History
Over the last 20 years my company, Life Engineering, has been on a mission to understand what drives human achievement, and how to help people identify, access and achieve their full potential.
Our research has indicated there are three main categories that impact achievement. These include:
– Time – How much time someone gives, how they use that time, and how productive they are with that time
– Talent – What applicable skills that person has or develops that they can apply
– Energy – The motivation, drive, commitment, enthusiasm and level of engagement that person feels for what they’re doing
We particularly wanted to dive deep into the category of Energy and motivation, because what we found is that when someone has more Energy for something, they tend to give it more time, and be better with the time they spend on it. They also tend to develop more Talent for that thing.
Because of this (and other things), we found that of Time, Talent and Energy, Energy is the number one driver of achievement and success. This is especially true for an objective or initiative that happens over a longer period of time… we call these Journeys.
We did extensive research to identify what motivates people, where they get their drive, what gets them started and what keeps them engaged and moving forward (including on a macro scale, like in life; on a large scale, like over a career, or in a relationship or project; or on a micro scale, like over the span of a day).
Through our research, we identified 16 Elements that, when present or active, are what causes someone to be emotionally engaged, motivated, and driven to move forward.
We also found that the reason these Elements are “Motivators” are because they are fundamental aspects of our identity. A given Element is motivating to us because it’s fundamental to our personality, to who we are.
In other words, these 16 Elements define not only what motivates us, but also define our core attributes, skills, competencies and personality types.
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The 16 Elements
The 16 Elements are Perspective, Identity, Objective, Plan, Relationship, Mentor, Space, Environment, Score, Investment, Momentum, Alignment, Value, Growth, Impact and Renewal.
Element Attributes
Each Element has 4 primary attributes. One is what we call an Essence Attribute. It captures the essence of that Element. The other three attributes are unique and specific to that Element, but help make up the basic foundation of how that Element impacts our Energy (our ability to Engage or be motivated).
Element Attributes and Engagement
When these attributes are high for an individual, either in life, or within an aspect of their life (we call the categories of life we tend to spend the most time in, invest in, or optimize for Critical Contexts or Journeys), then that individual will have more energy and be more engaged.
Element Attributes and Personality
When an Element is a core part of an individual’s personality, they will tend to experience the positive aspect of each attribute. When an Element doesn’t rank high in their personality, then they often experience the negative aspects of that Element’s attributes.
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Element Description – Perspective
The lens you look through. This is about your ability to forge a lens that you look through and controlling how you interpret the meaning of events that have happened in the past, in the present, or that you perceive to be in your future. When our Perspective is constructive, we are more motivated to move forward.
General Description:
This Element is about the lens we choose to look through as we process the past, look forward into the future, interpret the circumstances of the present, and decide what story they tell when we put them all together.
Essence Attribute:
I am looking through a healthy lens.
When ranked high, you see the context you’re in through a healthy lens that keeps you motivated and engaged.
When ranked low, the lens you look through is demotivating, and corrosive to the orbit you’re in and the outcomes you’re pursuing.
Attribute 1:
I process the past in a way that fuels the future.
When ranked high, the narrative of where we’ve been fuels our forward progress by giving us a positive lens on where we are today and where we’re capable of going.
When ranked low, the perspective of our past acts as a anchor to progress. It holds us back, creating a negative lens of the present and dampening our perceived potential.
Attribute 2:
I am primarily focused forward.
When ranked high, we can see our future clearly, with added brightness and color and optimism. That clear picture entices, engages and draws us forward.
When ranked low, the perspective of our future is clouded and muddy and hard to perceive. When we cannot perceve clearly where we are going and what it will feel like to get there, we are less motivated to move forward.
Attribute 3:
I constructively view the present.
When ranked high, we see our present and interpret current events in a constructive way that creates confidence, growth, and wisdom; and that causes us to engage and lean in.
When ranked low, the view we have of where we are and what that means taxes our confidence, erodes our identity, eats away our optimism, and creates a victim mindset.
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Element Description – Identity
Your connection to self. This is about knowing who you are, what you’re good at, and your desire to understand and be yourself.
General Description:
This is about knowing who you are, what you’re capable of, and believing in yourself. It’s about knowing how to bring that best self to the Context that you’re in, and finding those contexts and their activities relevant to that sense of self.
Essence Attribute:
This aligns to who I am.
When ranked high, you will feel deeply connected to the context you’re in and the work you do, and that connection will feel motivating and empowering.
When ranked low, you will feel disconnected with the context you’re in and the work you do in it, and that will feel demotivating and will create disengagement.
Attribute 1:
I see how my pursuits contribute to my larger journey.
When ranked high, you can see how your Investments will help fuel your larger journey. That alignment of short and long term objectives creates a feeling of engagement to move forward.
When ranked low, you can’t see how the Investments required make any difference to your larger objectives and journey, and the lack of alignment makes the efforts feel irrelevant and unimportant.
Attribute 2:
I see how my pursuits align to my strengths.
When ranked high, you can see how your strengths align to your objectives, and you feel confident that you can be successful. That confidence helps you feel more engaged and ready to move forward.
When ranked low, you can’t see how your strengths align to your objectives. When this is true, you can’t see yourself succeeding and you pull back and disengage, largely for fear of failure.
Attribute 3:
I see how my pursuits align to the person I want to become.
When ranked high, you can see how your current pursuits will help you become the person you want to become—even if it’s not the person you are today—and the promise of that potential engages you.
When ranked low, you don’t see how these Investments will help you become the person you want to become. They also may too strongly represent the person you were in the past, and you are ready to move on.
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Element Description – Objective
Where you’re going and what you want to accomplish. This is about having a clear understanding of where you’re going, being able to see that destination clearly and compellingly.
General Description:
This is about seeing your destination clearly, of knowing where you’re going and the general journey you need to take to get there, and finding that you care about and find purpose in both.
Essence Attribute:
I’m excited about what I’m trying to achieve.
When ranked high, you will feel a powerful draw toward the destination that you’re pursuing. The idea of being there will feel exciting and exhilarating, and those feelings will keep you engaged.
When ranked low, the end-state will feel unclear or unmotivating. It won’t exert a pull on you, and without that emotional draw it will be hard to find the energy to keep investing.
Attribute 1:
I see the destination clearly.
When ranked high, you have the long-term clarity that comes when you can visualize the destination. The clarity of that view is compelling and engages you to do the work to get there.
When ranked low, you struggle to see where you’re going and the lack of clarity creates a reluctance to invest. You disengage because you’re unsure if the work will be worth it.
Attribute 2:
I see the milestones of the journey ahead.
When ranked high, the overall journey you need to travel is clear, even if the next steps aren’t. That understanding of the journey, not just the destination, feels exciting and achieveable.
When ranked low, the overall journey is unclear, and it’s difficult to find confidence to move forward. The ambiguity of what it will take to get there causes you to disengage and pull back.
Attribute 3:
I care personally about the destination.
When ranked high, the destination is viewed as something you care about personally, making it even more desirable and increasing your sense of engagement to get there.
When ranked low, the destination is not one that you personally care about, and even if you see it clearly, it doesn’t compel you to want to reach it.
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Element Description – Plan
Your way forward strategy. This is about your ability to see the way forward, to know what steps to take next, and to chart a course to the objective.
General Description:
This is about knowing what you need to do next, having a clear set of milestones that you are confident will get you to your destination, and being excited about and finding purpose in the work you have to do to get there.
Essence Attribute:
I know what I need to do to move forward.
When this is high, you will feel confidence in your path and in your actions, increasing feelings of engagement and making it easier to take action and move forward.
When this is low, the uncertainty of the way forward will cause you to feel hesitant and hold back. It can cause you to disengage and fail to invest for fear of going the wrong way or doing the wrong thing.
Attribute 1:
I have next-step clarity.
When ranked high, you feel like the clarity of your next steps make them easier to take, increasing your level of engagement.
When ranked low, you will feel like the ambiguity and confusion around what to do next causes you to disengage, and feel more hesitant and reluctant to take any step at all.
Attribute 2:
I feel excitement for the work.
When ranked high, you feel excited about the actual work you’re doing, about the steps you need to take and the path you have to travel.
When ranked low, you aren’t excited by the work you have to do and the path you have to travel, which can make traveling it very hard and create feelings of disengagement.
Attribute 3:
I feel confident the path I’m on will lead to success.
When ranked high, the confidence you have in the path you’re traveling will increase your feelings of engagement to move forward.
When ranked low, your lack of confidence in the path you’re traveling will create feelings of pessimism and doubt, causing you to hold back and disengage.
