Valentine’s day is almost upon us once again. Why is it that some people really look forward to this event and others couldn’t care less?

Individual circumstances play a part in this – however the most important factor is personality. Each one of us responds to events according to our personality. For most things in life this is fine, however for an event such as Valentine’s day there tend to be two personalities involved and this is where it becomes complicated. People are often attracted to their opposite and when this means opposite personality there can be a huge gulf in expectations about how Valentine’s day should, or indeed, whether it should be celebrated.

Most of us would be ready to accept that there could be mega challenges between people with different or opposite personalities, yet many people with an attitude in common can still experience difficulties.

Introverted Personalities

Is there such a thing as a romantic personality?  Perhaps some people seem more romantic than others. Those with introverted intuition are often described as romantic, mainly because they can be seen as dreamy, otherworldly, and with a mind on more noble things. Is this romance? The dictionary states that romance can be characterised by an idealised, sentimental or fantastic view of reality, remote from experience.

Some people who share an Introverted attitude, may have a Feeling preference that may add to the view that they have a romantic nature, yet the Feeling preference could be more to do with their own and less to do with other’s feelings -which means that it is not very romantic at all!. Introverted Feeling people tend to prefer their own company and thoughts and are not really keen on sharing these with others.

Other people may have an Introverted Sensing preference and because they are quieter, more reflective and seem sincere, this can be used to support the idea of them being more romantic types. Those with an Introverted Thinking preference can also be seen as more romantic to others because they may  have taken great care to identify a suitable romantic break, that they are going to treat their partner to. They will  fastidiously gather and analysing all sorts of information to find the ultimate romantic outing. After organising all the booking of arrangements, they may surprise their partner by springing this treat on them as a fait accompli.

Shared attitude

All these types share the attitude of Introversion which, even when not the reality, makes them seem more thoughtful and caring.  There’s an air of soulfulness that goes with romance and it is enhanced when a bit of mystery is created by not fully knowing what in introverted person is thinking. There’s also danger lurking here! What if two people share the same attitude of introversion yet their preferences are very different? Say for example an Introverted Sensing person had as a partner an Introverted Intuitive person. They would get along to an extent through their shared introversion, however these very different preferences could cause a fair bit of discord.

The Introverted Intuitive partner wants to arrange a romantic getaway and arranges to take their partner on a surprise weekend spending it at a first class hotel where there will be a luxury bedroom with dinner, wine and dancing to be enjoyed. This person is keen to delight their partner with the surprise created. The surprise is sprung on the Introverted Sensing partner the evening before they depart for the great adventure; is the partner pleased? Not a bit of it. Firstly, Introverted Sensors hate surprises. They want to be fully prepared for any eventuality. Secondly, spending time at a dance with strangers is never going to be their idea of fun, and when they compare what will be spent on this outing compared to other more sensible things that they would like or perhaps need, they become totally outraged.

Shared attitude / Different preferences

It’s easy to see that something arranged from one person’s perspective, using their preferences may be done with the best of intentions, yet can go very badly wrong. If the shoe had been on the other foot it could just as easily have ended in disaster as the Introverted Sensing partner would in all probability not arrange the sort of treat that would appeal to their Introverted Intuitive partner. Similar situations arise with the other variations of preferences. Yes these people all share Introversion however they deal with their world in very different ways.

When this amount of discord can come about with people who at least share the same attitude, think how much worse the situation could be between people with an introverted attitude who have a partner with an extraverted attitude, the complexities only increase.

How on earth do relationships survive could be the question this expose of the different preferences might raise. We all know that some do and some don’t, so there must be more than just personality at stake – and yes there’s a great deal more. People are complex and it is never easy to pigeon-hole them. They may share much in common in terms of attitude or they could have different attitudes and share preferences. Whatever the mix the result will be the same – relationships have to be worked at.

Understanding a partner’s attitude and preferences is a start and even armed with all this information it would still be difficult to say with any certainty that one person’s idea of being romantic will be the same as another’s. The advantage this understanding brings about is at least an awareness that we should each be looking at what it is that makes our partner tick and not assume that just because we like something done in a certain way this will be suitable for them. This may not sound too romantic, yet it could save many a vulnerable relationship!

It’s late, but if you hurry, you might just make the cut…

Teleseminars are so popular because the allow the likes of you and me to benefit from expert knowledge and advice, from the comfort of our own home (or anywhere you have access to the internet and a set of headphones).

Here’s just two we’ve been involved with this month. They’re time-limited, and even though they’ve both started, you will be able to sign up for full replays and discounted offers – but get your skates on, because they won’t last!

First up, there’s coach extraordinaire Hannah McNamara’s event – Get More Clients, Make More Money! Alongside top tips and advice from Hannah, you’ll hear from leaders in their field including our very own CEO Martin Gibbons, our celeb life coach friend Ali Campbell, serial entrepreneur Patrick White and high-achieving Bernadette Doyle.

