Perhaps you took the Brain Type Assessment for a second time, or you took the Elements Assessment and got a different Brain Type result, or maybe you’re hung up on the layout of another style planner that doesn’t quite match your Brain Type… In any case, now you’re wondering… Should I only use the EVO Planner designed for my Brain Type? Is using a different style detrimental in any way?

The quick answer is—use whatever system works for you. Whether that’s a planner designed for a different Brain Type, or another system entirely… Use what works. That’s the most important thing, period.

We designed the EVO Planners to be most optimal for your specific Brain Type, because a lot of people out there struggle to find a planning system that actually works for them. If you’ve never found a planner that works for you, try the EVO Planner designed for your Brain Type. We believe that this style of planning system will be the most optimal because each planner is tailored to help you thrive, based on how your brain operates.

Here is a reminder of what we’ve determined each Brain Type needs to thrive:

• Explorers need Fun and Adventure
• Oracles need to Disconnect and Find Focus Time
• Alchemists need Variety and to Share Discoveries
• Architects need Order and Balance

We’ve also set up each layout to reflect the way each Brain Type generally likes to organize things, in order to help you plan your days in the way that makes the most sense to you. This combination, plus realistic, short-term goal setting is what really helps people get the best results from the EVO System.

However, if you do decide, for whatever reason, to use a different style EVO Planner other than the one designed specifically for your Brain Type that is also fine. Although the majority of people will relate to a primary Brain Type, every person is still individual and has specific needs, preferences, and circumstances. If you’re an Architect that really needs to work on finding focus time, maybe the Oracle style planner is just what you need. Or maybe you’re an Explorer who needs a planner layout with more structure and you love the Architect style planner. There is nothing wrong with that!

There is nothing in any of the EVO Planners that is going to be detrimental for you to use, regardless of your Brain Type. Each planner’s focus to help the user thrive is going to be good and helpful in general for any human. The EVO Planners are designed to help each Brain Type get the things that should be non-negotiable in their life, but ultimately, everyone needs a bit of fun, a bit of focus time, a bit of sharing their discoveries, and a bit of order in their life. 

So use what works. Use whatever style, whatever system that gives you the best results. Because at the end of the day, that’s what truly matters.

Personality assessments are becoming more popular than ever, as more and more people seek to understand themselves, and where they fit into the world on a deeper level. You’ve probably taken at least one, whether it was for a school or work exercise, a job application, because an obsessed friend sat you down and made you take it, or simply because it’s fascinating to learn more about yourself. 

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries (sometimes dubbed the “First Wave” of modern psychology), psychology’s primary concern was mental disorders—the primary question psychologists were seeking to answer was, ”What’s wrong with you?” 

However, post-World War II, people became more interested in understanding how the average human operated. Early mid-century collective social values—family, cultural identity, and proper social behavior—gave way to Behavioral Psychology. Since most western lives revolved around assimilating into groups, impacting an individual’s behavior was the most prominent and important job of psychologists—if they could change the patient’s behavior, they thought all the patient’s problems would be solved. 

But the individualism and soul-searching of the 1960’s and 70’s gave way to Humanistic Psychology, which emphasizes self-reflection and personal development. It was the culmination of these different waves of psychology that birthed the idea to assess average, healthy individuals to determine and categorize their unique strengths, weaknesses, fears, abilities, mental processes, and behavioral patterns. Hello, personality assessments!

Today there are hundreds of different personality assessments available—some are geared toward specific groups of people, professionals, students, teams, or leaders; others are unspecific about their ideal audience. Some assessments are based on complex psychological theories and hypotheses; others are based on simple concepts like an individual’s strengths, fears, or even their favorite color. The range of assessments, what they’re based on, and the kind of results they give you are nearly as wide and varied as the number of assessments themselves.

While it would be impossible to compare or rank every single assessment against each other, let’s compare the merits and drawbacks of some of the hottest and most popular personality assessments on the market today. You can decide for yourself which one might best help you on your own journey of self-discovery and personal evolution. We’ll explore:

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Enneagram

EVO Elements Assessment

Big Five Personality Test

Clifton Strengths (formerly known as StrengthsFinder)

1. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Premise

Myers-Briggs is probably the most ubiquitous and well-known personality system on the market, with it’s assessment—the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI for short) being used in different contexts, by different people and organizations all over the world. In addition to its legitimate iterations available to take both online and in-print, countless copy-cat assessments also abound online.

Myers-Briggs uses a forced-choice dichotomy system to categorize people into one of 16 different types. There are four categories which you are put into:

• Introversion or Extraversion—your “favorite world” where you derive energy, either internally or externally.
• Sensing or Intuition—whether you take information at face-value, or interpret and add meaning to it.
• Thinking or Feeling—focus on logic and consistency, or people and special circumstances.
• Perceiving or Judging—when it comes to the outside world, do you prefer structure and decisiveness, or would you rather keep your options open?

The idea is that everyone must fit into one of these categories over the other. Your result is then codified into a four-letter acronym to describe which category you have been sorted into—a person with the result of Introversion/Sensing/Feeling/Perceiving could be shortened to “ISFP,” for example.

History

In the early 1900’s Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Catherine Cook Briggs, created their own formulation of different personality types, based on their observations and understanding of the individuals around them. In 1923, the pair learned about Carl Jung’s research** on psychological types, and integrated his understanding of people into their system.

From this understanding, the first version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was born in the 1940’s. This was in the U.S. during WWII, as many new employees (many of them women who previously stayed at home full time) entered the workforce and needed help deciding what profession they would fit in best. Early research for this assessment was used in medical schools to try to determine which types of people might be most content in the medical field, and which types would end up choosing certain medical specialties.

In 1962, Myers wrote and published a guide to her system, Introduction To Type, which is still in print and can be used for further study of the Myers-Briggs system.

Pros of Myers-Briggs

Simple

Although humans are complex and often difficult to understand, this system presents a template for understanding differences in people in a very simple, straight-forward way. This is part of the reason for the success and popularity of the Myers-Briggs personality system—it’s easy for the majority of people to grasp.

Familiar

Because it is so widely known in popular culture today, chances are that you or someone you know is already familiar with Myers-Briggs and the MBTI. If you’re looking to take a personality assessment, starting with one you already know something about can be helpful to jumpstart your journey of self-discovery.

Compels Theory of Mind

This could be said of just about any personality assessment, but it’s especially true for one so popular and well-known: having some frame of reference for understanding that some people are just fundamentally different from you, and operate differently to how you operate can be very eye-opening. 

Psychologists call this phenomenon “theory of mind.” Developing a better theory of mind helps facilitate empathy and compassion for others, especially those vastly different from ourselves.

Cons of Myers-Briggs

Pseudo-Science Reputation 

While plenty of research projects have been devoted to Myers-Briggs typology, and it’s actual reliability and validity is on-par with other personality type assessments, it’s gotten a bad reputation in the scientific community, perhaps due to the copy-cat assessments out there who represent themselves as legitimate, without being held to the same standards the Myers-Briggs Foundation holds themselves to.

Forced-Choice Dichotomy

Instead of expanding on the processes presented in this system and taking into account the incredible complexity of the human mind, the MBTI forces individuals into one category or the other. While people may default to one way of doing things a lot of the time, this system makes no allowance for the idea that people are never 100% consistent, or that the way they operate may change over time as they grow.

This can result in reducing the way an individual’s mind works down to an obvious behavior—like consistently being late—without taking into account all the external factors that influence that behavior, and the internal reasoning behind that behavior, which might be different for different people, even if the results seem the same, having led to the same behavior externally.

Wish or Expectation Fulfillment

Again, this can be true for many personality assessments, but it may be particularly tempting with MBTI, considering the popular knowledge and connotation of different type identifiers in our society. 

It can be very appealing to answer questions on the MBTI based on how you wish you were, or how your parents, authority figures, peers, etc., have expected you to be—many people can do this without realizing it. This may be because certain traits or behaviors are held in esteem or idolized over others, leading people to get the results they want, rather than the results that are more accurate to who they are.

