anyone who doesn’t calculate every step along the way.
These people value intelligence, which often puts them at odds with those in the other groups, especially the heart-dominated group, whom they refer to as “losers”, “idiots,” “fools,” and “fodder for servitude.”
When it comes to love, this group is a total wash. Because they cannot, or choose not to, feel love, they cannot express it. The best they can do, and a potential lover could hope for, is that they would calculate the imperative or general or relative importance to society of actions that constitute or otherwise approximate what could be called by weaker-minded homo sapiens “love”.
These people have little or no time for love. Such things are for the weak.
There really is no excuse for feeling, they believe. They may be right: such personages populate industries in which no feeling is necessary.
Such personality types prefer to find work as surgeons, for example, in which those they deal with are generally unconscious.
EVALUATION: If you are among the smarts-dominated, you may have to pretend to show some kind of feeling to be accepted by society.
While everybody likes no-nonsense personages in certain fields, such feelinglessness is also associated with sociopathic and narcissistic tendencies that are often coupled with pursuits such as serial murder and banking.
If you are a serial killer, throw ursuers off the trail by adopting a bright and cheery personality. If you are a banker, it is best to avoid any kind of emotion, as a happy banker is generally considered suspicious.
3. Guts-Dominated
The guts-dominated personality types think only in terms of selecting the course of action that requires the most daring, courage, and bravery.
Whatever those terms might mean, be sure that this person always takes what could be called “the riskiest path.”
Take Ellen, a 29 year old guts-dominated graphic designer.
She lived for the thrill of displays of moral courage.
While driving to work one morning, she demonstrated her guts at a large four way intersection by doing the following:
- She pulled into the far right right-turn-only lane.
- The light was red, and she waited for the green light, while those behind her honked.
- Once the light turned green, she accelerated at breakneck speed, veering leftward across the intersection just in time to beat the traffic coming from both directions.
But this parable also points out one of the shortcomings of this psychology: what Ellen didn’t know is that the highway patrol was on hand.
Seeing Ellen cut diagonally across the busy intersection, and hovering somewhere just below the TRAFFIC TICKET QUOTA THRESHOLD for that month, the highway patrol officer gave chase.
Ellen, wishing again to show her guts, hit the gas.
So, what if this was a cop? Screw the pigs.
At 110 miles an hour in a 45, the highway patrol officer performed a PIT maneuver, which spun and flipped Ellen’s car. The car rolled six times.
She was okay, in the end, but her six month stint in jail turned out to be an excellent proving ground for her guts. Shankings, beatings, thefts, lies, pimping out other inmates—Ellen carved a niche of guts display in the county jail that few, if any, had ever shown or seen.
And all this from a midwestern girl who, in her senior yearbook, was ranked as “most shy by far and most likely to emit no cry when backed over by a lawnmower.”
As the Chinese say,
“Displays of courage, as with one hand clapping, lead either to death, or to further opportunities for such displays.”
In another case, 57 year old guts-dominated Larry, of Canton, Ohio, slaked his thirst for guts-display by making incendiary remarks to his former-pro-wrestling neighbors, whom he hoped to lure into physical altercations so he could demonstrate his guts.
After having his clock cleaned twice, he moved on to the more prosaic “stepping in front of moving vehicles on your street” trick, which has netted him six near misses, a dislocated shoulder, and two concussions.
EVALUATION: The fact is, if you are guts-dominated, you are always and only looking for the next gig by which to show your guts. Any display will do, and the more outlandish, the better.
It may be best for your loved ones to take out a hefty life insurance policy on you, and the sooner, the better.
Make few, if any, plans for the future, as you are not likely to be around to enjoy them.
4. Luck-Dominated
Luck-dominated personality types see life as a virtual crap shoot.
Every day is another question mark on the green felt of chance.
They see life as a giant casino in which they pay nothing to enter. The only qualification is that they are alive and of age, which they prove by handing over their driver’s license for age verification.
Every spin of the wheel, every pull of the lever and push of the button, ever turn of a card, holds out the promise of a chance to win big, to cash in, to hit the jackpot.
The strange pull of gravity, eliciting snake eyes instead of another combination. Such people plan nothing, because, after all, there is no reason to plan. Even if you plan, what happens is up to the fates.
One favorite saying of this crowd is, “barring an unforeseen event,” a phrase they toss into almost every conversation.
To live, to die, to get that promotion–luck, plain and simple. For the luck dominated, every event, no matter how predictable, is a gamble.
EVALUATION: If you are this personality type, chances are you are careless and carefree.
Believing that knowing the future is impossible, or even estimating what might happen is a fool’s errand, you don’t worry about what might happen. Whatever will be, will be. Your sangfroid is through the roof.
On the other hand, you might found yourself down in the dumps regularly. How you wish you could rig the dice, so that when you roll them you can guarantee a win for yourself.
But you know that things like planning ahead are all wastes of time. Sighing with hopelessness, you rise from bed and walk to the bathroom to prepare for work.
Even this makes you wonder. For after all, whether you will slip and die in the shower is, at best, a crapshot.
And you love it.
The Last Gasp
Wherever you are on the personality spectrum, your best bet is to accept your personality type and live within it.
Studies have shown that people who try to switch personality types end up going insane, or end up dead. Stick with what works, and stick with what you know.
By the way–which personality type are you? Let us know in the comments.