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Element Description – Relationship
Being connected to others. This is about your ability and desire to love and appreciate and connect to those who are around you, to provide strength to them and get strength from them.
General Description:
This is about having connection and camaraderie. It’s about doing the things we care about with people we care about. It’s about being committed to, supported by, and motivated by them.
Essence Attribute:
I’m not alone in my journey.
When ranked high, you tend to feel increased confidence in your liklihood of success. You enjoy the journey more, and have access to support to keep us moving forward, even when it’s tough.
When ranked low, the loneliness you feel can create feelings of uncertainty, causing you to hold back. you may fail to invest, especially when it’s hard, because nobody else will know. Each of these can lead to disengagement.
Attribute 1:
I have people involved that I care about.
When ranked high, we tend to more fully engage. We feel a deeper and more nuanced sense of commitment. We feel like we’re not alone, and all of this can drive us forward.
When ranked low, we tend to feel isolated and lonely. Our commitment is more superficial and more easily abandoned. Combined, this can create feelings of disengagement.
Attribute 2:
I have people involved who can help me.
When ranked high, we tend to more fully engage, confident we have access to the help we need to do the work we’re trying to do.
When ranked low, we tend to disengage, worried that we may get stuck and find ourselves lacking the support we need to get unstuck.
Attribute 3:
I have people involved who believe in and encourage me.
When ranked high, the confidence and encouragement of others acts as an independent and outside motivator to keep moving.
When ranked low, crippling feelings of isolation and doubt can set in, imposter syndrome is unchecked, and disengagement usually follows.
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Element Description – Space
having what you need to move forward. This is about your ability and desire to gather and have access to the resources you need for the journey you’re on. That could be things like permission, autonomy, trust, time, tools, money, or other resources.
General Description:
This is about identifying and obtaining the things you need to move forward. This could be tools, time, talents, permission, money, or any other resource for your journey.
Essence Attribute:
I have what I need to move forward.
When ranked high, you’ll feel more confident about taking the steps you need to take, knowing you have what you need. Your perceived readiness creates feelings of engagement and even excitement.
When ranked low, you’re likely to experience concern and worry about not being “ready,” which can cause you to hold back and disengage, creating fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
Attribute 1:
I have the resources I need to move forward now.
When ranked high, you experience more confidence in the journey ahead because you know what you need to get where you’re going.
When ranked low, the unknown of what you might need to get where you want to go creates feelings of doubt, worry, and fear that build disengagement and hold you back.
Attribute 2:
I know the resources I’ll need in the future.
When ranked high, the knowledge that you already have the tools you need will increase your confidence and draw you forward.
When ranked low, the absence of resources will create worry, doubt, and fear. We sometimes fail to make any progress until these things are in
Attribute 3:
I have confidence I will have the resources I need in the future.
When ranked high, you will feel more confident in taking the steps you need to take to move forward, knowing how to access the resources you need to do so.
When ranked low, not knowing how to access the resources you need will cause you to hold back, often delaying progress until you figure them out.
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Element Description – Mentor
Being or having a guide. This is about your ability and desire to have someone you can turn to when you need help, and your willingness and aptitude for doing this for others.
General Description:
This is about having a guide, a mentor, someone who believes in us, reminds us why we fight, sees the best in us, and helps us see and navigate the way forward.
Essence Attribute:
I feel like I have a guide for my journey.
When ranked high, you’ll feel more confident in the journey you’re on. You’ll take bigger, bolder steps because you know you’re drawing on experience of those who have more experience.
When ranked low, you’ll tend to hold back, pull back, lean out and disengage, because you’ll have more fear of failure and worry that you don’t know enough or have what it takes right now to be successful.
Attribute 1:
I have access to expertise.
When this is high, we tend to engage more fully, confident that if we get stuck, there is someone we can turn to for help and guidance.
When this is low, we tend to disengage, reluctant to move forward for fear of getting stuck and not knowing what to do, or looking silly, or even failing altogether.
Attribute 2:
I seek help from those who know.
When this is high, we not only know who to turn to when we need help, but actively seek that help, receiving guidance and increasing confidence that creates added engagement.
When this is low, we disengage out of fear of failure, or fear of seeming incompetent, and the absence of that expertise hampers our ability to succeed.
Attribute 3:
I have someone who holds me accountable.
When this is high, when we feel like someone is watching, that someone cares, and that someone will follow up, our sense of accountability keeps us engaged and moving forward.
When this is low, the risk is low, the visibility is low, and the lack of those things can cause us to fail to engage and invest.
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Element Description – Environment
An ecosystem and surroundings to support your journey. This is about having surroundings that suit the journey you’re on. It’s about your desire and ability to shape your own physical environment in ways that motivate you, bring you peace, and help you do your best work.
General Description:
This is about having physical surroundings that support and enable your effort. This includes immediate access to the things you need and the physical space you need in order to accomplish what you’re trying to accomplish.
Essence Attribute:
My environment is condusive to the journey I’m on and the work I need to do.
When ranked high, you’ll feel more confident in your journey and your ability to succeed, because you have surroundings that help you move forward, support you when you fail, and allow you to do the work you need to do.
When ranked low, you’ll be more inclinded to disengage or not invest because you won’t feel like you have a setting where you can do the work you need to do, or that is in alignment with who you are and what you’re trying to do.
Attribute 1:
I have a space where I can be productive.
When this is high, we tend to more fully engage because we have an environment to support our efforts, where we can do what we need to move forward.
When this is low, and we don’t have a place to go to be productive, it can create feelings of disengagement and we may wait for the right conditions to take action.
Attribute 2:
I have a space where I can be myself.
When this is high, and our environment aligns to who we are, we feel like we can be ourselves. We tend to more fully engage and better perform.
When this is low, and our environment does not align to who we are or who we want to become, then we tend to hold back our best selves. We don’t feel comfortable, and tend to disengage.
Attribute 3:
I have influence over the spaces that I’m in.
When this is high, and we can personalize our environment, we tend to more fully engage because our environment becomes a more true expression of our identity.
When this is low, we tend to disengage, feeling disconnected from a depersonalized environment, creating feelings of loneliness, isolation, and even despair.
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Element Description – Score
Measuring Progress. This is about measuring progress and having a clear sense of winning, or whether or not you’re moving forward.
General Description:
This is about having a sense of winning and losing. It’s about knowing that you’re moving forward, or knowing when you’ve stalled, so you can adapt accordingly.
Essence Attribute:
I have a strong sense of whether I’m winning or losing.
When this is high, you tend to have more confidence in your journey, even if the score is low, because you have a sense of if it’s going well or not.
When this is low, your energy can fade and you can lose confidence because you don’t know if you’re doing well or not, causing you to feel insecure in the steps you take.
Attribute 1:
I consistently measure short term progress.
When this is high, you experience increased engagement that comes from the confidence you feel when you know you’re on or off path, and can feel and see the progress you make.
When this is low, you feel unsure in whether or not you’re making progress, in whether or not “it’s working,” which creates feelings of disengagement and reluctance that can cause you to pull back.
Attribute 2:
I regularly measure long-term progress.
When this is high, you have a strong sense of where you are on your larger journey, creating a sense of orientation that fuels your short term objectives and plans, leading to increased confidence.
When this is low, you become unsure about how your short-term efforts align to your long-term journey, and how you’re doing on that journey. That can create a sense of fear and foreboding, causing you to disengage and lean out instead of leaning in.
Attribute 3:
Others have visibility into the scores I keep.
When this is high, you have a sense of accountability, and the optics others have into how you’re doing increases the motivational effect of the scores you keep.
When this is low, your sense of winning or losing is isolated and only seen by you, making it easier to be OK with lower performance than if others were able to see your score and hold you accountable.
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Element Description – Momentum
The energy of motion. This is about the energy of movement and how that fuels even more movement. It’s about feeling like you’re making progress and finding motivation in that.
General Description:
This is about feeling a sense of progress, finding energy in that progress, and using small means to generate that progress in order to build and maintain momentum.
Essence Attribute:
I have a strong sense of whether or not I’m moving forward.
When this is high, the energy of your movement fuels more movement. You feel energized by the perception of progress and are anxious to make more progress.
When this is low you tend to lose energy and disengage because you’re not sure if you’re moving forward.
Attribute 1:
I feel a sense of progress.
When ranked high, you feel more engaged because you can tell that you’re moving forward. There’s an energy to movement that fuels more movement.
When ranked low, you’re not sure if you’re moving forward, and are likely to assume you aren’t. When we feel like we’ve stalled, we tend to disengage.
Attribute 2:
I am excited about the progress I’m making.
When ranked high, there’s added energy that comes from the movement you detect, because you care about the nature of the progress more than just progress itself.