Summary of Myers-Briggs

Taking the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator can be an enlightening experience, especially if it’s your first journey into personality type and learning about the idea that many others are fundamentally different from you, as long as you don’t mind the dichotomous nature of its categorization. It’s also worth noting that users should be aware that if you’re not taking the official MBTI from legitimate sources, your experience of the assessment and the results may vary widely.

2. Enneagram

Premise

The Enneagram system of personality is easily one of the most nebulous and mystical systems of identifying personalities—and depending on who you ask, it can be either the most simple or, potentially, the most complex. Its most basic description can be summed up as nine categories of personality, with a simple single digit numerical naming system—types are labeled as simply 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9*. 

Here are the basics of each Enneagram Type, according to the Enneagram Institute:

• Type 1 is principled, purposeful, self-controlled, and perfectionistic.
• Type 2 is generous, demonstrative, people-pleasing, and possessive.
• Type 3 is adaptable, excelling, driven, and image-conscious.
• Type 4 is expressive, dramatic, self-absorbed, and temperamental.
• Type 5 is perceptive, innovative, secretive, and isolated.
• Type 6 is engaging, responsible, anxious, and suspicious.
• Type 7 is spontaneous, versatile, acquisitive, and scattered.
• Type 8 is self-confident, decisive, willful, and confrontational.
• Type 9 is receptive, reassuring, complacent, and resigned.

It’s helpful to see the system drawn out in the shape of the enneagram (yes, it’s also a geometric shape, which may also be important to the personality system, depending on who you ask):

In their book, The Wisdom Of The Enneagram, Don Riso and Russ Hudson explain that, “The Enneagram represents personality patterns as defence mechanisms which are fundamentally driven by certain basic fears.”

Each of the nine personalities in this system falls under one of three categories:

• Head, also sometimes called the “Thinking Center”
• Heart, also sometimes called the “Feeling Center”
• Gut, also sometimes called the “Instinctive Center”

The types are divided into these categories like this:

Most Enneagram experts say that it is normal to see a little of each of the nine types in yourself, but assert that one of them should stand out as being most true for each individual (with or without the help of a written assessment), identifying that as one’s “core type.” 

In addition to your core type, each of the nine can be further differentiated by identifying their “wing;” that is, the adjacent number on either side of the individual’s core number that lends important, and sometimes slightly contradictory elements to your core personality type. So, for example, one might be a core type 7, with either a 6 wing, or a 8 wing.

According to Enneagram expert and coach, Katherine Fauvre, individuals also have a “tritype,” made up of one’s core type, and one of each of the other three categories—Head, Heart, and Gut. If wings also factor in to an individual’s tritype, as many people claim, then what started out as a simple system of nine categories can turn into a complex network of hundreds of combinations of characteristics!

Add in the Instinctual Variants—which are unconnected to any specific Enneagram type or category, these three sub-categories seek to describe how individuals instinctually view themselves and their relationship to others:

• Self-Preservation
• Sexual, or “Attraction”
• Social, or “Adaptive”

With all of these factors, Enneagram could potentially be used to describe and identify over 1,000 different types of personalities. With all factors included, a single individual’s result could look like this:

3w4, 9w1, 6w5, (396), Sp/So

History

It seems that this system was derived from a myriad of “ancient wisdom traditions,” but there are definitely two key players who had a hand in making The Enneagram Of Personality what it is today: spiritual teacher Oscar Ichazo, and psychologist Dr. Claudio Naranjo, who studied under Ichazo for several years before defining his own path as a teacher of spiritual, psychological, and personality-based wisdom. 

As a geometric symbol, the enneagram has been around for thousands of years, at least as far back as to be contemporary with the works of Pythagora, who created the pythagorean theorem.  The enneagram symbol was used as a basis for describing the relationship between human essence, and ego. As Ichazo put it, 

“We have to distinguish between a man as he is in essence, and as he is in ego or personality. In essence, every person is perfect, fearless, and in a loving unity with the entire cosmos; there is no conflict within the person between head, heart, and stomach or between the person and others. Then something happens: the ego begins to develop, karma accumulates, there is a transition from objectivity to subjectivity; man falls from essence into personality.”
(Interviews with Ichazo, page 9)

Pros of Enneagram:

Embraces Individuality

One of the most common complaints from those who scoff at the idea of personality assessments is that a lot of them box people in—attempting to put people into categories where they don’t perfectly fit, and leaving no room for the concept of individuality. Surely every person in the world can’t fit neatly into one of 9 categories, right?

But Enneagram is a system that can expand to describe people with plenty of nuance, from wings, to tritypes, to instinctual variants. If you’re looking for a personality system that describes many aspects of who you are, and separates you from potentially thousands of other kinds of people, this is a great assessment.

Less Inherent Bias

While other systems use language to describe certain types of people that may carry either positive or negative connotations, Enneagram uses a simple numerical system to identify the types of people its seeking to categorize. Identifying as a 3w4 carries a lot less linguistic baggage than identifying as someone who is in the 70th percentile of Disagreeableness. 

Emphasizes Self-Study

Unlike a lot of other personality systems, most experts agree that people should seek out Enneagram information, descriptions, and learning materials either as an aid to taking an Enneagram assessment to ensure the correct results, or as the primary method of discovering one’s type.

Cons of Enneagram:

Less Scientific Reputation

Enneagram is shrouded in an air of myth and mystery—it’s rooted in spiritual self-examination as much, if not more than in psychological exploration. And while there has certainly been academic research conducted on Enneagram, the reputation it has is much less scientific than say, the Big Five model, which could be considered a downside for those looking for a more scientifically reputable test.

Negative Leaning

While some personality systems have been accused of being too positive in their portrayal of different types, Enneagram, “represents personality patterns as defence mechanisms which are fundamentally driven by certain basic fears,” (The Wisdom Of The Enneagram, Don Riso and Russ Hudson) which may carry too negative a connotation for some. 

Additionally, focusing solely on your weaknesses as a catalyst for growth is potentially just as unhelpful as focusing on your strengths. 

Summary of Enneagram

Enneagram can be a helpful tool for those looking to do some in-depth self-reflection, especially if you’re seeking a more spiritual focus or to face your fears and work through potentially traumatic experiences in your life and how they influence your behavior.

3. EVO Elements Assessment

Premise

The EVO Elements system posits that everyone uses two of four main methods of making decisions, called your Compasses, and two of four main methods of processing information, called your Brain Type—These are the “Elements” in “EVO Elements.” These Elements are thought of as processes which are natural, inherent mental preferences that are either inborn or developed from a very early age—similar to the way people experience a preference for using either their right or left hand to do most complex tasks.

The eight EVO Elements are:

Brain Types:

• Alchemist—processing external information in an expansive, abstract way (pairs with Architect).
• Architect—internally processing information in a concrete, linear way (pairs with Alchemist).
• Oracle—internally processing information in an abstract, nebulous, and non-linear way (pairs with Explorer).
• Explorer—processing external information in an expansive, concrete way (pairs with Oracle).

Compasses:

• Determined —making quick, in-the-moment decisions based on what is objectively logical and most effective solution (pairs with Compelled).
• Compelled—making long-term, contemplative decisions based on one’s own internal moral and ethical gut instincts (pairs with Determined).
• Relational—making quick, in-the-moment decisions based on one’s gut instincts and what best serves the collective (pairs with Strategic).
• Strategic—making long-term, contemplative decisions based on one’s own internal logical framework and the most accurate/precise solution (pairs with Relational).

The Elements are presented here as pairs because together, each pair portrays the expansive and complex nature of human mental abilities. This system proposes that an individual will use one set of Compasses and one set of Brain Types—although the extent to which an individual uses them or the complexity with which they experience their Elements will differ depending on their own personal makeup. 

EVO Types are referred to by their top Compass and top Brain Type, with an asterisk denoting which of these two elements is actually the individual’s first priority, so results look like this: Relational* Oracle.

EVO Elements suggests that the relationship between your Compasses and Brain Types and how they interact with each other describe who you are at your very core, how your mind works, your strengths, and your weaknesses. Compasses and Brain Types are considered expansive mental processes deeply rooted in your psyche and can help provide understanding of the trajectory of your own personal growth throughout your life.

