How to find out who you are

By Leahcim Semaj, Ph.D. - Change Agent, Contributor

WHAT IS Personality? Why is it important? Let's start by removing one myth. It is not true that some people "don't have any personality". What you really mean when you make a statement such as this is that you do not find the person socially desirable.

In casual conversation this is what we usually mean when we use the term. However, there is a deeper and more useful understanding of personality when you examine the scientific meaning. First, it is a scientific construct from the discipline called psychology. Psychology is the scientific study of human behaviour and mental processes. Personality examines the how and why of individual differences. Here we take note of the unique and consistent patterns that people display as they respond to their environment. You see the patterns in yourselves, your partner, your children, the people you work with. You marvel at times when a friend is head-over-heels in love with someone who you would not even give the time of day. You are curious about the various types of people who make up our social landscape.

WHERE ARE WE TAKING YOU?

In this series we want to help you primarily understand you, what drives you, what restricts you, what it will take to make you the best person who you can possibly be.

Secondly, we would like to help you with the critical choices in your personal and professional life.

HOW I BECAME ME

My first and lasting introduction to the power of personality profile occurred almost 30 years ago when I was an engineering major at the City University of New York. Why was I an engineering major? Good question. In our education system, if you excel at physics, chemistry and mathematics it is assumed and expected that you should either be a medical doctor or an engineer. Since I knew that I did not even like touching the lab specimens nor the sight of blood, medicine was not it. So by default the choice was engineering.

One Monday a classmate asked: "What did you do for the weekend?" I thought that this was a stupid question because my assumption was that everyone did what I did on weekends -- party, party and party!

Well, that's not what he did. He did 200 maths problems and 300 physics problems. After having a good laugh a thought occurred to me. "How come he enjoys the courses so much that he spends his free time doing MORE WORK while I can't wait for Fridays to abandon the books?" Why am I in this course? Is there some course, some profession that could attract and excite me in the way that engineering did for him?

I cautiously and with much reluctance went to see the guidance counsellor. I was introduced to the world of personality profiling. I answered a long list of what I thought then were stupid questions. I was asked to return in one week for my results. Naturally, I did not return. I could not see any benefit from this pointless list of questions. I tried my own method. This involved trying all kind of courses until I accidentally found one that gave me the same excitement that I saw in my engineering classmate's eyes. I discovered Psychology.

On the last day at CCNY I went to the Student Affairs Office to make sure that all was in order for my graduation. I found an unopened letter from the Guidance Counsellor. In it was the report of my assessment. Based on my personality he has given me a list of career options. At the top of list was PSYCHOLOGIST. I was fascinated. I had taken the long route of trial and much error to come to the same conclusion, which I am still enjoying almost 30 years later.

USING PERSONALITY PROFILES

Since then I have gone on and qualified myself as a Psychologist. Over the last 15 years we have fine-tuned The JobBank Personality Profile which we have used to determine the suitability of job applicants, to help people guide their future development, to diagnose conflict areas in organisations, to provide advice and career counselling, to help persons understand their partners and their children.

We want you to experience the power of this tool. Log on to www.jobbank-ja.com, click on the Personality Profile banner and follow the instructions to make use of this special offer of "2 for the price of 1".

Each week we will take you deeper into understanding your personality profile and how to use this knowledge to take charge of your personal and professional life.

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