Five Positive Personality Traits

November 24, 2007

I listened to Tony Allesandra on People IQ via TSTN awhile back. Tony wrote a book People Smart Workbook (How To Get What You Want, By Giving Others What They Want)

What I like about these five tips is the sheer practical nature of them:

Resilience: beware of rigidity to change. We loose our ability to imagine alternatives, start playing board games (they teach us how to react to the unexpected).
Vision: how do I want things to be. Ask myself “What if…” questions. Do not assume any rules, limitations, and stop your ‘critical judge’ from coming too early. Embedded within what seems impractical, if you dig often leads to another idea. Visions are born for all sorts of reasons. For example, “What would you build on an empty field outside of town?” Learn to ask great questions.
Attentiveness: being aware of what’s going on in your environment. The ability to tune into a problem and tune into its components and understand “What is going on here?” Being open to outside stimuli entering your field of perception or intuition. The ability to exercise empathy, to be attentive to others feelings, pay attention to what is going on in your body. You have to empty yourself first before learning something new. When we empty ourselves of other thoughts we are able to focus on others.
Competence: Being knowledgeable and skillful in your field and problem solving ability that goes beyond your field. Having a can do attitude and following through. The tone of your voice, facial expressions, body language, thinking and the way you act - creates a sense of your competence in others.
Self-Correction: the ability to initiate change and evaluate the results. Have a mindset about problem solving and identify a non-productive pattern in myself and then make a positive change. based on negative feedback. We learn mainly by making mistakes. Built in sense of pride that we can learn. The gift of memory which allows us to make an inventory of mistakes. Course correction and you get better, better, and better to identify change. “I got off on the wrong foot.”

Changing behavior patterns takes time. Once you have identified a behavior that you want to change choose one and work on making a positive transition. Then when you have mastered it, choose another.

When no answer satisfies, and people continue to act as if they do not understand, then the wrong question is being asked. - Peter Block in The Answer To How Is Yes

Written by Greg Balanko-Dickson · Filed Under Professional Development | Leave a Comment