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If you are a phlegmatic supine you realize great satisfaction when you are able to be of value and service to others. You particularly enjoy taking on tasks which demonstrate to others that you appreciate and value them. You don’t mind running errands, but you expect to be acknowledged and appreciated in return.

You have a deep understanding or right and wrong. However, you don’t wish to force your beliefs on others and will wait until they ask for your input. Your short-falling is blaming yourself and feeling guilty if things don’t work out well, EVEN IF IT ISN’T YOUR FAULT, and because of your very perceptive nature, it usually isn’t. Guilt isn’t a good motivating tool and you must learn not to use against yourself.

You are an extrovert in nature but rarely display this to others and as a result don’t achieve the level of socialization you desire. Even though you are task oriented your impulsive nature causes you to leave things unfinished when the opportunity to social presents itself.

You must learn to curb your very sharp whit. You see a dry irony in things that many others do not and they can be offended when you point them out.

In most cases you would much prefer other make the mundane choices. At least, this is true as long as others include you in the decision making process. If they do not. You don’t appreciate it and you let them know it in no uncertain terms. However, when you have an opinion it is a strong one and you don’t mind letting it be known….again and again.

You often internalize your anger and if you aren’t vigilant it can taken on a passive aggressive turn. You often consider these “hurt feelings” and can be quite sensitive about them.

You may sometimes find that you have taken on more than you can handle. This is due to your desire to be of service and make a contribution. “No” isn’t one of your most used words. In fact, others who are aware of this may try to take advantage of it and manipulate you in inappropriate ways. If you use it you have a natural refuge in your desire to “go by the rules” and following your nature by adhering to them can save you from much disharmony and conflict.

Although, you do not seek out a huge number of close relationships those you do have are typically strong and healthy with each member contributing and receiving care and affection. This may be due to the fact you are very well rounded emotionally and so can tolerate others who are not so well balanced.

You must remember to set aside a time each day to recharge your batteries and relax. Otherwise, you will feel overly drained and frustrated with every expenditure of energy.

Your greatest leadership role is that of a partner. Your keen insights and sense of what is right is a great foil when shared with a person who has the wisdom to realize your strengths in this area and not seek to dominate or manipulate you.

You must learn that others can’t read your mind. You can’t expect others to understand things you don’t communicate to them.

Some things others need to respect about you:

• you need acceptance without manipulating conditions.
• you need to socialize.
• you have a temper.
• your humor is a self-defence mechanism not meant to hurt others.
• you want to share in the decision making but resent being left as the one solely responsible for decisions.
• you have difficulty saying “no.”
• you need to be recognized for the contributions you make.

I would like to know your thoughts on this subject?

Take a few minutes to reflect and share you observations and reactions in the comments section. I am interested in the perspective of all, but I specifically invite you to comment.

Other materials in the series.

What if I’m a Phlegmatic Melancholy?

What is a Blended Temperament?

As I wrote earlier temperament is rarely found in an unblended form. In fact, individuals who only display one temperament type are often categorized as compulsive and they have great difficulty peacefully coexisting with others. This article is designed to take a look at the Phlegmatic-Melancholy blend.

As a Phlegmatic-Melancholy you may be one of the most humble and caring people anyone would ever wish to meet. You are an extrovert, but in a very selective manner. Your humility often keeps you from expressing your need for socialization to the level of your truly desire.

You are task and relationship oriented with the ability to work well to people as well as shouldering the responsibility of completing tasks in a professional manner. You do, however, need to fight the impulse to walk away from your responsibilities when an opportunity for fun presents itself. On the other hand too many people tend to cause you anxiety.

You may find that you are either happy or sad. By that token, telling you to cheer up merely annoys you. But, if your surroundings are positive you have the ability to tap into that energy and become positive as well.

You have a hot temper. But, it is combined with your impressive ability to express it in a less than explosive manner.

You are basically independent and self motivated. That doesn’t mean you won’t work for a reward, it simply means you are very selective about what you view as a reward.

Because of your independent nature, you don’t try to control the lives of others and you fail to see why you should allow others to control you. However, you don’t mind giving others advice, if they ask for it. Whether or not they choose to follow your advice is not something you tend to worry about.

Although, you don’t overtly express tremendous amounts of love and affection indiscriminately you do enjoy receiving a great deal of love and affection from the moderate amount of people you have selected to form deep relationships with.

