Strengths

Limitations

Your Personality Style as a blue

As a BLUE, your greatest desire is to love someone and be loved in return. For you, life is far more about relationships and meaning than about creating empires, riches, and fame. You may even sacrifice a successful career move in favor if improving an important personal relationship. You are highly gifted in nurturing, mentoring, and developing others. You see the world predominately in terms of personal connections and relationships. You crave integrity and quality in both personal and professional aspects of your life. You are committed to emotional depth and substance in your life and interaction with others.

You crave being understood and will go to extreme measures to encourage others to know you and understand why you think and behave as you do. You feel gratified when others listen to the details of your day. You are notorious for your emotional candor and willingness to share—even to the tune of publicly revealing your inadequacies—because you value being known and feeling connected. In your eyes, being vulnerable is a small price to pay for the chance to connect emotionally. Your heart may be broken more often than others’ because of your depth, but you also experience life more richly.

As a BLUE, you are thoughtful and care for others well-being. Selflessness (versus selfishness) is your guiding philosophy. You prefer doing for others more than solely for yourself. You actually look for opportunities to give up something in order to bring happiness to others. You may, for instance, hold doors open for people, offer a ride when someone’s car breaks down, contribute to charities, or devote your entire life to helping others.

You need to be appreciated. With most BLUES, a simple pat on the back will not suffice. You expend such great effort in making the world a better place that you often need to be told and shown how much you are appreciated for your thoughtful gestures and what a difference you make in others’ lives. You may feel somewhat awkward receiving praise, but always enjoy knowing at the end of the day that you truly are a wonderful human being and made a tremendous contribution. Sometimes you need this because you are so tough on yourself internally. You are "hard-to-please" because despite your amazing care-giving and genuine commitment to bless the lives of others, you have unrealistically high expectations for yourself and others. You appreciate a sincere thank you, especially when linked to something or someone you value or have tried to assist. The key word here is "sincere." Anything less than genuine sincerity feels hollow and fails to resonate with you intuitively.

For you, life is best experienced with personal connections. You delight in being remembered on your birthday and on other special days, particularly if the remembrance is something personal. You need to care for others and have people in your life that care about you. Your life is measured more in quality and substance than in superficial friendships and material possessions. Only when you have been hurt too deeply will you abandon your vulnerability to people and your own personal development. BLUES are highly resilient despite their intense emotions. They enjoy a remarkable intuition and uncanny sixth sense for reading others’ legitimacy. In life, they cherish those who have mentored them as well as those they have been honored to mentor. In the end, not much more matters to BLUES.

As a BLUE, you tend to behave in a proper, appropriate manner. You have a personal moral code that guides you in your decision-making, value judgments, and your leisure time. You actually enjoy "being good." Of all the colors, you come best equipped with a strong sense of integrity. You would rather lose than cheat and are very trustworthy. If leadership were solely a function of ethics, you would always be in a position of power.

For you, loyalty is unquestionable. You thrive in committed relationships and can be counted on to perform your duties. You often exceed others’ expectations in your job performance because the quality of your work is indicative of your loyalty to your family, business associates, friends and self. Quality is critical to you and you struggle when others ask you to "cut corners" or produce an inferior product. You are highly dependable, often exceeding the hours expected in order to complete assignments.

Your middle name could be empathy. When others share an experience with you, you are right there with them emotionally. You want the details. People often comment on how easy it is to open up to you because of how caring you are and your depth of understanding for them. Feeling compassion for others is not a difficult stretch, regardless of your own limited life experiences. You tend to remember feelings and thoughts shared in conversation and you selflessly allow conversations time to run their course. You frequently invite deep and intimate conversation.

Of course, as with all gifts, there can be a dark side. With your great sensitivity comes your need for others to care when you share yourself. You have a tendency to personalize comments and actions of others when you feel they are insensitive. You are notorious for getting caught up in emotional "spin cycles." When you are unable to get a grip on your emotions, you should seek rational insight and advice from your more logical friends.

