I thought my eyes were deceiving me when this popped into my email. I figured I had been working too hard with the new product.

Carl Jung wine and alcohol free into the bargain. I upset my French visitor last year by ordering a crate of alcohol free wine. I felt very left out of things as he made wine all sound very interesting, so I ordered some wine for me so I could join in.

He wasn’t impressed but then again he had been supping the best that France could offer all his days.

I’m not sure if your drink of choice is a personality issue. If I was a drinker I would probably be a wine drinker more than a beer drinker. As it is, I am mostly a tea drinker; Earl Grey mind you.

They say that each wine has a personality of its own and I like to believe that. Despite not drinking it, I find everything about wine fascinating and like the idea of each one having a personality.

I liked the reds as long as they were chilled (sacrilege, I know). So if you’re not French and you are into psychological profiling then you may fancy a bottle of Carl Jung.

If you click on the thumbnail then it should expand to full size so as you can read it.

We have finally gone and done it. We have taken the wee guy out of school, and not just for summer but for good.

This upsets people. So strong is our belief in our education system that to remove a child from it, offends people and I find myself being dragged into arguments over it. We are asked “Did he have problems with school?”, the hidden questions being “what’s his label; Aspergers, ADHD, Bullying etc. .? or is he just plain stupid?”

With Ruaridh, who is ten, it’s none of these. He’s really bright and enjoys school. Teachers even like him. We just felt that it was interfering with his education and that he has the right personality to thrive in a home schooling environment.

I talk to so many parents who’s children are struggling with school and without exception, it is assumed that there is something wrong with the child. From my work with personality and career coaching I understand how important it is to put yourself in the right work environment. I start with the premise that you are absolutely fine the way you are. If you are not enjoying or excelling in your work then it is not you that needs to change but the work environment. I urge people to accept themselves the way they are and to look for a work environment that is compatible to their core personality.

Why then should it be different for children? If we accept the notion that different people need different work environments, then why is it so difficult for us to accept that children need different environments too? I used to work in a factory, which was very similar to a school environment and I hated it. Would you all tell me that there must be something wrong with me because I don’t like working in a factory?

Perhaps for “ADHD or ADD” we should read “I hate factories and I’m bored out of my tiny mind”.

Perhaps for “Can’t sit still and pay attention” we should read “I’m a kinetic, creative individual that works best in teams on a collaborative basis”.

Perhaps for “Doesn’t get on well with other children” we should read “Introverted problem solver who thinks deeply about situations and preferrs to gather all the facts before presenting a solution”.

Perhaps for “disruptive in class” we should read “Strong leader, determined to do things his way. Will encourage others to support his initiatives but will not let anyone stand in his way.”

If the politicians proposed tomorrow that every single adult should work in an identical building, sit in rows of identical desks, with people the same age as themselves, put their hand up to go to the toilet, speak only when spoken to or when they put their hands up, then there would be an outcry. Every single last one of you would say “don’t be so daft. Some people can work that way but most of us can’t.”

So why then does the common sense and understanding of personality and individuality abandon us, when we refer to our children and school.

I believe that everyone deserves to work in an environment that is in line with their core personality. That success and happiness depend on it. It is not possible to thrive if your work environment is out of kilter with your core personality. Could this be the reason that our schools are failing so many of our children? And as a child, once you start falling out of favour with the school, you start to fall into trouble with everything else. Could the fact that we force children to work in environments that are incompatible with who they are, be contributing to the crime and violence we see among so many of our youth?

Our objective should surely be to educate our children, not force them to go to school. If school is an incompatible environment for some children then let’s offer them an alternative. An alternative to school is not an alternative to education. We are removing Ruaridh from school to enhance his education. Is there an alternative? Is there a single idea or option offered to any child that is struggling with a difficult environment. Let’s not forget that teachers, who share this work environment, are amongst the most stressed and depressed workers in our society today. Perhaps it’s not just the kids that are working in incompatible work environment. But unlike the kids the teachers have an option to change it.

From a personality perspective there are about 25% of children that will thrive in our school environment as it’s perfect for them. There will be another 50% that can cope with it, although it’s far from ideal. There will be about 25% that will find school extremely incompatible with their core personality. As parents and teachers and society we should recognise this and take it into account. I am fortunate enough to be able to adopt the home schooling option but I realise that this is rare. Let’s see if we can come up with some alternatives that any child can employ and perhaps we will all benefit from it as society.

Don’t we all love compliments? Sure, sometimes it can be embarrassing - “Beautiful dress? What, this old thing. Got it in the sales…”

Whatever, it mostly makes your day and you want to share the news with someone. My friend called me from her mobile this week, to tell me she’d just received a call from a head-hunter. She was thrilled and embarrassed and immediately skeptical all at the same time. Fact is, I know she’s fabulous at her job (we’re ex-colleagues) and am just surprised she doesn’t receive more of the same. Perhaps we all need to hear more compliments than we currently get!

