Why I’m a Genius…or Complete Dufus, Depending.

You know what they say about putting yourself in a position to capitalize on your strengths and rely as little as possible on areas you aren’t naturally good at?  Or maybe you don’t, but at any rate, I believe this is the best path to excellence and the pursuit of excellence is generally a good thing.  Also embedded in this approach is the idea that one set of talents and capabilities (i.e., the ability to do well on standardized tests) isn’t inherently better than another set of talents and capabilities (i.e., effectively reading people’s emotional responses to a situation).  What’s more important is finding your niche and commiting to excellence in that area while avoiding undue burden on our relative weaknesses.

We often know what we’re better at naturally.  Or do we?  Who among us hasn’t been the butt of our own self-delusion at some point in time?  I mean, heck, when I was young I might have thought I could sing OK until I recorded myself and it was painfully obvious that this would never be true.  Some people who show up for those American Idol try-outs might want to consider this self-screening technique, in my oh so humble opinion. 

So back to better knowing ourselves.  We could ask friends and family what they think, assuming we’d receive a straightforward response, but it’s not like these folks are disinterested objective parties.  So what to do?  Wouldn’t it be cool to have a less subjective way to verify what we think is true and clarify what might be? 

There are lots of tools out there that attempt to do that, and they pretty neat.  For example, according to the Myers Briggs profile, I know I’m an INTJ, so a lot of my behaviors and tendencies do generally fall into that bucket.  But there are limitations to that tool and to all the others. 

As it turns out, I am a certified administrator of the Human Patterns Profile. This is a ridiculously comprehensive psychometric instrument that combines the output of several other popular profiling techniques out there.  It’s a lengthy test, but the output is super duper comprehensive.  If you have a lot of free time on your hands and are interested in finding out more about me than you ever wanted to know, you are welcome to review mine at this link. 

I received my certification over a year ago and haven’t practiced it nearly enough.  I believe it’s an awesome tool and I need practice, so if you’re interested in checking in on yourself, I can go deep discount for you so I can get my HP legs under me and gain the practice needed to become excellent at interpretation.  This can be done remotely too, so don’t let distance dissuade you from finding your inner genius…and dufus.

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