S1E6 Overview of the 4 Personality Styles

Episode 7: The Four Personality Styles

We continue the discussion of personality. We propose that there are four aspects or expressions of personality. Those four aspects include a dynamic energy, a static (or stabilizing) energy, a feminine expression and a masculine expression. These combine to create four different personality types. Most everyone has within them the possibility of accessing any of these types, though there is typically a dominant type.

The four types are as follows:

     1. The combination of dynamic energy and masculine expression we refer to as The Initiator.

     2. The combination of static energy and feminine expression we refer to as The Responder.

     3. The combination of static energy and masculine expression we refer to as The Stabilizer.

     4. The combination of dynamic energy and feminine expression we refer to as  The Transformer.

Characteristics and traits of The Initiator:

-Sees a problem and moves to solve it.

-Looks for results, not consensus building.

-Oriented toward movement, action and resolution.

-Very individualistic, create a new path, break away.

-Others will often ride on the wake of The Initiator’s energy.

-They pay little attention to the negativity of others.

This is described as a masculine expression, but that does not mean “male.” Everyone has this type or expression within them. It can be a dominant expression or a recessive expression, but it is accessible to most all.

Characteristics of The Responder:

-They care, protect, meet needs.

-They often overthink.

-Care for the human spirit.

-There is a natural attraction between The Initiator and The Responder.

-Often exhausted because they have spent their life giving to others.

This is described as a feminine expression, but that does not mean “female.” Everyone has this type or expression within them. It can be a dominant expression or a recessive expression, but it is accessible to most all.

Characteristics of The Stabilizer:

-Love rules and regulations.

-Bring order to chaos.

-Often misinterpreted as controlling.

-Bring balance to The Transformer and The Initiator.

-They tend toward perfectionism.

-Outstanding at providing structure or systems.

Characteristics of The Transformer:

-Intuitive, creative, visionary.

-Don’t naturally consider the cost of the creative vision.

-Spontaneous, insightful, see the possibilities.

-Open to new experiences.

-Fun, often the life of the party, with few filters.

-Life is one big experiment.

-Natural attraction between The Transformer and The Stabilizer.

You can connect with the cohosts through their respective websites:

AFCCounselors.com (Dr. Shalley) / https://www.inyourdreams.coach/contact (Dr. Kelley)

Transcript

Section A

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Welcome to Therapy Coaching and Dreams. We are so glad you've joined us. My name is D. Kelly. I'm here with Jim Shaley, and we are discussing all kinds of things that have to do with our personality style, our growth, self-awareness, and what it means to be in therapy and coaching and deal with some of these things. So in a previous episode, we talked about the overall structure of understanding personality, driven in large part by a Jungian approach to that, and using the notion of the masculine and feminine traits and imagery that we might use in our life and have within us. Again, we've said it many times. It's not male or female. This is not a gender issue or even a gender identity issue. This has to do with all of us having within us both masculine and feminine characteristics to which we give voice at various levels and the positive outcome of getting in touch with those various aspects and giving voice to them in ways that add to our own creativity and expression of all of who we are. Similarly, a dynamic versus static approach to the energy or movement that we have. And that's where we're going to dig in a little bit more, are the various types that give expression to these things. So I'm going to jump in, Jim, with the initiator, which is a masculine dynamic style, and some of the characteristics that we might find in an individual. And I know that we often talk about these things as they express themselves in relationship. The initiator, what does that person look like? How do they present themselves? Maybe what their life trajectory might include to express this type of approach.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

I think their central value or the thing that really gets them motivated is to make progress, to generate new things, and to expand over what has been. They have similar traits of being aggressive, assertive, goal-oriented. They they irritate, they conquer things, they strive for accomplishments, they pursue individual interests, they go their own way. It's basically very egocentric in some ways, the prototypical initiator. They don't pay attention to what is supposed to be done. They just simply see something it needs to accomplish and they go after it. And I know that it it moves the culture, good or bad, in some ways. It's like a great king, a benevolent king, takes the people into consideration. A cruel king back in the Middle Ages, that they would just do what they wanted to do. That's that's the prototypical masculine. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

