Introducing The Four Personalities

Many of you may have read about and studied what is commonly known as “the four personalities,” or "the four temperaments." Today there are many theories about personality and personality types in psychology and folk psychology, and it is not my intention to outline or discuss them all. Rather, in this post and in the posts that follow I will be considering one, which says that (generally speaking) people can be broken down into four different categories of behavior: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy and Phlegmatic. This post marks the beginning of a series of posts which will further discuss the details and implications of this perspective.

As a side note, I have never written about what I will from now on refer to as “The Personalities,” though I have been a student of it for many years. What I am going to write in this and future posts is not material of my own creation. The best and most accessible book I can recommend on the subject is Personality Plus by Florence Littauer.

Above I stated that people can be broken down into four different categories of behavior: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, and Phlegmatic. A “category of behavior” is simply a set of behavioral dispositions, or personality traits, that people consistently display, each one broadly being labeled with a different word. This is not to say that everyone is either Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, or Phlegmatic. A given person may indeed be considered a “Sanguine,” or a “Phlegmatic,” but such a label is not supposed to tell us all there is to know about their personality (it may, however, tell us a lot). The fact is is that everyone is a combination of the four personalities. We all have elements of each of the four personalities in varying proportions, and in varying ways, which combine to make up our own unique personality. Moreover, most of us will find that we dominate in two of the four personalities, having a “strong pair” and a “weak pair” to describe ourselves (generally in each pair one will be stronger). Thus, even though I have elements of all four personalities in my own personality, my strong pair happens to be Choleric (50%) and Sanguine (37.5%), while my weak pair happens to be Melancholy (7.5%) and Phlegmatic (5%). If you already understand The Personalities, then you already have a pretty good grasp of mine, though the way in which I instantiate traits from each personality type will be hidden from you until you become acquainted with me.

In the posts that follow we will begin discussing each personality in detail. First up will be Sanguine (stay tuned).

Blame Yourself

Generally speaking I support the notion that we ought to blame ourselves for everything bad that happens to us. Perhaps that sounds a little radical? It is true that such an assertion should be qualified a bit, especially considering the “generally speaking” clause will likely prove insufficient to many. It could be argued, for instance, that the word “everything” is a bit strong. As if the crazed ice hockey spectator who takes a puck to the face should blame themselves for it. Like other things which are easily dismissed, such maxims—while at first glance appearing to be exaggerations, if not sheer nonsense—often encapsulate deeper meanings. Still, exaggerations can be life-enhancing (this last point is one I plan on discussing in more detail in the future).

Before we get too far it will be prudent to define exactly what is meant by the term “blame.” By blame, I simply mean “to place responsibility upon.” If I blame myself for something, I am acknowledging my responsibility, or behavioral/causal role, in whatever it is I am considering. I do not use the word blame to refer to a form of brow beating or self-loathing, which is, unfortunately, a common connotation that many people attach to the word.

The idea that you should blame yourself as far as possible for everything bad that happens to you is one that simply encourages personal responsibility on your part. It says, “I look to myself for accountability: what can I do personally?” Suppose you are late for work because of road construction. Should you blame yourself for being late? You should, if only because you actually are late (remember: I am not using blame as a synonym for “beat yourself up”). You may protest, “but I had no control over it!” But that makes no difference. What is the purpose of transferring responsibility on to some other party? Does it make you feel better? Is that what matters most to you? What do you actually accomplish by placing responsibility on the construction crew? Nothing, really. Yet in fact, this is how many people take first steps toward becoming “professional blamers,” i.e., people who are, practically speaking, almost incapable of taking responsibility for anything. It starts with something small and insignificant, yet over time, and if left unchecked, such behavior can grow into a real problem. “I was late because I didn't leave for work early enough to account for road construction: from now on I will leave early enough to get to work on time” is a much better alternative. It keeps the focus on what you can control, and not on external circumstances. A little wounded pride is a small price compared to a victim mentality buffered with self-pity.

Hello Again (& Some News)!

As you can see, I've been somewhat out of the loop. Posting less and less, until my disappearing act was near complete. At least until now. Given the lack of activity on this blog during recent months, please allow me to ask, you, gentle reader, to bear with me as I emerge from the depths and shadows, and claw myself back into the habit of regular posting.

Writing, it seems, is largely a game of inertia (as is most any activity, perhaps). It can be difficult to pick up the pen again after one has spent a given amount of time in hibernation, as it were. But the end is nigh, and the ink must flow again.

In recent news, Amazon.com has discounted Discipline, and The Catalyst of Confidence by 10%, lowering prices to $6.24 and $8.54 respectively. Also, Goodreads.com will soon be offering a "giveaway" of my book Discipline. You can throw your name into the ring to potentially receive a free signed copy of the book. I will provide details as they come.