This event is aimed at entrepreneurial coaches and consultants, and if you sign up now, you’ll get access to the replays, where you’ll hear those business leaders talk about transforming their own businesses, and get Hannah’s help to allow you to take the steps to do it yourself.

A change of pace, and we’re going to talk about luuuurrrrvvv….  Yvonne Rice is an online dating expert who specialises in protecting internet users from love scams. Passionate about helping individuals find Extraordinary Love, Yvonne has pulled together an amazing group of Love Mentors, for this global teleseminar.

We were delighted to help the Love Mentor team put together a special Love Personality report for the event. As usual, you can take the test and get an extract from your Love Personality report for FREE. There’s only 5 questions, and if you’ve already taken the test on one of our widgets, you can simply login as an ‘Existing User’:

Don’t forget to sign up for the telesminar – the link is in the free report!

Travel writer Vicky Baker has put together this great article in the Guardian newspaper about so-called “modern day nomads”, and we were particularly eager to participate!

It’s always been part of the PeopleMaps’ Philosophy to see people living a life that suits them. We call it “personality-centric living”, and it isn’t just about convenience – it’s also about dreams.

Dream travel doesn’t have to exist only in the realms of gap years, sabatticals and retirement villages: each of the “nomads” featured in Vicky’s article run successful businesses whilst on the road. And you can too – if that’s your dream… after all, we’re living proof. (Read more about how we do it in this interview on Location Independent Parents website).

Who would have believed it? All the hullabaloo about the BNP being allowed on BBC’s Question Time – the villain of the piece vilified by everyone, escorted to the venue by minders – and we all waited with baited breath!

Nick Griffin had a ball. A pleasant smiley amiable character if ever there was one. He laughed, took no offence, indeed everything was just ‘tickety boo’, chortling was what he did best, it seemed. Even the question master queried why he was laughing, when a serious subject such as the Holocaust was being discussed.

Sanity

“Is he all there?” would not have been an unusual question as his performance in the circumstances could make one suspect his sanity.

Personality

His personality enables him to straddle the divide between Thinking and Feeling in Jung’s bi-polar scale. In this situation Griffin craftily used his Feeling preference which produces his ‘Mr Reasonable Persona.’

In terms of his personality, what he was actually doing was working through others – which is what he does best. To do this well, he instinctively knows that he has to appear amiable and reasonable if he’s to have any chance of getting people behind him. This is the value that he personally brings to the BNP.

“How could anyone believe that I was the nasty person they talk about in the media?” It was believable, and those people who feel that he has some right on his side, even though they may not be racist, could be persuaded by his demeanour, and this is what he counts upon and why he is so dangerous!

This was also possibly correct in terms of his personality, because he doesn’t do nasty. His gift is to get results through others – he is a natural motivator. His style is to capitalise on being outgoing, cheery, everyone’s best friend and he has the ‘gift of the gab.’ His friendliness masks a real desire for results. Even when he disagrees his personality style enables him to still remain pleasant. There were a great many examples of this on the programme.

His winning ways often come about because he tells people what they want to hear and he has an unerring instinct of how to utilise this gift. He has caught onto the mood of the country due to the fear and insecurities that are rife in the current financial situation. He is manipulating them, but doing it in his usual pleasant way, “I’m only the messenger.”

He is certainly not the laid back patient person he tried to portray, as he is impatient, insecure and always seeking recognition as a worthwhile person. He needs his ego to be constantly stroked.

Conclusion

Griffin starts more things than he ever finishes – staying power is definitely not one of his gifts. When he believes something he depends on his charisma and personality generally to sell the idea and this is exactly what’s happening right now. People are buying the personality and why not, as it is a very pleasant amiable one!. He shares his charisma and transfers his enthusiasm, which is exactly what a good sales man does. Many leading figures, including statesmen, and more particularly con men, share his personality type.

Truth be told, there are more people in jail with this personality type than all the other personality types put together!

Rohit Bhargava’s Personality Project continues with the launch of this “compilation of 40 extraordinary women sharing their stories of success”.

The Personality Project: Women of Personality 2

We released a new widget onto our Playground a few weeks ago – a mini report about your Twitter personality.  I imagined it’d be a hit – and there would be much fanfare, or at least a few congratulatory words of the type we’re used to (“how do you do it?” “you’ve got me spot on” and such).

A few hundred people completed the questionnaire in a couple of weeks, which is a fair success. Not all of them published their results on Twitter. That’s okay – not everyone feels inclined to share personality results.

However, it was the next point that really stopped me in my tracks. A few of those hundred took the time to comment on the website with some grumbles. The main complaint it seemed, was around the use of the “Tweet This” feature : some of the folk actually accused us of trying to harvest their Twitter account login and password details!

