Live Your Life on Purpose

Chapter Six
The Eight Personality Types: How to Better Understand, Connect, Persuade, Sell, and Lead Them
P
ersonal Trigrams can be used to help you get in touch with that part of you which may have been forgotten. You will either resonate with your personal Trigram, or you may say that does not match who I know myself to be. You may want to ask yourself, “Am I being who others want me to be, or am I honoring myself?” People react with surprise at how their personal Trigram seems to fit. It is so accurate that the leaders of China have been selected using this principle, and couples are matched for marriage based on it.
As a leader, one of the greatest benefits derived from having a deeper understanding of the eight Feng Shui Personality types is to help you identify the strengths of your team. Studies have shown that when people are working from their strengths, they have a greater passion for their work, they perform their job with greater ease, and they are more productive and contribute greater value to the team. Use this system to bring together your team and you will enjoy a happy and productive team with greater harmony and success.
Earth Yins make great managers because they need to nurture and support others. When they manage they are patient. The Earth Yang must be involved in doing something creative. They work well as part of a team as long as their creative ideas are acknowledged and used. They enjoy the variety of working with lots of different people and activities. The Metal Yang must lead, manage, supervise and be in- charge. They work best independently. The Metal Yin has the ability to bring humor and fun to team activities. They may be quiet due to their yin energy, but they make good communicators, and want to bring play and fun to the workplace.
I heard a story about an employee named Mark who worked on a construction team. Each morning Mark met with his fellow workers, chatted with them and told jokes. During football season, Mark would organize a football pool and share some highlights of the game and announce the winner of the pool the morning after the game. Then a new supervisor was hired to manage the construction team. This new manager decided to fire Mark. He felt Mark was wasting time and never getting anything done. He looked at Mark as a distraction.
Shortly after the productivity of the team began to drop. The new manager decided to interview his employees to ask what they felt was the reason for the reduction in productivity. To his surprise each told how much they looked forward to coming to work each day because Mark made their job more fun. Don’t underestimate the power of the Metal Yin to uplift your company and produce a positive outcome.

Water Yins are diplomats. Being yin energy they will go around a problem to get the job done while avoiding conflict. They are great negotiators and bring people together. The Wood Yang type is a great business confidant. You can have them help make good decisions, which will benefit your business. They are secretive, kind and generous, and able to quickly organize and set-up meetings and training events as they think on their feet. Wood Yins are fixers and must travel. They may move from site to site on location doing problem solving activities or travel on behalf of the company. The Fire Yang is a workaholic. When a Fire Yang is passionate about what they are doing and given responsibility, they will come in early, stay late and work overtime to get the job done. They are great at explaining and teaching and are good to orient and teach various jobs and company policies to a new hire.
In each of the Eight Personal Trigrams listed in this chapter, I discuss the colors and the body parts related to each, the elements that support, reduce, and dominate, and the tendencies that are unique to each type. Note that the body part for each type is their strongest part of the body and is also the part of the body most often affected when a person is stressed.

Chapter Seven
Understand East verses West Group
Personalities and Buildings in Order to Simplify Taking Your Life and Career to the Top
W
hen I consult with a client, the first thing I must know is the individual Trigram of each occupant of the building, whether in a home or business. I look for compatibility between the building and the person or persons occupying it. I want to first see if they have selected a place to work or live that generally supports them in an East or West Group building. I also look for relationships between the people who live and work within that environment.
A building, like a person, falls under one of the Eight Trigrams/Five Elements listed in Chapter 6. After determining the Element Type of a building: Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, or Fire, I can help my client determine if the building type is compatible with each occupant in the building, whether it’s a home or an office. When a home is not a supportive match to their East or West Group Type, it is important to place the bed direction in one of the most supportive directions for their sleep. For anyone being compromised by an unsupportive house type make sure their sleeping directions are supportive to their personal element type. Our bodies heal and recharge at night while we sleep so setting the bed direction to the individual is important.
In an office or workspace when the building is not a match to the individual’s East/West Group Type, then it is important to make sure their facing direction is good as illustrated in Chapter 6. Illustrations of interior floor plans within a building for supportive sleep and supportive work spaces are discussed in Chapters 9 and 10.