Graham was clearly NOT getting his need tank filled, so he did something he was sure would get my attention! He got it all right! 🙂
If you’ve still got questions about how to handle the people in your life, then you’ll want to listen to this final podcast on the personality styles. In this episode, we’ll conclude our conversation on how to “Fill the Need Tank” of the last two personalities. (For Part 1 on needs, listen to episode #4).
Episodes #2 and #3 covered how to recognize these people in your life. For more information on that, please listen to those podcasts.
Give the Powerful Choleric – (Action Annie)
- A sense of control
- “Nutshell”
- Credit for their work
- Appreciation
Give the Popular Sanguine – (Sunshine Sally)
- Attention
- Approval
- Acceptance
- Affection (at home ONLY!)
For more information on this topic, I highly recommend a book by Florence Littauer, Personality Plus
The biggest takeaway I want you to have from this whole overview is that nobody is wrong – they are just different. Once you know and understand these different styles and their accompanying needs, you’re better able to build positive connections and enjoy purposeful living. Stay tuned each week as I add to this topic with tips for working together, diffusing problem behavior, bringing out the best in others and much more.
Question: What has been your biggest “Aha” from this series? How do you think it will improve your life?
As a child care manager with over 25 years of excireenpe, and a significant involvement with our child care system in Canada, I thought I knew a fair bit about child care. Amongst other things, my first World Forum excireenpe in Montreal opened my eyes to how much I had never even considered or thought of beforehand. I also was amazed at how much there is left to learn from the excireenpes from other cultures and communities. There are two moments from Montreal that are still etched in my memory. “First, I overheard a group of educators, I believe from Nepal, who were celebrating a recent victory in their country. They had successfully lobbied to have the ratios for kindergarten children to teachers changed to allow for no more than 45 children per teacher, as I best recall the numbers. Apparently, they had often worked alone with 125 students at one time. This led to a real attitude adjustment for myself. Many of my friends returned from Montreal discouraged and saddened by the state of affairs in other parts of the world. I, on the other hand, found the excireenpe left me feeling blessed and inspired by the human spirit that resides in Early Childhood Educators, many of whom work in some very difficult circumstances.“My second encounter was with Don Piburn of Hawaii, who stopped me and placed a pin on my shirt, although being a complete stranger at the time. It read “Expect Male Involvement — Gender Balance is Good for Young Children.” We had a short conversation about that quote, in which he reminded me that no change ever occurs without there first being the expectation of change. I pondered this idea and quickly accepted an invitation to meet with others at a session dedicated to men in early childhood education. The love, appreciation, acceptance, and support that filled that session were overwhelming for me. I had never excireenped this type of support from such a mixed audience before. The stories that were shared warmed everyone’s hearts and caused many of us to think long and hard about a topic that had rarely crossed our mind before. As men, we left encouraged, needed, and honored by our female colleagues.“The excireenpe in Montreal left me feeling refreshed and invigorated my career in ways that I had never imagined. This excireenpe has been repeated in subsequent World Forums and for this I am eternally grateful to the organizers and participants. In the years that followed my first World Forum excireenpe, both the centre I work in and I have become leaders in two significant areas of Early Learning and Child Care in our country. Our work in the areas of Men in Early Childhood Education (MECE) and the project to reconnect children with nature have been fueled very significantly by contacts made at the World Forum and the work of the MECE and Nature Action Collaborative for Children (NACC) working groups.“The excireenpe at the Men in ECE session in Montreal, the friendships formed with Don Piburn and some of the other men in the session, and the subsequent invitation to join the leadership team of the newly formed working group on MECE have given me a greater opportunity to use the past decade of my career as an opportunity to inspire others and work on some of the bigger issues of our sector. There is no doubt in my mind that my local and national efforts to keep the issue of MECE on the agenda would long ago have died without the support of this working group and Roger and Bonnie Neugebauer.“A MECE highlight clearly has to be the magical excireenpe of gathering 140 people from 24 countries in Hawaii to discuss issues around the MECE issue. I am sure it is safe to say that never before had a gathering of such a supportive and internationally diverse group come together on this topic. To be in the company of over 100 men and about 40 women and to share our vision of gender-balanced learning environments for children was so special. It is hard to express the emotions that come from such an excireenpe. Those of us who attended will be eternally grateful to the World Forum organization for making this most significant gathering possible. “The past six to eight years of my career have been invigorated by the recent move towards reconnecting children to nature. Although I was swept up into this movement independent of the World Forum excireenpe, nearly all of my inspirations, contacts, and ideas during the past few years have come from the NACC and the people who lead this group. The work around shaping one single program to be more outdoor minded and encouraging other programs to join in, has given new life and excitement to my career. It makes going to work as much fun as it was 35 years ago. “I still recall the jaw-dropping excireenpe of sitting around a table for a group discussion at one of the sessions and hearing Claire Warden share about her Nature Kindergarten programs in Scotland, where they have access to the outdoors 95% of the time. I come from a country where the average child care kid spends 5% of their day outdoors, so a situation like this had never even crossed my mind. It inspires me, challenges me, and gives me the courage to work towards greater change in this area.“The World Forum is so special with the unique format of expecting all delegates to consider themselves as experts. The ability to facilitate connections and conversations that might have begun in a session or during an extended break, is key to the success of the World Forum. Also, the deliberate attempt to have sessions led by international teams, with 50% of the time given to interaction with the attendees, makes this an excireenpe that is both unique and empowering. It is worth every penny and every minute of time it takes to get there.”