Month: December 2021

Color Code for College Students: Can it help you pick your major?

Can Color Code help an aspiring college student find the “best-fit” major?

The short answer—YES.  

The more complicated answer—it will help, but it will not tell you exactly what to study.

So… How can it help?  

There is an important concept in interviewing and hiring the best person for a job; it’s called motivational fit. The idea of motivational fit is that the best-fit candidate will have a natural motivation to do the type of work required for a job.

A common question to determine motivational fit is, “Tell me about your ideal workday.” 

The candidate might respond: 

“I’d like to have flexibility to work remotely from home, or in the office.  I like to focus and work hard without interruption; I can produce high-quality work at high volumes that way. I like analyzing information to find useful insights. I feel that I’m really good at that, and I feel like finding the insights is a rewarding challenge. I find it really enjoyable. Send me the spreadsheets all day!!! I also like to get up and take walks by myself between projects to get refreshed, so I’d like to not be bound by a rigid schedule; I don’t mind having a heavy workload, I just want flexibility in managing that workload.”

This candidate, likely a White type, might be a good motivational fit for a data-analyst in a software sales company who identifies profit margin strengths and weaknesses and writes reports about them. But they might be a poor motivational fit for an accounting business partner, who has to respond to business leaders across the organization to help them manage their budgets; a Red-type might be a better motivational fit for this.

This same idea of motivational fit can be applied to a person in college trying to determine their major.

As a college student, you have the opportunity to talk with advisors in each department when trying to pick your major. Have some solid “motivational-fit questions” ready to ask. Your questions should get at the things that matter to your Core Motive—typical work style, amount of collaboration, exposure to risk in various forms, level and type of pressure, work environment factors such as interruptions, customer exposure, predictability… 

Here’s a list to get you going:

  • What does a _______ do in a typical day of work?
  • What does the life of a _________ look like? 
  • Describe the habits and attributes of someone who would be successful in this area of study or work.
  • Describe the types of attributes that wouldn’t fit well with this area of study or work.
  • Think of someone who was naturally successful in this area of study/work. What would you say helped them be so successful?
  • What type of personality would you advise against this type of study or work? (When you ask this, you won’t be asking about Color Code personality type, instead, you’ll be asking this in general.)
  • What makes this area of study/job fun?
  • What makes this area of study/job difficult?
  • What’s the most important attribute for someone to have who wants to pursue this area of study and work?

Imagine asking the above questions; the answers you get should be referenceable to what you can learn from Color Code.

You might hear, “detail-oriented” and “high degree of accuracy.”  This would indicate a better fit for Blues and Whites and a poorer fit for Reds and Yellows.

You might hear, “decisive and fast-paced.” This would align more with Reds and Yellows, but maybe mostly Reds.

You might hear, “There’s a lot of flexibility and room to create your own path in this type of work.” That would be great for a Yellow or a White type. 

So, let’s go back to the original question: Can Color Code help an aspiring college student find the “best-fit” major?

Yes, it can, but the real answer is that it’s less about the major and more about the work afterward. When you have the conversations with those department advisors, ask them about the jobs that a degree works toward. Pick a major that aligns with both something that interests you and your Primary Core Motive. And if you can’t find something that really sparks a deep interest, pick something to explore that aligns with your Primary Core Motive. At least there, you know that you’ll have a natural motivational and behavioral fit.

Most importantly, don’t let your Color Code type tell you what you can’t do—instead, let it be a piece of the puzzle that helps you find your fit.  Color Code can inform, but it doesn’t need to determine. You get to use your whole self when finding your future.

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Derek Pangelinan is the owner of Derek Rey Consulting, a workplace-culture and leadership development company. He has been teaching Color Code for nine years and has taught teams in large and small organizations, for-profit and nonprofit, and has used it as a coaching tool. You can reach out to Derek at his business email address: Derek@DerekReyConsulting.com

How can a life coach help your personality type in relationships?