In a just in a let's say, business setting, this particular personality type is certainly very task-driven, right? Yes. To do lists, but the sense of responsibility is the sense that as you said, they see something that needs to be done and they just move forward and expect others to see that something needs to be done and sometimes provides the energy for that.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Right. They don't they don't see the need for order necessarily at that point. They just have a goal they want to accomplish. And it's like the the famous dynamic when Steve Jobs came into a meeting and they weren't getting this one thing accomplished, and he just simply said, get it done, and he left. And they figured it out. So I mean, that's the that's the intensest initiators. They just basically say, this has to be accomplished, figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah. One of the individuals that for me I like to personify some of these things and have faces to go with them. And I know that a person that we know through media or newspapers or culture or TV is not necessarily the way they are in their private life. And I fully understand that. But in terms of how they present themselves in that setting, I sometimes think of very familiar characters and how they might fit and help me to think through some of those things. One of the people I think of is Michael Jordan, out to win, and it was win at all costs. In a similar fashion as you just said, he was presented with that old adage that there's no I in team. And his response was, Well, there is in win.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

And that was what he was all about was winning.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yeah. And it was very much a masculine dynamic movement that I saw expressed, at least in his sporting life. Have no idea what it was outside of that. I would also add, and tell me if I'm wrong, but there is no concern at all about consensus building.

SPEAKER_02 5:17

No. No, that's why it's it's often compared to dictat dictatorial stances. It's like they don't try to bring people in and have a conversation. They come in and say, hey, this is what they they might act like they do that, but then they'll just simply say, This is what we're gonna do. They they feign the the interactive stance. It's like if if Jordan was on a team, he might he might talk to all of them, but then he would say, Let's let's just do it my the way that I think we should do it. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

So to break that stereotype of it always being masculine, it's a masculine energy, but it's not always a mask uh a male person. Sorry, I had a tough time getting that out. Absolutely. So I don't know, again, a popular personification, but Oprah Winfrey was very much a move forward, push forward. She accomplished tasks, got a got a lot done because she knew what needed to be done.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

It's very individualistic. They break away from the group and they chart a path. And if they're if they're uh dynamic, like Transformers, we'll talk about later, they will pull people along with them because they're so magnetic in in their approach to things. But yeah, they're their basic things is they want to break away, create a new path of something that needs to happen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yeah. And as we mentioned in a previous episode, there are so many pe people that ride the wake of that type of individual. That individual provides the energy and kind of parts the water so that others can ride that energy in a particular direction. And sometimes that's how a movement gets started, is that there's an electrifying individual that's able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

It is. And there the other personalities we can talk about, they come along oftentimes and they don't they don't follow along on the wake and they get bitter and resentful. And those are the people that will leave a company and then they'll trash the leader saying they were insensitive, they didn't listen to anybody. That's the other voice. And that that's that's interesting dynamic in the sense of that personality, they don't pay attention to that negativity at all. They just keep moving forward. It's got a great benefit, it's got a great downside.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah. Yeah. It's I love that. Two sides to the same coin. It it often is that we identify somebody who is in the leadership position that characterizes this or that models it. However, that person came up through the ranks often somehow. And there are many individuals within organizational systems, and we're not talking about marriage relationships, but also in marriage relationships that live this way, and it doesn't work nearly as well if you don't have the power to correspond with it.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Well, that's it, that's a more expansive and deeper conversation because what happens sometimes in an organization, you'll see someone attach to a leader because they know that when that leader is gone, somebody has to take that person's place. And so they will really be attracted to and kind of almost worship that person. And that person will then in turn turn to them and say, Okay, I I I like this person. I can see them taking the next step, but they're basically just flattering the person in charge enough to get to a place where they might be able to take over. And that's that's what people would say, you know, climbers or people that play the game, they know the right masculine energy to attach to. Oftentimes they aren't nearly as skilled as the person doing it.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Yeah. Yeah. You also have teams that sometimes are formed in any type of organization, and the team is expected to complete a particular complete task or bring about some end result. And somebody with this initiator mentality or personality style will sometimes be a great benefit because they get the group started and get moving. Sometimes the individual can be incredibly irritating to every other member of the group because they're not listening to other ideas. And so, in that setting, the disruptor, depending on how the supervisor views it, is the disruptor good, or is the disruptor ruining the team, depends on how the trajectory goes for that individual's career within that organization.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