I’ll admit to being a bit crestfallen. I guess that I thought my disclaimer comment at the bottom of the report was enough to reassure folks that we wouldn’t ever see their Twitter details, as we used the Twitter developer API to exchange details.

To be honest, I couldn’t even begin to understand why folk would think we would want to steal their Twitter passwords and such in the first place. How can that be beneficial to anyone?

Oh, boy – I was wrong! And there were a few other points being made.

I took the time to reply to each complaint personally by email (although not everyone gave a valid email address) and also posted my response in the comments section.

Was it good enough? Of course it wasn’t. It might only have been a handful of customers, but they were making a valid point in the context of their experience. How could we ignore it?

The upshot is we didn’t ignore it. We made some changes. I rearranged the output report, deleted some of the text and inserted some new.  More importantly, we installed OAuth for the “Tweet This” feature. That means that the user details are inserted onto a page on the Twitter site, before returning back to the PeopleMaps widget.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure that the less geeky amongst our customers might still not be nervous, and I know I can make even more improvements to the widget – perfection more often being a goal than a reality. But overall I’m happy with the way we’ve dealt with it. For one, we’re learning to listen to feedback more, and understanding that all feedback is relevant and worth listening to. It’s really changing my attitudes to showing off what we have before I think it’s ready, and not being personally offended if the feedback isn’t as positive as I’d have liked.

p.s. Want to give it a go and see what you think? I’m open to your feedback, of course And if you’ve already completed a PeopleMaps widget/questionnaire you don’t need to complete the questionnaire again: enter the login details you created on the front page as “Existing User” and you’ll be taken straight to your report…

You have a Twitter account? Good, then we can continue… Wait a minute, you don’t have a Twitter account? Don’t go away – this post is also about saving lives. Really. Truly. It’s also about making money. And personality. All of these things in one post – how so?

1. Twitter to start with – it’s quick and easy. We have a new personality widget. Complete the questionnaire, and it’ll tell you what kind of a Twitterer/Tweeter/Twit? you are. We’ve integrated it with Twitter, so you can easily share your results with your followers. Heartily encouraged – it’s all a bit of fun. So far, we’ve heard it’s very accurate too! And there’s a special link on there we want lots of people to see. That brings me to the next point;

2. Saving lives. Yes, it’s true. We’ve managed to link Twitter, personality and life saving together. But it isn’t some random association. It’s all to do with a special man we call Dr Mani. Dr Mani is a heart surgeon based in India. Well over a year ago Dr Mani suggested we produce a Twitter personality report. It took us ages, but we’ve eventually done it – and the timing is good, because Dr Mani is launching a new book. So, we’ve decided to use our Twitter personality report to send people to a page that tells them all about Dr Mani’s new book. It’s our way of saying thank you – and supporting Dr Mani’s cause. All profits from Dr Mani’s book go to sponsor vital heart surgery for children. The book? Well, it’s called Think, Write, Retire – and that brings me on nicely to the next point;

3. Making money. Dr Mani has been turning his knowledge into information products for years – and taking that profit and turning it into heart operations. He believes you can too! Here’s a short interview with the man himself to reveal more:

Can anyone use your book to create wealth on the internet without giving up the safety of their current job?

My book, “Think, Write & Retire”, shares the lessons I learned myself over the last 14 years, creating and selling information products on the Web.

I believe that it is possible for anyone to follow the same system and create wealth – though it is not instant, effortless or even ‘guaranteed’ always.

Information is what drives people to access the Internet.  And information products have always been (and will continue to be) in demand – as long as the information is valuable, useful and serves a need/want.

‘Think, Write & Retire’ takes a detailed look at each stage of the process -

* identifying one’s own areas of expertise or ‘above average’ knowledge,
* seeing how to package it into a product or resource others will value,
* researching what others are buying or seeking, and then
* matching the expertise to existing demand to achieve sales and profit.

It is written and designed in a way that anyone, even without any prior experience in information marketing, can learn how to create wealth from being an infopreneur.

Your profits sponsor children’s heart surgery – do you think there’s more chance of internet success if the cause is charitable?

A couple of years ago, I was interviewed for a short piece in FAST COMPANY magazine, and the reporter asked me the same question.  I replied that, on average, promotions where I donate all my profits to charity pulled a conversion rate that’s higher by 20% to 25%.

On a larger scale, I believe that any business (on the Internet or off it) has a higher chance of succeeding when it evolves around a worthy purpose.  There are many possible reasons for this, and to satisfy my curiosity, I polled my customer list once and asked WHY they purchased from me.

An overwhelming 85% replied (to my astonishment) that it was because they knew the profits were going to a worthy cause – and that made them happier to spend money with me than anywhere else!

Until then, I had not made the fact (that a part of my profits go to fund heart surgery for kids) an integral part of my
communication.