You need some “me time” at the end of a day. This allows you to rebuild your energy level. Otherwise you will become over spent and negative. It is important that you learn to protect that time if you wish to keep positive relationships going with others.

Some things that others need to respect about you:

• you need to socialize
• you don’t respond to being pushed beyond your limits
• you don’t respond to threats but will work toward a goal
• you have a temper, because you aren’t screaming doesn’t mean you aren’t angry
• you deserve to make some of your own decisions and choices
• you don’t respond well to criticism in front of others, you want your mistakes kept confidential
• you are receptive to affection
• you need time to recharge
• you are influenced by the group, if they are making poor choices you can’t be expected to be the enforcer

What are your thoughts? Take a few minutes to reflect and share you observations and reactions in the comments section. I am interested in the perspective of all, but I specifically invite you to comment.

You truly have a large number of options when seeking behavior and counseling help. So, why should you follow my suggestions as opposed to those of others.

Really, it’s a process of elimination. Consider the other options and their tragic flaws.

And so, we come to the only logical solution.

Dr. Adkins (that’s me). Chiefly because, I’m available AND I have a sense of humor.

As spring approaches many begin to feel the itchy feet that come with considering and interview for better (or at least different) jobs.

I recently read an interesting piece on how to prepare for an interview by Bert Webb of Open Loops. It was right on target. But, no matter how well we prepare for an interview we won’t always get the job. So, here are some tips harvested from Monster on how to follow up on an unsuccessful interview.

Ask yourself

• are you interviewing for the right jobs?
• how prepared for each interview are you?
• do you background each company?

While these three points may seem obvious, they explain a large portion of poor performance in interviews.

You are being judged on different facets, such as:

• Your interviewing manners and attire.
• Your level of preparedness.
• The quality of your answers and how well they match the job requirements.
• Your delivery of answers, confidence and poise under pressure.
• Your overall package.

How to Get Feedback

• Self-Evaluation: Think about the questions you have been asked and your responses. Look at the list above, and be brutally honest with yourself. Take your self-evaluation a step further by videotaping yourself responding to a series of key questions. Review your performance. What do you see?
• Peer Evaluation: Seek out the eyes and ears of a trusted friend or significant other who will be honest with you. Role-play the interview by giving your helper a specific job posting and a list of questions. Instruct them to ask the questions randomly and to even make up some of their own. You can also ask your helper to watch your self-made video.

  Once you are done, really listen to their comments. Don’t be defensive. Take notes. You may hear different sorts of feedback. For example, perhaps you weren’t specific enough or didn’t sound very interested. Work on these points.

• Professional Evaluation: Some career coaches and other career services firms offer interview training and mock interview practice. While it isn’t free, if the provider has real-world recruitment or hiring experience, your financial investment can really pay off.

Ask the Hiring Company

• Consider Your Timing: The best time to ask is when the interviewer tells you the company isn’t interested. If you are lucky enough to get a phone call, use this opportunity to ask for feedback. If you receive an email, follow up within 24 hours.
• Ask the Right Questions: Don’t put the interviewer on the spot by questioning why you weren’t offered the job. Accept you weren’t successful, and ask a constructive question. Ask how you could improve, what your weak areas, does the interviewer have any specific interviewing advice for you?
• Strike the Right Tone: There should be no hint of you wanting to argue a point about your candidacy or that you feel angry or injured.

A critique will likely be focused around your interviewing skills or the quality of your answers.

One piece of advice: It doesn’t hurt to ask. It comes down to how much the interviewer wants to help you. This is more likely when you have showed evidence of being prepared and truly interested in the job and you have followed proper interviewing etiquette.

Joan is a media relations consultant and professional speaker, she shows people how to use the media to establish their credibility, enhance their reputation, position themselves as experts, sell more products and services, promote a favorite cause or issue, and establish their companies as employers of choice. Her popular electronic newsletter called “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week” goes to more than 11,000 subscribers worldwide. 

These are truely great tips.

1. Send news releases about new products and services, contests, awards, open houses, speaking engagements to the media, and post them online where consumers can find them.

2. Write “how-to” articles for newspapers, magazines, trade publications and newsletters, and for online article directories, and offer lots of free advice.

3. Get onto the speaking circuit. Speaking to community groups and trade associations is a wonderful way to “create the buzz” about your business.

4. Create a website chock full of free advice, articles by and about you, story ideas about your business, and an electronic media kit.

