My Journey through the Colors

I've probably mentioned a few times that I learned about a really cool way to distinguish personalities and tailor my approach to the person based upon that information. I learned in my on-going training to be a Professional Network Marketer, but I'm finding my greatest practice and success with my own children. I am blessed to have the full spectrum of color in my home and it has become a new fascination of mine.

I guess I'll start with myself. I'm blue (which happens to also be my favorite color). Now, to most of you, that doesn't mean a thing. But when you think about the things on our planet that are blue, can get a few clues. The sky is everywhere and "sees" everything. A person with a Blue personality is usually into everything and wants to experience everything with a side order of everything else. LOL! We are, as a group, very quick learners and happy go lucky. We're like Tigger from Winnie-the-Pooh. We bounce around from place to place, usually with only a vague idea of where we're going or why. I mean, once we get there we'll be able to figure it out, so planning isn't our strong suit. The greatest punishment for us would be boredom.

A Blue's Kryptonite

I have many experiences with overcoming boredom. Unfortunately the teachers and other students probably didn't appreciate my solutions very much. Here's an example: I was working for a company called Marsh & McLennan back in the 1990s. Now, just for you youngsters out there, this was during the time of the Wild West of Word Processing systems. Lotus, Microsoft and WordPerfect were dueling for supremacy. They decided to do all of their work in Lotus Suite. So, of course, all of the administrative assistants and secretaries had to go to training classes to learn the four programs that encompassed the suite.

Now, I know myself very well, so I politely asked the teacher could I leave the class early if I completed the workbook to her satisfaction. "No," said Ms. Superior Knowledge Instructor. I meekly acquiesced and took my seat. For some reason, people were having problems with how to create a basic equation in Lotus 1-2-3 and it was driving me crazy. I tried, I really did try, not to disrupt the class so I continued on with the rest of the exercises to keep my mind off of the plodding pace of the class. Needless to say, I finished the workbook about 10:45ish and now had nothing to do. When the class was dismissed for the break, I asked Ms. Superior Knowledge once again if she could check my work so that I could leave after lunch. She once again said "No". Okay, she asked for it.

When the class returned, I decided to entertain myself. I went back to the presentation software, called Freelance, and started designing things and making slideshows. I was doing this (I thought) very unobtrusively. However, many of the students in the class started paying more attention to my slideshows than to the instructor. Well, once she realized this she was kind of, a little bit, perturbed by this. So I stopped. But I hate being bored. So then I started playing with Lotus 1-2-3. You know making bar graphs and things. Once again, my work was more interesting than her instruction. To make a long story short, she gave the class another break, looked through my workbook, handed me my certificate and asked me to leave. Now, if she'd only listened to me in the beginning I could have been on the train before lunchtime.

Blues are known for Fun!

That's what we blues do. We entertain ourselves and most folks don't understand that side of our nature. My daughter is blue and when I homeschool her we're all over the place. She's learning, but we're hopping around the room, drawing pictures, playing computer games and a whole host of (to the untrained non-blue eye) doing everything but learning. That's the main reason I'm withdrawing her from the cybercharter school. The repetition is killing us both. That doesn't mean that I don't make her sit down and do conventional work/study units. It just means that we need it spiced up a bit, just like Tigger.

People of the blue persuasion are very good talkers, so you'll meet us in all walks of life. Our special niches tend to be in sales or other places where the art of persuasion is valued. We're great public speakers (once we learn to slow down). If you're into Chinese astrology we're the monkeys of the group. If you like Charlie Brown, we'd be Snoopy. We're usually popular and very active. We're very creative with lots of ideas. Our biggest downfall (aside from having a hard time listening patiently to others) is that we have difficulty when it comes to follow-through.

My mentor always says that the Blue personality would come up with the idea of a suspension bridge, but you don't want a blue doing any work on it. Why? Because we aren't detail oriented, and if that steel girder doesn't fit in place right away, we might just leave it off. I mean, do we really need it? I guess it's a good thing that the Blue personality only comprises 15% of the population. Can you imagine the architectural nightmares we'd cause? LOL!

Challenges on Educating a Blue Child

One of the challenges that I'll have teaching my daughter is driving home the point that speed is not the same as quality. There's a time to get answers quickly and a time to sit still and think about why the answer is the answer. I was fortunate growing up because my father was of the detail-oriented personality color and taught me the value of being methodical. And I'm blessed that Jade's father is also of that same type. He'll keep both of us on an even keel.

Blue's need to be involved in something that requires quiet and patience in order to fully actualized our potential. I choose to crochet and knit. The constant hand motion satisfies the need to multitask. It makes me slow down and think about what I want to do later on, to plan instead of just jumping into things. I sometimes listen to audiobooks while I crochet – good literature and a cool blanket all in one sitting – blue nirvana. I have my daughter attending Tae Kwando and dance classes. These are physical activities, but they also require precision and focus. She's also involved in the church choir and will be taking piano lessons come September. This is just another way to slow down her brain and learn self discipline. Without self-discipline we'll end up drifting from one thing to another without a purpose beyond the next "fun job" to do.

Contrary to the belief of the "by the book" personality (think Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh), trying to contain a Blue (as the poor Lotus instructor learned) will only cause you an immense and profound amount of frustration. Save your energy. As they are doing schoolwork, if they like to sit on their heads while they learn, just let them. As long as they are getting the work done, nagging, cajoling or trying to get them to perform in the "correct" manner will only frustrate you both and the Blue child will tune you out and go play in their own fantasy filled mind. Blues do well with frequent breaks, especially if it is a tedious assignment, such as handwriting or math. We also grasp things quickly, so giving us repetitious worksheets will only ensure that the answers get more ludicrous at the end of the page. Once we've shown mastery over a subject, you really should just move on.

Teaching your Blue child to take dictation should be one of your goals. We do not have great auditory recall. Why? It's not for lack of trying, I can tell you. The problem is that our mind is always racing. So while you're talking about the weather, we're listening with one ear, planning dinner, thinking about what to wear tomorrow and what's the name of that great song we just heard on the radio? So when you give instructions, especially involved instructions, the Blue child really should write it down. You should also have them repeat the instruction to make sure that they got it down correctly. Jade can be in the middle of an explanation and suddenly start drawing a picture of her favorite cartoon character. And she' not doing it to make me crazy (well, it drives my husband crazier because I understand the symptoms), but sometimes you get these "inspirations" at the wrong time.

Also, deadlines need to be set for things to get done. It's not that the Blue child is necessarily procrastinating. Actually, they probably forgot about it as their mind whirls around at 750 mph. Please note the other color's minds whirl at about 300 mph. That's why in a game of Telephone or any other contest of verbal memorization, we usually score at the bottom of the bunch.

In Conclusion

One of the cool things about studying personality types is that it gives me more compassion and understanding when people approach the same problem from a different angle than I would. I also appreciate better their role in my life, how they give me balance and perspective on the things that I am trying to accomplish. Our basic personality type is hardwired within us, although we all display aspects of each color depending on what we are doing. But the colors balance out and I hope that as my family grows up we'll all be able to appreciate each other's natural gifts. Life is a melting pot and we need to appreciate all aspects in order to be successful in our homeschooling, family life and business.