When ranked low, you experience less energy impact from the progress you make, because for some reason that progress isn’t inherently motivating to you, indicating an issue with alignment.
Attribute 3:
I make use of small steps to create energy.
When ranked high, your ability to leverage small steps to make progress quickly creates a sense of momentum, where the energy of movement fuels more movement, leading to bigger progress.
When ranked low, the inability to leverage small steps often creates a feeling of a stall—or state of rest—where we feel like the only way to move forward is to do something big, which sounds hard and can be prohibitive.
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Element Description – Investment
Having skin in the game. This is about having a sense of ownership, or putting something on the line.
General Description:
This is about feeling a sense of commitment, about investing what is needed, putting something on the line, feeling a sense of ownership, and deliberately creating a cost to losing, which prevents us from just giving up and keeps us investing and moving forward.
Essence Attribute:
I feel invested in what I’m doing
When this is high, you’re more likely to be engaged because you will feel a sense of ownership, of having skin in the game, and will fight to protect and not lose what you’ve put in.
When this is low, you’ll tend to disengage, feeling like you don’t really have anything to lose.
Attribute 1:
I feel emotional commitment.
When ranked high, we feel a deep sense of emotional commitment to our pursuits, and that sense of emotional investment drives us to engage, to keep investing, and to succeed.
When ranked low, we don’t have a sense of emotional investment in our pursuits, which results to feelings of being non-committal. Those feelings hold us back from investing what we need to succeed.
Attribute 2:
There is something to lose if I fail.
When ranked high, we feel like we have something to lose. That creates a sense of loss aversion, which keeps us investing, keeps us engaged, and drives us forward.
When ranked low, we feel like we don’t have anything to lose, so we don’t mind losing. We feel less engaged because nothing is on the line, and we’re more likely to hold back at key moments.
Attribute 3:
I invest heavily to win.
When ranked high, we are likely investing at the degree necessary to win. That level of investment keeps us engaged, moving forward, and investing more.
When ranked low, we likely aren’t investing enough to result in solid progress, feel like there isn’t much to lose, and are more likely to hold back instead of going all-in.
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Element Description – Alignment
Staying on course. This is about knowing whether or not you’re going the right direction.
General Description:
This is about making sure the path you’re on is the right path, knowing when you’re off path, and knowing how to get back on that path when you get off track.
Essence Attribute:
I feel like I’m on the right path.
When this is high, you feel more engaged to invest and keep pushing, because you have confidence that the path you’re on will get you where you want to go.
When ranked low, feelings of uncertainty around whether or not the path you’re on will get you where you want to go will cause you to disengage and pull back and be reluctant to Invest more fully.
Attribute 1:
I care about being on the right path.
When this is high, you will feel more engaged because you have a higher sense of the importance of being in the right path, and that will motivate you to make course corrections as needed.
When this is low, you may tend to disengage because the effort and energy it takes to course correct doesn’t really feel like it’s worth it… it’s just not important enough to you.
Attribute 2:
I know when I’m off path.
When ranked high, your confidence that you’ll know when you’re off track allows you to be more bold and courageous—it causes you to take bigger steps.
When ranked low, the fear of getting off track and not knowing it can cause you to hold back and fail to invest or push forward, especially at critical moments.
Attribute 3:
I know how to get back on the path.
When ranked high, you feel confidence that if you find yourself off track, you’ll be able to quickly get back on track. This creates a sense of increased engagement and willingness to take big, bold steps.
When ranked low, the uncertainty about being able to get back on track can hold you back from taking big, bold steps and investing what you need to make real progress.
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Element Description – Impact
Making a difference. This is about feeling like you’re making a difference, and caring about the difference you make.
General Description:
This is about feeling like you’re making a difference. It’s identifying the impact of your efforts, and finding meaning in the impact you make so you have intrinsic motivation to keep going.
Essence Attribute:
I feel like I’m making a difference.
When this is high, you feel like you’re making a difference, that your investment and contributions matter. There’s an inherent sense of motivation and fulfillment to this that increases our engagement.
When this is low, you’re not sure if you’re making a difference—if the work you do really matters—and without a sense of this outcome, it can be hard to find the intrinsic motivation to keep engaging and investing.
Attribute 1:
I care about the difference I’m making.
When this is high, not only are you making a difference, but you find intrinsic value and meaning in the difference that you make. The difference you make is personally meaningful.
When this is low, even if you’re making a difference, you just don’t find a lot of personal value in the difference you’re making. You feel disconnected and distanced from that difference, robbing it of its motivational impact.
Attribute 2:
I know how to know if I’m making a difference.
When this is high, you experience added confidence in what you’re doing, because you know that if it’s working—if you’re making a difference—you’ll know it.
When this is low, you will often disengage and hold back, because you can’t be sure you’ll even know if you’re making a difference—if your efforts and investments even matter.
Attribute 3:
I know I can make a difference.
When this is high, you know that you have the ability to have a positive impact, and will feel drawn to invest and engage to do so.
When this is low, the uncertainty of whether or not you CAN make a difference may cause you to not even try, or to try less diligently.
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Element Description – Growth
Mastery and progress. This is about feeling like you’re getting better and making progress personally or professionally.
General Description:
This is about feeling like you’re getting better—like you’re developing and progressing, building competency and capabilities, and being motivated by that progress. It’s about recognizing that the things you do turn you into someone new, and being happy about the person you’re becoming.
Essence Attribute:
The journey is causing growth.
When this is high, there’s a deep sense of intrinsic motivation to keep investing, because you can see that it’s making a difference in who you are and what you’re capable of.
When this is low, the intrinsic motivation to keep investing suffers, because your investments here aren’t impacting the development of your identity—of your core strengths and abilities.
Attribute 1:
I care about the growth I’m experiencing.
When this is high, not only are you growing, but you find meaning and fulfillment from that growth, because it aligns to your larger journey of who you want to be and where you want to go.
When this is low, even though you may be growing and building strengths, if you don’t find meaning and fulfillment in that growth, it will lose much of its motivational power.
Attribute 2:
My efforts require me to stretch.
When this is high, the need to stretch, to push yourself, and to be challenged creates a strong intrinsic motivation. We have an innate need to stretch, and are motivated by those opportunities.
When this is low, we can quickly become bored, and can disengage simply because of the easiness of the way. When we aren’t in an opportunity that invites us to stretch, we stagnate.
Attribute 3:
The growth I’m experiencing is relevant to my other journeys.
When this is high, you will tend to be more engaged and have more energy to invest because you know that who you become and the skills and talents you build will be applicable and help you in other areas of your life.
When this is low, you may tend to invest less because the perceived value of the growth you experience here is limited to this context, and won’t necessarily help you in other aspects of your life.
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Element Description – Value
Rewards and recognition. This is about feeling like you’re getting enough value out of the investments you make, that could be rewards or compensation or recognition. It’s about feeling like there’s an equitable exchange happening.
General Description:
This is about making sure you’re receiving rewards and recognition for your work that create extrinsic motivation to keep moving forward.
Essence Attribute:
I feel like my efforts are worth it.
When this is high, you will tend to invest more heavily and be more engaged, becuase you feel like the overall return for your effort is high.
When this is low, you may tend to disengage because the perceived value of whether or not it’s worth it is just not high enough.
Attribute 1:
I find intrinsic value from my efforts.
When this is high, we experience ongoing intrinsic motivation to continue, because we find intrinsic value in what we are doing and the progress we make.
When this is low, we struggle to feel motivated to keep investing and working, because we don’t find any intrinsic meaning or value in either the work or what we get from it.
Attribute 2:
I get extrinsic value from my efforts.
When this is high, we are incentivized to keep moving because there are adequate rewards to incentivize the effort, and those external outcomes push us forward.
When this is low, the absence of external outcomes or rewards make us wonder if it’s all worth it, and we tend to disengage and pull back.
Attribute 3:
I receive recognition for my efforts.
When this is high, we tend to keep moving, motivated by the recognition of others. This becomes a positive input into our Identity, increasing our engagement and desire to win.
When this is low, we tend to feel isolated and alone and wonder if it’s all worth it. We tend to have to only look inward for motivation, and that can sometimes struggle to be enough, causing us to disgengage.
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Element Description – Renewal
Restoration, fun, and having balance. This is about feeling like you’re living in balance, and have time to renew yourself.
General Description:
This is about finding restoration and renewal to prevent failures or disengagement that come from burn-out, exhaustion and fatigue. It’s about not jeopardizing other important things as we pursue our goals.
Essence Attribute:
I feel renewed and balanced in life generally, giving me energy to do the things I want or need to do.