5. Write an ezine. A free electronic newsletter helps you sell your products and services to an international audience and costs almost nothing compared to expensive direct mail campaigns.

Read the whole article.

   I don’t often do right out commercials, but this time I am. There is a great book out there that every person who thinks in a reflective or contemplative way should have on their shelf. It is a treasure chest of the kind of wisdom that makes you say “Oh!” when the light of epiphone goes on.

Here is one of my favorite excerpts from the book, Front Porch Tales, by Philip Gulley that teaches you a lesson via the flank attack parable.

“I had an old neighbor when I was growing up named Doctor Gibbs. He didn’t look like any doctor I’d ever known. Every time I saw him, he was wearing denim overalls and a straw hat, the front brim of which was green sunglass plastic. He smiled a lot, a smile that matched his hat — old and crinkly and well-worn. He never yelled at us for playing in his yard. I remember him as someone who was a lot nicer than circumstances warranted.

    When Doctor Gibbs wasn’t saving lives, he was planting trees. His house sat on ten acres, and his life-goal was to make it a forest. The good doctor had some interesting theories concerning plant husbandry He came from the “No pain, no gain” school of horticulture. He never watered his new trees, which flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Once I asked why He said that watering plants spoiled them, and that if you water them, each successive tree generation will grow weaker and weaker. So you have to make things rough for them and weed out the weenie trees early on.

    He talked about how watering trees made for shallow roots, and how trees that weren’t watered had to grow deep roots in search of moisture. I took him to mean that deep roots were to be treasured.

    So he never watered his trees. He’d plant an oak and, instead of watering it every morning, he’d beat it with a rolled up newspaper. Smack! Slap! Pow! I asked him why he did that, and he said it was to get the tree’s attention.

    Doctor Gibbs went to glory a couple years after I left home. Every now and again, I walk by his house and look at the trees that I’d watched him plant some twenty-five years ago. They’re granite strong now — big and robust. Those trees wake up in the morning and beat their chests and drink their coffee black.

    I planted a couple trees a few years back. Carried water to them for a solid summer. Sprayed them. Prayed over them. The whole nine yards. Two years of coddling has resulted in trees that expect to be waited on hand and foot. Whenever a cold wind blows in, they tremble and chatter their branches. Sissy trees.

    Funny thing about those trees of Doctor Gibbs. Adversity and deprivation seemed to benefit them in ways comfort and ease never could.

    Every night before I go to bed, I go check on my two sons. I stand over them and watch their little bodies, the rising and falling of life within. I often pray for them. Mostly I pray that their lives will be easy “Lord, spare them from hardship.” But lately I’ve been thinking that it’s time to change my prayer.

    Has to do with the inevitability of cold winds that hit us at the core. I know my children are going to encounter hardship, and my praying they won’t is naive. There’s always a cold wind blowing somewhere.

    So I’m changing my eventide prayer. Because life is tough, whether we want it to be or not. Instead, I’m going to pray that my sons’ roots grow deep, so they can draw strength from the hidden sources of the eternal God.

    Too many times we pray for ease, but that’s a prayer seldom met. What we need to do is pray for roots that reach deep into the Eternal, so when the rains fall and the winds blow, we won’t be swept asunder. ”

I think this is a great lesson. What do you think?

It is a common misconception that the temperament of a person is simply, Choleric, or Sanguine, or Phlegmatic, or Melancholy, or Supine. In fact, no one (at least no one I’ve ever encountered) is a “Pure Temperament.” People are a blend of temperaments and giving them a label is simply an attempt to put a lens the most dominant element of their temperament.

“Why would you want to do that?”

The simple answer is, it is less cumbersome. It is easier for us all to conceptualize some one as a Melancholic than it is to say he or she is a Pure Melancholy in Inclusion, a Compulsive Melancholy in Control and Melancholy Phlegmatic in Affection. Viewing an individuals as a whole gives you and I the opportunity to understand and interact with them in the most conducive and productive way.

What if someone really is a “Pure” temperament?

A person who had a “pure” temperament would likely fit the symptomatic criteria of an “obsessive.”

Imagine someone who was compulsive about their needs in control, affection and inclusion no matter what the situation or circumstances and you will have a fair view of someone with a “pure” temperament.

Which is the “Best” temperament?