This system is unlike many other personality systems, which use behavior to try and define how people’s minds work. Instead, seeking to understand people’s Elements is a direct approach to getting insight into their mental processes. This may give people a deeper understanding of how they prefer to process information and make decisions, and how these preferences manifest in various strengths, as well as how they may create blind spots or challenges for each individual.

Another component of this system is to identify your top Crafts—which describe various roles you play in life. Since your Crafts are separate from your EVO Elements, they are not as deeply rooted in your psyche as your Compasses and Brain Types. The understanding of these roles comes from a more behavioral perspective than the EVO Elements—people may take on different roles throughout their life. EVO Crafts have names such as Innovator, Rebel, and Star, and along with your EVO Type, your results include your top three Crafts, including suggestions for getting better aligned with these roles.

History

Launched in late 2019, this is one of the newest assessments out currently. The original inspiration for the concept of this system was Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung’s theory presented in his book Psychological Types**. EVO Elements Assessment creator Beckett Hanan began studying the works of Jung in the early 2000’s, later teaming up with several others, including Iris Strauss who now works for EVO as their Elements Expert, to conduct interviews with people from all walks of life, all over the world, to determine how Jung’s theories held up. Throughout these interviews and 1-on-1 sessions, they also made extensive notes and looked for patterns in the language people use to describe their specific processes and mental landscapes. 

Hanan brought their research to Project EVO co-founders Chad Mureta and Arman Assadi in the mid 2010’s, and the team set about creating their own language to describe this new system, which had grown beyond and expounded on the ideas outlined by Jung in much more depth. After developing their system and testing many iterations of their assessment for over a decade, the EVO Elements Assessment was first released in October, 2019.

Pros of EVO Elements

Focus On Mental Processes 

Rather than focusing on specific behaviors, which could be done for a myriad of reasons, and change day-to-day, EVO Elements puts the focus on mental processes to understand the core of who individuals really are, their strengths and their weaknesses.

This not only makes the results more insightful, but many users have also reported that they feel their EVO Assessment results are more accurate than results they’ve received after taking other personality assessments.

A Balanced Approach

Rather than primarily focusing on the positive or negative aspects of individuals, EVO Elements takes a more holistic approach. It highlights hidden strengths people might not know they have, as well as acknowledging the reality of how their weakness can play out in their lives.

It’s Actionable

When you get your EVO Elements Assessment results, you are given a detailed roadmap with a myriad of suggestions for how to use the information to improve your strengths and strategies to cover your weaker areas, which is especially helpful for anyone who has taken an assessment of this nature and thought, “What now?”

Cons of EVO Elements

More Complex

Because the focus is on mental processes over traits and behavior, this system is more complicated than many other personality systems. The relationship between Element combinations and how they rely on each other and work together is complex and nuanced, which means the concepts may not be as readily understood by those who don’t take the time to delve into learning the system.

Less Info Available

Because it’s so new, there is less information available about the EVO Elements system than other systems that have been around for decades.

Summary of EVO Elements Assessment

This assessment can be a powerful tool of self-discovery and help facilitate personal growth, with the added benefit of improving communication, theory of mind, and relational dynamics when multiple people in a group learn about their Elements together. But it might not be a good fit for those unwilling or unable to take the time to truly understand the concepts presented.

4. Big Five Personality Test

Premise

This test assesses five different aspects of an individual, known by the acronym “OCEAN”:

• Openness to experience
• Conscientiousness
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism

This test ranks your scores in each of these different facets by supplying users with 60-80 statements (depending on the source site where the test is accessed), which are rated anywhere between 1, for Strongly Disagree, and 5 for Strongly Agree, along with a series of demographics questions about areas of life such as age, sex, class, education level, and family history.

What are the OCEAN traits of the Big Five based on? Rather than being based on an underlying theory like some of the other assessments we’ll explore today, the Big Five traits are simply a description of statistical data gathered by many different people over time. 

Results are given to users as a statistical analysis of where they fall in each category compared to the rest of the users in the test’s database. According to Maggie Koerth-Baker in her FiveThirtyEight article, “Your results [of the Big Five Test] are based on comparing you to all the other humans who have taken the test.” For example, someone who scored as very Agreeable might receive a result that says they are in the 90th percentile of Agreeableness.

History

The concept started with the idea of Hippocrates’s four temperaments—sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. Many psychologists and researchers took similar concepts and ideas and created their own theories and assessments of personality throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, based on what they deemed important factors of human behavioral patterns. 

Several different, independent research groups seeking to understand what makes one person different from another claim to have been the creators or originators of the Big Five concepts and test. It’s likely that these different groups borrowed and learned from each other as they completed similar research projects simultaneously; and as early groups set aside their research or lost steam, later groups picked up and continued the work. There are many iterations of the Big Five test which are considered “official” today—The Big Five Project, The IPIP NEO-PI, the SHL OPQ Test, and more.

The research that led to this five-factor model consisted of surveying thousands of people, asking them hundreds of questions about their traits and behavior which were then statistically analyzed. From this, the five OCEAN traits emerged and the research groups arrived at the conclusion that the majority of differences between people (regardless of language or culture) could be boiled down to these five essential categories as we know them today. 

Pros of the Big Five: 

Scientific Reputation
It is widely purported that this is “the most scientifically valid” personality assessment, perhaps in part due to the sheer volume of scientific study that has been applied to it over the years.

It also probably helps that this is a trait-based system, rather than working from a more nebulous theory. Traits are more behavior-based, and are therefore more obvious and easier to qualify and quantify than something intangible like mental processes.

Easy to Understand

Because there are no complex theories to deal with, the Big Five, or five-factor model, is straightforward and easy enough for the majority of people to understand without much in-depth study.

Cons of the Big Five:

Potentially Sexist Results?

While it is clear that your results are given based on how you compare to the rest of the population, at least one iteration of the Big Five test uses your selection of “Male” or “Female” at the start of the test as the main basis for the pool of user data to which your results are compared. 

And while it’s not an issue to present results in the context of other groups such as gender, as long as the results themselves make this clear. “You’re more/less agreeable compared to other women on average” is far different than “You’re in the 58th percentile of agreeableness,” without explaining that that’s out of the portion of the population who checked “female,” and compared to the people who ticked “male” your results might be entirely different.

Another thing some people may find problematic is how the results language changes based on the sex selection made in the demographics section, even when the same answers to the test are given. 

For example, Olivia Goldhill took the Big Five test two separate times, each time selecting one of the two different options offered for identifying one’s sex, but selecting the exact same answers to every other question. In her Quartz article on sexism in the Big Five test, she writes, 

“As a man, I was told that I’m ‘compassionate, good-natured, and eager to cooperate and avoid conflict.’ As a woman: ‘Generally warm, trusting, and agreeable, but you can sometimes be stubborn and competitive.’

It’s a scientifically reinforced version of the sexism that pervades society: Women who are straightforward and opinionated are told they’re difficult and argumentative, while men with the exact same character traits are seen as charismatic leaders.”

While many of the questions are asking users to compare themselves to others, and it’s true that some women may think of their behavior in comparison to other women and not to men, and vice-versa, this iteration of the Big Five seems to take it for granted that people will answer in this way or with a specific context in mind, even if they have not been instructed to do so.

Connotation of Bias Toward Certain Personalities Over Others

Terms like “Agreeable, Open, and Conscientious,” have inherently positive connotations based on the definition of the words, as well as how they are perceived and used in the context of our society. 

It could be argued that the Big Five is inherently suggesting that the ideal person is orderly, extraverted, energetic, and risk-taking. 

This carries the connotation that these personality traits (and therefore the people who embody these said traits) are somehow above others who don’t embody these traits, rather than acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of all types of individuals.

Summary of Big Five

The Big Five may be a good assessment for those who are very much concerned with what research has to say about the subject of personality, so long as they don’t mind potentially biased results.