The natural flow would be for the initiator to be wise enough to include what we talk about, which which is the stabilizer part. The stabilizer brings orders to the chaos that the initiator starts. And so a good team, a good leader knows they need that person that will implement the things or will take care of the rest of the people, talk to them, nurture them, whatever that is, they know they need the stabilizing factor. And if they don't have that, they're just an idea person.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Yeah, that's good. Good description. The counterbalance at some level is the stabilizer, but there's also the counterbalance with some of the feminine characteristics that it's that are more relationally oriented. And I know that, at least my experience, one of the questions in relationship is asking the initiator, but what do you feel about this? And the initiator doesn't even understand the question. It's like, I don't even know what you're talking about. We've got a job to do, we're going to do it. What does that have to do with anything? And the nurturer, the which let's talk about that one next, is the one who's trying to bring to the mix this awareness that not only does everybody around you have feelings that are affected by what you're doing, but you do too, whether you realize it or not, is kind of the nurturer's approach. Is that fair?

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Yes. An initiator's feelings would definitely be like something has to get done. I feel an urgency to do something different. That's a feeling on some level, but they wouldn't identify it that way at all. They'd be just put it into a task mode. The other thing that's that's fascinating about it is you see it being played out all the time. The let's say someone comes in and buys a company and they fire a bunch of people. Well, if there's somebody on that team that understands how that's going to affect families, they will try to get the attention of that person and say, you can't, you can't do this. And yet the initiator will say, We we we have to downsize, we have to make money, we have to do these things. And so that tension is almost always there, whether it be in a business or even in a relationship, because that same tension is in a relationship.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Yeah, the classic response from an initiator in a for-profit business setting is I'm sorry, but I answer to the stockholders. And I don't answer to the individual families. My task is to address the value of this company.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Aaron Powell And I think that's in some reason why why nonprofits are formed. Because nonprofits give more of a feeling level to how it's going to affect people.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Yeah. Great observation. Let's shift then to in some ways to it there aren't really polar opposites, but it's a different, very different place in the spectrum of that nurture approach. It's a a feminine static energy that brings a nurture and caring to the world and expresses that through their life. So give us a little bit more about the characteristics of an individual where this has been their life trajectory and this is their primary way in which they present in terms of personality.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

You're talking about the responder?

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Responder, yeah, who is a nurturer, sorry. Yeah. The responder.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Yeah, the responders basically value is survival. They want the species to survive and to keep maintaining the species, basically, for lack of a obviously a word I can't think of at this point. They're always other-oriented. They nurture, they shelter, they accept, they protect, they affirm, they take care of everything, they anticipate needs. The classic example is the enabler that sees a need and always meets it. You never have to worry about what they're going to bring to a party. They will have plenty of things, they'll overthink everything. They'll have the your favorite drink there. I mean, that's that's the classic responder. They take care of the human spirit in a way that the others don't. They're always aware of what they could do to make life better.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

For me, this one is summed up by the Mother Teresa approach. And again, I never met Mother Teresa. I don't know her personally, but everything that I have read and all the statements that are made, she is the one who is going to take care of the needs of the world. And she starts in Calcutta, but somehow it just spreads everywhere. And that's that's kind of the personification for me. However, I would also say that I have an uncle that fits solidly in this place, went into a caregiving profession. He was a physician, but his approach to being a medical practitioner was nurture and care and protecting and survival and all of those kinds of things. And his heart was so compassionate that he hurt deeply for others when they hurt and wanted to somehow make a difference. So yeah, I have in my mind people that fit this to a T. What are some of the problems that this type of individual faces as they live out this persona?