It is my belief that while certain temperament traits are more beneficial in certain circumstances, no single temperament type is best for all situations.

I welcome the view of a complete soul, once conjoined of all the five temperaments that was split-apart into its separate components, which now seeks the path to its former consummate perfection.

Another view I embrace is that of the Messianic ideal, in which all the temperament elements which are perfectly synchronized and blended into the all elements into the exemplification we all seek to attain.

So, what IS a blended temperament?

A blended temperament is what you and I are. We have a definite dominate temperament aspect, but we also have other elements of our temperaments that are experienced as our “comfort levels” in the areas of Control, Inclusion and Affection.

How will this knowledge help you?

This knowledge, like any other, is of little practical value in and of itself. However, when you apply it to your interactions with other people, it is an invaluable tool of understanding and building mutually beneficial relationships. Consider, if you will, how collaboration, cooperation and leadership could be enhanced if each party had a true understanding of the elemental essence of the other person.

Now what?

With the insight you will gain from the upcoming examples you will be more able to work productively and live with others in peaceful coexistance.

20/20 Research is looking for study participants all over the country. One of the ways they do this is by financially subsidizing the school athletic teams of players who encourage their friends, colleagues or family members – anywhere in the U.S. to register to complete their surveys. The school also receives a finder’s fee for anyone who registers from the blog posts that are published.

One of the sponsored teams I’m asking you to help me assist is the Franklin High School Lacrosse Team …and it won’t cost you a dime. In fact, YOU might actually earn money from it.

20/20 helps companies like Kraft Foods the ,NFL, Coca-Cola, Proctor & Gamble and many others get feedback on new products and services from customers like you and me.

If you register as a potential research participant with 20/20, Franklin High School Lacrosse Team receives a finder’s fee.

Better yet, if you are selected and agree to participate in a research study, you will be paid for your time.

If you’d like, you can donate your research check to the lacrosse club, too.

Important note: this is REAL RESEARCH… no selling of any kind will take place.

Signing up is easy!

Just go to……..

http://2020panel.com/signup?referrer=fhs_lacross

……and follow the instructions.

It takes just a few minutes to go through the registration process (you must have a valid e-mail address to complete registration).

A few guidelines:

1. Only those over the age of 13 are eligible to join the panel.
2. Employees of research firms, ad agencies and TV and radio stations are not eligible.
3. The deadline for this program is February 25^th, so please register soon.

That’s it. Thanks for your help,

That Reg Guy.

Here are a few articles that have caught my attention today that I wanted to share.

• What Blogging Means to Business,By Ted Demopoulos.
• Adversity…Quotes to Ponder, By Phil Gerbyshak
• Peer Judgement—Get Over It!, By Lisa Haneberg.
• Meetings 101, By Jason Drohn.

Do you have something I should be sharing about?  Just let me know.

If you are successful in business, sooner or later you’re going to have to give someone bad news. For some of us telling people things they don’t want to hear is a regular part of our job.

The bad news may trigger erratic or aggressive behaviors in the recipient. A little advance preparation can minimize the possibility of some adverse behaviors.

1. Scope out the room.
Think over the layout of the furniture. Do what you can to minimize the possibility that the recipient of the bad news will be between you and the exit. In any case, make certain you keep the person receiving the bad news in full view and don’t turn your back.

2. Put on your rhino skin.
When you give someone bad news, it is likely they will blame you. This is true even if you are only the bearer of the news. Be prepared to receive the brunt of their shock, anger and disappointment. Maintain your own professional distance. Adding your own agitation to the interaction will only exacerbate the situation.

3. Provide face saving measures.
Correcting someone else is often embarrassing for them and may trigger anger and defensive mechanisms. It is best to conduct such interactions in private to avoid exposing the person to embarrassment from others. Privacy can be maintained even with the addition of a third party observer. Maintain a polite and respectful demeanor.

4. Maintain objectivity.
Don’t preface your statements with, “You may not like this…” or “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this…” Take the Joe Friday approach. Present the facts as objectively and briefly as possible, as long as you maintain a respectful tone.

5. Empathize, don’t sympathize.
Try to imagine how the other person might feel without being drawn into an argument. You might say something like, ” It must be difficult to hear this. Let’s talk about what your next step could be.”

6. Provide a strategy.
You may not be able to change the bad news, but you can offer some suggestions to get the person moving along a positive path. Always provide the person an avenue to preserve their dignity and self respect.