5. CliftonStrengthsFinder 

(formerly known as StrengthsFinder)

Premise

The idea of this assessment is that, by focusing on what they do best and growing the areas where they’re already talented, an individual can be far more successful than if they were to focus on growing their weaker areas. 

Users are ranked in 34 sub-categories (called “themes”), each of which falls under one of four domains:

• Executing
• Influencing
• Relationship Building
• Strategic Thinking

CliftonStrengths explains their themes as, “a category of talents, which are defined as recurring and consistent patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior.”

According to the Gallup-run site (yes, the same Gallup of the ubiquitous opinion polls, they also own the CliftonStrengthsFinder assessment), strengthsquest.com: 

“The CSF [CliftonStrengthsFinder] is an online assessment of personal talent that identifies areas where an individual’s greatest potential for building strengths exists. By identifying one’s top themes of talent, the CSF provides a starting point in the identification of specific personal talents, and the related supporting materials help individuals discover how to build on their talents to develop strengths within their roles. The primary application of the CSF is as an evaluation that initiates a strengths-based development process…”

During the test, users are presented with the task of rating themselves between the accuracy of two statements, such as “I accept many different kinds of people,” and “I get to know people individually,” choosing whether one or the other strongly describes them, describes them a bit, or they consider themselves to be somewhat neutral between the two options. Users only have 20 seconds to make their selection on where they fall between each given option, or else the statement times out, and the next option is presented. According to the StrengthsFinder FAQ page, it takes between 35-45 minutes to complete the assessment.

At the end, results are given in a ranked fashion. If you buy the basic online assessment, you will receive your top five “Signature Strengths,” ranked in order of apparent aptitude. Or, you can buy the book Discover Your CliftonStrengths, which also comes with a code to access the same top five results. For an additional fee, users can unlock their ranking for all 34 categories, along with “action items” for each, similar to what one might receive in a coaching session based on the Strengths system.

History

Donald Clifton, whose career as a psychologist started in the 1950’s and who went on to be chairman of Gallup, started interviewing professionals with the primary question of, “What would happen if we studied what is right with people?” as the starting point for his research. He hypothesized that talent was the starting point that would almost inevitably lead to the “consistent achievement of success.” He thought that putting more time and energy into developing one’s strengths had a greater chance of leading to success than investing in and trying to develop one’s weaker areas.

Teaming up with Gallup, Clifton launched a research project that involved interviewing people in their places of business with the purpose of identifying categories of personal talent, eventually narrowing the identified categories to 34, and created the CliftonStrengthsFinder test in the 1990’s.

Pros of CliftonStrengths

Research Based

By teaming up with Gallup, Clifton had the resources to interview thousands of people who were successful in their different professions, and used the resulting data to put together a preliminary database of over 5,000 strength-based characteristics. 

Although the CliftonStrengths traits are in a bit more nebulous a category, comprised of “thoughts-feelings-behaviors”, because this assessment is bound to a trait-based system, it could be categorized along with the Big Five as an assessment that is easier to qualify and quantify.

Positive Focus

Focusing on one’s strengths instead of weaknesses is appealing to many people. Those who are interested in focusing on this perspective as a tool for self improvement can find further guidance in the self-help companion book, Discover Your CliftonStrengths.

Cons of CliftonStrengths

Unbalanced

While some may love the idea of focusing solely on developing their strengths to become more successful, others may find it unhelpful and disingenuous to completely ignore their weaknesses in the context of using personality assessments for self-improvement.

On top of that, there isn’t a lot of scientific evidence to support the claim that focusing solely on your strengths is the sure path to successful self-development—and it may actually set you back instead. 

Timed Response

Those with a propensity toward test anxiety might find the 20-second-per-question time limit off-putting. Although this feature is designed to make sure users aren’t over-thinking their responses, it could have the opposite effect on some, causing multiple questions to time out without being answered, therefore skewing the results to some degree.

Limited Focus

The emphasis on success in the workplace is a great thing for businesses who want to use CliftonStrengths as a development tool for their teams. However, individuals outside the corporate sphere, such as creatives, full-time parents, students, etc., might find the scope and premise of CliftonStrengths to be too limited to be fully applicable to their own lives and talents.

Underlying Negative Connotations

While it might be flattering to be told that you are naturally talented at such traits as Empathy, Communication, Discipline, or Responsibility. But the darker connotations to this kind of assertion—especially in an atmosphere of focusing on growing our innate talents only—is that, if you don’t already possess these traits, you’re simply out of luck when it comes to developing those skills.

Summary of CliftonStrengthsFinder

CliftonStrengthsFinder is an excellent tool for those looking to assess and develop their personal talents, as long as they don’t mind the lack of focus on improving weaknesses, and the subtle emphasis on corporate competence.

***

Whether or not you’re a fan of personality assessments, the fact remains that they can facilitate growth for a lot of people. Anything that helps individuals sit down and examine how they think, feel, and behave, can open their eyes to particular strengths and weaknesses in themselves they hadn’t noticed previously. Even something as simple as having language to describe something about yourself that you didn’t have previously can be revolutionary.

**Although Jung’s work also influenced the concept of Myers’ and Briggs’ personality typing system and assessment, the EVO Elements system is, at best, a distant cousin to Myers-Briggs, rather than being directly related to it, due to the nature of the research done by the respective assessment creators, the goals and intent behind the respective systems, and the way Jung’s work was used by each.  

Appendix:

Possible EVO Elements Results:

Relational Architect
Relational Oracle
Compelled Alchemist
Compelled Explorer
Determined Architect
Determined Oracle
Strategic Alchemist
Strategic Explorer

EVO Crafts:
Storyteller
Rebel
Chief
Cultivator
Influencer
Weaver
Creator
Sage
Professor
Mentor
Visionary
Builder
Investigator
Persuader
Star
Advocate
Inventor
Composer
Maximizer

MBTI Types:

ENTJ
INTJ
ENFJ
INFJ
ESTJ
ISTJ
ESFJ
ISFJ
ENFP
INFP
ESFP
ISFP
ENTP
INTP
ESTP
ISTP

Enneagram Types:

1, The Reformer
2, The Helper
3, The Achiever
4, The Individualist
5, The Investigator
6, The Loyalist
7, The Enthusiast
8, The Challenger
9, The Peacemaker

CliftonStrengthsFinder Strengths:

Analytical
Context
Futuristic
Ideation
Input
Intellection
Learner
Strategic
Activator
Command
Maximizer
Self-Assurance
Significance
Communication
Competition
Woo
Adaptability
Connectedness
Developer
Empathy
Harmony
Includer
Individualization
Relator
Achiever
Arranger
Positivity
Belief
Consistency
Deliberative
Discipline
Focus
Responsibility
Restorative

I’d like to share the story of how we developed the ideas for the EVO Elements: the Brain Types and Compasses, the Elements Assessment, and the path that led us to develop the world’s first and only planner customized to work with the way your brain naturally operates.

Starting with a wildly successful crowdfunding campaign which raised over $1M, we debuted our beautiful planners based on the concept of Brain Type back in 2018. Brain Types (and EVO Elements in general) are ways of describing mental processes that individuals use and experience in varying degrees all the time. These ideas bring the world a new system of language to help describe who you are, what you do best, and how to grow into the most optimal version of yourself.

Distilling these complex ideas down to their essential nature, we created a short, organizationally-based Brain Type Assessment to help match people with the style of EVO Planner designed to work with the way their brain naturally operates. Since 2018, the Brain Type Assessment itself has grown exponentially in popularity—with over 400,000 assessment-takers to date worldwide. 

But the true vision for what these ideas could offer finally began to be realized in October 2019, when our team put the concept of “evolution” to task—we released Project EVO’s true flagship creation: The EVO Elements Assessment, in late 2019. The EVO Elements system proposes that there are four main methods of making decisions, called Compasses, as well as four methods of processing information, Brain Types—these eight processes are the “Elements” in “EVO Elements”—and everyone uses two main Compasses, and two main Brain Types. The different ways these Elements play together can be used to help describe how various individuals operate.