When this is high, your overall energy will be high, causing you to feel refreshed, renewed, and ready to invest.
When this is low you can tend to disengage, lacking the energy to really invest. You may feel distracted, consumed, or tired, causing you to not bring your best to what you are doing.
Attribute 1:
My time here is intrinsically restorative.
When this is active, we naturally engage more because the time we spend here is intrinsically restorative, energizing us and helping us find renewal.
When this is low, we can quickly become exhausted and need to continually turn elsewhere for restoration and renewal.
Attribute 2:
I am able to find restoration.
When this is high, we are able to stay engaged and motivated because we know how to get restoration when we need it, so that we can keep investing.
When this is low, we tend to disengage through exhaustion and burnout because we don’t know how to get the restoration and renewal we need to keep investing and moving forward.
Attribute 3:
I am able to balance the load.
When this is high, we are able to stay engaged because we can balance the demands of the work we need to do to achieve what we want to achieve.
When this is low, we tend to disengage from feeling overwhelmed, burned out, and exhausted. When we feel out of balance within a context or across contexts, we tend to disengage and pull back.
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Personal Energy Profile Assessment
We have created an online assessment called the Personal Energy Profile Assessment that measures these Elements in a a person’s life, and from that derive a person’s personality and core motivators.
Much of this understanding of what motivates people comes from Self Determination Theory (or SDT). In Self Determination Theory, your motivators are measured by three primary components: Competence, Autonomy and Relatedness.
1. Competence
In SDT, Competence refers to the need to feel capable and effective at performing certain tasks.
In combining SDT with the 16 Elements, competence refers to the need to feel capable in that Element, and effective at performing within it’s attributes.
Our research shows that those things that motivate you, you’re likely to invest more in and be good at, so your level of competence in an Element is an indicator that it’s core to who you are and what drives you.
A high competence score in an element shows that it’s fundamental to your personality, whereas a low score indicates it’s more foreign to your core identity.
People who score high in competence have a high degree of confidence in that thing and tend to perform very well in it. The overuse of competence can show up as hubris, or pride, and can sometimes cause us to be blind to other’s input and feedback.
1. Autonomy
In SDT, Autonomy refers to the need to feel in control of one’s life.
In combining SDT with the 16 Elements, it means that you feel like you have control over that Element and its attributes, and that you desire to have control over them.
We have found that there are two aspects to autonomy.
The first is that those things that motivate you are things you want extra control over. You want to have autonomy in those things. Partially this is because you’re good at them (which shows up as competence), but also because you care about them that you want ownership of them.
The other aspect of autonomy is that you feel like you have the ability to be successful in that thing, through your investments in it.
People who score high in Autonomy can be very self-directed and need very little management or guidance. People who score low on autonomy need more help and guidance to be successful
1. Relatedness
In SDT, Relatedness refers to the need to feel connected to others and to have a sense of belonging.
In combining SDT with the 16 Elements, relatedness describes our willingness to involve others. when we are good at something, and are motivated by it, we are willing to be inclusive and involve others in our journey.
This does not compete with autonomy, which is more a measure of our desire to be in control of that thing, whereas relatedness describes our willingness to include and involve others.
Relatedness with an Element also means that when we seek for belonging, we seek for it in a way that includes that Element or its attributes.
People who score high on relatedness will naturally work well with others. They are more social and inclusive. People who score low on relatedness prefer work in isolation, they are more introverted and prefer to navigate their path and do their work on their own.
To this set of factors we add a 4th factor called Passion:
4. Passion
Passion describes the raw energy, emotion and enthusiasm we have for that thing, and our ability to draw energy from it.
As it pertains to the 16 Elements, our passion for a given Element describes now naturally that Element and its corresponding attributes resonate with us, energize us, and spark us into action.
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Energy Attributes
The Energy Attributes are the combination of these 4 Attributes (the three attributes of competence, autonomy and relatedness, plus the attribute of Passion).
In the Personal Energy Profile Assessment we measure these 4 attributes across all 16 Elements.
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Personality Drivers
Each Element tends to manifest (or show up) in someones life in very similar ways. We call these Personality Drivers. These include, but are not limited to:
– Attributes
– Characteristics
– Competencies
– Talents
– Traits
– Preferences
– Desires
– Behavioral Tendencies
– Weaknesses (often caused by us over-relying on, or over-using one of these things).
Core Personality Set
The Core Personality Set are the Personality Drivers corresponding to that individual’s Core Motivators. Those Personality drivers combine and synthesize in unique ways to comprise the majority of that individual’s personality.
The Element Weight of each Element within their Core Motivators will generally tend to impact how dominant that Element, and it’s corresponding Personality Drivers are in making up that individual’s overall personality.
That said, occasionally an Element will surface as a Core Motivator, not because it is always a core driver of that individual’s personality, but for reasons that are circumstantial.
For instance, if someone loses a job, their Personal Energy Profile may temporarily register a superficially elevated score for Value. If someone loses a loved one, they may temporarily register high on Relationship. If they lose their home, they may temporarily register high on Environment. Similar circumstances exist for each Element.
For this reason, what really matters is that the Elements that show up as Core Motivators are the primary drivers of their Core Personality.
Supplemental Personality Set
The Supplemental Personality Set are the combined Personality Drivers for the other Elements in that individual’s Personal Energy Profile that didn’t show up in their Core Motivators. These Personality Drivers help add variety, variability, and nuance to that individual’s personality.
The degree of influence of each Element’s Personality Drivers on their Supplemental Personality Set are proportionate to their Element Weight (or how high they scored on each Element in their Personal Energy Profile Assessment).
Total Personality Set
The Total Personality Set is the combination of an individual’s Core Personality Set and their Supplemental Personality Set. The degree of influence of the Core Personality Set has on their overall Personality should be slightly weighted over the individual’s Supplemental Personality Set.
Personality Driver Variability
While Personality Drivers are often relatively consistent in how they manifest in an individual’s personality, there can be some degree of variability to this. This can be due to things like:
– Life Circumstances – The specific, current circumstances of someones life, and what they are going through in the moment.
– Life Experiences – The things that person has been through, shaping the way they see and process events, learned behaviors (please draw on and refer to the science of Learned Behaviors), resulting biases (please draw on and refer to the science of biases, where they come from, what they’re associated with, and how they influence our thoughts and actions).
– Their Personal Energy Profile – the specific combination of other attributes and elements that show up in their Personal Energy Profile.
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Personal Energy Profile
The Personal Energy Profile is the complete report you get when you take the Personal Energy Profile Assessment. For the sake of simplifying communication, we’ll refer to the Personal Energy Profile as PEP, but when you talk about the Personal Energy Profile, you’ll use the full term.
The PEP consists of multiple components, each of which give a different view on that individual’s personality, talents, capabilities, and motivators.
Following are a description of these PEP components.
PEP Component: Core Personality Motivator(s)
The top 5 Elements that someone rates most highly on are their Core personality Motivators (or Core Motivators). These Elements make up their core motivation formula and are fundamental to their personality. They are a large part of their identity, of who they are and what they’re good at. They can be a guide for their journey through life, as they will help them understand the paths they’re likely to be successful in.
They also represent their own personal motivation formula. The majority of their energy and motivation will come from these motivators. When someone finds themself needing motivation, these are the Elements they should turn to first, as they will both produce the most energy, and will be the easiest to get energy from.
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Personality Descriptions
Notwithstanding occasional variability in Personality Drivers, or how an Element manifests itself in someone’s Personality, each of the following are statements and descriptions (called Personality Descriptions) that reflect how an Element tends to someone’s Personality.
When an Element shows up as a Core Motivator, these are especially and more fully accurate. When an Element shows up as a Supporting Motivator, only parts of these Personality Descriptions may manifest in that person’s Personality Profile.
Note: These are written to be read by the person receiving their Personal Energy Profile to help them understand what they might mean to them. In these descriptions, the use of “you” or “your” refers to the person who has taken the assessment.
These don’t constitute an exclusive description of the Personality Drivers for each Element, but rather an overview of some that are most common.
Part of your role may be to extrapolate from the entirety of this information, and an individual’s results, and in particular how Elements may work together, to identify additional Personality Drivers that may define an individual’s identity and personality.
You should feel free to share these findings based on your understanding.
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Personality Description, Element: Perspective
Congratulations, Perspective is one of your core motivators!
You have a powerful gift. It’s a skill that allows you to control the meaning of events by how you choose to process them, frame them, and communicate them.
Sometimes those events are in the past.
You have an innate ability for casting past events in the light of your choosing so that they take on a particular meaning that is of value to you in where you are today and where you’re going tomorrow.
