We’re all different aren’t we – different strengths and different weaknesses.  And sometimes, it’s those weaknesses that cause us a lot of pain – it’s kind of self-inflicted.  But is there a way of overcoming those weaknesses and getting rid of a lot of the pain?

There are some people who are just achievers.  They seem to get things done – so we all look at them and think – wow, I wish I was like that.  But even achievers have weaknesses – areas of immaturity that sometimes cause them pain. So – the question is – what are they and how can they overcome them?

This week on the program we’re looking at how to eliminate the largely self-inflicted pain that comes from our own immaturity. Some pain in life is inevitable, but much of the pain we experience comes from our own immaturity in certain areas of our lives. But because we’re each different, we’re going to look at the immaturity and how to overcome it through each of the different personality types that God talks about in Romans Chapter 12.

And today we’re kicking off with the Achiever. And to help us with that, my good friend and co-author, Keith Henry, is going to join me on the program.

Berni: Keith, welcome to the program today.

Keith: Hello Bern.

Berni:Now let’s recap Romans chapter 12 and the different personality types. Beginning at verse 4 of Romans chapter 12:

Just like one body and we have many members and all the members have the same function, so we who are many are one in the body of Christ. And individually we’re members of one another. We have gifts according to the grace God has given to us. Prophecy in proportion to faith. Ministry in ministry, the Teacher in teaching, the Exhorter in exhortation, the Giver in generosity, the Leader in diligence, the Compassionate in cheerfulness.

Now, those seven gifts are generally referred to as motivational gifts. Who we are. Or perhaps we’d say it today, personality types. Keith, now tell me, I don’t see an achiever in that list. Where do we get the achiever from.

Keith: We split the encourager into two areas. One is to the Achiever and two to the Social Encourager. So they both come from encouraging.

Berni: OK. So an Achiever is someone who encourages as well.

Keith: Yes, that’s right.

Berni: How do I know if I’m an Achiever? What are the hallmarks of an Achiever?

Keith: Generally you can recognise yourself because you are competitive, very competitive and very passionate. You get very passionate about what you’re doing. Quite often you become a workaholic because you want to achieve. And you also like to be recognised and you like to network. Usually a good diplomat. You enjoy the status and the prestige that comes from being a person up front.

Berni: Ok. That sounds good. We need Achievers around. What do they bring to the table the rest of us really need?

Keith: They bring goal-setting and actually doing things so that they set goals. They always have a list of things to do. And they get things done. So as a team leader, if you’ve got someone in the organisation leading a group of people they make the best team leaders.

Berni: I guess they have a natural downside too, in their make up. Tell us about those.

Keith: They can become totally focussed on what they’re doing on their task or their project and don’t consider anybody else. And they get very frustrated so if somebody tries to stop them from achieving something or steps in the way, they get very angry and frustrated. They can tend to burn out. These are the people that just work and work and work and eventually hit a brick wall and just collapse.

Berni: Ok. I guess being an encourager as well, the Achiever’s role is to bring other people along with them. Isn’t it?

Keith: That’s right. As I said, they make the best team leaders of people and so that’s where the encouragement comes in, they are actually motivating, they are real motivators. You might have been to functions or churches and they’re standing up front and they’re really motivating you and inspiring you. That’s their way of encouraging, through motivation, inspiration.

Berni: So this down side of becoming angry and frustrated is a real down side, isn’t it?

Keith: It’s crippling to them and crippling to others around them, because they can cut people off. They don’t want to bump into other people. They just want to do what they are doing and achieve what they are doing.

Berni: I guess that’s where their pain comes from.

Keith: Very much. And they produce a lot of pain in others because they cut off people.

Berni: Isn’t that interesting. Very specific to the Achiever. Tell me Keith, how do they overcome that? What does the Achiever need to do to flip the coin, to go from living in the downside of their particular character trait to living in the upside? What’s their upside?

Keith: This is a habit that they have to recognize. Basically push the button, you know, because you can change your habits of living. And what they have to do is to realise that they are there for people. So they’re achieving for people, not just for themselves. And if they take a team around and get the confidence of the team, motivate them, inspire them, those people will do anything for them. And so they can achieve ten times or a hundred times mores than they can by themselves.