You are very exact in your work and find details an important aspect of your daily routine. It frustrates you when others refuse to take the time to be properly organized and live life on your "higher plane." You like to do the work "right" and can struggle with delegating to others who may not share your same enthusiasm for quality. You willingly sacrifice personal time in order to stick with a project until it is completed according to your specifications. Only then can you let it go and enjoy yourself without worry. Learning to delegate will be one of your life challenges. Embrace it early so you can breathe easier and enjoy life more abundantly.

One of the more interesting paradoxes you exude comes in your tremendous sense of organization and attention to detail, while being strongly driven by your emotions. You are deeply emotional, as opposed to logical, but because of your tremendous analytical skills you often err in thinking of yourself as logical versus emotional. At your core, you are ruled by your heart—unless you foolishly cut off your "gut instincts" because of previous life trauma from personal relationships. Even then, your logical orientation becomes merely a mask hiding the true depth of your remarkable emotional aptitude.

Your driving core motive forms the essence of who you are. It is the innermost reason for your behavior and, therefore influences the way you see and interact with the world around you. Understanding your driving core motive is the key to getting yourself.

Quick Lesson on Motives:

1. Motives are the innermost reasons behind your behavior and form your innate personality.
2. Your driving core motive influences your behavior and acts as the lens through which you see the world.
3. Driving core motive is not linked to heredity or environment.
4. You have only one core personality, driven by one singular core motive, though; you may have strengths’ and limitations from more than one color.

Remember, as a BLUE, you are motivated by Intimacy. Intimacy means legitimate emotional connection. BLUES will often sacrifice a great deal of time, effort, and/or personal convenience to develop and maintain meaningful relationships throughout their lives.

While you may not possess all the intricate nuances of the BLUE personality, all BLUES share the same driving core motive of INTIMACY, which determines how you see and interact with the world around you. Whether you are 51% BLUE or 95% BLUE, your driving core motivation is to share and connect intimately and meaningfully with others. Only people with the same innate personality fully understand how central the driving core motive is to their very being. It is like breathing. It is innate and natural. No driving core motive is positive or negative in and of itself. Driving core motive simply reflects what is most crucial to every individual who shares the same color personality.

YOUR ROLE AS A heavy weight

As a BLUE, you are acknowledged to be a "heavyweight" among the personalities. Both BLUES and REDS represent the personality heavy weights, defined as such for their constant desire to control others. Simply stated, you want things your way because you feel that your way is best for everyone involved. While you are often intuitively accurate, your desire to control others goes against man’s inherent desires for free choice in their lives. Ironically, your greatest nemeses for control are REDS who also think they know what is best for everyone.

REDS are, however, more pragmatic and willing to negotiate than you but they always insist they know best at the beginning. Only after you become immovable based on moral and emotional grounds will they consider alternative approaches.

Both heavy weights and light weights are critical to the balance of life. WHITES and YELLOWS are classified as lightweights solely because they spend their lives refusing to be controlled. They don’t want to spend the energy controlling others, but they definitely don’t appreciate others spending their energy trying to control them. Remember that life is all about relationships. Your ability to understand the roles played by each color will greatly enhance or seriously sabotage your skill in building meaningful relationships with others. You will find yourself more successful by picking your battles and seeking others’ best interests instead of demanding that your way be the way for everyone concerned. That said, your natural sense of integrity and fairness will play a vital role in facilitating successful relationships.

Relationships are more positive when each personality acknowledges their nature and works to enhance others as well as themselves. Neither is right or wrong. It is more about motive and timing. For example, there are times when REDS and BLUES need to let go of control and WHITES and YELLOWS could perform better allowing themselves to be controlled. Heavy weights and light weights reflect the balance of nature by bringing opposite perspectives. Both need each other. Both bring styles that enable them to personally survive in life and contribute to the well-being of others. You would do well to embrace the gifts that both heavy weights and light weights bring to the spectrum of relationships.

DO YOU HAVE A SECONDARY COLOR? -YES , yellow….

It is essential to your life effectiveness that you embrace the powerful gifts of your driving core motive, and recognize that while you always have the ability to enhance it by developing new dimensions of yourself; you can never change it, or become another color.

