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I was minding my own business, moving down the dairy aisle, looking for my favorite organic yogurt, when my consciousness was penetrated by a stern voice that said, "Why aren't you watching the game?" I have recurring dreams about being in places where everyone knows what they're doing but me. Everyone has all their stuff but me. No matter how hard I try, I can't find my stuff. On and on until the end of the dream. For a split second, I wasn't sure if I was dreaming or awake. This was not a nightmare, however. It was an old lady with a wry grin, and she was wheeling her cart towards me. Who was she? I wasn't at home watching the game, and I couldn't remember who she was. "The game is over," I offered in my own defense. Then I remembered. I was still wearing my navy blue sweatshirt with the word DUKE on the front in big white letters. She was a stranger. "My husband went to Virginia." I had just finished watching Duke beat Virginia in the first round of the ACC tournament. "Virginia played very well. They were only three points behind in the second half. Then Duke pulled away. Did you see the game?" "No, I was doing volunteer work at the Hospice." I said nothing. But I was thinking: Why am I having this conversation? Who is this woman? Who are these people who walk up to total strangers and start talking to you, making cracks and picking up threads of old conversation as if you were a lifelong friend of the family? What am I supposed to say? Once I realized that she was just a nice, friendly, outgoing lady, I kicked in with my two minutes of benign small talk so I could continue my forward progress towards the yogurt section. I would never walk up to a total stranger like that and start up friendly conversation. It's just not who I am. I don't see the point in it, and I'm not comfortable with it. But I recognize that the world is a rainbow of personalities, and many people are very outgoing. She's not the first total stranger to come up to me and start talking to me as if we were old friends. I guessed that the lead mindframe in her personality had to be one of the four external (action) ones: Proactivity, Charisma, Sociability or Control. An external mindframe is a distinct way of behaving; its style is conditioned by the particular area of the brain that informs it. I was pretty sure she was leading with Sociability. When you activate the SOCIABILITY mindframe, you reach out for human contact. Influenced by sensitivity and awareness, your behavior appears expressive, friendly and playful. You react spontaneously as you interact with people in pleasurable and exciting activities. Often there's no plan. Somebody calls a friend, one of them suggests doing something fun and before long they're enjoying a new experience together, telling stories and laughing nonstop. So that's the way she is, and the way I am is to analyze everything. My lead mindframe is Logic, one of the four internal (reflection) mindframes. Sociability is my last mindframe, a major stretch for me. There you go. Two very different people. The most important thing I've learned in all my years of analyzing personalities is that people are a lot more different on the inside than they are on the outside. And the differences between us are the good news, not the bad news. It's lovely that she's the way she is, and it's wonderful that I am the way I am. Maybe I should have taken off my sweatshirt after the game.
Article Source: http://www.articledestination.com
Dennis E. Coates is CEO of Performance Support Systems, author of MindFrames, a brain-based personality assessment system (www.initforlife.com) and co-founder of the Train-to-Ingrain alliance (www.train-to-ingrain.com, info@train-to-ingrain.com, 800-488-6463), which delivers a reinforcement-centered approach to learning and development that achieves permanent, measurable improvements in workplace behavior and positive impacts on business results.
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