Berni: I guess that will be incredibly satisfying for the Achiever.

Keith: Yes, it is.

Berni: So give me a tangible example. Let’s say I’m an Achiever and I’m frustrated and I can’t get over the fact that all these other people around me are so slow and they’re not coming with me and whatever. What specifically do I need to do to reach up into the high side of my personality type. To start living in that upside of who I am.

Keith: Really, learn to take in to account where the other people are. Get them on-side. To take time to talk to them, to understand them, to be loyal to them. Right? Not be loyal to yourself, be loyal and faithful to them. Then the people will realize that you are for them. Then they will pull all they can to help you.

Berni: Is the Achiever a natural team player or is that a maturity thing.

Keith: No, they’re not naturally that way because they want to just do a task and get it done. But once they release themselves they get so much pleasure and fulfilment out of it. See these people in this area that we’re talking about now, want fulfilment. They don’t get fulfilled doing it on their own because they have to keep achieving something next, all the time.

Berni: So when they’re living in the immature state, this selfish state, this state where they’ve closed everyone off, what happens for them?

Keith: That’s where they become detached from everybody.

Berni: And how does that feel?

Keith: Lonely. And also it binds them up. You know, they hit a brick wall, because when they do that, they work twice as hard.

Berni: So if I’m an Achiever, the thing for me is to recognize that this is how I fall down in life. This is how I get into that dark place in my life. And the way to unravel that is to go out and start to become a team player. To deliberately become a team player. Is that what you are saying?

Keith: That’s right. Start networking with people, or with your wife or husband. Go and have a talk to them. Take them out. Get out of your own self and start being with people.

Berni: And being in relationship – that helps drag you out. And I guess for an achiever, someone who wants to keep things happening and they’re surrounded by people who sometimes don’t follow them and don’t become part of that, I guess forgiveness would be a big thing.

Keith: Yes, their frustration brings about anger and they start yelling and becoming very angry. So actually just have to have compassion for others.

Berni: Okay, so there’s one thing we could say to the Achiever is just go and be part of the team, forgive them and go and be part of the team. And that’s where you start living out maturity.

And how can the rest of us help the Achiever to reach his or her full potential. What can you or I do to help an Achiever.

Keith: To actually help them to see that as a couple or as a group we can do these things together and to want to be part of the team and want to get beside them and encourage them that way.

Berni: Ok. Well, that’s the Achiever. I mean, it’s fascinating stuff. The Achiever who wants to achieve so much all of sudden becomes immobilised when they are immature and they achieve so much more as part of a team in their maturity.

Keith: Yes.

Berni: Thanks for that Keith.

Keith: It’s a pleasure, Berni.

There are some people who are incredible encouragers.  We love being around them – they make us feel good about ourselves. But even encouragers have weaknesses – areas of immaturity that sometimes cause them pain. So – the question is – what are they and how can they overcome them?

There is nothing more wonderful than to be around encouragers is there? Encouragers are fantastic people because, well, they encourage us. They build us up. And when the rest of the world sometimes is screaming at us that we’re no good or that we don’t measure up or whatever it is, the Encourager pulls along side over a cup of coffee or whatever, and they just quietly tell us we’re okay. Man, I just couldn’t get by without the encouragers in my life.

But here’s the thing, no matter what particular personality type we have, whether an Encourager or any of the others for that matter, whilst there’s an upside to who we are, we also have some natural down sides. Some areas in our lives where we’re more prone than in other areas, to live out of our immaturities. And immaturity, behaving more like a child than an adult, is the source of a huge percentage of the pain we experience in life.

Immaturity is the cause of self inflicted pain. Not all pain is like that. Some of it is unavoidable like the death of a loved one for instance. But a lot of the pain we experience is through our own immaturity. And the way to get over that is to grow up.

So, I’m joined again today by my good friend and co-author Keith Henry. And Keith, today we’re going to be talking today about the Encourager personality type aren’t we.

Keith: We are Berni.

Berni: Welcome to the program

Keith: It’s a pleasure, Berni.