SPEAKER_02 15:18

That's a great question. It's one of the hardest thing things is to get someone with these traits to acknowledge the downside of it. Yeah. They usually come into therapy midlife, maybe in the late 40s, early 50s, exhausted, burnt out, not understanding why they can't continue to take care of the kids, the husband, the house, to use the stereotype. And I'll ask the first question I ask is so what did you hope to get back from all your work? And almost invariably they say, Oh, nothing. I didn't expect anything. So you have to get through that little bit of denial to realize there was a transaction that they expected that they weren't aware of. And that's that's a big shift for them, and even to entertain the idea that there was something they wanted to get from it. And I will say at that point, you always model the behavior you want, even though you may not see it in the moment. And so they come in exhausted because they have given way beyond what other people have done, and they've spoiled everybody in their life. So the downside is you spoil people. You get them used to being taken care of. And it's life-giving to the responder on some level to do that. But it's also a different way of looking at the narcissistic behavior because it's all about their need to do that to feel significant. And so typically in midlife, they come in depressed or anxious, not understanding why. And it really has been because they have overfunctioned in the giving part. So they've got to learn the boundaries, which is why the boundaries thing of, you know, 20 or 30 years ago was so big, because they realized it was it was okay to set a boundary and say, I can't do that. But it's really hard for them to shift that energy because their natural instinct, like an initiator, is to just take care of everything. And similarly, people ride the wake of that nurturer. Oh jeez. Absolutely. That's why they get spoiled. Just like an initiator who makes things happen, they will there'll be people that will just ride them as well. And make a lot of make money off of them in some ways.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

In that setting.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

But again, that's that's why it's a blind shade going on in the background that got initiated by a remote control in another room. Sorry. Jump back in.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

That's why what So that's why the natural attraction oftentimes is the initiator and the responder. Like I said, I think we said last week, that's a natural attraction because the initiator sets the goals and the responder helps them make it happen. They will take care of everything, they will take everything off the plate of a person who has a goal to us to uh to set to accomplish, and they will make it easy for that initiator to keep to work too much, whatever that is.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

So I know we are trying to stay with individuals, but this setup seems too perfect to not ask this question. This feels like a match made in heaven. Both of them find the other one incredibly attractive and love to enjoy the characteristics that the other person brings to this, and yet there comes a time where that is no longer satisfactory. What makes this perfect match fall apart?

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Well, I would say because the responder spoils more than the initiator, they get exhausted. And so they can't understand why they're exhausted. Then they'll start talking to their spouse or whoever they're they're in a relationship with about they're just so tired all the time and they aren't they aren't being able to do what they once did. And again, they won't understand what's happening. And then the the other partner oftentimes, if they're in therapy, they'll come in and they'll be asked to do things around the house, to to be engaged more, to help clean, to help do these things. And that person will go, Well, that's I've never done that. So and they won't get the balance of that. So typically I would say it's it's the responder, on the other hand, to be fair, the initiator, if they're out building their kingdoms, oftentimes they'll engage in another relationship. They'll have an affair, something will happen that will get that person's attention as well. Because they they will have taken for granted the person at home taking care of everything, and they actually lose some respect, as well as as the responder loses respect as well, because that person may never be home, never attentive enough to the kids, all of those things. Again, we're talking pretty stereotypically as far as the stereotype of the the husband and wife or the that that that marital relationship.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Sure, sure. It also seems to me that there is a as we grow, we find ourselves still attracted to those things that are not developed within ourselves. And when our journey with the our partner never forces us to address that in our own life, then there is an erotic diversion, maybe is the best way I know how to put it.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Yeah. So something external typically will happen. I'll lose a job, again, I'll have an affair, something will happen. Uh, kids will leave for school, I'll leave, I'll lose my purpose. That's a pretty common one for some mothers.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Yeah. Okay. So we've got an initiator, we've got a responder. We've talked a little bit in a previous session, but let's review again the stabilizer individual. What are the characteristics of this individual? And you haven't we haven't really talked about how those things develop from childhood or family of origin.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