This ability extends beyond yourself to other individuals. You have the ability to help others process the events of their lives, or their circumstances in ways that can be hugely helpful to them.
This ability can be applied to teams and organizations. as well. You have an ability to help make sense of the past in a way that can increase optimism, inspire movement, foster performance, and drive change.
Sometimes those events are happening now, in the moment.
You have an innate ability to forge a lens in your mind through which you process events as they happen. This gives you power to determine what meaning they have for you.
Whether those events are positive or negative is circumstantial, they will take on the meaning of the lens through which you process them, which gives you a lot of control over how you experience your life.
Sometimes those events are yet to come.
You have an ability to look to the future… to peer through the fog that obscures the vision of others, and see a future state in clear, vivid detail.
Your ability to see that detail, the color and texture of a future that is yet to be is one of your greatest superpowers. Seeing a future in that level of detail gives you the ability to shape the present in a way that it ultimately and eventually will come to pass.
Because of the potency of this power, be careful to focus on a positive future state. It is true for all that we tend to move toward our most dominant thought pattern. Our thoughts take on mass and that mass creates a gravitational pull that draws us to make those thoughts a reality.
For you, this is extra true.
Some of these gifts described here may be more familiar to you than others, but all of them fall within the spectrum of this core, innate ability that you have.
As you focus on developing this unique and special talent of Perspective, you will grow into these descriptions, and experience a great many others that are derived from them.
You have the ability to be a great motivator, leader, guide, mentor and influencer because of these abilities. You should seek for ways to leverage this great skill for good, both in your own life, and in the lives of others.
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Personality Description, Element: Identity
Congratulations, Identity is one of your core motivators!
You have a strong sense of self, of who you are and why you’re here, or at least a burning desire to figure that out! You have a strong appreciation for the importance of that understanding.
You value your identity (understanding it, aligning to it, and staying true to it) more than almost anything else.
The journey to developing a deeper understanding of who you are and how to stay true to that is one of your most important journeys in life.
You work hard to prioritize objectives, activities, initiatives, goals, roles, and opportunities based on how well they align to who you are, what you value, and where you want to go, as you work to stay true to that inner sense of self.
You love to take assessments that help you add color and clarity and texture to your sense of self. You have a desire to know your strengths and other attributes.
As you work to seek out and pursue opportunities that align to your strengths you will find a high-degree of both fulfillment and success.
When you are in situations that don’t naturally align to who you are, what you believe, what you’re good at, or that don’t align to your larger journey in life, you will experience a disproportionate degree of agitation and unsettlement.
Conversely, when you find opportunities that align to who you are, you will feel an immediate and deep sense of resonance, as if something has awakened inside you. It will provide a warmth and excitement that will act as a signal to your consciousness that you are on the right path.
Those deep, internal instincts will be a powerful guide, if you follow them, to keep you on a path that will ultimately lead you to your full potential.
Your understanding of who you are and your commitment to staying true to you is a powerful foundation in your life. In difficult times, it gives you a high degree of resilience and a powerful sense of orientation.
It can likely sometimes lead you to obsess, over-analyze, and delay action until you’re certain of identity alignment. Your deep, residual desire to “know thyself” may sometimes create feelings of anxiety and uncertainty as you try to go deep and explore every avenue of who you are.
Remember, the journey to “know thyself” is one that happens slowly, over time, and often bears the most fruit as you travel the other important journeys of your life.
Celebrate your identity, it’s your greatest asset. The more you work to be true to self the happier and more successful you will be.
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Personality Description, Element: Objective
Congratulations, Objective is one of your core motivators!
You are someone that has the ability to see a future state clearly. You’re not bound by the circumstances of the present, but rather have a deep, innate talent for looking forward and seeing what can be.
That ability to see a future state clearly gives you remarkable power in paving a path to get there. You can see it and almost taste it with such clarity that it draws you forward, and you can feel the emotional tug of wanting to be there, to experience it.
That powerful feeling that comes from seeing not just what is, but what can be, and feeling that draw often makes you want to communicate to others the worthiness of the journey and the value of the destination.
This is an innate talent that can make you a great leader as you inspire and influence others to take journeys they might not otherwise take.
Remember to be patient with people who do not see the destination as clearly as you do, and remember that this is your superpower. One of your responsibilities with this superpower is to communicate clearly and frequently to others on your journey so that you can continue to act in a motivational capacity to activate the energy within them to do the hard things and stick to the path.
That same talent that allows you to see the future state objective so clearly usually means you’re good at identifying the major milestones that are needed to be achieved in order to get there.
Those milestones act as a roadmap that will chart progress and ensure alignment with the ultimate objective. Remember that the milestones are not the point, but rather the end-state, and be willing to let he milestone objectives be somewhat flexible when the journey requires a slightly different route than you initially anticipated.
Because of your ability to see the end state objective, and the intervening milestone objectives, you will tend to become emotionally entrenched in getting there. “Getting there” will feel personal to you.
When others lack the same commitment to the end state as you do, remember to be patient. It’s often that they just don’t see the end-state as clearly.
You have a strong drive to get where you’re going, and that will be a powerful force that keeps you moving forward in your life. It can make you a great leader, influencer, motivator and navigator.
As you search for opportunities to use this gift, and situations where this strength can surface you will experience a high degree of satisfaction and fulfillment.
Conversely, when you find yourself in a situation where you lack the ability to use this gift, or where others have control over the destination and the path, you will likely feel a disproportionate degree of agitation and anxiety.
While sometimes you have to be patient, and let others take the reins, you will thrive most when you’re in control of where you’re going and how you’re going to get there.
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Personality Description, Element: Plan
Congratulations, Plan is one of your core motivators!
You have an innate talent for creating order out of chaos. Where others see only disorder, you naturally see, or can quickly find, order. You take great joy and find deep fulfillment in this process.
You have a special gift. There are many who face a high degree of chaos and disorder in their life. You have a unique opportunity to be of assistance to them, in helping them find their way through.
You are likely an artist of “getting things done”, and because of that, you probably do a lot of things.
Because our weaknesses are so often the over-application of our strengths, this might mean that you tend to bite off too much. It might also mean that your fulfillment of the planning process causes you to sometimes over-plan. It may also mean that you experience a disproportionate degree of agitation and anxiety when someone deviates from that plan.
Remember that the Plan is not the objective, it’s a way to get to the objective. Your talents give you the opportunity to pivot quickly and accurately re-orient the path to get to where you need to go.
You’re someone who experiences a high degree of fulfilment and excitement over next-step-clartiy… when you know, at all times, exactly what to do next, and what to do after that.
Your ability to see those next steps so clearly will make you a powerhouse for forward movement.
Look for opportunities to use this strength. As you do, you will find great satisfaction with life and the journeys you’re on.
When you find yourself in situations where you’re not enabled or empowered to use this strength, you will feel a disproportionate propensity to disengage. You will feel frustrated and seek change.
With this superpower, it’s important to remember that not everybody values a good plan the way you do. They won’t see it the way you do. Learn how to communicate the value of your skill and remember to be flexible with how you wield it, and you will increase your opportunity to use this superpower to do many great things in your lifetime.
There are many who need you.
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Personality Description, Element: Relationship
Congratulations, Relationship is one of your core motivators!
You are a people person. You naturally see the value and worth of others. You see their potential. You find great value in associating yourself with them.
Because they can sense the very genuine appreciation you have for them, they, in turn, appreciate and value you. Because of this mutual regard, you have an incredible opportunity to both draw strength from those who surround you, and to provide strength to them in times of need.
These exchanges permeate your life, and you find a high degree of personal satisfaction and fulfillment when they do. You often seek them out.
You like to develop numerous and deep relationships, and thrive in social settings. When you are deprived of these opportunities, or find yourself in situations where you are unable to really connect, you will feel a disproportionate sense of agitation and anxiety, and will naturally start to look for the exit.
Not everyone will value relationships the way you do. Be patient with those who don’t. It’s not that they’re bad people, it’s just that this isn’t their superpower, it’s yours.
Develop the ability to communicate the value of your superpower to those who don’t value it enough, and you will find an ability to penetrate their otherwise distanced vaneer and will build a relationship with them that can exemplify the virtue of relationship building.
You will experience more confidence in the journeys you’re on, when you are able to involve others in them. And because of the deep value you place on relationships, there will be times when you will feel alone and isolated on a journey, not because there is no-one there, but perhaps because for some reason you’re not letting them in.
You are someone who needs people, and you are someone who people need. It’s a mutual need that when nurtured creates a powerful symbiotic relationship that gives you extra tenacity and grit, extra power and thrust to move forward in journeys.
This will be especially valuable to you in journeys that are long and hard and span many years.
