#6 The Developing Personality Deception (Personality Change)

The sixth deception is what I call the “Developing Personality” deception. About 66% of us believe that we can change our basic personality and alter our talent distribution as we get older. The truth is, with regard to our talents and potential strengths we don’t change much.

My first grade teacher commented on how “serious” I was. My wife was concerned on our first date that I might be too serious for her, and in my last performance appraisal at work my manager commented on my seriousness and how it might benefit me to loosen up a bit.

I’m happy to report that I was able to convince my wife that I had a seriously non-serious side. I was able to quickly produce a picture of me dancing on a bar in Las Vegas taken on a company scavenger hunt and a reasonably professional recording of me singing Johnny Cash’s song, “A Boy Named Sue”. I do loosen up once you get to know me, but chances are your first impression of me will be that I’m a fairly serious type. That hasn’t changed much since first grade.

Columbia University’s Nathan Brody once commented in a speech, "Change is the process of becoming more like who we are.” Science author, William Wright says that “as we age, we tend to become more like the genetic blueprint with which we started in in life”.

Of course our values change and our beliefs change. The apostle Paul’s dramatic conversion in the Bible was an example of this. He went from encouraging the murder of Christians to becoming one and then to spending his life urging others to become one. His beliefs and values experienced a dramatic change. But his talents, the core of who he was didn’t change one bit. He was intense and driven before his conversion. He was intense and driven after his conversion.

In addition to changing your beliefs and values, you can also develop your talents into full blown strengths. By adding skills that compliment your innate abilities you can maximize your growth. You can also add knowledge, both book learning and experience. Again, if you do this in areas that compliment your natural ability your growth will be amazing.

Your Moment of Truth: You can’t change who you are, but you can become so much more by fully developing your talents and focusing them on worthwhile goals!

Deception #4 : Do, Be, Do, Be, Do

What's keeping us from making career choices where we will offer up the best of us? What's keeping us from choosing work that allows us to maximize our contribution?

At age 5, I decided that I wanted to be a cowboy. Roy Rogers was my first hero and being a cowboy looked cool. I liked the idea of being a hero, having a loyal dog and horse. As you can see in the photo I had the boots, hat, gun, and dog. But I really was “all hat and no cattle”. The problem was that when I found out what being a “real cowboy” entailed, I didn’t like it so much. When I discovered that being a cowboy involved camping with very few Hampton Inns in sight, I reconsidered my choice. My first efforts on a horse didn’t go well either. To this day when I get on a horse, they bend their neck back around and look at me as if to say, “Who is this guy, and what are you doing on my back?” And the idea of jerking a baby calf off its feet at a full gallop, then applying a hot brand to it’s backside, well, that still just seems wrong to me. Over time, I found that the only rodeo I really enjoyed visiting was Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

A lot of people have false starts like this in their careers. One of my favorite career discovery books is Nicholas Lore’s The Pathfinder. He writes:

“If you are like most of us, when you attempt to make career decisions, you imagine careers that might be interesting (doctor, lawyer, Indian Chief). Your mind hops from one potentially interesting career to another. Your romantic imagination kicks in. You think of all the positive aspects of the job: “Let’s see, I really like the idea of becoming an Indian Chief. It seems like an exciting job, working outside, nature all around, not a boring desk job, great clothes, etc.” Then after a while, you have an attack of negative considerations, an attack of ‘Yeahbut’ thoughts: ‘I’m allergic to feathers, those cold winter nights in the teepee, and what about the cavalry attacks?’ You are left with a veritable blizzard of mental images and opinions about potential careers yet are no nearer to making a definite decision about which one to pursue. What’s worse, using this method, things tend to get foggier rather than clearer.”

Nicholas Lore continues:

“When you first think of a new potential career, it is an idea as pure as newly fallen snow. Then as you think of it more, your opinions, both positive and negative, tend to get stuck onto the original picture. After a while, whenever the thought of that particular career surfaces in your mind, all you see is all the stuff stuck to it. When you think ‘Indian Chief,’ up pops a picture of a cavalry attack.”

I call this the “Do, Be, Do, Be, Do” Deception. We confuse being something, which we imagine is very cool, with actually doing it. Many times our choice is built around a desire for fame and fortune. Sometimes we pick a career not because it will make us rich or famous but because we believe that we will be highly esteemed by others.

But strengths strategist Marcus Buckingham rightly observes, “doing trumps being every time.” Similarly, football coach Vince Lombardi used to talk about “loving the daily grind”. Before you make a career choice or career change, find out what you will actually do for 6, 12, or 18 hours a day to be successful.

I will blog about several ways of doing this in the future. These "I-Sight" methods of career insight could save you years of grief. But one method is Internship and Interim Work. Dustin is a friend of our family, actually, a family member by marriage. He got good grades all through high school, college and was considering medical school. But he wasn't sure how he would deal with the reality of blood and body parts. To avoid spending a small fortune and wasting several years of education, he trained to become a medic on an ambulance team. Once he made it through that without a problem he enrolled in medical school. This was a wonderful example and you should be able to figure out something similar to get insight into a career you are considering.

Your Moment of Truth: Make sure you pick a career where the tasks and roles involve activities that you actually like doing, generally for long periods of time.

Deception #3: Destructive Ego

It’s curious that self-depreciation often keeps us from delivering our strengths, while it seems as though it’s opposite does the same thing. Even more curious, self-depreciation and destructive ego may just be different manifestations of the same inferiority thoughts.

What is a destructive ego? Destructive Ego is synonymous with narcissism, inflated self-importance, vanity and conceit. It’s a self-focused belief that the team depends on you, and solely on you. A destructive ego might be named by the term “a self-made” man especially if it is self-referenced. There is no such thing as a “self-made” man in either my theology or my sociology. From a faith perspective, God created us, and every single talent is on loan from Him. From a sociological or a business perspective, no one succeeds by them selves. Even a solo business depends on suppliers, shippers, and service support of some kind. Supposed solo athletes have sponsors, caddies, and fans who pay to see them play. Whatever success you have attained, you’ve had some support. I love the way Leadership author John Maxwell put’s it:

“If you see a turtle on a fence post, chances are he had help!”

A destructive ego can make demands that it does all the “important” work. A destructive ego suggests that only it’s piece or part is the most important. A destructive ego has trouble recognizing the strengths in others or at least minimizes them. One look at the compensation structure in much of corporate America suggests that a destructive ego is in charge in many of our largest companies. What happened to the Lee Iacocca’s that were willing to work for $1.00 a year until the company they ran was out of debt and making a profit? Progressive organizations like Ben & Jerry’s and Whole Foods voluntarily limit top compensation as a % or specific multiple of bottom compensation though both have had to make adjustments after outsiders started poaching their management team. In one study done in 2005, the average corporate CEO was making 411 times the salary of the lowest worker.

In some individuals this manifests itself in a reluctance to delegate tasks that better fit someone else. In other individuals it manifests as a reluctance to partner. At the end of the day, the destructive ego gets robbed of the opportunity to focus on what they do best because they must do it all. And they rob the potential employee or partner as well.

Before we hammer to hard on the destructive ego, let’s make a few balancing points. Destructive ego is not the same thing as a healthy self-assurance identified by Gallup studies as a critical talent or when developed, a wonderful strength. Self-Assurance is critical for people who start businesses and knock and doors to sell things. These people are our talented entrepreneurs who drive our economy. Those with self-assurance build great teams and have the ability to step back and let others do what they are great at.

Your Moment of Truth:

A healthy ego shares the best chores, the cash, and the credit!