It is possible, however, for people to have a secondary color that influences the way that they go about life. While the influence of a secondary color can be strong, it is still not nearly as significant as your driving core motive. Think of it as though your driving core motive is like breathing, while a secondary color is like walking. Walking certainly is a very important element of people's lives, but not nearly as critical as breathing.

Your results indicate that you have a YELLOW secondary personality by nature. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. The major advantage is that people with a strong secondary color can naturally work to develop character in the positive traits of that color. In your case, you should pursue the development of the strengths of the YELLOW personality, as they will make you even more effective as a person. The disadvantage of possessing a secondary color is the challenge it presents to being true to your blue core personality as you may send mixed signals. One moment you will act blue while another moment you will act YELLOW. This behavior can confuse people and make it difficult for them to know how you will react to any given situation. In other words, you may appear to be more inconsistent than would a purist, or someone who does not possess a strong secondary color.

As a blue with YELLOW, you will find that you have a mixture of the natural needs and wants typical of both the blue AND YELLOW personalities. The following table lists the needs and wants of both:

You are a core BLUE with a YELLOW secondary, and are driven from a strong emotional orientation. You enjoy life with an artistic flare and are prone to taking "side trips" in order to appreciate more fully what others miss. Life is not just about completing tasks, although you are very committed and able to complete assignments consistently. You see life as more about meaning and people than mere task completion. For example, at work you enjoy the camaraderie involved in task completion much more than simply doing your work. You enjoy team involvement.

People like to be around you and feel drawn to open up to you emotionally. You take the time to share yourself and hear their story. You are highly competent at doing quality projects and appreciate when others can understand the high caliber of your work. Life is best experienced in your heart rather than your mind. If you can’t feel the interaction, it has much less magic for you. You are highly intuitive and able to sense another’s agenda when you engage them. You read people very well and your engaging style appears more superficial than it truly is.

While emotion is your greatest strength, it is also your greatest limitation. You see life through such emotional eyes, that when you are hurt or acting out of fear, you become paralyzed. You lack an internal rational perspective and must seek peers who can "right your ship" once it has capsized in the storm of relationships. You struggle to let go of negative feelings once they have lodged inside you and can become emotionally detached or withdrawn, which sends a completely different message from who you truly are and who you want to be.

The vast diversity of your personality brings tremendous breadth to what you are able to create and accomplish. You have a strong quote “wing span" and see life from a broad range of perspectives. On the other hand, you can set yourself up for internal struggles with your internal diversity. Your personality sometimes seems conflicted because of your vast variety of emotional reactions. You may take on a project with a YELLOW flare only to move quickly into a more serious BLUE mode when you realize that you are unable to complete the assignment when you truly see what it entails. You may then flip into YELLOW again with great enthusiasm for what you are being asked to do and use your BLUE tenacity to complete the work. It is a highly volatile roller coaster ride, which is hard for you to understand and even harder for those around you to comprehend. Playing to the strengths in both colors provides powerful emotional diversity. You must learn to be kind with yourself and learn how to look at your life challenges from a logical perspective. Typically you seek out WHITE personalities for their logical clarity and then become disappointed in them for not being able or willing to support your emotional intensity.

You often open up to others rather quickly only to become frustrated when they judge you or refuse to share themselves. You need people and prefer emotional drama to detached boredom. Remember that people may find your changing emotions difficult to accept. They may distrust you because they don’t know how you are going to react. Commit to living life optimistically but keep your wonderful sense of appreciation for doing things with quality and enjoying deep relationships. You can enjoy life from a uniquely engaging and intimate perspective.

Application Activity

You may or may not feel that you necessarily possess all of the needs and wants listed above. Therefore, cross out the needs and wants that don't quite seem to fit you, and circle the top two or three that you feel are most critical to you. Remember, even though there are only four major personality types, no two blue are exactly alike. Needs and wants do tend to fluctuate somewhat from one person to the next, especially when a secondary color is present. It is a healthy practice to communicate your top needs and wants to those with whom you are interested in creating a more dynamic relationship.

Stay Congruent

Now that you know who you are, as defined by your driving core motive, you can focus on "being you" more consistently. This concept we call congruence ("acting in harmony with who you innately are") strengthens your self-awareness. When you get out of bed in the morning, isn't it nice to know that the sun is going to rise in the east? We value congruence and our knowing that some things, and people, remain constant. Part of your being effective with others is demonstrating consistency in who you are when you interact with them.