You have an incredible gift that will both enrich your life, and the lives of those who surround you. Build relationships, and experience the joy and strength that come from truly connecting.
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Personality Description, Element: Space
Congratulations, Space is one of your core motivators!
You are a resource person. You have learned to find great value in having what you need to get to where you want to go.
Perhaps there was a time in your past when you didn’t have this, and it built up within you a deep desire to not be found lacking.
Whatever it is that created this deep appreciation, you now have a superpower that is incredibly valuable.
You have the ability to understand a journey, and what will be required to make it happen. Where others see simply a path and perhaps a destination, you naturally identify and understand the tools, resources, and needs to make that journey successful.
You find great value in finding the right tool for the job, and appreciate the quality of the resources.
You find great joy and fulfillment in “needs identification”, and in the process of putting those resources together. You love to be equipped for the journey you are on, and you find yourself constantly wanting to help equip others for their journey.
You are extra engaged and enthusiastic about the journeys you are on when you know you have the resources you need to get there. Conversely, when you lack those resources, or are not empowered to go find them, or they are not available, you will likely experience a disproportionate amount of anxiety and agitation.
In these instances, remember that sometimes you have to start moving forward. Sometimes it’s the experience of the journey that shows you the specific resources you need.
Search for opportunities to use your superpower. You will naturally be the go-to person for many who can see clearly where they want to go, but don’t necessarily have what they need to get there.
This can cause you to be a great asset in the journeys of others, as you make your superpower available to them.
You will find that as you use this power for others, and not just for yourself, that you will experience great satisfaction, joy, and fulfillment from life.
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Personality Description, Element: Mentor
Congratulations, Mentor is one of your core motivators.
Mentorship is all about appreciating the value of having a guide for your journey. With Mentor as a core motivator, you likely put more value on this than others. You naturally seek out help and guidance from those who have gone before, or who have access to special skills, talents, abilities, or knowledge that you know will help you on the journey that you are on.
You naturally value the experience of others, and seek them out. This is a great value and asset to you, as it allows you to access the power of others to fuel your own journey, increasing your likelihood of success!
When you have access to a mentor or a guide, you will feel a high degree of confidence for the journey you’re on and the steps you need to take to move forward. That confidence will give you courage and motivate you to take big, bold steps… steps that others may not take, because they lack that confidence.
On the other hand, because of your innate value for the experience of others, and how it can power your own journey, when you find yourself in a situation where you don’t have access to it, it may leave you feeling disproportionately agitated and anxious. You may feel reluctant to take the next steps. It may cause you to lean out and disengage.
Where others are hampered by their hubris, you naturally reach outward, constantly drawing in external wisdom, understanding and expertise. This empowers you to do great things and take big, bold steps.
Prioritize seeking the advice and feedback of others and you will experience greater levels of engagement, higher confidence, more motivation, and you will be able to do things that others cannot, because you’re tapping into more powers than just you’re own.
Your value of this exchange of experience and wisdom is not one-sided. You will find great fulfillment and joy as you act as a mentor to others on their journey. You will also find satisfaction as a connector, helping others find and connect with mentors of their own, even if that is somebody else.
You have a great superpower, born of a humility that helps you appreciate the input of others, and you will be able to use that to do great things.
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Personality Description, Element: Environment
Congratulations, Environment is one of your core motivators!
You are someone who naturally appreciates and values their surroundings. You are able to see the impact those surroundings have on the lives of the people within them. You naturally understand and appreciate the effect the environment you’re in can have on how you and others behave.
This is a superpower. It’s an innate ability to externalize, to look outside oneself and see your surroundings as part of who you are. It causes you to feel a sense of profound responsibility to take care of that environment.
It could be a small environment, like a room, or a small setting. It could be a larger environment, like a home or an office. And it likely extends to a much more macro environment like a town, a city, a country, or even the whole earth.
Your ability to look outside of yourself and appreciate your surroundings and the impact they have on the behaviors of those inside, and the ultimate outcomes they are able to reach, gives you the ability to shape and define those surrounds. It gives you the power to influence both the outcomes and the experience of everyone involved.
You will find the greatest joy, satisfaction and fulfillment as you search for opportunities where you have the ability to use this superpower, and where it will be appreciated.
Conversely, when you find yourself in a situation where you have no control over your surroundings, and where the environment you’re in is not conducive to who you are or the work you want to do, you will experience a disproportionate amount of agitation and anxiety, and it can cause you to quickly disengage.
Search for opportunities to impact and influence the environments you’re in, and you will provide a great value both to yourself, and to others.
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Personality Description, Element: Score
Congratulations, Score is one of your primary motivators!
You are a scorekeeper. You naturally find ways to keep score. You have a built-in ability to break down what can sometimes feel like an obscure sense of progress into very specific things that can be measured. What’s more, you find great satisfaction and fulfillment in doing so.
You naturally love, and have a talent for finding ways to track progress, large and small. You are able to both identify and appreciate the measurable aspects and the repeated steps in journeys that are both long and short.
On top of that, the sheer act of scorekeeping, of tracking and measuring progress brings you joy.
It’s more than just a superficial act of measurement, you see deeper into the value of scorekeeping. You see how it impacts behavior. You appreciate the insight it can create into what is actually happening and why. You value that insight, and to you, that’s what score is really about… insight.
This deep and profound appreciation for the power of deconstructing a large path into measurable progress likely causes you to naturally keep score of everything around you, including others. It could be that has even got you into trouble a time or two.
Remember that not everybody has your superpower. Not everybody appreciates score the way you do.
Remember this when interacting with others, especially if they are not as prone to the virtues of scorekeeping as you are, and with them focus less on the score, and more on the insight produced by the score.
This allows the art and science of scorekeeping to feel more accessible and valuable.
You will find that you are naturally more motivated on activities and opportunities where the score is clear. Conversely, you may find yourself struggling to make progress or stay emotionally engaged in activities where the ability to keep score is less clear, or perhaps not part of your role.
You will thrive in situations where you can use this superpower, and will find the greatest satisfaction and fulfillment when you can work with others who appreciate and value the insights of the scores you keep.
This is a powerful ability that can help you identify movement and momentum when others maybe only see stagnation. It allows you to be extra aware of changes to speed or direction or performance and productivity, or other aspects that may indicate a change of orientation is necessary.
Look for ways to use this superpower and remember to focus on the insights produced by the scores you keep, and not get fixated on the score itself.
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Personality Description, Element: Momentum
Congratulations, Momentum is one of your core motivators!
You are someone who has a strong sense of movement. You can tell when you’re moving forward. To you, that sense of momentum, of progress, creates an energy that fuels more movement.
When you feel progress you feel excited to make even more progress, and this creates a powerful, internal thrust that keeps you moving forward, sometimes at a breakneck velocity.
In the same way, you are one who has a natural, internal sense for when you’re slowing down. You can tell when things aren’t going as well, as smoothly, or happening as quickly as they used to. The sense of slowing down is disproportionately disconcerting to you, because you are someone who thrives on movement.
This is a powerful character trait. It keeps you moving, it keeps you in motion. People in motion tend to stay in motion, and people at rest tend to stay at rest. Because of your sensitivity to movement, you’re propelled to keep moving. This will often keep you going when the energy and effort of others begins to wear out.
You’re relentless determination to stay in motion can make you a powerful inspiration to those who have lost steam.
At the same time, when you find yourself not in motion, when you find that, for whatever reason, you’re in a stall, this can have a disproportionate impact on you, and can make you feel extra agitated and anxious.
You may sometimes struggle with balance and renewal, because you have such a strong, inner fire to keep moving.
You probably find that you get frustrated when things start to slow down. Especially when it’s something over which you have little or no control. You probably get frustrated when you see others not moving as fast or doing as much as you know they could.
This can be a superpower for you, and can drive you to accomplish great things. Temper that superpower with patience and kindness as you deal with others, remembering that they lack that same internal barometer for movement that powers you.
Find opportunities to leverage your sense of momentum, where you have the ability to inspire, influence, and entice others to act and move forward. This is where you’ll find great satisfaction and fulfillment in life.
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Personality Description, Element: Investment
Congratulations, Investment is one of your core motivators!
You are someone who values buy-in as a motivator. You’ve seen how powerful it is as a means to reaching outcomes that are otherwise out of reach.
When you get stuck, where others tend to withdraw and back away, you tend to lean in and invest. You put in more time, more energy, more resources.
You do this because deep within, you know that investment is what makes the difference. It’s what separates those who do from those who don’t. It’s what distinguishes people who achieve from people who don’t. It’s what can make the difference in a project or initiative succeeding, or failing.