Yeah, no, that's that's great.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Yeah, because it could be genetics, it could be learned, it yeah. Yeah. And certainly a combination of both, a predisposition to a particular approach, but also the dynamic that you step into as a newborn will affect how you develop some of these traits for survival and how to cope with the things that are unaccepted by a family and what you do with those things. But let's stick with the individual response, the stabilizer. What are some of the characteristics that help you realize this is true about yourself or someone you love?

SPEAKER_02 21:49

They typically love rules and regulations, and they bring order to things. So they can walk into a chaotic situation and immediately know what needs to happen. To bring order to them. And they're really good at it. They stabilize everything. They get misinterpreted oftentimes as they're trying to control things. That's the negative side of it. But really, they they provide an incredible service to the other part of it, which is the transformer, where they're so spontaneous and and and unruly in some ways that they they come in and say, You can't you can't do that. You can't do that. And the transformer in this situation will go, Well, why can't I do that? And even the initiator would say, Why can't I do that? So the stabilizer is like you're pulling, pulling at the the the butt, the pants of someone saying, Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. Let's figure out what we need to do here. It's incredibly crucial for a mother of a kid before the age of five to bring order and structure and systems so that kid has certainty and security. And then at some point, the father, a dynamic father, or a transforming father in this role could be a mother who gets in touch with that more spontaneous energy, will grab and take the kid and go, let's go have fun, let's go jump off, let's go jump off the roof of the house or something like that. Whereas the stabilizer will be going, what are you doing? You can't do that. And again, that's the there's great value. And then obviously the downside is you're trying to inhibit my fun.

unknown 23:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

They tend towards perfectionism. They can get pretty demanding as far as obedient, doing the way they want you to do it, their ways the right way. That's some of the downside of it. But initially, it absolutely is like a police department. They bring order to things, the laws we make, all of that's based upon the stabilizing energy. And some people have it naturally, and they'll go into a place, and wise is a person who hires that who needs to bring structure to a new business. Like uh, if if I'm going to start a business, I have to go to a bank. If I want money, I have to come with a business plan. That's the stabilizer. Yeah. And yet, people that have business ideas oftentimes struggle with putting a plan in place to get the funds they need to make the business happen. That's why that's why it's so interesting. You see, it's all inside of us, knowing when to access it, how to access it, or when to hire it out, or find someone who can do that energy is so fascinating in how it helps us all be more balanced.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Yeah, I think there's great instruction there in seeking more balance in your own individual journey. But even as you seek balance to tap into that voice within you, there are times when you realize I'm accessing that part of me that I've not done in the past, but I also know that I'm not as good at it as this person over here. And so I'm going to hire it to be done because I appreciate it and I'm trying to learn that myself, but it's not my sweet spot. Right. I go ahead. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

And in my in my uh therapy practice, my office manager is great. She takes care of all those details. Well, recently I had to I had to call the IRS to get a uh a letter of for my tax exempt number. I didn't have the letter on file, so I had to get a new one. But only the owner can do it. Because usually I would say, you know, Emily, could you just take care of that? Well, she came back and she goes, uh yeah, Jimmy, you have to do that one. You're the owner, so you have to make those calls. So it was like, okay, crap. I put it off for like a whole week and then finally I did it yesterday, and it and it went much better than the first attempt I made. So that's the same, same thing. It's like, if you know that's your weakness and it just drains your energy to think about doing those details, and you hire someone who who naturally does it. I mean, again, she just she takes charge of things, she gets stuff done. And in fact, I didn't even know I needed this letter until she came to me and she said, I can't make some changes until we have this letter on file. So and you're the owner. I went, Oh, I am? Oh, okay. So, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

