Hi, Jeremy.

I have been a fan of the Color Code for years and use it constantly while working on my own personal development. My family are all well-versed in Color Code as well, and it is part of our ongoing dialogue.

My question is, what do you do when somebody sees themselves as being one Color, but everyone around them sees them as being another Color entirely? Do you have some ideas on how to assess what is really going on?

Thanks!

Andre

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Hello, Andre.

Thanks for the question. Yes, that can be a tricky situation because the last thing that you want to do is make someone feel invalidated during this process – especially given the fact that you may not know what’s going on with him/her.

In my experience, this kind of issue usually comes down to one of the following three possibilities:

1. A “Filter” is impacting the way that you see the person,

2. His/Her childhood perspective may be skewed by undesirable circumstances, or

3. He/She genuinely lacks self-awareness.

Allow me to take these one at a time so that we can dive in a little deeper with each.

The first scenario that I mentioned is that a “filter” could be impacting the way that you see that person.

Filters are external factors/influences that may cause you to see someone differently from what their Core Color actually is.

For example, while teaching workshops, we show a slide called “Famous Reds”. We have pictures of Hillary Clinton, Simon Cowell, and (wait for it…) Mother Theresa displayed.

The usual response is something like, “What? Mother Theresa, a Red? I thought she would have been more White or Blue, actually.”

When you read about her life, however, you can see how determined, focused, driven, practical, and visionary (as in – Red, Red, Red) she truly was.

We just have the tendency to want to see her through the gifts of kindness and compassion that she stretched to give.

Filters can also reflect limiting behavior from other Colors – bad habits that were picked up from one source or another, for instance.

What is important to understand in the case of filters is that for better or for worse, they never change the Core Color, though they may make it harder for us to see the Core because of the layer of seemingly incongruent behaviors we are forced to look through.

Many times, if you can pinpoint the filter, you can decode what is going on with the individual and you may see them (or they may see themselves) much more clearly.

The second scenario is that the person’s childhood perspective may be skewed by undesirable circumstances.

When taking the Color Code Personality Assessment, we ask you to answer the questions based on your earliest recollections of how you were as a child. The reason we do this is to identify your Core Color in the most natural state possible before you learn to behave differently to adapt to a number of life experiences.

If a person had the misfortune of dealing with abuse, serious trauma, neglect, etc., during those childhood years, their results could potentially be skewed.

I actually wrote about this back in January in a short article that you can reference here:

http://blog.colorcode.com/ask-the-expert-25/

My biggest concern with someone in this situation is that they might feel, on some level, that they are fundamentally flawed – especially if they were made to feel worthless or inadequate by a figure who had major influence in their life. If that occurs, finding a way to help them actually value their Driving Core Motive and to embrace it might be quite difficult.

The last scenario that I mentioned is that the person may genuinely lack self-awareness.

This one is tough as well, because it’s hard when you don’t know what you don’t know, right? It’s like having a major blind spot in your life that everyone else can see… except you.

How hard will this be to sort out? Well, it depends on how humble the person is. Will they fight the feedback or will they embrace it? Are they willing to do the work and ask for the input of others, or does it make them feel afraid and/or defensive?

Feedback, coaching, and careful listening/processing are required to undo a self-imposed false image and then rebuild it. The good news, though, is that people do it all the time – especially when they know, like, trust, and feel valued by the person coaching them through the process.

Going back to your question, Andre, I think the first step will be to understand which of these scenarios the person you were asking about falls under. Moving forward from there should be less of a guessing game once you know.

Thank you, again, for your excellent question.

Very best of living!

Jeremy Daniel
Training Director
Color Code International

Jeremy Daniel (Core Color: Yellow) has been working with the Color Code since 1998 in various capacities from training in the field personally with Dr. Taylor Hartman to designing customized corporate solutions and new training programs for various industries.  To ask about Jeremy’s training or speaking services, please email and inquiry to jeremy@colorcodetraining.com.