Today it happened to me. I’ve got my head down writing content for PeopleMaps, and over Skype IM I was alerted to a testimonial from a happy customer. We have lots of testimonials, but the thrill doesn’t ever go away, and so I wanted to indulge a little and share it with you;

I’ve just received and read your full report and I have to say it is extraordinary. Over the years I have completed many personality profiling exercises including Myers-Briggs and Archetypes, however none of them provided the insights and clarity of your report. Finally, after years of soul searching and unhappiness, I understand not only why I hate my job, but what to look for in a new one.
Many many thanks
Paul C, London
ps pls feel free to quote me on the above!

Thanks to Paul C. It’s always great to hear something so positive - and genuine. Who can you compliment today? You’re sure to give them a thrill and make a positive impact in the world.

Over 1 million people have taken the PeopleMaps personality test and I was wondering why. I thought I would summarise some of the reasons here and explain what a personality test is in the process.

1. People do personality tests when they are thinking about their careers as often they will have to complete one as part of the recruitment process.
2. People take personality tests to help them verbalise who they are and obtain a deeper understanding of “self”. Understanding what makes us tick makes life a whole lot easier. For some it is a bit like getting the manual for that new surround sound system that you knew was great but never quite figured out how to work.
3. Personality tests are often used by people who are making big decisions in their life as it helps them think things through.
4. People take personality tests for fun. Although PeopleMaps is a professional system we believe in making it easy to digest and fun to do.
5. People do personality tests when thinking about their relationships. Going into our coming out from a relationship is often when we are most introspective.

Here are the common questions I get about personality tests.

Q : What’s the difference between a personality test and a psychometric test?

A: Psychometric testing cover the wider spectrum of numeracy and literacy. People often say “psychometric” when they mean “personality”

Q: What happens if you fail the personality test?

A: It is not a test. It has become known as a “personality test” over the years but it is not a test. There are no right or wrong answers. You are who you are and that’s fine.

Q: Is the PeopleMaps personality test like Myers Briggs?

A: Both PeopleMaps and Myers Briggs are Jungian systems. Myers Briggs requires training to properly interpret what it says. PeopleMaps writes in plain English so that everyone can immediately understand what it says and apply it to their lives.

Q: How accurate is the PeopleMaps personality test?

A: Have a read at our testimonials as this is the real measure of accuracy. Typically you should agree with between 80 and 100% of the statements made. It is always worth sharing your report with someone that knows you as you may have blind spots in your personality, where you do not recognise a behaviour but others do.

Q: More questions means more accurate results right?

A: No. Actually the opposite is true. After 5 minutes or so candidate fatigue starts setting in and accuracy drops. it took PeopleMaps over a year to develop a 7 minute questionnaire; the shortest and most accurate questionnaire online today.

The report is in, and thanks to our super team, the PeopleMaps site was only down for 30 mins last week, and only a few emails went awry (go MJS and team!)

The special limited edition FREE personality report proved so popular that the huge demand caused our systems to hiccup.

One of our busiest days ever - and this series of free limited personality reports has only just begun - just wait ’til you see what’s coming next!

Anne revealed some secrets you won’t hear outside the consulting room last week - and we’ve captured it all on film! Topped off with some personality specific video especially for you - you really can’t find personality info this good on the internet…

Of course, this series of reports is ONLY for pre-registered PeopleMaps members. Outside of membership, you can only view these reports if you’ve been recommended by a friend.

Enjoy!

Well, it seems that the server crash also resulted in some PeopleMaps customers receiving duplicates of a message from Martin. Please be assured we are trying to resolve the problem and wouldn’t wish anyone to receive messages they shouldn’t. We’re working on it and will update soon.

If you have received multiple emails - please accept our utmost apologies.

The Limited Edition Report has attracted way more visitors in one day than we were ever expecting, and as a result the server was down for about an hour or so yesterday evening.

We’re so sorry about that - we really do want you to be able to access your report straight away and without fuss.

We’re doing our best to make sure the server doesn’t get too hot ever again.

If you did have trouble yesterday, click on the link on your email and enter your login details (as provided in the email) - and you should be taken straight into your members area where you can access your free reports.

Here we are down at Stoneleigh Abbey for a filming session with Anne, Director of Psychology and co-founder of PeopleMaps.

The grounds are really quite stunning and we had hoped to carry out some of the filming outside, but the weather has been truly been awful. So here we are inside after quite an intense session:

Being a family business we did have to bring the most important member along for the experience, and here he is doing what he does best - keeping himself busy online whilst we’re playing at film studios (after being removed from the ’studio’ for a very bad Hitchcock impersonation and continual corpsing!).

The weather was so bad that the river flooded - thankfully there’s a flood plain on the opposite side. I did run out between the torrential outbursts to try and capture the swollen river on film, and wanted to upload it to Flickr but haven’t managed to do that successfully yet.

Meantime, please do look out for the special limited edition report content coming at you — we’ve captured some really great content this week and have a few surprises in store.

We’re creating lots of PeopleMaps audio and video content just now and I just upgraded my Flickr account to the Pro level this weekend. I’m quite excited about the extras, such as Flickr video (it’s like the Twitter equivalent of YouTube, with a 90 second limit) and sent off for my bonus 10 free mini cards from Moo.com.

I’ll try and upload some videos this week, but in the meantime, I’ll leave you with the PeopleMaps Flickr html badge (and we’ll get round to uploading more photos of the team over the coming weeks) …