I as I mentioned before, I love, as you just did, to personify it. You took your office manager and said, Here's an example that you can have in your mind of how this plays itself out in real life in real time. My example earlier about Michael Jordan, I feel like that the Chicago Bulls organization brought in Phil Jackson, and Phil Jackson became a stabilizer force. You could fit him into some other categories, but in terms of that relationship, here's this dynamic, powerful alpha person that is in the team, and Phil Jackson brought a structure within which he could operate and a system in which those things could happen, which was a great match, a great pairing for those two for so many years.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

It would be interesting to know the details of that. I mean, you can you can just conjecture about what it played how it played out. My guess is that at some point Michael Jordan had to respect the way in which Phil Jackson handled the rest of the people to get them on board with what the idea that maybe even Jordan wanted to do. And so there had to be some respect there, I think, in those moments when he had to listen to Phil Jackson do some things.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Another person that I think of, at least in my mind, and I the Supreme Court Justice, Catanya Jackson-Brown, every time I hear her speak, she seems one who's dedicated to the law. She wants to see things done in accordance with the law, the details she knows, this is how she brings about social justice, this is how she brings about a better world, is through attention to the specific rules and regulations that govern in any particular way. Whether you agree with her decisions or not, she is one for me who embodies this particular trait and approach to the world.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

Whether you think they're originalist or there are people that want to who see it as a fluid document as far as the Constitution, that conversation has to be pretty excited, pretty exciting to listen to. But again, I think at the base of it, there has to be some kind of mutual respect to be able to hear each other. And I think they do, for the most part, model that for the rest of the country that we probably could learn from that these are ideas that are driven from our interpretation or our own filters of how we interpret the Constitution. That's why it's so interesting that the way in which you read the Constitution can be read in so many different ways because of our experience, because of our natural approach of who we are as people. Again, that's why this whole dilemma about who are we going to appoint, we're going to appoint a conservative, we're going to appoint a liberal. It's like it's so crazy how we have not integrated these energies into understanding, wait a minute, we're all in this together. Yeah, my bias may be this energy here to make things happen, but your bias is this. How can we work together? And it just feels like we're in a real transition of trying to figure out how to move forward and work together like we used to be able to do in the past. And I think we've all we've all shifted. And I think social media has impacted that. I mean, when you can allow everybody to have an opinion and then post it, that's chaos. Well, how do we bring order to it? Well, some people have gotten off social media. On the other hand, there's a great use for social media to keep in touch with friends, to learn new things. It can be used for great good or great, uh great not so good. And I think that's that's so fascinating as far as I was thinking this week about it. That on a whim, you have access to record something and put it out there. Your view. There's no more container about having to have a voice. You can have a voice with the uh with the internet. It's fascinating times from that perspective.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Yeah. And I think uh this podcast is at the forefront of bringing about that innovation and change. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

We're gonna we we could make it all happen if they would just listen to us. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 30:06

That's right. That's right. Here we are. We're recording anything. Throwing it out there as an opinion.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

We uh we need order at times, but we're working on it. Do you want to run by the transformer real quick or not?

SPEAKER_00 30:21

No, I don't care about the transformer. Of course I do. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 30:26

I don't know the time limit if we want to do it the next time or we're out of time, but we run this show. So we can we can run the show into the ground if we want.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Well, we've already done that.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

