Plan My Life with My Life Partner

Linda and Matt Use Their Personality Strengths to Help Each Other

Let’s see how Linda and Matt use their personality strengths to help each other.

When you look at 1.-3. you see right away that each one could own a business (Autonomy).  They keep working until they figure out how to reach their goals (Achievement).  And they will make money doing that (Economic Value).

Their high need for Achievement keeps them both working late each night.  That started “is your work more important than I am?” discussions. So they agreed not to work late on Wednesdays unless there was a business emergency and to play on the weekends.

Look at 4.-11.  What else do you see?  Take a look.  Decide what you think.  Then read what we found.  You may find ways that Linda and Matt can helped each other that we missed – Great!  Different people see different things given the same information.  That makes what we are doing here together fun.

Print the Test Results.  Put them next to your comuter.  Now you can look at the Test Results while you read about Linda and Matt on this website.

Open the Test Results for Linda & Matt.

Where are their rough spots?  Look at 4. and 5.  Look at Dominance (75% and 70%) and Aggression (75%).  What if each of them wants to run the same project?  The person who wants to do the project more gets to do it.  The other one does something else.  If neither one wants to do the project, they flip a coin to see who does it – and the other one does something else.  Or they can do Trade Out – we both want to run A. and B.  You got to choose first last time, so I get to choose first this time. If necessary, they take a seminar to learn more negotiation techniques.

Look at 6.  This reminds us that each of them considers the long range effect of choices on each option before they take the first step.

Look at 7. – 9.  Matt knows that he needs to consider feelings more and learn to play.  Linda is only too happy to help him here.  We humans learn behavior by experiencing it. Her family taught her, and when Linda pampers Matt he learns how to pamper others, too.

Look at 10. and 11.  She and Matt got a degree in three years by using Theoretical Value and Ability to Ask for Help in opposite ways.  He had funding, made a plan, got on auto pilot and worked the plan until he had the degree. He did not ask for help because he didn’t need any. Linda did not have much funding and needed lots of help.  She developed lots of options for finding – scholarships, loans, jobs.

Everyone wants to help Linda because she is such a scrapper.  People hire her before they would hire others.  They find money in neglected parts of budgets to give her work.  Give her the hours she needs to juggle work and class. You guessed it, she is taking 3 hours – a marketing course.

Here’s the green.*

Fast Forward.  Here are Linda and Matt One Year Later…

“Has a whole year already gone by?” Matt wonders.  “Well, yeah,” Linda recalls.  “A year ago today is when you stepped on my toes.  I have forgiven you, and I’ll let you take me out to dinner tonight.”

Matt’s business is doing well.  Linda’s hospital buys medical supplies and equipment from him now, too.

And Linda is doing well at work.  She got some really good information about how to market hospitals from her night course.  Wrote a proposal.  It is being considered now.  Helped her get a promotion.

Matt’s got some glitches, though.  He’s got 125K in his Accounts Receivable. And he caught his business manager Clarice embezzling, so she’s gone.  Linda’s sister Darla is filling in part time until he can get someone fulltime.  But he thought Clarice was ok – how can he know who to trust?  And he is winging it for health insurance, but he’s never sick.  Chooses employee who can get on their spouse’s insurance.

They are engaged and getting married in six months.  Should he just keep winging it for health insurance and keep hiring employees who can stay on their spouse’s insurance?  Even if he did that, how is he going to prevent embezzling?

Should Linda quit her job and help him with his business?  They both have some savings.   They have talked about the possibility of her staying home with their child when that time comes.  Either helping him with his business then and/or doing some kind of business or consulting out of their home.  If she doesn’t manage Accounts Receivable for him, how will he ever get the money collected?  And how will he prevent embezzling?  He just wants someone to solve this.  He just wants to get back to doing the work he does so well – and be done with it.

What does Linda think?

To ask that question looks to Linda like an example of Matt’s rank at 20% in Theoretical Value – not developing many options before asking for a plan.  She kicks in her 72% rank and suggests possibilities.

1.  Accounts Receivable.  Actually, Darla likes calling people to get AR money in.  In just a month she has brought in 50K.  She likes calling people to find out why they aren’t paying, listening to them, and sympathizing about what isn’t working for them.  They like her kindness and willingness to work with them.  She  asks what they can do.  So far all of the people that she has worked out a deal with have done exactly what they said they would do.

A.  He could give Darla a raise and ask her to stay fulltime.

B.  Do that and give her a percentage of what she brings in.

C.  Pay for her to take business management courses.  That way as the business grows and they hire even more people Darla could supervise and train them.

D. Who does Darla know and trust right now that might want to work for Matt?

E.  Who in their Sunday school class might want to work in Matt’s office with Darla?

2.  Embezzling.  With 1.A.-E. in place the possibility of embezzling drops significantly.

3.  It is not at all the right time for Linda to quit her job – her career is way too promising, and she loves her work.  With Darla doing such a good job bringing in all of this AR money Matt can use some of that to buy health insurance.

4.  Linda has made a promise to herself that she will never give up her ability to make a living on her own.

5.  As you look across her Personality Strengths Assessment (PSA)© and think about what she has done so far you will see all of the reasons why resigning from her position at this time will not work for her.

HOWEVER:  Also notice that Linda ranks at 20% of us in Objectivity (gives power to feelings more than facts).  If she had not had her (PSA©) to refer to, she might have gotten so thrilled about her new life with her new husband that she would quit and work in his company just to please him.  With their rankings in Dominance at 70% and 75% how could they affect her giving up her career and working for him?

They have a bright future.  Many options open to them.  Won’t they have fun planning the rest of it?

Can the two of you use your PSAs© to see ways in which you as a couple might help each other?

You betcha!

You already learned a lot about how a couple can use a PSA© by reading about Linda and Matt.   You know a lot about your current situation.

1.  If you haven’t already done so:  Print out Matt’s and Linda’s PSAs©.  You can print out this case study, too.  Scan them and save them as a document in a folder named “Our Personality Strengths Assessments (PSAs)©.”

2.  Go back to the Home Page and order your PSA©.  When you take your tests:  Think of yourself as you are when you are at your very best.

3.  After you get your PSAs©:  Use them to help you understand how to use your PSAs© to see how to use each person’s personality strengths to make your couple relationship to be all that it can be.

4.  The more you think together about your strengths the more you will see how to make them work together…and you get to see how they build together for all of your life.

You can do this!

Ready to purchase your PSAs?