How you come across

By now you have four mirrors of who you are. This one shows how you come across, which is not the same thing.

William Moulton Marston was a Harvard psychologist who helped invent the lie detector, wrote a book in 1928 called Emotions of Normal People describing four ways people respond to their environment, and then, under a pen name, created Wonder Woman. I'm not making that up. The four responses became DISC: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness. The assessment itself was built by others in the 1950s, and it's now the most common instrument in sales teams and corporate training, because it's fast, it's about behavior rather than personality, and it tells you how a person wants to be talked to.

D is direct, fast, results first, impatient with process. I is warm, talkative, persuasive, wants to be liked. S is steady, loyal, dislikes surprises, wants to feel safe. C is precise, careful, wants to be right and wants the data first. Everyone is a mix. The profile shows your natural style and your adapted one, the way you behave when you're trying.

The reason it survives in business while psychologists shrug at it is that it isn't trying to be deep. It answers one question: how does this person want the conversation to go? A high D wants the bottom line first. A high I wants to chat before business. A high S wants to know nothing will be sprung on them. A high C wants the attachment before the call.

Here's the the first month use, and it's a little humbling. If you know your own letter, you know what you've been expecting from everyone else and calling rudeness when they didn't supply it. The person who "never gets to the point" is a high I being themselves. The person who "doesn't care how you feel" is a high D being themselves. Nobody was being rude. They were speaking their letter.