In the process of personal development, congruence comes first by working on getting comfortable with "you" before you move on to developing positive character traits that you don't naturally possess. Trying to grow without first coming into harmony with who you innately are, would be like the Wright Brothers trying to fly without first understanding the laws of physics. Becoming a better "you" by adding to your personality is crucial, but don’t forget the power of your core personality or minimize the value of who you are by deviating from your core altogether. To do so would be extremely limiting to you and your life.

Personal Development Tasks to Consider as a Core blue

The following list includes action items for you to pursue in your personal life that will help you improve who you are en route to better relationships. Identify what you should START doing, STOP doing, and CONTINUE doing as a blue to reap more happiness and success in your life.

START

• Trusting your intuitive instincts
• Speaking up and challenging your boss more assertively
• Delegating your workload to others, rather than thinking you can do projects better than others

STOP

• Personalizing comments made about your performance
• Being so critical of your work performance
• Getting caught up in petty issues and conflict

CONTINUE

• Completing quality work
• Seeing yourself as an integral part of the team
• Being responsible with your commitments

START

• Taking time to do the activities you enjoy most in life
• Risking more by trying new experiences (i.e., food, people, travel)
• Believing that you really are as good as everyone else sees you

STOP

• Being so self critical
• Worrying about the events or problems that may never happen
• Thinking you have to make everyone else happy

CONTINUE

• Maintaining your friendships by calling and connecting with people
• Your quest for personal development
• Doing the things that you know you enjoy doing

START

• Articulating feelings clearly
• Trusting that everything will work out as it’s supposed to
• Living in the moment

STOP

• Over analyzing what your significant other says
• Trying to make your significant other be like you
• Imposing your unrealistic expectations on your significant other

CONTINUE

• Being committed and providing a sense of security
• Performing special and thoughtful acts for your significant other
• Looking for new ways to spice up the most important part of your life

WHY COLOR CODE YOUR LIFE ?

When was the last time you saw yourself for who you really are? And, we're not talking about the typical mirror image of yourself, your likes and dislikes, your behavior in any given situation. No, we're talking about who you innately are, what drives you, what makes you who you are. Like an internal mirror, your Color Code Personality Profile reveals the truth about who you are inside. It reveals your innate strengths and limitations, your needs and wants, where you are less likely to succeed. What's more, the cutting edge insights from your personal profile not only reveal who you really are, but they teach you how to leverage your unique personality to enhance the quality of your life.

While personality profiles only explain what you do, the Color Code delves deeper to determine why you do what you do by uncovering your driving core motive, the innermost reason why you do what you do. Instruments that describe simply what you do (behaviorbased) aren't telling you anything you don't know already. In order to improve your life and relationships, you need to understand why you do what you do (motive-based).

Your results from the Color Code will add insight into your life. Your profile takes what scholars at Oxford University regard as the most revolutionary and correct personality theory in existence today -the Color Code- and uses it to provide you with a complete guide to enhancing the quality of your life with the gift of self-awareness. Your Color Code Personality Profile reveals who you innately are. This enables you to understand why you choose certain behaviors, and teaches you how to leverage your unique personality to enhance the quality of your life in just a single sitting.

Recent studies in Emotional Intelligence (EQ) demonstrate that your EQ is four times more critical to your success in life than your IQ. Emotional Intelligence identifies five critical areas of development: self-awareness (Color Code offers you valuable accurate insight into yourself and others), self- regulation (WHITE gift), motivation (RED gift), empathy (BLUE gift), and social skills (YELLOW gift). Understanding your color code and the gifts from each of the personality colors will give you demonstrated advantages in your life. You will discover each of these gifts as you embrace the process of becoming Charactered with the help of specific diagnostic tools we offer you.

WHAT COLORS ARE IN YOUR LIFE?