To you, investing, and feeling invested is deeply personal.
You probably even feel bad over times where you know you could have invested in something, but didn’t. This is because you believe so deeply in the ability of your investment to make a profound difference… whether that investment be time, or attention, or advice, or effort, or talents, or resources.
To you, investment is one of the first things you turn to when something needs to be done or when you (or something you care about) gets stuck. You invest, you go all-in, you take (and feel) ownership.
Because of this innate superpower, you probably quickly become frustrated when you see others holding back.
Be patient with people like that, because they simply don’t see the value of Investment the way you do. There are many reasons why people who can invest, fail to do so. Even when failing to invest ensures they fail in general.
You can use this superpower to help be a positive influence in their lives, as one aspect of Investment is helping others know how, and when, and how much to invest, and inspiring them to do so.
Some people, for whom Investment is not a core motivator, can fail to invest unless they have someone else who helps motivate them to do so.
You will find you get the greatest satisfaction and fulfillment when you are involved in something that you can invest heavily in. When you feel like, because of your investment, you’re making a difference, having an impact, and building a sense of ownership.
Likewise, when you find yourself in a situation where your investment is not wanted, or not appreciated, you are likely to quickly disengage and withdraw from.
Look for ways to invest, as this is a superpower that the world needs to move important work along.
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Personality Description, Element: Alignment
Congratulations, Alignment is one of your core motivators!
You have a strong sense of alignment, of whether the path you’re on is the right one, of whether the steps you’re taking are leading you in the right direction.
It’s like a powerful internal compass that keeps you moving the right direction and warns when you may have deviated from the path.
You have learned to value that feeling of knowing the path you’re on is the right one. You are one who likes to have in place numerous mechanisms, processes, scorecards, and other instruments that act as early warning indicators to tell you when you need to course correct.
This powerful internal compass is unique. Not a lot of people have it. Your innate ability to sense direction (where your actions and efforts are taking you) makes you a valuable asset.
You have a talent for finding ways to fuel this motivation for alignment, and constantly seek to add to your toolkit additional ways of detecting departure or ensuring directional integrity.
Because our weaknesses are often simply the over-expression of our strengths, it could be that sometimes you over-obsess about whether or not the path you’re on is the right one. That can sometimes have a crippling, paralyzing effect if you’re not careful.
Remember that sometimes forward movement is needed before directionality can be obtained. It’s a lot easier to steer a bike in motion than a bike that’s barely moving or coming to a stop.
You will find a lot of inner power, a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment in those moments when you get confirmation that the path you’re on is the right one. We all do, but for you it’s especially strong.
On the other side, when you have moments of doubt, when you’re unsure about the path you’re on, it can also have a disproportionately adverse impact and can create feelings of aggravation and anxiety.
You have a unique gift with this internal compass, and the innate appreciation for creating clarity around the path and a high-degree of sensitivity to whether you’re on it or off it.
You will particularly thrive in opportunities where you’re invited to use this gift to help a group, a team, or a company stay moving in the right direction. And you will quickly become disengaged when you find that your sense of direction is unheeded or unappreciated.
You have an opportunity to use this gift to be a great influence in the lives of others, as you help them find, and stay on their own path as they traverse the important journeys in their own life.
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Personality Description, Element: Impact
Congratulations, Impact is one of your primary motivators!
You are someone who above and beyond almost all else, care about making a difference.
To you, the knowledge that you are making a difference, that you are making an impact, is a primary motivator for action.
You actively look for opportunities to contribute value, even if you have no other connection to the activity other than the knowledge that you can make a positive impact. That enough is sufficient to drive you to invest and give and work and push forward.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you’re not sure if you’re making a difference, or worse, if you can tell that you’re not making a difference, this will have a disproportionate impact on you. It will cause youto want to immediately go seek to invest your efforts and attention elsewhere, because to you, making an impact is paramount.
But it’s not just enough to make an impact. That can be enough to get you involved, at first, but to stay involved, to stay engaged, to continue to invest, you have to believe in the value of the impact you’re making. You have to care about the difference you make and the impact you have.
But when both of those things are true… when you know that you are making a difference, and you care about the difference you are making, you will move mountains. Few things can stop you when you find yourself in that situation.
This is one of the most powerful internal motivators, and it’s a superpower that will allow you to do amazing things in your life.
Because of your deep, innate appreciation for having an impact, you may, at times, be tempted to stop investing, to lean out and disengage if the evidence of impact is obscure, unseen, or presumed absent.
But sometimes it’s not that you’re not making a difference, but rather that you’ve lost sight of the difference that you’re making.
Be careful to not pull away from something important, just because you feel like you’re not making a difference. First seek to look deeper to identify what difference you may be making, because sometimes that impact can be deep, below the waterline of what you’d ordinarily observe.
As you actively seek opportunities where you can have an impact, and where you care about the impact you have, you will find an internal motivation that is a force of nature. It will drive you to do great things, even when others may have tired out and given up.
Your innate sense of impact can also be used to help others identify, understand, and appreciate the impact they may be having. Impact is a strong, motivational force, but some don’t experience the driving power behind it because they lack the ability to identify and appreciate the impact you have.
You can use your understanding of impact to connect them to that power, and by so doing, become a powerful force for good in their lives.
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Personality Description, Element: Growth
Congratulations, Growth is one of your core motivators!
You are someone that has a strong, internal sense of who you are capable of becoming. You’re not intimidated by the gap between who you are today, and who you know you can become. In fact, that gap is exciting to you. That gap makes you want to stretch, to reach, and to grow.
This is a rare and beautiful attribute. Whereas so many others find themselves at a gap and may feel bad about themselves, or may shrink back and disengage, you respond differently. You stand up, step forward, lean in, and go to work changing who you are into who you can become.
You have a deep appreciation for the malleability of self. The the ability of a person to change, grow, adapt, evolve and become something else, something new, something better.
This appreciation drives you and propels you. It’s an enthusiasm for constantly reaching to be better and become more.
This is a powerful, internal motivator, and it will cause you to become great over the course of your life. Let this desire to be better move you and propel you to move forward, to try new things, to take risks, to learn and to challenge yourself.
Many will not understand you, or the crazy things you may do. This is only because they don’t see the world the way you do. They may tend to view the self as more crystalized and concrete. Where they see a fully-forged creation, you still see wet clay. And even more, the opportunity to sink your hands in and mold that clay is a powerful driver for you.
Your profound appreciation for Growth will propel you to become better. You will thrive in opportunities where you are stretched, and that cause you to have to grow to succeed.
Conversely, if you find yourself lingering overlong in a situation that doesn’t challenge you, or doesn’t result in the sense of personal or professional development, you will quickly disengage and seek growth elsewhere.
Your appreciation for growth, and the adaptable, evolvable nature of self is a perspective that you can provide to others, who may be locked into a particular view of who they are or what they’re capable of.
You have the opportunity to be a profound influence in their lives as you advocate for personal development and change, and a more flexible view of one’s own capabilities.
Continue to seek out opportunities to grow, and you will find tremendous satisfaction and enjoyment out of life.
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Personality Description, Element: Value
Congratulations, Value is one of your core motivators!
You are someone who innately understands and appreciates value… both receiving value and being valued.
You have a deep understanding of your own worth, of the value of your work and your time and your investment.
Because of this appreciation for your own worth, you have a strong sense of “rightness” when it comes to whether or not you’re adequately valued, for the value you provide.
These exchanges of value are something you see clearly, when others don’t.
This understanding of the balance of value can likely often lead you to feel betrayed when you feel undervalued. You may feel angered at the injustice when value given isn’t appropriately rewarded.
Not everyone has your highly tuned sense of value and balance in an exchange, and so you may often have to be patient, and work to not take offense when you feel like there’s an imbalance in an exchange of value.
Your superpower of understanding this at a level that others don’t gives you an opportunity to be a great influence in advocating for fairness, for rightness, and for an equal exchange.
You find the most motivation when the things you do are highly valued, and when that value is expressed openly and abundantly.
At the same time, you can quickly lose energy and disengage if you feel like you are undervalued or that value is unrecognized.
This internal understanding of the value of someone can be a cause you to be a powerful influence in the lives of others. Many people fail to perceive their own value, or fail to advocate enough for their value to be adequately and appropriately recognized.
You can be an advocate for them, helping them appreciate their own worth and helping them learn to recognize and require fair compensation and recognition of the value they provide.
As you work to turn this skill outward, in helping others, you will find an added measure of satisfaction and fulfillment in life.
Search for opportunities where you can add value, and where that value is both recognized and rewarded.
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Personality Description, Element: Renewal
Congratulations, Renewal is one of your core motivators!
