you probably didn’t think much about it. But now if I ask you to switch arms and put your other arm on top, chances are it probably feels a little sort of different or it feels not quite so natural, doesn’t feel quite so instinctual. The same thing is sort of applied to like how we do tasks, like for example – one example that’s often used in this exercise is to sign your name using your dominant hand. So when you do your signature you sign your name, it feels very natural. It’s almost like a no-brainer activity that you do. It’s natural, it’s instinctual. There is no thought to it. It’s almost like you don’t really need sort of skill to do it. It’s just something that automatically, instinctually comes to you because you’ve just – it’s just an automatic instinct to use that dominant hand. But then if you switch hands and you try to sign your name with your opposite hand, it’s completely a different experience. Chances are it’s going to feel awkward, it’s going to feel different, it’s going to feel like you really have to think about it. And that’s kind of what we think about with instincts. It’s not that, you know, yes we have a dominant hand and that feels more natural and it’s not that we can’t perform the task or do the task with our non-dominant hand, it just means that we have to think about it or be more conscious of it. It isn’t our default, if you will. And so that’s the same thing with instincts. And so according to Jung our primary instinct is how do we get energy from the world? What feels us? What motivates us?
personalities and how our characters form and how this, how we can understand how we work in the workplace. The other thing too and the last thing that we talked about in career identity is also to figure workplace dynamics, and to figure out, “Okay, well what kinds of work environments might I actually fit better in?” Because if you have an understanding of those types of environments then maybe as you start looking for a job you might not be on the hamster wheel, if you will. If you are like applying for jobs that just – I just want a job. If you have an idea more where you’re going to maybe fit in better, chances are you might hit it off with the people who are interviewing you, or you might perform better in that work, and your job might last a bit longer, or you might decide to take that job and make into a career of some kind and really work harder and harder at it. And so John Holland is a theorist who came up with this hexagon of workplace dynamics. And this is actually a model that is used often in if you ever use job search tools or go on like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they use Holland’s model to help other people learn about – to help job seekers learn about different work environments. And so there is a hexagon, if you imagine a hexagon is a six-sided polygon or whatever you want to describe it. And each of the corners of this shape represents a different type of work environment and there is a specific order in which these work environments are sort of
might have the most influence? Who are the key decision makers and earn their respect in some way. Obviously, there is going to be conflict and that’s a whole other presentation. But clearly, it’s by understanding how the folks in your office tick, even understanding their temperament and personality. That’s going to help you understand how you can work better with them. Which is the last thing that I wanted to talk about, which is that understanding personality or temperament helps us to what we call flex our personalities. And this is from a book called People Styles at Work by Robert Bolton. And he talks about like these four temperaments are sort of the focus or the fulcrum of his book, but it talks about how do we get along with other people in the workplace. And Robert Bolton says that part of it is by understanding other people’s temperament and understanding their personality. We can understand what we can do to kind of make their life a little bit easier. So for example like if you’re going to encounter an idealist in the workplace and say you’re a rational, these are very opposite personalities; the thinking and feeling is a very big difference when it comes to getting along. And so thinkers might have to, you know, walk into a room and maybe engage in sort of ancillary conversation like, “How are you doing today? How are you feeling? What’s going on?” Whereas, idealists might have to when they’re going to meet with the rational and they’re having to