Each of the personality colors has their own strengths, and they also have their own areas that they need to work on, known as natural limitations. Relationships are a constant learning process, and when you’re stressed, you might find that the challenges linked to your personality color become enhanced.

Life coaching is a process that aims to help you alter your mindset in order to manifest a more positive lifestyle. You might be familiar with seeing a life coach for career motivation or for increasing your confidence, but how can seeing a life coach lead to forming stronger relationships with your loved ones? By addressing individual problems, and the causes of those problems, a coach will help you to overcome potential barriers that are holding you back from progressing as a couple.

Here, we take a look at how a life coach can help you to improve these color-specific challenges in your relationships.

Red

Reds are motivated by power. They love to get things done and are decisive and assertive, which is great for setting goals and moving towards them. 

However, it can be all too easy to get caught up in the longer-term goals, such as moving in together, getting married or even starting a family. When you become purely long-sighted in relationships, it is normal for people to overlook the importance of doing simple everyday tasks that demonstrate your commitment to each other.

Life coaching can help Red personality types slow down a little and understand why others might prefer to take a more detail-focused approach. Helpfully, accountability is something that people with a Red personality color are particularly strong at. They will take responsibility for moving things forward and show leadership and learning qualities that can help keep a relationship progressing in the right direction.

Blue

Those with a Blue personality love quality time, close relationships and intimacy. They make loving and considerate partners, but can easily get caught up in worry if they feel that someone is starting to pull away from them. They are often the ones who make the plans, for example, but if they are always doing this, they might start to feel that they are putting more into the relationship than they are getting out of it.

Life coaching can be a good space for a Blue to be able to air these feelings with their partner so that going forward they can work as a team, and their loved one can better know how to give them the appreciation they need to feel loved.

White

White personality types are the peacekeepers. They are able to stay calm and balanced and have high levels of tolerance. While this is great, it can be difficult for them to air their feelings, especially if they think that it will cause a fight, as they would rather adapt to their partner than cause a disagreement.

Life coaching can help couples with White or mixed personalities find a way to discuss their feelings. Perhaps their partner needs to be more aware of how to encourage openness, or they can discuss a different way of communicating, such as writing their feelings down first, so they can talk calmly.

Yellow

People with Yellow personality types love fun and enjoy seizing life with both hands and embracing all the opportunities that come their way. They are extremely sociable and eternally optimistic, a combination which makes them the life and soul of the party.

This can cause problems if both partners are Yellow personality types, or if one partner isn’t Yellow and needs quiet to recharge. Setting boundaries can be a problem for people with Yellow personalities, as saying yes to everything can lead to overcommitment and a lack of one-on-one time to spend with their partner. Having a consultation with a life coach can help examine how to balance the different parts of life so that your partner doesn’t feel left out.

Have you ever found success in overcoming your natural limitations with a life coach? Drop a comment below to let us know how. 

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Thomas Leach is a full-time writer who specializes in writing topics relating to career and personal development, life, and relationships. He likes to travel and meet new people. When he’s not busy, he reads biopic books and plays with his two dogs.

Ask the Expert: Why is my adult personality different from my childhood personality?

“Hi I had a criticism of this questionnaire. There are some items where none of the responses applied. I would say that was true on about three or four of these. There should therefore either be a ‘none apply’ or more options, because this will skew results. I think your assessment is correct except that it is wrong on a couple important fronts — about how I am now. This asks questions about being a child, but for someone like myself, who has been on a path of self-development since a young age, the way I was when I was a child is different than how I was as a teenager and as an adult and also from the things I’ve had to overcome. So if you were really going to have this be more accurate, I think you would need to develop a system where you look to see in what ways a person has changed. I went from being so shy I could not even speak to somebody on the phone to being someone who speaks to groups of hundreds of people and in leadership positions. So again, with the White assessment, I believe that’s correct except not in terms of leadership or motivation. I was definitely not a leader and not particularly motivated about anything as a child and that has changed 100 percent. Simply because I have had to work at that and did so through meditation and other spiritual and psychological practices. Just some feedback.”