The original inspiration for the concept of this system were the theories presented by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung in his book, Psychological Types, released in 1921. EVO Elements Assessment creator Beckett Hanan began studying the works of Jung in the early 2000’s, later teaming up with several other like-minded individuals, including myself—Iris Strauss (and since then, I’ve gone on to become Project EVO’s Director of Community and our resident Elements Expert). Our group conducted interviews with people from all walks of life, all over the world, to determine how Jung’s theories held up in a practical sense. Throughout these interviews and 1-on-1 sessions, we made extensive notes and looked for patterns in the language people use to describe their specific processes and mental landscapes. 

Hanan then brought this research to Project EVO co-founders Chad Mureta and Arman Assadi in the mid 2010’s. By this time, all of us on the EVO team knew that our research had evolved our ideas far beyond, and in much more depth, than what Jung originally presented, and so we set about creating our own language to describe this new system. While other theories and assessments have also borrowed from Jung’s ideas, the direction that our team has taken this research has led to a system that in my opinion, stands alone as distinct from any others (and I’ve done a lot of research on various personality assessments and systems throughout the years).

After developing this system and testing many iterations of the precursor to the Elements Assessment for over a decade, we finally launched the EVO Elements Assessment in 2019, and I believe it truly is an assessment for the 21st century, maximizing content while also managing to minimize effort on the part of the assessment-taker. Estimated completion time for the EVO Elements Assessment is 14 minutes maximum—much lower, compared to the standard 45 minutes for many other personality assessments. Despite the relatively short assessment, those who have taken it often report that the 39-page report they received was the most well thought out, in-depth, and accurate portrait they’ve ever received from a personality assessment.

The EVO Elements System

The EVO Elements are thought of as processes which are natural, inherent mental preferences that are either inborn or developed from a very early age—similar to the way people experience a preference for using either their right or left hand to do most complex tasks. Using your preferred Elements is automatic and easy, which also means they are also commonly taken for granted, rather than being seen as your own special skill.

The eight EVO Elements are:

Brain Types:

• Alchemist—processing external information in an expansive, abstract way (pairs with Architect).
• Architect—internally processing information in a concrete, linear way (pairs with Alchemist).
• Oracle—internally processing information in an abstract, nebulous, and non-linear way (pairs with Explorer).
• Explorer—processing external information in an expansive, concrete way (pairs with Oracle).

Compasses:

• Determined —making quick, in-the-moment decisions based on what is objectively logical and the most effective solution (pairs with Compelled).
• Compelled—making long-term, contemplative decisions based on one’s own internal moral and ethical gut instincts (pairs with Determined).
• Relational—making quick, in-the-moment decisions based on one’s gut instincts and what best serves the collective (pairs with Strategic).
• Strategic—making long-term, contemplative decisions based on one’s own internal logical framework and the most accurate/precise solution (pairs with Relational).

The Elements are presented as pairs because together, each pair portrays the expansive and complex nature of human mental abilities. Each set of Brain Types represent ways of processing both abstract and concrete information, as well as representing information processed internally in the mind, and a process used externally to interact with the world and other people. And likewise, each set of Compasses represent ways of making decisions that are both logical and based on gut instinct, while also accounting for the fact that some decisions must be made quickly, in the moment, and other decisions allow for longer-term contemplation.

By understanding which set of Elements someone uses for different types of processing, a new path to understanding that individual opens up. Unlike a trait-based system like Myers-Briggs, which uses dichotomies to label people as one thing or another—for example, designating those who take the MBTI as either introvert or extravert*—an individual’s mind is made up of every kind of process within the Elements system. This comes from the primary idea behind the Elements: that everyone is a little bit of everything, and that human mental functions should simply be described, rather than trying to force them to fit into a dichotomy—or any other rigid, forced choice, for that matter.

Some other personality systems focus more on people’s strengths, or the negative aspects of who you are. Enneagram, for example, is a system that categorizes people based on their core fears. Or, conversely, CliftonStrengths (formerly StrengthsFinder), which is all about highlighting things people do exceptionally well. EVO Elements, however, presents a more balanced portrait of the individual, because Elements are simply mental processes. These processes are neither inherently good nor bad—they’re more like tools. 

To illustrate this idea, think of a hammer. A hammer can be used to build or destroy things depending on how the operator chooses to wield it. There are jobs it does exceedingly well, like drive nails into wood, and other jobs it just isn’t cut out to do, like slice bread. Elements are similar—individuals are responsible for the consequences of their actions, regardless of how they naturally see or do things. Certain people are very well suited to certain things while not being so naturally adept at other things—for example, Core Strategic people tend to be good at math, but aren’t typically born networkers. But that doesn’t mean people with other Elements or different Element priorities can’t learn math and excel in it, just as Core Strategic people can still learn to become skilled networkers. This balanced approach not only helps individuals see a clearer picture of themselves, but I also believe that it more accurately portrays the reality of complex human nature.

So each set of Compasses and each set of Brain Types fulfill each other and describe the relationship people have with all the different processes identified herein—although the extent to which a given person uses certain Elements or the complexity with which they experience other Elements will differ depending on their own personal mental makeup. Each Element, whether that Element is a Compass or a Brain Type, is a layered and multi-faceted process that possesses a particular relationship to the other Elements a person uses. These components and the relationships between them are what make up a person’s EVO Elements, which are revealed in their 39 page EVO Elements report upon completion of the assessment.

In our system people are referred to by their top Compass and top Brain Type, with an asterisk denoting which of these two elements is actually the individual’s first priority, so EVO Elements results look like this: “You are a Relational* Oracle.” The asterisk(*) denotes that first priority Element, which is called the “Core” element and is most important to understanding how they operate, while also typically being the most automatic process an individual uses. 

The order which your Elements are presented in are very key to understanding yourself in this context. Each of your Elements does not exist in a vacuum—the order of your Elements present a way to describe the most optimal, best, and most balanced version of yourself.

The relationship between your Compasses and Brain Types and how they interact with each other are meant to describe who you are at your very core, how your mind works, your strengths, and your weaknesses. Compasses and Brain Types are considered expansive mental processes deeply rooted in your psyche and their relationship to each other can help provide an understanding of the trajectory of your own personal growth throughout your life.

Most other personality systems use traits and behavior to try to define how people’s minds work and who they are, because that’s generally easier than trying to describe someone’s mental process. But seeking to understand your Elements is a direct approach to getting insight into how your mind works, why it works that way, and your true core nature. This can give you a deeper understanding of how you prefer to process information and make decisions, and how these preferences manifest in various strengths, as well as how they may create blind spots or challenges.

This not only makes the results more insightful, but many users have also reported that they feel their EVO Elements Assessment results are more accurate than results they’ve received after taking other personality assessments. 

The final component of this system is to identify your top Crafts—which describe the various roles you play in life. Since your Crafts are separate from your EVO Elements, they are not as deeply rooted in your psyche as your Compasses and Brain Types. The understanding of these roles comes from a more behavioral perspective than the EVO Elements. People may take on different roles throughout their life for a myriad of reasons, and they might remain in these roles to grow or survive, or they might take on new roles when wanted or needed, and this is what Crafts represent. EVO Crafts have names such as Innovator, Rebel, and Star, and along with your Elements, your results include your top three Crafts, including suggestions for getting better aligned with these roles.

If you’ve ever taken an assessment of this nature and thought, “Well, what now? What am I supposed to do with this information?”—you may find that the EVO Elements Assessment is one of the only assessments to provide a satisfactory answer. When you get your EVO Elements Assessment results, you are given a detailed roadmap with a myriad of suggestions for how to use the information to improve your strengths and strategies to cover your weaker areas. 

A common benefit to taking any personality assessment is gaining a frame of reference for understanding that some people are fundamentally different from you. Simply knowing that others operate differently to how you operate can be a very eye-opening experience, especially the first time you realize this truth. Psychologists call this phenomenon “theory of mind.” Developing a better theory of mind helps facilitate empathy and compassion for others, especially those vastly different from ourselves. 

