As Aristotle says: “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
Without knowing yourself, it’s impossible to make the right choices in life.
Think about it for a moment: what if introverted Elon Musk decided to be a standup comedian, or the talented Jim Carrey decided to be an accountant? Do you think they would achieve even half the level of success they have in their lives? I somehow doubt it!
The only reason why people are purposefully successful at life, is because they take the time to invest in understanding who they are, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and take meaningful action accordingly.
But knowing yourself isn’t easy.
Some people take a lifetime to know who they really are!
And that’s why we continue to make choices that are not always aligned with our core values, personality type and interests, often leading to tremendous disappointment.
A life coach can help you navigate this complex journey of understanding yourself.
Through asking you relevant questions, unpacking your purpose, and being your ‘mirror’ to help you see yourself better, a life coach can be instrumental in exploring yourself fully, and consequently, support you in your making wiser choices for living a fulfilling life.
A tool that’s helped me do this effectively as a life coach is Lumina Learning.
Lumina Learning is not just for individuals, couples or leaders looking to maximize themselves and their relationships. Lumina is a tool that directly helps organisations bring out the best in their people through showcasing and enhancing meaningful personal growth. Using innovative and unconventional psychometric testing, it reveals the colorful and complex personality portrait of the person taking the test to give them an even deeper dive and invaluable insight into their true nature.
The great thing about Lumina Learning is that it’s used by authorised coaches globally, so it’s highly credible, and being perpetually improved for accuracy. It’s not the usual psychometric assessment, it’s far more detailed, highly personalised and customised to every individual.
While this isn’t a sales pitch at all for Lumina, I genuinely believe in it and based on the overwhelming feedback from my clients, that I wanted to shed some light on just how amazing it can be for anyone looking to explore themselves, or any organisation that wants to understand team dynamics to produce the best possible outcomes.
The way it works is that individuals firsts complete a questionnaire, which produces a gorgeous ‘portrait’ of themselves, and who they are in relation to others. The test measures over 24 personality traits on a continuum, and is personalised through the coach you work with. The reason why it works accurately every time is because of the deep scientific research that’s gone into developing it!
By answering questions like the following:
- How do you work under pressure?
- What motivates you and what are your success drivers?
- Which job role excites you the most?
you get a solid grasp of your strengths, weaknesses, motivational factors, inner drive, and your personality traits, which can be utilised for the purposes of:
- Developing you as a leader
- Improving your management skills
- Knowing how you can look after your wellbeing
- Build confidence
- Refine your sales skills
- Learn how you can lead change
And a lot more! So much more!
As a coach, I’ve seen just how insightful this assessment can be in addressing the needs of my clients, because it’s only when I truly know who they are, in relation to the various circumstances and situations they’ve been through, that I can assist them by making a meaningful difference to their lives and guide them towards their goals, vision and ultimate results!
The great thing about this assessment is that it’s universally applicable, no matter what profession you’re in. Whether you’re a doctor, musician, lawyer or artist, this test looks into your ‘traits’ and not so much your ‘skills’ so you can use this personal wisdom to your advantage whoever you are.
Another key benefit of taking this assessment is that it helps match organisations with the right talent to hire. While a CV may demonstrate your key competency skills, educational qualifications and experience, it doesn’t capture your unique personality traits which often leads to wrong hiring decisions and huge turnover.
For instance, you could have completed a psychology degree from university by virtue of being a great student academically, but if you lack empathy, you’re probably going to have a hard time being a good psychologist.
From the perspective of employers, the Lumina learning assessment clearly communicates who the ‘person behind the CV’ is. So if an organisation is looking to hire sales staff with a high tolerance for pressure to hit targets, the assessment will capture how effective the individual is in managing stress, empowering HR professionals to make better decisions.
To give you an example of how companies are using Lumina Learning, Tesco, a premier grocery retailer in the UK with over 6800 stores, and 440,000 staff members, wanted to build competent teams for it’s new chain of “Extra Stores” which were more client focused.
To do so, they used Lumina Learning to develop the ideal ‘team dynamic’ and came up with a goal for the types of personality types needed to be within a team to help a store flourish. This is what it looked like:
As you can see, Tesco needed people who were a combination of outcome focused, people focused, down to earth yet extroverted. This gave them a clear idea on ‘who’ they needed to hire to make sure their project was a success.
Armed with that laser like clarity on the types of people they needed to hire, they ensured their interviewed candidates went through the assessment in order to ‘cherry pick’ the ones who met their set criteria for success.
The results were fantastic, with Tesco having successfully launched it’s Extra Stores, with more client focused, outcome driven teams leading to lower attrition rates, and higher employee satisfaction, a win-win!
Wrapping it Up
Having been through the rigorous Lumina Learning practitioner qualification process, I am one of their globally licensed professionals and have access to their amazing network of professionals, facilitation guides, and understand the principles behind their methodology. Reach out to me if you’re interested in learning more about your own personality portrait and coming up with a strategic action plan to set you up for personal and professional success!
I’m excited to work with you. Let’s make 2019 your best year yet!
But first, coffee... 