====================

Thank you for asking such a well-thought-out question and providing examples of your reasoning. I would love to respond!

We actually have two different assessments that we utilize here at the Color Code. Each of those assessments is used for a different purpose, and I think having an understanding of what those are will help you better understand our methodology.

The first assessment that we use — which is the assessment that you are describing — is the Color Code Personality Assessment. That assessment is designed to identify what we call your “Driving Core Motive” (or “DCM”), which is what we believe is the foundational building block of your personality. We ask you to identify what you were like as a child when taking this assessment, because we believe that your DCM is actually innately present and that it is not learned through the various types of life phases that you so eloquently described.

This is important, because your DCM never changes over time, and it will always influence the way that you think, feel, and behave. It also impacts the types of values that you adopt over time. Understanding your DCM is critically important to developing accurate self-awareness, which further enables you to develop myriad EQ-related skills in life.

The second assessment that we offer is called The Character Code Assessment. The Character Code Assessment performs a different function. It actually measures what you are like TODAY on a regular and consistent basis. In this assessment, you evaluate yourself, and then you ask others to evaluate you as well so that you have an accurate 360 degree look at how you’re coming across right now.

Using both of these assessments in tandem provides the most accurate look at both your innate motives and your learned behavior.

Many people have this same question, and it’s understandable, because most personality assessments on the market are behavioral in nature. You simply answer the questions based on what you are like now and they put you into a personality classification of some sort.

Understanding your behaviors is insightful — which is why we offer the Character Code Assessment. But knowing the motives BEHIND the behavior adds enormous depth and clarification, which is why we always begin with the Color Code Personality Assessment.

Thanks again for asking such a wonderful question, and I hope this response is helpful to you!

Very best of living,

Jeremy Daniel

Training Director

Color Code

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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.

 

To learn more about Character Code and the accompanying workshop Decoding the Colors of Leadership, talk to your employer or contact a trainer near you.

Find a trainer:

https://www.colorcode.com/cc_trainers/

 

YOU GOTTA WANNA: Finding Change through Wanting Change

Do you know what happens to your quality of life if you decide to live by happenstance rather than choosing to live your life by design?  Happenstance takes no effort, and it’s a sure bet that you’re setting the bar of life extremely low.  This occurs whenever someone decides they will just see what happens to their quality of life providing no sense of planning, life strategy or vision. 

Happenstance can further be the evidence of selecting to just go along with the crew at chow time and eat from the plate of life from whatever is served up and whatever the rest of the crew is eating.

Living life by design is simple…not easy!  In order to pull off the quest of living life by design, you must strike a clear vision for how, where and when you will start this journey.  You must be willing to remain in a state of constant improvement.  You truly must be filled with desire…YOU GOTTA WANNA!

Let’s see if you can relate to this not-so-unique story.  I recognized that my favorite older sister was born with very high intelligence, an organic and attractive sense of playful interaction and carefree lifestyle of living in the moment. She has an extra kind and contagious big heart.   She is spontaneous and extremely easy to be around, and she leaves everyone that she meets feeling better after interacting with her.  

Yes, you already guessed by now that I’m talking about a sister who has nearly 50 percent of core Yellow cascading through her character.

While she is one of the most charismatic characters you may ever meet, she is faced with refusing to allow personal or professional growth to have a place in her life.  She prefers to live her life by happenstance.  

The limitations from her Yellow core and Blue secondary show up very consistently in her life.  Adding to being disorganized, forgetful and possessing poor follow-through, she is also guilt-prone, self-critical and allows poor self esteem to fuel it all.  The evidence of choosing to not live her life by design is proof that she doesn’t want to negotiate for a better life.  If you hunger for a better life…YOU GOTTA WANNA!