But EVO Elements takes this one step further by also giving you a detailed look into how you operate compared to how others do. By giving you language for discussing differences in thought processes, mental landscapes, and perspective lenses with your partner, your family, friends, co-workers, boss, or teacher, you can reach new levels of understanding and greater intimacy than you may have thought possible. Having this language can help improve your relationships, hone your interpersonal skills, realize your purpose, and discover that some of the things you’ve always taken for granted are actually powerful abilities that you can harness to improve yourself and the world. 

Do you want to take the next step in your own journey of personal evolution and ascend to the next level of your true self? Take the EVO Elements Assessment now!

Appendix:

Possible EVO Elements Results:

Relational Architect
Relational Oracle
Compelled Alchemist
Compelled Explorer
Determined Architect
Determined Oracle
Strategic Alchemist
Strategic Explorer

EVO Crafts:
Storyteller
Rebel
Chief
Cultivator
Influencer
Weaver
Creator
Sage
Professor
Mentor
Visionary
Builder
Investigator
Persuader
Star
Advocate
Inventor
Composer
Maximizer

MBTI Types:

ENTJ
INTJ
ENFJ
INFJ
ESTJ
ISTJ
ESFJ
ISFJ
ENFP
INFP
ESFP
ISFP
ENTP
INTP
ESTP
ISTP

Enneagram Types:

1, The Reformer
2, The Helper
3, The Achiever
4, The Individualist
5, The Investigator
6, The Loyalist
7, The Enthusiast
8, The Challenger
9, The Peacemaker

CliftonStrengthsFinder Strengths:

Analytical
Context
Futuristic
Ideation
Input
Intellection
Learner
Strategic
Activator
Command
Maximizer
Self-Assurance
Significance
Communication
Competition
Woo
Adaptability
Connectedness
Developer
Empathy
Harmony
Includer
Individualization
Relator
Achiever
Arranger
Positivity
Belief
Consistency
Deliberative
Discipline
Focus
Responsibility
Restorative

This is part of a four-part series to help you understand why we present your EVO Elements Assessment results the way we do. Make sure you read all four parts in order to understand the structure of how your Elements fit together, and the reasoning behind that structure.

Read Part I here.
Read Part II here.
Read Part III here.

Make sure you’ve read Part I, Part II, and Part III of this series, as you will need the foundational understanding from those articles to fully appreciate and understand the information found here.

Here’s a reference in case you need to refer back to the basic descriptions of each Element and the foundational Balance Principle we have used to develop this system.

Feel free to skip these charts and head straight down to the *** below if you just read parts I, II, and III of this series.

1. Everyone uses every kind of process—or, everyone is a little bit of everything. Meaning, every person has to have each type of Compass (logically-oriented, and gut instinct-oriented), each type of Brain Type (concrete-focused, and abstract-focused), and everyone has to have a preference for how they interact with others and the external world, as well as how they personally think, feel, and perceive their internal world.
2. Balance. EVO Elements and their relationship to each other always represent balance in each aspect of the categories described above—abstract/concrete, logic/gut instinct, internal/external.

***

As we discussed in Part I of this series (Understanding Your Top Two Elements), the way we present your Elements in your EVO Element Assessment results has a very specific reason, which is described in the Balance Principle above, and can be summarized simply as: we need balance in all aspects of our mental processing.

The order of your Elements represents the way you operate when you are at your peak—when you’re doing the things you want to be doing—the things that matter to you, and when you’re getting enough time alone, and enough time around the people you care about. This is the very best version of your true self—when you’re balanced.

This understanding of how various EVO Types operate when we’re at our best has come from over a decade of research and interviewing and assessing thousands upon thousands of people to understand how they describe their mental processes. We’ve observed others who operate very similarly to you—some at their peak, and some who are less balanced or healthy. We believe the structure we’ve developed best describes what it looks like when individuals are balanced and feel most in tune with their true self.

So how about your third and fourth Elements? Everyone is a little bit of everything, right? 

Let’s remember that our Core Element—the very core of our nature, our driving force in life—is always going to be either a Brain Type or Compass that is part of a “set,” as illustrated in the reference above. The same is true for our second Element, the one which necessarily fulfills all the criteria our Core Element does not (if our Core is an internally-oriented Compass, our second Element will be an externally-oriented Brain Type, etc)—our second element is also part of a “set.” We have to have a process for each type of decision and information present here.

This means that by looking at a person’s top two Element preferences, we can also know their 3rd and 4th Element preferences…

(And remember that when we say “preferences” in this context, we’re talking about innate preferences—like left or right handedness.)

(… and that’s every EVO Type in a nutshell!)

Of course, there is a different “flavor” of each type, depending on which of their top two Elements is their Core Element. This also affects which order your Elements are presented in when you read your Elements Assessment results.

Because our Core Element is our strongest preference, it can overtake and overshadow our use of the other Element it’s paired with in the set it’s in, at least until we do some growing and maturing in that area… Meaning, if you’re a Compass Core person—let’s say Determined-core for example, then your least emphasized Element is bound to be your Compelled Element, the other Element in your Compass Set. 

This often happens because as a Determined-core person, you’re so adept at making decisions using your Determined Element (and it has served you so well your whole life) that your Compelled Element takes the back seat and gets ignored because you don’t see the need for it.

In this example, your Element order would be:

1. Determined (externally-oriented Compass), your Core Element.
2. (internally-oriented Brain Type)
3. (the externally-oriented Brain Type that pairs with Element #2)
4. Compelled (internally-oriented Compass)

A person who has a Compass Element as their Core Element typically has a bit more balance between the use of their Brain Type Elements. Compass Core people may have had a more difficult time determining their top Brain Type from the basic Brain Type Assessment (BTA), because the BTA doesn’t account for Compass Elements at all.

If you’re someone who is fairly balanced or has done a lot of intentional work to grow, then being more balanced between your Brain Type Elements can make it especially tough to realize which one is your “top preference” (in this example, that’s Element #2). In this case, calling your first Brain Type your “top preference” really just means that it’s your “top” Brain Type preference, not your actual top preference, i.e. your Core Element. Your actual top Element preference as a Compass Core person is going to be your Core Compass Element. 

A similar phenomenon applies for Brain Type Core people, with regards to being more balanced with their Compass Elements, which are presented as their second and third Elements in their Elements Assessment results. Let’s use someone who is Oracle-core, for example…

An Oracle-core person may spend so much time in their head contemplating ideas, trying to make sense of their thought patterns, and following different trains of thought that deeply interest them, that their Explorer Element is naturally the one they emphasize the least, making it the last Element we present in their Elements Assessment results.

Especially when really young or in an unhealthy mental space, Oracle-core people can often forget that they’re a physical being, living in a physical, tangible world (which their Explorer Element would help them relate to) because they are so focused on using their Oracle Element. 

An Oracle-core person’s Element order is:

1. Oracle (internally-oriented Brain Type)
2. (externally-oriented Compass)
3. (internally-oriented Compass in the same set as Element #2)
4. Explorer (externally-oriented Brain Type)

Since neither Compass Element is their Core focus, people who have a Brain Type as their Core Element are not detracting as much focus from either of their Compass Elements as they are from their Brain Type in the same set as their Core Brain Type Element. This is why they tend to have a more balanced use of their Compass Elements.

For the sake of illustration, let’s pretend that you could actually measure how much someone uses each Element, and compare how we might measure how different people of the same EVO Type emphasize or de-emphasize their Elements. (Of course, you can’t actually do this sort of measurement, because people are complex and dynamic, but stay with me.)

Let’s say that people generally have a potential 100% capacity for decision-making (using both their Compass Elements), and 100% capacity for information processing (using both their Brain Type Elements). The emphasis a someone would put on each Element might look something like…

We’ll use Determined Oracle* as an example:

1. Oracle, the core Element, takes on 80% of the information processing.
2. Determined, second Element, takes on 60% of the decision-making.
3. Compelled, third Element, takes on 40% of the decision-making.
4. Explorer, the last and least-emphasized Element (because it’s the opposite of your Core), takes on the remaining 20% of information processing.