We're well on our way to that.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Absolutely true.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Okay, let's talk about the transformer. Transformer is in the category of the dynamic feminine energy. Yep. Tell us a little bit about the characteristics of this particular personality, style, or type, and the trajectory of a journey that is dominated by this.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Spontaneous, insightful, transforming. They see the possibilities that could be. They oftentimes are completely, they're not rule followers at all. They are open to new experiences. If you see the negative side of it, if you go to a party and they got a new drug, oh yeah, Transformers gonna try that drug. And yeah, that's the that's the expansive side of it. So they are fun, they're the life of the party. They come in, they have no filters oftentimes, they just have a great time. That's the Transformer.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Um sometimes you also make reference or emphasize more the creative, artistic, yeah, they're driven side of that.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

Absolutely. Yep. And they don't worry about making a living at it. Oftentimes, they are just driven by this creative energy of just starting to do things. And sometimes they make a living at it, sometimes they don't, but that's not the main criteria. The prototypical transformer. They just see life as one big experiment to jump into.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Yeah. Yeah. And and one of the things that can be frustrating to others who aren't of that type is, well, what do you mean we're not going to monetize this? What do you mean we don't have a plan to take this someplace? And a real frustration that sometimes it's art for art's sake or expression for expression's sake, or kind of a prophetic voice because it needs to be said, not because I've thought through all of the implications of it, but somebody needs to say it. Right.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

That's why a lot of people that will have access to their phones, they can make a video, transform will make a video, post it on TikTok right away, and then oftentimes go, a family member will go, You you said that? Oh my word, you can't say that. And then they may take it down, they may have to apologize, whatever, because they can give vent to that spontaneous spirit of basically going with their thoughts and saying, Oh, well, that needs to be said. And they don't think about the consequences. That's the stabilizer. The stabilizer will almost always think about the consequences. That's why that's again more of a natural attraction in a match between the stabilizer and the transformer. Transformer will bring fun to life, the stabilizer will try to organize the fun. And the then in midlife, typically if you're in a relationship with one of them, the transformer has not grown up and the stabilizer has not shut up, to use the analogy I've I think I've said before. It's like that's that's the negative challenge is like when to know when to not do that, when to not say it. Both the stabilizer and the transformer. Stabilizer knows needs to know when not to correct, and the transformer needs to know not to just keep saying stuff at a family event to make everybody mad. Yeah. Yeah. Or to expose all the hypocrisy.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Yeah. I think one of the most the trait that I admire a great deal is that Transformers seem to be so in touch with their intuition. Whether they know it or not, they sense a direction or sense a right move before there are necessarily any facts to back that up. They sense when something's off. They have an intuition about people who have different motivations than they're presenting. And I think that's part of what leads to frustration of others is, particularly in a Western culture, how can you come to that conclusion? Why do you even think that? And they don't always have an explanation, but it's almost as if they have a third eye that they can see things that other people aren't seeing.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

And that's that's the stereotypical feminine energy, the intuitive sense. That's that's feminine energy, again, not male-female. A lot of men use it in business, but it's kind of like a a strong initiating man who's married to an intuitive woman will trust that intuition even if the woman can't explain why. Like they'll say, stay away from that person. That's not a good person. They won't be able to know why at all, not explain it. And a man will typically go, what are you talking about? They're fine. They're gonna they're gonna take my business to the next level. No, they're not. They're something's off. And so you have to learn to trust that. Uh, I have a friend recently who went through a situation like that, and you could tell, like, no, that's the the friends around him were saying, I don't think that's doesn't feel right. And and sure enough, it turned out to be a pretty negative experience. But he was so excited about the possibilities that he couldn't listen to the person that was saying, I'm not sure that's that's a safe sp safe thing to do at this point. That's uh again, that's always a challenge. If you don't have that natural voice in you of hesitancy, you'll you may you may do a lot of great things, but you also may really get yourself into a bunch of trouble. That's why, again, it's so interesting to try to see how to balance all that out in an individual.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

That's it for this episode of Therapy, Coaching, and Dreams. If you're enjoying the podcast, we'd love for you to follow, rate, or share it with someone who might appreciate it as well. Thanks for being here, and until next time, keep growing, stay curious, and take good care of yourself.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

Yeah, now it's good stuff.