I have spent the last 51 years seeking to help my sister grow and evolve while doing my best to help her build a better quality of life.  After this significant investment of time, I have come to accept that it is none of my business to want more for my sister than she wants for herself… YOU GOTTA WANNA!

Since she has chosen to live her life by happenstance, she must face the dark and unhealthy side effects from making her resigned life choices.  I don’t own the rights to her happiness.  Making choices like seeking to improve your lifestyle and advancing in growing yourself along this journey called life is personal, and the weight of your life journey lies in the hands of the beholder.  Everyone gets to choose or choose not to WANNA choose.

Rather than wading in a cesspool of muck and uncertainty from an unhealthy and dysfunctional perspective, my sister could choose to WANNA and start from the ground up, seeking to advance her character in a path toward becoming healthy and charactered.  As you know, she would have to choose to get rid of her earlier mentioned limitations and showcase her innate strengths, while adopting strengths outside of her Yellow core.

This would be an amazing life choice that could help her raise her ‘deserve level’ and fuel her purpose, leading to a much higher quality of life.  Who do you know that stumbles through life with a low deserve level in an unhealthy and dysfunctional manner?  

If you are a core Red, Blue or White and wondering what you may need to do in order to raise your GOTTA WANNA campaign, read the helpful recommendations below that have been drawn from real life coaching case studies.

One man — we’ll call him Henry — is a core Red and has a very hard time wanting to show up in his important relationships thinking about anyone other than himself.  He lives from more than a few non-attractive Red limitations; he is selfish, arrogant and tactless.  

Henry has struggled through five failed marriages while managing three dysfunctional teenage children who are rejecting their father’s heavy-fisted style of parenting.  The best way for Henry to start developing a caring and pleasing personality would be to embrace self-awareness and understand how his personality and character are having a negative impact on his important relationships.  

He must choose to make an effort to do the work on removing the negative behavior, while showcasing native and learned positive character strengths of the Red, Blue, Yellow and White.  This would put Henry in the right position to start becoming charactered, offering him an increased awareness of life’s possibilities.

While Henry’s story offers excellent possibilities following the choice of self-awareness, another very different client case study presented new learning opportunities.   After serving Marta for more than ten years as her life coach, it was clear that her White limitations of being silently stubborn and detached were making it difficult for her staff of fifteen marketing executives to feel valued or heard by her.  It wasn’t until she chose to WANNA remove these limitations that her career began to shine.  Marta is now the Vice President of Marketing for a multimillion-dollar company.  She chose to WANNA.

After engaging with Amber during our Color Code Master Class, we discovered that being a core Blue purist (at 78 percent Blue on the Color Code assessment) was why she had a very difficult time allowing other team members participating in breakout sessions to get a word in edgewise!  

Following our Color Code Master Class, she asked us what she could do to improve, and we encouraged her to remove her Blue limitations of being suspicious, hard to please, jealous and moody.  Our final suggestion for helping Amber bring more balance and connection to her relationships was to ask her to learn and adopt some of the strengths from other colors, such as being a good listener. Let’s just say that Amber is a work in progress.

Perhaps it could come down to respecting just one basic foundational belief system… CHOICE…It’s your choice…YOU GOTTA WANNA!

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Jesse Ferrell is an International Speaker and Master Success Coach for JessTalk Speaking & Coaching Firm. He attended the University of Nevada at Las Vegas on academic scholarships, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree and a second Bachelor of Science Degree in Business & Hotel Administration. He worked in the hospitality industry for 36 years, ranging from a Busboy to Executive Director of Casino Marketing. He spent six years as a professor at UNLV.  Jesse loves being a certified Color Code trainer and the value that it brings to his company and clients.

 

Which Christmas character is your Color Code twin?