Berni: Okay Keith, how do I know if I’m an encourager, I’m not, but how does the encourager know they are an Encourager.

Keith: Well, the Encouragers are the fun people. They just love to get out in life and experience everything that life has. They look for all the pleasures, they look for the adventures. They like to take people on and people have such good times with them.

Berni: The Peter Pans of this world.

Keith: The Peter Pans – that’s one of the unfortunate things, they have to grow up and they don’t want to grow up because life’s too much fun.

Berni: I guess when you’re having fun like that and everyone likes you, you’ve got a lot of options in life.

Keith: Yes, we call the optionisers because right throughout life they’re always looking at what they should be doing. So though they want to be fulfilled, it’s not like the achiever to achieve something, they are trying to make a difference in the world. How can they make a difference.

Berni: So we need encouragers around don’t we? What is the encourager bringing to the table for the rest of us?

Keith: They’re great visionaries. They can see things that we can’t see. They’re dreamers, they can see potential and they can bring life to the party. They help to get people going, get them off their bed and out living life.

b I remember when you and I had a workshop one evening for people to look at their personality types and we had all the Encouragers on one table. Man, those people were having fun, the Encouragers table.

Keith: And everybody wants to be on their table.

Berni: They weren’t getting much done by the way but they were having a lot of fun. So I guess these fun Encouragers, these Peter Pans have a natural down side or two in their make up, don’t they? Tell us about those.

Keith: Yes, what happens is, they can’t focus, as you said, they have lots of options in their life and so they tend to get very lost very quickly. They don’t know what they should be doing. They have to have a plan, but usually it’s a plan for enjoyment. But you really do have to work in this world. You have to grow up. You have to be committed and that’s where they find difficulty.

One thing that they do which is really bazaar, they can be very critical of people which you wouldn’t think an Encourager would be.

Berni: So how does that manifest itself. What does an Encourager’s life look like if they haven’t sorted this issue out?

Keith: They will have started a lot of different things. So they will be doing something and half way through they will stop it and say ‘That’s not going to work out, I’ll do something else now’ and they never get deeper into something. They actually have to, like if it’s a career, they have to actually commit to something and use their vision and their ideas, creative ideas. You use that in one direction, not scatter it.

They’re scatterbrains, right. They scatter their brain, their thoughts, so they’ve got to stop scattering their brains, use their ideas and their sense of enjoyment and fun and vision all in one direction to gain greater knowledge.

Berni: I remember the young man that you and I interviewed as a part of our book ‘Personality GPS’. He was an encourager. He had this problem, didn’t he?

Keith: Yes, he has done several things in his life, quite a lot. And he’s a photographer at the moment, and he said, ‘I will just do this for a little while, then try something else’.

Berni: It’s the classic isn’t it.

Keith: It is. And I told him … this is one of the great success stories, can I tell you now?

Berni: Go ahead.

Keith: He concentrated on what he is doing and he became better at it. He’s now the wedding photographer of the year in a country and he’s also just been invited to go onto the world’s best photographers web site. Only six people in Australia have ever been asked to go on that. He has become the best in his field now.

Berni: So I guess that’s the answer, isn’t it? In terms of ‘here’s my natural immaturities as an Encourager, my brain scatters to different things, that’s the natural thing’. And the answer to becoming more mature is focus and concentration.

They often say, the reason that Hitler lost WWII was he was fighting on too many fronts. Forget the rights and wrongs of it, in a military sense he was executing the war on too many fronts. And I guess that’s the risk of an encourager, they try and live life on too many fronts.

Keith: Yes, the optionisers.

Berni: So, this Tim guy, he focused and that had the impact for him.

Keith: Yes, he’s very successful and very well acclaimed worldwide now.

Berni: Fabulous. So if you could say one thing to the person who is an encourager, who’s having fun, who just can’t seem to get themselves focused, what would you say? How can they get focused?

Keith: low down, stop running from things. They are escape artists so stop escaping. Slow down, focus for a while. Choose something to do.

Berni: I guess, I don’t know, I haven’t spoken to this young man, when you do focus, you slow down and you focus on something and presumably start to succeed at that.

