How a Call From O, The Oprah Magazine, Helped Bring Striving Styles Into the World
In 2009, I received a call from O, The Oprah Magazine. They wanted me to create a personality quiz around a question I had already spent years thinking about:
How can I help people discover and become who they are meant to be?
They wanted a Who Are You Meant to Be? Quiz.
And there was only one catch. They needed it in about ten days. Actually, there were two catches. I was working with eight Striving Styles, and the magazine had room for seven.
Nothing like a national magazine deadline to encourage creative problem-solving. So, naturally, I did what people do when Oprah calls. I figured it out.
What appeared in the magazine looked like a personality quiz. Behind it, however, was a much bigger body of thought about personality, emotional needs, self-protective behavior, and human development.
And the response confirmed something I had already suspected: people were hungry for more than another personality label. They wanted to understand themselves in a way that actually helped them live their lives authentically and on purpose.
The Question Became a Book
That question eventually became the foundation for the book I co-wrote with my daughter and business partner, Heather Dranitsaris-Hilliard, Who Are You Meant to Be? A Step-by-Step Guide to Discovering and Fulfilling Your True Potential.
The book was never intended to tell readers that there was one perfect version of themselves hiding somewhere, waiting to be uncovered.
It was about understanding the personality you were born with, the needs and patterns that shape your behavior, and the parts of yourself that still have the potential to develop.
Because one of the things I had seen repeatedly in my work was that people could be remarkably self-aware and still feel stuck.
They could know they took over too much, avoided conflict, overfunctioned in relationships, pushed themselves relentlessly, or needed other people’s approval. They could even understand where those patterns came from.
And still keep doing them.
That interested me far more than simply assigning someone a personality type.
Personality Was Only the Beginning
My background in Jungian psychological type and the MBTI had already shown me how powerful personality insight could be. It helped explain why people notice different things, make decisions differently, communicate differently, and approach life in ways that can feel completely natural to them and completely baffling to someone else.
But I wanted to know more.
What emotional need was driving the behavior? Why did certain strengths become so heavily relied upon? What happened when those needs were threatened? Why could a natural strength become rigid or self-protective?
And, most importantly, what needed to develop next?
Those questions became central to the Striving Styles Personality System.
From “Who Am I?” to “What Can I Develop?”
Striving Styles starts with the way your preferred psychological functions are wired into your brain, but it does not stop with describing them.
The Striving Styles Personality System helps you understand the emotional needs associated with those functions, the normal behaviors and strengths you have developed around them, how you behave when you become self-protective, and which capacities of your Authentic Self need further development.
That last part is what makes the work so important to me.
Development is not about getting rid of what you don’t like about your dominant Striving Style or becoming less of who you are. It is about developing more of the capacities available through the other psychological functions in your Striving Styles Squad.
The goal is not a “better personality.”
It is about achieving your potential through understanding how your brain is hard-wired to function, the needs you must satisfied to stay motivated and maintain emotional balance, and the capacities that need to develop on your path to becoming who you are meant to be.
I’m Still Asking the Same Question
More than fifteen years after that O Magazine article, I am still fascinated by the question Who are you meant to be?
It inspired me to write Become Who You Are Meant to Be in Your Personal Life and Become Who You Are Meant to Be in Your Relationships.
It shows up in my work with leaders who have reached the limits of the strengths that made them successful. It shows up with people who understand their relationship patterns but cannot seem to move beyond them. It shows up with individuals who know there is more potential in them but do not yet know what they need to develop to access it.
That is why Striving Styles has become the thread connecting so much of my work as a developmental therapist, leadership coach, author, and MBTI Certified Practitioner.
The question may have started as a magazine assignment. It turned into a book. And it continues to shape a system designed to help people understand not only who they are, but also who they are capable of becoming.
Curious About Who You Are Meant to Be?
The Striving Styles Personality Assessment is the place to begin. It can help you understand how you are wired, what drives your behavior, what you naturally rely on, and where your development needs to go next.
If you want to take that understanding further, I also use Striving Styles in my work with leadership, personal development, and relationships.
[Take the Striving Styles Personality Assessment]
[Discover the Striving Styles Personality System]
[Explore Who Are You Meant to Be?]
Become who you are meant to be.