You have a strong sense of your own internal energy. You can tell when that energy is high, and when it is low. You’re sensitive to things that sap your energy and you are naturally drawn to things that restore that energy.
This is an abnormally strong internal barometer for you, and you have a higher degree of sensitivity to that internal scale of energy than most.
As such, you find great value in activities that “fill you up” and renew your energy. You find you are naturally motivated to do things that refuel and recharge you in this way.
Because of this deep appreciation for renewal, you may also find that there are times when you over-emphasize renewal. Very often our weaknesses are simply the over-application of our strengths. You may find it hard to continue to engage and invest over a long period, without adequate renewal in between.
Most people will experience this, but you will experience it to a heightened degree.
You will thrive most in situations where you have the ability to renew often and “keep the tank full”. You will find that you struggle in areas where you are not allowed those refueling opportunities, and are expected to “keep the nose to the grindstone” for overlong, and perhaps unjustified periods of time.
When you are renewed, you will experience a level of energy and enthusiasm and gusto for life that is hard to find and that few things compare to.
Actively seek to maintain balance amongst your core journeys and be careful to not overcommit or overfill your agenda as you will do your best work when you have a highly balanced lifestyle.
If you find that you’re in a situation where you’re experiencing imbalance, and are lacking renewal, seek for small ways to renew yourself until you can clear your plate and resume a more balanced way forward.
Your appreciation for Renewal, and the value it has on energy will make you well suited for opportunities to focus on helping others create balance, restoration and renewal in their own lives.
This is a powerful opportunity to merge an internal passion with external opportunities to help others reach a state of renewal.
As you do this, as you both work to live in renewal yourself, and help others find and experience renewal for themselves, you will find added satisfaction and joy from life.
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Human Achievement Process
The 16 Elements are broken down into 4 main categories we call Pillars in a model we call The Human Achievement Process, which outlines the 4 primary stages someone has to be competent on in order to achieve success.
Pillar 1: Orient
Orient consists of the Elements of Perspective, Identity, Objective, and Plan. People who score high across these elements tend to be leaders and “navigators”. They have the ability to clearly orient themselves and others for a journey, and help them stay oriented as they go.
Pillar 2: Assemble
Assemble consists of the Elements of Relationship, Space, Mentor, and Environment. People who score high in the Assemble pillar are natural “enablers”. They help people along on their journey. They’re good at identifying and assembling what is needed to fuel forward progress.
Pillar 3: Act
The Act Pillar consists of the Elements of Score, Momentum, Investment, and Alignment. People who score high in the Act pillar tend to be “doers”. They love moving forward, making progress and getting things done.
Pillar 4: Achieve
The Achieve Pillar consists of the Elements of Impact, Growth, Value, and Renewal. People who score high in the Achieve Pillar are “achievers”. They are results focused and outcomes-oriented. They are excellent at determining weather or not a journey or activity is “worthwhile” or “worth it”. They focus on the overall results of our efforts and are motivated by those things.
There are two additional Pillars to the Human Achievement Process.
Pillar 5: Recovery Solutions
In order to be successful, we need the ability to recover when we get off track. The better we are at recovery, the more likely we are to succeed.
Pillar 6: Diagnostic Systems
In order to be successful, we need to know when we are off track and when we need help. Often we don’t recognize the need for help, or the fact that we’re off track until it’s too late or a lot of damage has been done. This is often due to change blindness, pride, or hubris. Implementing diagnostic systems can help us more quickly identify times when we need help, triggering Recovery solutions so we can get the help we need.
These two pillars don’t have any Elements corresponding directly with them, but rather draw upon Elements from the other Pillars, and help us identify what we need to do to create a process that allows us to move forward in life and be successful.
Together, these Pillars comprise the Human Achievement Process. We first get oriented for our journey (Orient), we then assemble what we need for that journey (Assemble), we then go to work and act on that (Act) and achieve the results of our effort (Achieve). Based on those results, we re-orient (Orient), and repeat the process over and over in an ongoing process of iterative improvement.
Our Assessment also measures an individual’s strength, propensity and motivation by Pillar.
When we measure the pillars, we measure each of the 4 variables (competence, autonomy, relatedness, and passion), on a scale of 0% to 100% with 100% being the highest possible score. We also create an overall Pillar score that includes all of these 4 variables, plus how they rated on each element individually that is within that pillar.
How someone scores across the pillars can tell a lot about that person, including what type of “general profile” they fit into (e.g. “navigator”, “enabler”, “doer”, or “achiever”.)
It’s also relevant how their scores balance across the Pillars. Someone whose scores balance well across the Pillars tend to be more generalists, whereas someone who scores especially high in one pillar tends to be more of a specialist in that category of Elements and their attributes.
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PEP Component: Motivation Profile
Someone’s Motivation Profile is the chemistry of all 16 Elements and how they work together to provide motivation for the things they do.
It includes how they scored across all 16 Elements, divided by Achievement Pillar. It shows the Energy Activation Potential of each Element and the cumulative potential of each Pillar.
When an Element has a higher rating, it means it has a higher propensity to activate their energy. A low rating means that Element doesn’t have as much motivational power for them. That Element is still important, but when active, will likely yield a lower energy outcome.
Someone’s Pillar score shows which categories of the Human Achievement Process they will tend to have the most energy for, and perform the best at.
They are most likely be most engaged—and do their best work—when they focus on opportunities that emphasize the Pillars and the Elements for which they have the highest propensity for motivation.
When an individual knows their Motivation Profile, it helps them know where to invest so they can have the most energy for the things they care most about. While solving for all 16 Elements is hard, the Motivation Profile will help them focus on the things that provide the greatest energy output.
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Energy Activation Spectrum
In the Personal Energy Profile, each Element is measured by % and can be viewed along something we call the Energy Activation Spectrum. Based on the % score of each Element, they fall along 1 of 5 segments in the Energy Activation Spectrum. Those segments are as follows:
0-20% – Tier 5 Motivator – These elements have minimal motivation potential
21-45% – Tier 4 Motivators – These elements have low motivation potential
46-70% – Tier 3 Motivators – These Elements have medium motivation potential
71-85% – Tier 2 Motivators – These Elements have high motivation potential
86-100% – Tier 1 Motivators – These Elements have maximum motivation potential
The Energy Activation Spectrum helps an individual make even more sense of the Element scores that make up their Motivation Profile.
A low score on an Element means that Element, when activated, is likely to release less energy. It also means it’s likely to require more energy to release that energy.
In Chemistry, Activation Energy is the minimum energy threshold that must be reached for a chemical reaction to occur. In life, the energy of motivation also has an Activation Energy Threshold. It’s the amount of investment we have to make for an Element to release its energy.
When trying to understand someone’s energy and motivation, this is a vital concept to understand. It takes energy to create energy. It takes work to release the Energy Potential held in each of the 16 Elements. How much work it takes is described by the Energy Activation Spectrum.
When someone’s Energy Activation Score for an Element is low, it means they’ll likely have to do more work to get energy out of it, and the total energy output is likely to be low as well.
But when someone’s Energy Activation Score for an Element is high, it means it’ll require less work to get energy out of it, and the energy output will be high as well.
The Motivation Profile is the Energy Activation Score for all 16 Elements, helping an individual know which elements to focus on for the highest and most efficient energy output.
The 5 Elements someone scores highest on comprise their Core Personality Motivators, but their corresponding Energy Activation Tiers may vary.
For instance someone may have a 1st Motivator that has only a Tier 2 or Tier 3 Energy Activation Score.
This just means that it’ll take a bit more work to activate the energy of that Element and feel its motivational power.
This is an important part of someone understanding their own energy and Motivation Profile, and what it will take to keep them energized and moving forward in life.
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PEP Component: Motivatability Score
The Motivatability Score is someone’s total Energy Activation Score… it’s the cumulative score of all of the 16 Elements combined. It takes all Elements across all Tiers and gives you one final number.
You can think of this number as that person’s “motivatability.” It describes how naturally motivated they are.
A lower score means it takes more Investment to activate the energy inside of them. A higher score means they have a propensity to be highly self-motivated, and it takes very little for them to experience an energy outcome.
Having a low score or a high score isn’t bad or good, it just is. It describes the individual. When they know what their Energy Activation Score is, they can plan accordingly.
Since Energy is the primary driver of long-term success, it’s vital that someone understands their overall score and has a plan for what it will take to get and stay motivated.
You can also think of this Motivatability score as a metric of natural resilience. The higher someone’s Motivatability Score, the more resilient they will be, because when times get hard, or things aren’t turning out the way we expected, they will keep moving forward, because they have the natural drive and motivation to do so.