But after the people who matter most (my clients) said that’s what was important to them above all else, I made sure this information was conveyed to all prospects… just like I’m doing with this new book launch, where I mention upfront that 100% of book sales profits are going to charity.

From the outset, you have been a fan of PeopleMaps personality testing. Do you think that any personality type can successfully create wealth on the internet?

I simply LOVE the way you’ve turned personality testing into a fun and interesting process through your quiz and with widgets.  The test itself is engaging and interactive, the results uncannily correct and the lessons or advice you make us derive from them certainly helps in making anyone who takes the test a more effective person.

Yes, I do believe any personality type can create wealth on the Internet.  Though the ‘best’ approach for each type of personality will be different.

In “Think, Write & Retire”, I get into this in a section dealing with the four major ‘business models’ on the Internet.  When you see how they each differ, you’ll also notice that some will fit specific personality types better than the others.

For instance, a naturally confident, outgoing, friendly and chatty personality may find direct selling and aggressive marketing activities a more natural fit, while the diffident, quiet and shy type of person may prefer to rely on an ad-supported content publishing model more attractive for wealth building on the Internet.

The nice thing about the Web is that it is so vast, diverse, and has people interested in so many different areas and topics that there is room for just about any personality type to achieve massive success – as long as the core tenets of passion, purpose and persistence are there!

If you have those, and want to learn the “how to” of wealth building as an information marketer, my book will be of some help.

So, what can you do next?

1. Visit the widget, complete the test and share your Twitter personality with your Followers.
2. Take a look and see if you’re interested in Dr Mani’s new book and order a copy.
3. Don’t forget to rate the report, and leave us a comment to let us know what you think.
4. Share it with friends. The more people you share it with, the more people hear about Dr Mani’s book, and more buyers, means more heart surgery = more kid’s lives saved. FOR REAL.

It was the middle of the night here in Marseilles (3am to be exact) and our CEO, Martin was the guest on SoulMateMentors radio show. He was talking about how understanding your personality can help you with your romantic relationships!

The show was hosted by SoulMate Mentors founder Yvonne Rice, global expert in the singles market ( soon to appear at International Love & Money Summit ’09 in Georgia) and Dr Jake Caputo, metaphysicist and author of The New Science of Wealth).

Tune in to the show archive and discover that although any personality can have a successful relationship with any other personality, understanding your own preferred behaviour – and sharing that with potential partners – can help you closer to long-term relationship success…

SoulMate Mentors is one of the first companies to use the new PeopleMaps Personality Power Widget – we worked with Yvonne to create a personality report specifically for her audience. Try it out and find out more about you and your relationship personality – it’s fast and totally free!

It’s only a few weeks until we release the new PeopleMaps site and products – and we can’t wait to unveil the new look. The new site and products are radically different – and the change in our look and feel will hopefully represent that.

Checking out our new logos last week, I was prompted to think of how far we’ve come since the early days – (and not only in terms of  design) …

We hadn’t even gone dot com back in 2001!

Our old questionnaire used radio dials – no fancy Flash or Ajax for us back then …

How fond of purple were we? This was back when we still serviced only jobseekers…

But the best look of the day might have been our illustrious leader … nice tie, @peoplemapsmg!

And then we opened up to business accounts… and everything was starting to be more recognisable …

The next move we made was to hire our wonderfully talented designer Craig, and even our map started to take on a very identifiable look…

So what’s coming your way? Well, here’s a little taster …

A little different, huh? Hope you like it. We do …. very much

Just finished watching the new Star Trek movie. Ten out of Ten. Great film that exceeded my expectations. Now I am not a crazed Star Trek fan. I couldn’t tell you who Kirk met on the planet Fffarrr in episode 23 but I have been around since it started or thereabouts.

It’s a lesson in many things. It’s a study of personality, which I will be going into in more detail in future posts but it is also a lesson in management. I am fortunate to be working with a small but dedicated team at PeopleMaps and I have to say I am inspired. And the similarities between what goes on on the USS Enterprise and the USS PeopleMaps are there.

We are a small team, sometimes fighting impossible odds. We clash against each other on occasion. We overcome our pettiness to rise to the bigger challenge. There’s a lot of love, there’s a lot of pressure. There are very diverse personality types and yet somehow against all logic, we pull through and live to fight another day.

I obviously identify with Kirk, partly because we have the same job role and partly because like him, I am not a specialist and therefore depend entirely upon my friends and colleagues who are. I don’t have Kirk’s charm or zest for thrills but I am happy to let him inspire me.  I like that he didn’t believe in a “no-win” situation and that anything could be achieved, regardless of what the facts tell you; regardless of what’s logical.  I liked his healthy disregard for rules and authority too. Is this not something all young companies need.

So I urge you to go see Star Trek and be inspired. Regardless of who you are you will find a character to identify with. See if you can make your working life as exciting and fulfilling as that on board the USS Enterprise.