This person would probably look pretty healthy. They’re likely getting enough time to themselves to focus and disconnect, using their Core Oracle Element as the visionary superpower it has the potential to be. They’re weighing both the logical information around them with their Determined Element and the gut instincts of what their Compelled Element values when making decisions. And they’re also taking time regularly to be present in the world and have fun by engaging their Explorer Element, but not trying to over-emphasize it, or prioritize it over their Oracle way of processing.

Of course, different individual Determined Oracles* may have entirely different ratios of emphasis on each Element, based on their upbringing, social conditioning, life experiences, current circumstances, career/work demands, etc. And while we can’t precisely pinpoint exact percentage measurements of how people actually use their Elements in real life, the general principle is still true.

To illustrate, another Determined Oracle* could have their Element emphasis look more like…

1. Oracle-core takes on 95% of the information processing.
2. Determined, second Element, takes on 51% of the decision-making.
3. Compelled, third Element, takes on 49% of the decision-making.
4. Explorer, the last and least-emphasized Element, takes on the remaining 5% of information processing.

This person is probably pretty internally oriented, very in tune with their Oracle-core world, and pretty adept at using their Determined Element to make logical, effective decisions, and collaborate with others to solve interesting problems, while also taking their values-oriented Compelled instincts into account. But they either haven’t yet developed or maybe they’ve mostly ignored their Explorer Element. 

This person would probably find that they’d feel more balanced and healthy if they were to designate regular time spent engaging their 5-senses Explorer side. They could do this by spending time in nature, eating delicious meals, exercising, or practicing some form of tangible artistic expression like dancing, sculpting, etc. Tapping more into their Explorer Element could provide what would likely be a much-needed break from the constant rumination and focus on their Oracle-driven mind.

And yet a third Determined Oracle*—say, a person who is very, very internal and in their head all the time might look like this…

1. Oracle-core takes on 95% of the information processing.
2. Determined, second Element, takes on 30% of the decision-making.
3. Compelled, third Element, takes on 70% of the decision-making.
4. Explorer, the last and least-emphasized Element, takes on the remaining 5% of information processing.

In this last example, a person who is so completely focused on their own internal world to the degree that they neglect their external world would not be someone who is balanced and healthy or on a good path toward growing into the best version of themselves… 

They’re likely going to run into issues when it comes to interacting with those around them, or making quick, in-the-moment decisions, and staying engaged in the present moment. They probably are also prone to feeling depressed, isolated, and caught in a cycle between their Oracle and Compelled Elements—probably envisioning all the worst ways the world or they themselves might implode.

I’ve seen Core Oracles, and especially Determined Oracles* in this place, and the ones who have pulled themselves out of it have done so by engaging their second (and to a degree, their fourth) Element by re-engaging with others and the world around them—solving problems, collaborating with other intelligent, like-minded people, and getting outside to have some fun and experience the beauty that the world has to offer. This enables them to have a healthier balance between their internal and external worlds. This also gives them a more objective perspective, and might involve a project they can focus their energy on that’s tied to the external world, to help anchor them. 

So as you can see, possible emphasis combinations and the patterns of growth or imbalance they lead to are potentially endless—and of course, each of these emphasis combinations would have different implications for other EVO Types, but it would take far too much time to list examples for every type (if there’s interest, perhaps that could become a future blog series!). 

Generally, as someone naturally grows and evolves, they’ll put a bit more emphasis on their third and fourth Elements. If they’re doing that in a healthy way, then they aren’t going to be neglecting or disregarding their first and/or second Elements in order to grow their third and fourth Elements. 

And I’d like to point out that, regardless of how each of these fictional Determined Oracles* in the above examples might put different emphasis on their elements, they’re all still Determined Oracles*. They’ll all thrive when they find a good balance between using their Core Oracle Element as the superpower it is, while also not neglecting their Explorer Element. They’ll make their best decisions by using a combination of their Determined and Compelled Compasses. 

And they’ll have a good balance between their internal Oracle-Compelled world and external Determined-Explorer world—getting enough time to themselves to focus, disconnect, and consider whether situations they’re facing sit right with them, while also spending a reasonable amount of time with others and out in the world, solving problems and having fun.

Since the Elements presented as our first and third Elements are always oriented the same way—either internally or externally—we might feel especially connected to our third Element, because it’s very often used in conjunction with our Core Element. But because it’s never good to entirely neglect any of your Elements, making sure you’re also spending time using your second and fourth Elements is important. 

Meaning… If your core nature is to focus internally, don’t neglect others and the world around you. And if your core nature is focused externally, don’t neglect yourself and your own internal thoughts and feelings. Seek balance.

In reality, we often experience our Elements all blended together in our minds, in a deeply personal way. As I mentioned before, our Elements don’t exist individually in a vacuum, separated from each other. They’re all mental processes we’re using constantly, whether we realize it or not. Our actual experience probably mostly looks like a constantly shifting combination and mishmash of our Elements.

EVO Elements and your personal EVO Type recipe simply provide a framework for untangling these processes from each other in order to increase our understanding of ourselves and to be able to discuss with others how we operate (and how they operate!)… When we increase our understanding of how we operate and how those around us operate, we can grow into the best version of who we truly are, and take our relationships to the next level of intimacy, cooperation, and understanding. 

If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend you send the Elements Assessment to your friends and family, not only so they can also reap these benefits of personal understanding, but also to take your relationships to that next level of growth… And have someone to geek out about Elements with! 😉

Send them this link to take the Assessment, or click here to opt in to our referral program to give your friends and family a discount on all things EVO!

This is part of a four-part series to help you understand why we present your EVO Elements Assessment results the way we do. Make sure you read all four parts in order to understand the structure of how your Elements fit together, and the reasoning behind that structure.

Read Part I here.
Read Part II here.

We’ve talked a lot about Brain Type, because those Elements were the ones introduced first in the Brain Type Assessment—the quick, two minute assessment that helps match you with the EVO Planner that best suits your planning style.

But to understand your own unique EVO Type Recipe, you’ll need to understand why each set of Brain Type Elements is paired together, and why their use is essential and inherent to how someone operates when they’re at their best.

Here’s a quick refresher on the two aspects of the Balance Principle. Understanding this principle lays the foundation we’ll need in order to fully understand the reason that we present your EVO Elements in the order we do when you receive your Elements Assessment results… 

Feel free to skip these explanations and charts, and head straight down to the *** below if you just read parts I and II of this series.

1. Everyone (barring serious mental disorders or disabilities) uses every kind of process—or, everyone is a little bit of everything. Meaning, we have each type of Compass (logically-oriented, and gut instincts-oriented), each type of Brain Type (concrete-focused, and abstract-focused), and everyone has to have a preference for how they interact with others and the external world, as well as how they personally think, feel, and perceive their internal world. See the chart below for a visual reference.
2. Balance. EVO Elements and their relationship to each other always represent balance in each aspect of the categories described above—abstract/concrete, logic/gut instincts, internal/external.

***

Now that we’ve examined why each set of Compass Elements is inherently linked (you can read that in Part II here), let’s look at an example based on Brain Type… This will be especially handy if you have questions about your Brain Type results, either from the basic BTA or the new EVO Elements Assessment.

Remember that each Element set represents all facets of each of the processing styles we’re covering… i.e. Each Brain Type Element is either abstract or concrete and internal or external, and the other Element that it’s linked to represent those other aspects of the Brain Type process (check out columns 2 and 3 in the above charts). 

Let’s consider what it might look like if a person was purely abstract—both Oracle and Alchemist—without any way to process tangible, concrete information—no Architect or Explorer Element in sight.

While this person might be brilliant at understanding and perceiving all manner of theoretical information, processing it in the most unique, ineffable ways—they would, unfortunately, have no way to communicate or otherwise express their completely mystical understanding of the universe. They would have no capacity for language—a concrete way we express intangible, abstract ideas…

There are rules and structures that each language abides by. Without them, humans would just be making weird noises and symbols at each other, trying to convey their thoughts without understanding anyone else or being understood by anyone.

