Hi Jeremy,

My core color is Red (with a strong secondary blend of Blue and Yellow).

My husband is a core White, with Yellow secondary traits.

My issue: he thinks personality studies are stupid and a waste of time. I feel like he is limiting himself but refusing to understand himself and others… And limiting our relationship, since he doesn’t get my need to share and be understood.

Obviously I can’t change him, but what do I do? I’m frustrated!

Sincerely,
Heather

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Hi, Heather.

I’m sorry you are so frustrated. That would be very difficult. If it helps to know, you’re definitely not alone. Many people have come to us over the years with similar situations, and the good news is that I think you can work with this if you take a slightly different approach.

More on that in just a second….

For now, I just wanted to congratulate you on something.

Specifically, I want to commend you for adopting the 100% Responsibility mindset. How do I know you have that? You said that you know that you can’t change him, and instead asked what you should be doing differently.

That is a huge indicator that you are definitely looking at things in the right way. Too often, people simply blame the other person in the relationship. They will say, “he is too stubborn,” or “she just doesn’t listen to what I’m saying,” etc., etc. In short, they blame the other person and expect them to do all the changing.

Of course, we know that we have ZERO guarantees that the other person will ever be willing to change. That’s why we must adopt YOUR mentality of asking ourselves, “What should I be doing differently?”

That is really important, so good for you!

Now that we’ve covered that, let’s take a look at how to handle this.

Of course, I don’t know your husband, so some of this may not apply to him completely, but we have noticed over the years that men with a White DCM are one of the demographics most likely to push back on the idea of personality assessments in general. It’s usually because they loathe the idea that they could potentially be “pigeon-holed”/trapped by the experience.

We’ve actually had workshop participants ask who would be receiving access to the results and whether the information was being kept in some kind of special database that employers would then use to determine who gets what jobs, etc.

Uh… no. That’s not how this works. 🙂

However, to people who fear the possibility of being “put in a box”, this process can be perceived as being risky.

With all of that said, here are my suggestions:

Study the Needs and Wants and the Do’s and Don’ts of the White personality. You can read about those in the Color Code book (now The People Code), or review them from our Code Cards.

The Needs and Wants will give you great insight into how to speak his language—how to frame things up in a way that will make total sense to him, as opposed to forcing him to see things your way. With you as a Red, he probably sees you as being more controlling and/or pushy than you see yourself being, so being able to change gears a little will help you communicate with him more effectively. It will allow him to not be defensive and to open up so that he can actually hear what you are saying.

This is probably going to be challenging for you. You will have to be patient, and you will likely have to give things more time than you are used to, because of your internal sense of Red urgency as opposed to his easy-going style of the White with Secondary Yellow. However, it still could very well be the fastest route to get to where you want to be in the relationship, so be sure to keep that end goal in mind.

Don’t talk about “personality testing” or even the “Color Code” during the process unless he warms up to it. If you feel he always has a negative reaction, try meeting him where he is by simply modifying the vocabulary a little.

What I mean is just talk about your relationship in general and what your personal needs are. He will certainly understand that. Keep things both kind and logical in your discussion. Don’t threaten, create conflict, or get emotional. Those kinds of approaches could be easily dismissed in his mind. Again—a thorough understanding of the White Needs and Wants and Do’s and Don’ts should be extremely helpful.

Start with those two suggestions and see how things go. Again, even if he doesn’t care about “personality testing”, he does care about you and about your relationship, so if you simplify the approach a little and have a solid game plan in your mind, you will definitely start to see some positive results.

Thank you for your question, Heather!

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.