William James on Exercises in Discipline

In The Principles of Psychology, William James gives us a brilliant explanation of what I have referred to in my recent book Discipline as "exercises in discipline." He writes:

Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty, so that, when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort is like the insurance which a man pays on his house and goods. The tax does him no good at the time, and possibly may never bring him a return. But, if the fire does come, his having paid it will be his salvation from ruin. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, "I won't count this time!" Well, he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve-cells and fibres the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes.

A Tale of Fat Ken

“Whatever you do, don't end up like Ken Parsell.” “After he got married, he totally let himself go.” “He's like huge now—seriously—doesn't even look like himself.” “We use to play soccer with him, he probably can't even run anymore.” “...” etc., etc.

Such things were probably said about me during the years following my marriage, and rightly so. To say the least, I bulked up a bit. To be blunt, I got fat. Not that I was terribly self-conscious about it. For the most part it was just annoying. When I was younger I would scoff at people who said things like “I can't button my pants anymore!” “What do you mean you can't button your pants?!” I would think to myself. “How does that even happen?” Well, how exactly, I'm not entirely sure of. At first I thought that my wife was shrinking my clothes. “What kind of laundry detergent are we using?” I would ask her. “I think it's shrinking my clothes.” “Are you doing something different? These shirts are getting tighter on me.” “You're gaining weight” she would say. “What?! Like those people who couldn't button their pants that I would laugh at when I was younger? Pfft! No—this is different—my clothes are definitely shrinking.”

Fortunately the self-deception ended, and I realized the problem didn't involve things like the way the laundry was being done. The problem was me. When I got married I weighed somewhere around 175 to 180. During the highpoint of my “bulking” endeavors I reached upwards of 220 to 225. I would fiddle with diets, or exercise, or both, but never really took it seriously. The following pictures illustrate my change of appearance quite nicely:

The picture on the left was taken in May 2007 (8 months before I got married), when I probably weighed about 160 or 165. The picture on the right was taken in December 2010 (36 months after I got married), when I weighted 1,000 lbs. Just kidding. Actually I have no idea how much I weighed when that picture was taken, but I remember screaming “Madre de Dios!” when I saw it. The picture was taken by my aunt during Christmas, and at the time I was sure that she must have had some funky-weird camera lens that created the optical illusion that I was bigger than I was. To my horror, my wife assured me that I actually did look like that, and it was at that time that I realized my clothes weren't shrinking after all.

But again, for some reason I wasn't that concerned. So I continued halfheartedly flirting with random diet and exercise regimens. If I lost some weight, great. If I didn't, I wasn't seriously hurt by it. This continued until the spring of 2012 (last spring). I happened to be organizing my notes and getting ready to start writing Discipline, when I got the idea that I should take my “research process” a step further. Since I was going to be writing about the subject of self-discipline, why not apply my “discipline process” to my own weight loss? I had been slowly growing more concerned about the prospect of potentially becoming a diabetic, I was still annoyed with my tight fitting clothes, and I knew that I wanted to lose weight eventually. So I decided to take the plunge.

After a period of trial and error, I settled on combining elements from Doug Varrieur's Fat To Skinny diet, and Tim Ferriss' Slow-Carb diet, mixed in with two to three 15 minute kettle bell workouts per week, and committed myself to it exactly as I advise a person to do in my book Discipline. When I began on May 14^th, I weighted just under 210. By July 20^th, I weighed 180, was down to 170 before the end of the year, and have since been maintaining that weight. The picture below was taken in October 2012. Thankfully, I no longer weigh 1,000 lbs.

My point in discussing this is simply to illustrate that discipline directly affects our ability to do things. Yes, the regimen I followed was effective, but it doesn't matter how effective it happened to be if I failed to actually do it. Discipline helps us do things, regardless of what it is that we are trying to do. If I had failed to adhere to my commitment, I wouldn't have succeeded as I did. It's as simple as that. A lack of discipline undermines our ability to do things. Whereas, the more disciplined we are, the better able we are to do the things we set out to do.

My recently released book, Discipline, discusses the subject and how to develop it in detail.

Now Available: Discipline

I am pleased to announce that my latest book Discipline is now available for sale on Amazon.com!

Here are the links to the paperback, and the kindle editions ($6.93 for paperback, $1.99 for kindle—and by the way, you can read kindle books on a variety of different devices, click here for details).

Discipline is a lightning-fast read that will help you develop self-discipline in record time. It's a super focused look at one of the most daunting tasks many people face, conquering the “what,” “why,” and “how” of this often hard to pin down subject.

If you're a member on goodreads.com, you can add/review the book here. 

Get Ready!

I have received confirmation from Amazon.com that Discipline will be available for purchase this coming week in both kindle and paperback formats! An "official release" announcement, complete with links to the book, will be posted the day everything is ready to roll.

I would also like to apologize for previously stating that the book would be released in January. There were a few unanticipated hiccups and quirks that needed to be sorted out during the final phases of publishing which caused a bit of a delay.