Keith: They have so much natural talent, encouragers, they just don’t use it in one area. As soon as they do, they’re world beaters. They’re the people because they have the social status and they have the networking because people want to be with them. Just apply themselves.

Berni: And I guess they’ve got the vision too. They’re the dreamers and the visionaries. It must be a very blessed life to be an encourager. People want to be around you because you’re a nice person to be with.

Keith: Yes

Berni: You’ve got the dreams and the vision so you’ve got two out of three. Add to that the focus and all of a sudden you move from immaturity and I guess never achieving much to maturity – and that must be incredibly satisfying to take all that blessed life you have and the relationships you have and achieve something with them.

Keith: And it can be done in such a short time. They are so good at what they do when they apply themselves. Tim, for instance, in three years he has become the best photographer in the world.

Berni: That’s amazing isn’t it? What can the rest of us do to help encouragers, these people who are drifting all over the place? How can we help them move from immaturity to maturity.

Keith: What we have to do is to show them that if they focus on something, commit to something, settle down, they can achieve something. So we have almost their hand and keep reminding them because they will try but they will still get off focus.

Berni: Keep them focused on the end game.

Keith: Yes, that’s right.

Berni: That’s something that achievers are good at, aren’t they. We were talking about them yesterday.

Keith: Yes, if you put them with people like achievers, the achiever can get a lot more done and also the encourager’s focused. So people have to work with people.

Berni: Thanks for that, Keith.

Keith: Bless you, Berni

There are some people – they’re great life coaches.  Teachers, we call them.  And they can add so much value to our lives. But even these teachers have weaknesses – areas of immaturity that sometimes cause them pain. So – the question is – what are they and how can they overcome them?

There are some people who have a real heart for others – they care for us.  Great people carers. But even carers have weaknesses – areas of immaturity that sometimes cause them pain. So – the question is – what are they and how can they overcome them?

Some of the most important people and yet least recognised people on the planet are people with the personality type of the carer. They’re the people who feel our pain more than others; they’re the people who seem to be there when we need them, who cry with us and laugh with us, who bind up our wounds and send us on our way, more whole and more healed than when we first encountered them.

Carers are just amazing people, special people but they’re often overlooked and undervalued because they’re not up front, they’re not flashy people in the limelight. They’re often quiet, they’re in the background.

Now a person with the personality type of the Carer, just like the rest of us, they have some up sides of their character, but they also have their natural weaknesses, their natural immaturities, some areas, if they don’t deal with these issues, they’re going to cause them pain time and time and time again.

As we’ve seen over the last two weeks, a lot of the pain we experience is in fact self-inflicted. It’s caused by immaturities or at least amplified by our immaturities. But the fantastic thing about immaturity is that it has a flip side of the coin called maturity. So today I’m joined again on the program by my good friend and co-author, Keith Henry. Welcome to the program.

Keith: Hello Berni.

Berni: How does a person know if they’re a Carer? Just help us quickly identify this personality type.

Keith: Well as you said, they come from the heart so they’re very deep in their feelings. They feel what they’re feeling and they can feel what you are feeling. And they know. These are people who are so …

Berni: … as opposed to other personality types who don’t care what you’re feeling.

Keith: Yes, some don’t, and that upsets them so much because. That’s their pain, when people don’t understand them. They want to understand themselves and they want to understand you.

Berni: So they’re real heart/emotional type people.

Keith: Very much. And it’s these emotions that they control their lives.

Berni: That’s really interesting. I never really appreciated that about the carer, because I’m someone who finds it very easy to detach myself from my emotions and get on with things. My answer to everything is ‘Just get over it’, which means I’m not such a good counsellor, right?

Keith: Well, they can’t get over it because of the feelings. So now they have to analyse the feelings, understand the feelings. They go deep into the feelings.

Berni: By the way, if you are struggling to identify your personality type, there is a website that Keith has put together. It’s called www.personalitygps.com You can actually go through on that website and work through the different personality types presented in Romans chapter 12 in the Bible, and it will help you to figure out your personality type, so I’ll point you to there.

Okay, so we need the Carers around. What do they bring to you and me, to the rest of us?