The Four Basic Core Color Descriptions

When we see a photograph in which we are included, we typically will look first at ourselves. Once we have located ourselves in the picture, we will then look at the others with whom we were photographed. This tendency to look at ourselves first will also exist as you read this report. As you discover yourself, you will find it more intriguing to see how "photogenic" others are who play significant roles in your life. You will not be able to resist applying this new knowledge to your peers, boss, spouse, or children. The following is a very brief synopsis of what all personalities look like so that you are better able to see all those included in the "photograph" of your life.

What follows is a description of the four personality colors. The characteristics outlined are based on the respective driving core motive of each personality color. (Incidentally, when a person is referred to as being a particular color, this should not be misinterpreted as a reference to race or color of skin. Each of us should be color blind in that regard.).

REDS are motivated by POWER. Power simply means moving from point A to point B. These people seek productivity and need to makes things happen. REDS typically think they know the right thing to do. Subsequently they often want their own way in getting things done. They like to be in the driver's seat and willingly pay the price to be in a leadership role. REDS value whatever gets them ahead in life, whether it is in their careers, school endeavors, or personal lives. Whatever REDS value, they get done. They are workaholics. Selfishly, however, they often resist doing anything that doesn't interest them or offer personal incentives.

REDS only value approval from others whom they respect. They seek validation for their practical approach to life, and the ability to enhance the bottom line. REDS would rather be respected than loved and if they can't respect you, they will struggle to love you. REDS are confident, proactive, and visionary, but can also be arrogant, selfish, and insensitive. When you deal with REDS be brief, factual, direct, AND show no fear!

BLUES are motivated by INTIMACY. Intimacy means genuine connection and sharing between people. They need to be understood and appreciated. Everything they do is qualitybased. They are loyal friends, family and business associates. Whatever or whomever they commit to is their sole (and soul) focus. They love to serve and give of themselves freely in order to nurture others' lives.

BLUES come with distinct preferences and have the most controlling personality. While REDS think they are always right, BLUES know they are! Their personal code of ethics is remarkably strong and they expect others to live honest, committed lives as well. BLUES don't lie and struggle intensely when others lie to them. They enjoy sharing meaningful moments in conversation as well as paying close attention to special life events (I.e. birthdays and anniversaries).

BLUES are dependable, thoughtful, and analytical, but can also be selfrighteous, worry-prone, and moody. They are "sainted pit-bulls" who never let go of something or someone once they are committed. When you deal with BLUES be sincere and make a genuine effort to understand and appreciate them for their depth of connection and commitment to quality in life.

WHITES are motivated by PEACE. Peace means harmony with clarity and acceptance in diversity; it is the absence of contention. They are extremely kind and value that from others. They resist confrontation at all costs. To them, feeling good can be more important than being good. They are typically quiet by nature, process things very deeply and objectively with great clarity. Of all the colors, WHITES are the best listeners. They respect people who are direct but recoil from perceived hostility or verbal battle. WHITES don't want to control others and resist being controlled as can be evidenced by their silent stubbornness or passive-aggressive ways.

WHITES need their "alone time" and crave independence. WHITES want to do things their own and in their own time. They ask little of others and resent imposing too intensely of them. WHITES are much more resilient than they often appear. They enjoy hearty endurance and a strong competitiveness, but they don't easily reveal their feelings. WHITES are eventempered, diplomatic, and the voice of reason, but can also be indecisive, (just ask one where they want to go eat!) unexpressive, and emotionally detached. When you deal with WHITES be kind, accept and support their individuality, and look for non-verbal clues in order to accurately identify their feelings.

YELLOWS are motivated by FUN. Fun means being in the moment and enjoying what you are right now regardless of future consequences or expectations of others. They are personally inviting and embrace life as a party that they're hosting. They love playful interaction and can be extremely sociable. They are highly persuasive and seek instant gratification. YELLOWS need to be adored and praised. While YELLOWS are carefree, they often hide their emotional sensitivity and remain on high alert to others' agendas to control them or negatively judge them. YELLOWS typically carry within themselves the gift of a good heart but can become self-centered con artists if undisciplined in their lives.