Deck the halls with peace and power fa la la la la la la la la. Tis the season for fun and relationships fa la la la la la la la la. Don we now our driving core motives fa la la fa la la LAA LAA LAAAA. Okay, I’ll stop. It’s Christmastime, and I’m just a little bit excited to write my Color Code Christmas blog. Can you think of a time of year when our core personalities shine through more than the month of December when both our stress and our happiness levels are at an all-time-high? I can’t. And what’s more, those core personalities are on display for all to enjoy through laughs and tears as we see ourselves reflected in the holiday movies we watch. What’s your favorite Christmas movie? Do you perhaps enjoy it because you relate to the main character? Or perhaps the protagonist reminds you of your spouse. Whatever the case, when a character is written well — even if they are fictional — they should display consistent characteristics of one of the personality colors. I thought it would be fun to highlight each of the personalities and match them with a Christmas character who may or may not appear in your favorite movie. Here we go!

The Blue — George Bailey from “It’s A Wonderful Life”

“What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That’s a pretty good idea. I’ll give you the moon, Mary.” 

Throughout the beloved film, George Bailey sacrifices his own dreams to show up for people he loves. From letting his brother Harry go to college in place of him to spotting his fellow Bedford Falls-ians money in a time of desperation, George never fails to demonstrate charity, even when his own life is becoming something he never thought it would. Like an insecure Blue, George doesn’t realize the good he’s doing in the world until someone else shows him what life would be like without him. Although George has big dreams, he always puts relationships ahead of everything else, and in the end, we see how his life really is all about relationships. 

The Red — Kevin McCallister from “Home Alone”

“Did I burn down the joint? I don’t think so. I was making ornaments out of fishhooks.” 

What 8-year-old kid goes grocery shopping by themselves and thinks to buy a toothbrush that is approved by the American Dental Association? What second grader booby traps his entire house while his parents aren’t home and sends two middle-aged burglars to jail? A White, Yellow or Blue? I don’t think so. Kevin McCallister is definitely a Red. While most kids would cower at the thought of being left home alone, Kevin truly lives his best life all while providing for and protecting himself. Reds are resourceful as I’ll get out, and when Kevin senses danger, his response is, “This is my house. I have to defend it.” 

The Yellow — Buddy the Elf from “Elf”

“So Dad, I planned our whole day. First, we’ll make snow angels for two hours. And then we’ll go ice skating. And then we’ll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse Cookie Dough as fast as we can. And then, to finish, we’ll snuggle.”

His favorite food is candy. He treats every day like Christmas. And he only needs a full 40 minutes of sleep before he’s ready to party. Is Buddy a Yellow? Check, check and check. Buddy loves people and accepts them as they are (even if they’re his Scroogey dad). He can make anything fun, loves celebrations and unabashedly sings loud for all to hear. Buddy is basically a 30-year-old kid. Buddy teaches us not to take life too seriously and to never let go of the magic of or faith in Christmas. 

The White — Bob Cratchit from “A Christmas Carol”

“I’ll give you Mr. Scrooge, the founder of the feast!”

I don’t believe Tiny Tim would have uttered his famous quote, “God bless us, every one” if he wasn’t being raised by such a kind, nonjudgmental father. Day after day, Bob Cratchit goes to work, earning far less money than he deserves and warming himself by a tiny fire in the bleakest of winters. Yet, he still toasts to Mr. Scrooge “the founder of the feast” at Christmas dinner and kindly chastises his wife for speaking ill of his boss on Christmas Day. Bob Cratchit is kind to the core and accepting of others’ differences. He works tirelessly without expecting appreciation and sees with clarity the true meaning of life. He is a White.

And there you have it! A classic Christmas character to represent each of the four personality colors. Did any of these characters resonate with you? Let us know in the comments below!

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Megan Christensen is a White personality who has loved writing for as long as she can remember. Megan graduated from BYU-Idaho in 2014 with a degree in communication. A lifelong fan of the Color Code, she’s thrilled to be the content editor of the blog and hopes to help as many people as possible become more self-aware. When she’s not writing, Megan can be found reading, doing yoga, and spending as much time as she can outdoors.