Keith: Well, they bring caring to us, because if you’re suffering they can sense your suffering, they can actually go and get beside you. They can help you through your suffering. They’re great listeners. They won’t interrupt you. And often people just want somebody to love them, to care for them and to listen to them.

Berni: And that’s too uncommon in this world. Isn’t it?

Keith: They’ll take the time and they’ll ring you up and they’ll be there. They’ll bring round some food. They’ll just spend time with you.

Berni: Your daughter Allie is a Carer, right?

Keith: That’s right.

Berni: And when we interviewed her for the book that we wrote on this personality type thing, I remember her saying to me that people who are in need, she seems to attract these people, they all seem to come to her.

Keith: Yes, because they can sense her and she can sense them. She’s welcoming to those sort of people.

Berni: But even Carers have a downside or two to their personality type makeup. What is their particular Achilles Heal, where do their suffer from their immaturities.

Keith: They’re trying to think all the time about their emotions. Right? What happened to them, what somebody said. And they analyse it, overanalyse, become just too deep in their emotions. Once they go down into their emotions, that gets depressing.

Berni: It can be a bottomless well. It gets dark in that place.

Keith: Very dark. And also they want to be different and so they start fantasizing about how it could be different and they’re living in a false world then.

Berni: Again, when we interviewed Ally, she said ‘The real thing I have to be careful of, is reading things into what other people have said and done. That in fact aren’t there. But because I’m so deep in my emotions, I can read something and say Oh that person doesn’t like me or that person doesn’t care about me, when that isn’t what they intended at all.’

Keith: Yes, they’re the misunderstandings that happen. But you have to understand that the word is ‘understand’. ‘Understand’ is a key word to them. The want to understand themselves and they want to understand you.

Berni: So that’s their down side. They can get so deep in their emotions I guess it can feel that there is no way out. It’s a dark place.

I wonder if there a few people listening today who are in that place at the moment. How do they grow out of that, because it’s a horrible place to spend the rest of your life. So how does a Carer live in the upside of who they are. For they have a natural strong side too.

Keith: Two things I will mention. The first one is, they have to stop enjoying going deep into their emotions, because some of them like the ups and downs of their emotions.

Berni: How can you like a ‘down’?

Keith: For most of us, we don’t like a ‘down’. I’m a teacher and I am even all the time. I don’t want a down, no way! But they enjoy the downs because then they can enjoy their ‘ups’ more. It’s a real high for them.

So what they have to do, the button they have to press is, let’s call it discipline. They need to put discipline into their lives. Stop thinking, stop regurgitating all those past hurts, stop living in the past. If you live in the past you’re going to get hurt; you’re hurting yourself continuously.

Berni: One of the things that strikes me about people who live in the past is that it ruins their present and robs them of their future.

Keith: Good way of putting it.

Berni: If you are continually living in the hurts of the past then you can’t have fun today, you can’t enjoy today and you can’t see tomorrow.

Keith: But they really do need somebody to get beside them who can help them to discipline their lives and that’s the secret for them.

Berni: Okay.

Keith: Now, they’ve got to change that and its very hard for them. Really, it’s for their personality very hard, so they really do need a friend who has discipline who will take the time to spend with them to show them how to reorganise, restructure their lives and also the other point they are called Carers and of course, you know as soon as you start caring for somebody else, you don’t have those problems any more.

Berni: So you take the focus off yourself and put your caring from ‘me’ to ‘someone else’ all of a sudden the focus is of ‘me’.

Keith: Yes, and they feel so fulfilled. That’s their fulfilment in life is caring for somebody else. And so they just feel wonderful.

Berni: That is awesome stuff. And for anyone who is struggling in that place at the moment, I really encourage you have a listen to what Keith said today. It must be difficult to implement that discipline and say I’m just not going to go to that place, I’m just not going to over-analyse, I’m just not going to be sensitive about what that person said or didn’t say, or did or didn’t do. Instead I’m going to take the caring heart that I have and bless other people with it.

Keith: That’s the freedom they can have.

Berni: Great stuff. Thank you so much for today, Keith

Keith: It’s a pleasure, Berni.