Personality tests like Myers Briggs and Clifton Strengths are widely used by the corporate world to ascertain if a candidate is suitable for the role they have applied for, or if they will fit into an existing team. Other testing tools, such as the Enneagram and Four Tendencies, have become popular with entrepreneurs, and are used to determine if one’s character is suited to the demands of running a business.

Personality tests are fun, and sometimes revealing, but the problem with using a personality profiling tool to determine your suitability for entrepreneurship, is that it puts you into a box and limits your capacity to expand.

It also means that survival responses, nervous system habits, learned behaviours, and coping mechanisms are labelled as hard-wired personality traits.

Let’s take introvertism as an example…

Most people are surprised when I tell them that introverts and extroverts don’t really exist.

That’s because, even though introvertism and extrovertism are measurable behaviours on psychological tests, they are not personality traits.

They are learned behaviours and survival responses that have been conditioned by your environment!

Because “conditioning” means that you were rewarded or punished for your behaviour, how introverted or extroverted you are is determined by your nervous system – not by your personality.

Instead of labelling (and negatively judging) ourselves as flawed, what we really need to understand is that introverted or extroverted behaviour is based on how safe we feel.

And our capacity to feel safe is something we can’t consciously control.

Even though you ‘think’ it’s down to you to decide if you feel safe, it’s actually decided by your nervous system FIRST, way before your mind decides.

There are three conditions in your nervous system that must be in place for safe social engagement:

(1) the ventral vagus nerve must be turned on

(2) biological safety cues are recruited involuntarily by the autonomic nervous system

(3) fear response when around others of the same species is dampened

All three conditions are determined by involuntary physiological processes (not what we perceive as safe). Unbelievable as it may seem, we are wired to respond to other people with fear first, then the vagus nerve dampens/extinguishes that fear so we can move into connection.

What happens when you can’t feel safe, even when there’s nothing obvious to fear?

Your beautiful mind tells you all sorts of stories about your failings.

That everyone is judging how you look in your videos and Lives.
That you shouldn’t bother promoting your service because you don’t sound intelligent or articulate when you speak or write.
You’re just no good in social situations - you don’t have what it takes to be good at networking.
Collaborating with others is just a pipedream…
Having a biz bestie and receiving unconditional support from them is what other people get, not you…
Everyone does business better than you!

But the truth is, feeling like you can’t manage the demands of running a business has nothing to do with your perceived failures. Depending on the capacity of your nervous system, a lack of safety will create overwhelm and a feeling of being at your limit.

Most people are not consciously aware they are near to 'full', but this is only because their brains haven’t been trained to notice this.

Society trains us to use our minds to override inconvenient messages from our body.

But unconscious signals from your nervous system will prompt you to decide you don't want to go to a social event. You may even get an intuitive hit that it's a good idea to avoid others that day. That intuitive hit comes from your gut - your enteric nervous system - which lets you know it can't manage more stimuli without compensating to prevent overwhelm.

‘Introvertism’ and ‘Extrovertism’ can best be understood as strategies employed to return to a calm and regulated state after your threat response (amygdala) triggered an alarm in your nervous system.

What we are observing are not personality traits, but two different nervous system strategies to feel safe.

‘Introverts’ focus on avoiding others to feel safe, whereas ‘extroverts’ use strategies like ‘tend and befriend’ to feel safe around others. Both are survival strategies employed by your nervous system.

Sure, it can become a habit that feels like it’s ‘you’, but you are not your nervous system response.

You are far more complex and evolved than merely your nervous system.

If you feel excited and intrigued about using various tools - including personality tests - to understand your nervous system better, check out my 6-month nervous system expansion program, ‘Expansion Training for Entrepreneurs’. In my trauma-informed counselling group program for healers and neuro-sensitives, I teach methods to eliminate overwhelm and rewire patterns of protection, banish procrastination and self-sabotage and metabolize trauma that's holding back neurodivergent practitioners from thriving. All set within a safe container of shamanic wisdom practices.

Read more about the nervous system and the dysregulation of the nervous system here.

Expansion Training for Healers is a 10-week group program for just 12 healers and neuro-sensitives - with plenty of individual support.

Doors are now open for the next round of Expansion Training for Healers, starting Tuesday 9th May, 2023.

If you're curious how healing and expanding your nervous system can help you, book a co-regulation call to explore whether this trauma-informed training is for you.

Am I really an Introvert or is it my Nervous System?