YELLOWS need to look good socially, and friendships command a high priority in their lives. YELLOWS wake up happy! They are articulate, engaging of others and crave playful adventure. Easily distracted, they can never sit still for long. All YELLOWS could easily be diagnosed ADD. They need to be managed behaviorally or they struggle with focus. They embrace each day in the "present tense" and choose people who, like themselves, enjoy a curious nature. YELLOWS are charismatic, spontaneous, and positive, but can also be irresponsible, obnoxious, and forgetful. YELLOWS live by the motto, "If you don't want me, you can't have me." When you deal with YELLOWS take a positive, upbeat approach and promote light-hearted, creative, and fun interactions.

Filters Impact Your Self-Expression

Despite the remarkable accuracy with which your driving core motive describes your personality, you will always remain uniquely yourself. Numerous "filters" affect self-expression within each of the four colors. For example, consider introversion versus extroversion. Some blueS are introverted (their best energy comes from being alone) while other blueS are more extroverted (their best energy comes during interaction with others).

Other key factors, which are less significant than driving core motive, but are relevant in creating your unique personality include: intelligence, birth order, gender, religious upbringing, family environment, and cultural forces."

Demographics

Our studies indicate that while different cultures promote and value different colors (core personalities), the general population in each culture runs true to the following percentages:

These percentages vary widely by profession because certain job responsibilities and performance expectations match better (or worse) with various personality types. People are naturally attracted to work that best suits their unique skills and personal preferences. For example, REDS are reflected as a higher percentage of CEOs while YELLOWS have higher representation among Fire Fighters. Any color can be successful in any career, but certain colors find different careers more appealing and easier to achieve success by the very nature of their innate personality fitting easily with performance expectations for the job.

NEXT STEP: BECOMING CHARACTERED

When you look at the personality profile results, it is important that you remember that your profile does NOT put you in a box. It only creates self-awareness, the starting point of positive change. Also, the traits that you see listed under each category were what you came with innately (your nature). You may have already begun to change some or even many of them by choices you've made in your life.

Here are some important principles for you to remember:

1. It is NEVER wise to give up your driving core motive. While it is essential to move away from the limitations of any color, it is just as important to keep "the good stuff" as well. In other words, be true to your personality core, but seek to develop the strengths of the other three colors as well.
2. Whether people around you are familiar with the Color Code or not, they will sense that something is not right about you when your actions stem from limitations outside of your core color. Work on eliminating these limitations first.
3. Get feedback from others, because they typically will see you more accurately than you see yourself.
4. This is a process, not an event. Do not expect to change overnight. The best way to be successful is to consistently work at making progress, no matter how small it may seem. You can get there if you want to!

The key to becoming Charactered can be found in one powerful phrase: Do your work. Doing your work requires paying attention to the parts of your personality that needs fixing (what inadequacies are limiting you, what limiting characteristic traits do you need to overcome, etc.) and spending the time and effort to make those fixes.

People do not typically see who you are inside. They see you for what you are on the outside. They see how you behave. Becoming Charactered means finding positive antidotes from other personalities to replace limitations in your innate personality. Doing your work is vital to getting over yourself because it entails accepting that being who you innately are isn't necessarily the standard that everyone should seek to attain. You must develop the discipline to value the strengths of the other colors and seek to cultivate them yourself, if you want to achieve true success in life.

People behave in four basic patterns. They are Charactered, Healthy, Unhealthy, or Dysfunctional. If people fall under the Charactered pattern, they are exhibiting positive traits outside of their core color. In the Healthy pattern, they are exhibiting positive traits inside their core color. In the Unhealthy pattern, they are exhibiting negative traits inside their core color. In the Dysfunctional pattern, they are exhibiting negative traits outside their core color. In other words, Charactered and Healthy individuals seek to build on the strengths of their personality, while Unhealthy and Dysfunctional individuals let their limitations dictate their lives.

While we may operate in all four patterns at any given time, most people commonly find themselves in one of three blends of these basic patterns. They live predominantly in the realm of Charactered, Healthy-Unhealthy, or Unhealthy-Dysfunctional.

The more Charactered you become, the more valuable you are to yourself and others

WHAT'S NEXT?

Watch for the Hartman Character Code. You can prepare for this by reading Color Your Future by Taylor Hartman, Ph.D.