They wouldn’t even have the ability to create art inspired by their abstract understanding. While such a completely abstract-oriented person might be able to imagine colors, shapes, and dimensions your average person can’t, they wouldn’t have any way to use their body to dance, mix paints, shape clay, or hell, even scribble a crayon in a notebook. They might as well be in a coma, because they wouldn’t have access to their 5 senses in order to convey anything. They wouldn’t even be able to read this article, or understand someone reading it to them, because in order to learn abstract concepts, we have to interact with concrete things like language.

And on the flip side, anyone who used only concrete, tangible processing—both Explorer and Architect—without any capacity to process and understand abstract information… They’d essentially be a robot. Perhaps capable of doing, smelling, seeing, tasting, speaking… But they would never know why those things mattered. They’d never understand nuance, subtext, or meaning. For example, such a person might be able to read this article—say all the words, follow the structure, and differentiate each shape that makes up each letter. But they wouldn’t comprehend any of the meaning behind the letters. 

People generally have the capacity to understand abstract information, and the capacity to understand concrete information. One of those processes will be used as a mental framework for arranging the information perceived inside our minds (internally-oriented), and the other process will be used to interact with the world around us, exchange ideas and information with others, and is essentially the filter through which we see the world (externally-oriented).

This is why it’s important to understand the order of your Brain Type Elements—while some people put more emphasis on the concrete, and others put more emphasis on the abstract, using both types of processing is needed to function as our truest, most optimal selves. Neglecting one of these types of information too much would actually stunt your ability to use the process you prefer. 

If you have no way to process and understand your physical, concrete experiences, you would have no way to derive meaning, inspiration, or ideas for improvement from them. And vice-versa—if you have no way to conceptualize abstractions, you’d have no way to understand the context or meaning of your 5-senses, concrete experiences.

A big part of what makes us human is our capacity to both do a thing, and understand why we’re doing it. This is why EVO Elements don’t explain intelligence, why there are no good Elements or bad Elements, and why no one EVO Type is “ideal,” or better than any others. EVO Elements is not really a system with which to categorize people, it is a language to describe the style, or “flavor” of these things we have—the processes we use to understand and interact with ourselves, our world, and those around us. 

We hope at this point you have a deeper understanding of why we fit them together in the way we do, and why each set is related—like two sides of the same coin.

The next and last installment of this series will help us put all these concepts together, in order to gain a deeper understanding of our own unique EVO Element “recipe,” as well as all the other EVO Types. Read Part IV here.

This is part of a four-part series to help you understand why we present your EVO Elements Assessment results the way we do. Make sure you read all four parts in order to understand the structure of how your Elements fit together, and the reasoning behind that structure.

Read Part I here.

This article will focus mainly on Compass Elements—Brain Type Elements will be up next in Part III! 🙂

Let’s take some time to understand how your whole EVO Element “recipe” is presented, and why… Keeping in mind the two key aspects of the Balance Principle (which we went over in depth in Part I of this series):

1. Everyone (barring serious mental disorders or disabilities) uses every kind of process—or, everyone is a little bit of everything. Meaning, we have each type of Compass (logically-oriented, and gut instincts-oriented), each type of Brain Type (concrete-focused, and abstract-focused), and everyone has to have a preference for how they interact with others and the external world, as well as how they personally think, feel, and perceive their internal world. See the chart below for a visual reference.
2. Balance. EVO Elements and their relationship to each other always represent balance in each aspect of the categories described above—abstract/concrete, logic/gut instincts, internal/external.

Let’s also take a moment to remember how each Element is defined:

Rather than looking at each of these eight Elements as singular processes in a bucket, from which we can pick and choose—a more accurate representation is to think of each process as part of a set… A pair, representing the yin and yang of each aspect of who you are. Because each process is actually linked to another process inherently—like two sides of the same coin. 

This means there are two sets of Compasses that are inherently linked, and two sets of Brain Types that are inherently linked.

Notice that each Element set represents all the facets of each of the processing styles we’re covering (in the second and third columns of the charts above)… Each Brain Type Element is either abstract or concrete and internal or external, and the other Element that it’s linked to represent the other aspects of the Brain Type process. The same goes for Compasses. 

The reason being, you can’t have a set of Elements that’s overly focused on one thing—for example, pairing Oracle and Alchemist together doesn’t work, because both are abstract. You also don’t see Alchemist and Explorer paired together, because although one is abstract and one is concrete, both are Elements external. Explorer and Oracle are paired together the way Alchemist and Architect are paired together in order to explain an individual’s preference for each of these aspects. Even if someone is very abstract and very external, they still have to have some default method for processing concrete information and processing in an internal way. 

We’ll take a deeper look at this with a concrete example using Compasses in a minute.

But first, know that when we say preference in this context, it’s important to understand that we’re talking about the kind of preference you might ascribe to being right handed or left handed… It’s not that we’re faced with all of these options and then decide to use the ones we like better—these are innate preferences that we’re either born with or are ingrained in us from a very young age.

You see, each Element is meant to be a definition for innate processes people already use and already have preferences for, whether they know it and use these definitions or not. Elements are a system of language to use to describe innate preferences for processes we use, and our ideal way to use them, in order to be the best version of who we already are. 

But you still may be asking… “Why? I understand that theoretically, people need to have balance, but what does that actually mean in a practical sense?” Of course it isn’t enough to say that this is how things work without any reasoning behind it. So, let’s dive deeper…

Let’s imagine a person without balance in even one of these Element aspects… Take Compass pairs, for example.

Let’s say there was a person who was purely logical, without any regard or ability for values-based, gut-instinct decisions. Someone who was both Strategic and Determined, without being either Relational or Compelled.

While this person would have a great instinct for making logical, objective decisions, they would be completely paralyzed when faced with the prospect of a decision that is completely personal in nature… What they’d like to eat, what sort of person they might want to date, what shirt to put on in the morning, what video game they want to play, who they want to be friends with… 

Of course, they could try making pro and con lists and try to make every decision based on what seems objectively “better,” but that falls apart when two or more options are all objectively and equally good on paper… 

Say you’re at a taco place, and every type of taco is the same price—which type of taco should you get? Or, you have 3 shirts that are exactly the same style, cut, and fit, but which color do you want to wear? You could go out with two people who tick all the “right” boxes, but who are you more attracted to? 

None of these questions has an answer that is objectively correct… It all boils down to—what do you want? What feels right? What are you drawn to, and why?

These scenarios are overly simplified and may seem trivial, but the principle also holds true for bigger decisions—like who you want as a life partner, what type of work you want to do, where you want to spend your money, which elected official you’ll vote for, where you’ll live… etc. While some may put more emphasis on logic over gut-instinct, their gut-instinct must still be present to fill in the gaps. Balance.

And of course, others rely more on their gut-instincts, and use their logical framework to understand and inform their preferences. But balance goes both ways. Trying to rely on gut-instinct alone isn’t enough either. 

Doing whatever feels right to us with no regard for what makes logical sense would probably leave us in heaps of frivolous debt, jobless, in extremely poor health entirely by our own fault, and without relationships of any kind, because other people would be completely turned off by our inability to consider the consequences of our actions or make logical choices that are beneficial for ourselves and those around us. 

Those who rely more on gut-instincts and put more emphasis on what aligns with their preferences and values still have to think about how to budget their time, energy, and resources and sometimes make decisions they don’t necessarily like, in order to be able to have what they want in the long run. A process for making logical decisions is needed to balance out our gut instincts.

Everyone has to have both kinds of Compass in order to function effectively… Gut instinct and logic. And one of those has to be able to be used quickly, in the moment, likely based on external factors dealing with or accounting for other people (externally-oriented). While the other process you use is going to be better for long-term consideration, when you have time to go away by yourself and deeply consider the situation at hand, and how you personally factor into the situation (internally-oriented). 

And in order to make the best choice possible, you’ll probably use a combination of whichever set of Compass Elements you use…

(Relational and Strategic) OR (Compelled and Determined)

Each pair of these Elements is like a coin, and the Elements in each set represents the two sides of the “coin” of an individual’s decision-making process. This describes the balance we need so we can function as the best version of our true selves.

Up next, we’ll go more into why it’s necessary to have both Elements found in each set of Brain Types. Read Part III here.