Temperament
& Business Entrepreneurs

Is temperament important for business entrepreneurs?

Don’t take my word for it, but do take it from the third wealthiest entrepreneur on the planet:

We are talking about practicality, not psychological and theological debates. The only reason I came across this was because a young millionaire had managed to use this knowledge to increase his sales 7 fold!

This made my ears prick up, and then I made the nexus connection between what was being used and the research results.

After stumbling across this theory, I spent several further months evaluating its relevance. This is the root most people miss… the foundation. It’s not everything but it is central and I believe it is one of the main agents responsible for the near total failure rate.

This is used by professionals in marketing, advertising, sales and business management. They use it for a reason... it makes or saves them money.

Call it temperament, aptitude, disposition, unlearnt tendency or stereotype. It has been an observed phenomenon for millennia. You were born with yours and it stays for life, it’s a central part of you.

Think back to your childhood, what were you like before school and life started moulding you?

Were you:

• Happy and outgoing?
• Quite and shy?
• Dominant and competitive?
• Laid back and easy?

Whatever you were like is your natural temperament, even though life may well have shaped and camouflaged you to fit in and adapt to what each environment expects and requires of you.

Our characters are made up of our temperament which we were born with, and our personality which is what we have taken from our life’s experiences.

Our temperament will have its own merits in general life, the problem only comes when we overlay artificial systems like money and business type on these traits, then they can either help or hinder us.

It is one of the differences that can make or break any venture.

In the opening statement of America’s Declaration of Independence it states:

The sentiment is worthy, but humans are blatantly not equal or the same and never have been, there have always been winners and losers, alpha, beta and omega.

In every society, in every country, throughout history we find the same stereotypes.

There are miserly moneylenders, happy-go-lucky ne’er-do-wells, hard-nosed business entrepreneurs, spendthrifts, con artists, soft-hearted pushovers, the lazy and idle, leaders and followers.

In an age when it is a political philosophy that everyone is equal, has equal rights and equal opportunities, the fact that we could be born with a behavioural advantage or disadvantage does not sit well.

'Wealth is an effect caused by certain consistent actions or habits'

Habits are known to be influenced by our surroundings but what is less well-known is that they are also influenced by our inborn temperament. This affect’s our ability to put into practice any business method.

“The secret to success and wealth is not what happens to you… but rather how you respond and react.”

People respond and react dependant to a large extent on their temperament.

It is also a major factor that determines what we do with each minute of our day and pound of our cash, which compounded over time, is a crucial factor in making or losing money.

Because this key is inbuilt, and inherent it is therefore invisible to us.

Temperament exists in most social animals. A police dog’s most important aspect is its temperament, its talent for the upcoming tasks. Young puppies are selected on this principle at a few months of age.

If you are being interviewed for a top management position part of what they will select you on is your temperament.

If prospective business entrepreneurs can recognise their temperament type, with all its baggage, then they can develop a strategy to make the most of what they have got, and avoid the likely traps and snares that would normally snag them.

For business opportunities you should keep in mind that if you could theoretically create the same business conditions i.e. opportunity, money and time for 4 people with 4 different temperaments... it would equal 4 different levels of wealth from the same starting point.

Hence no seminar, 'How to' book or home business can ever be put into action by people of differing temperaments and expect to see the same results.

People try different opportunities yet their same ‘bad luck’ seems to follow them.

This is just with temperament… add life experiences and it makes a mockery of the figures, potentials and testimonials that are advertised by established business entrepreneurs.

5000 years ago the Enneagram was developed as a verbal wisdom in the Middle East this was passed on to successive generations... it identified 9 temperament types.

2400 years ago Hippocrates the ‘father of modern medicine’, identified 4 common temperament types which he believed stemmed from the different fluids found in our bodies. 500 years later the Roman physician Galen named these 4 types with wonderfully unpronounceable names.

Islam... the Qur’an describes water, earth, clay and sounding clay as 4 temperament types which match the above.

Perhaps history's greatest observer of human behaviour, William Shakespeare, noticed these types indeed much of his work was based on his knowledge of the predictability of types.

One of the two great psychologists of the 20th century, Carl Jung, in his book Psychological types added substantially to this field. He identified 4 types which he named: Thinker, Intuitor, Feeler and Sensor.

The Myers-Briggs Type Inventory test was developed primarily but not solely on Jung’s work and has 16 sub-types. This test is now a standard for many professionals world wide.

David Keirsey developed another typing method, based around 4 types: Artisan, Guardian, Idealist and Rational with 16 sub-types. This system is used by many Fortune 500 companies when interviewing potential managers.

Tim LaHaye, Florence Littauer, Alessandra and O’Conner all produced popular books on day to day life, the workplace and temperament influences.

Researchers say there is a 70% correlation between the Enneagram and the Myers-Briggs indicator, that’s 70% common observations throughout 5,000 years of human history, that’s quite a compelling argument.

The above are all based on observation, some scientists and psychotherapists have scoffed at such notions as there is no empirical evidence.

Recently scientific evidence for genetic influence on temperament is coming in on a regular basis. They are identifying specific genes which produce specific temperament effects.

What has been observed for thousands of years is now being explained scientifically. It is not really important to know whether it is a dopamine or serotonin receptor which makes someone more or less likely to be a spendthrift.

The bottom line is that it is genetic, inherited and at the very core of your being.

By simplifying this area it is difficult to avoid horoscope-style sweeping statements. Equally by going into 16 different possible subtypes, as well as the different methods of typing we risk obscuring and confusing the issue.

Generalisation... any form of putting people in boxes is going to have problems. It is obvious we not all alike it is equally obvious the whole human populace does not fit nicely into 4 types.

It is an affront to many people to be labelled, categorised or pigeonholed. None of us like being put in boxes, but it happens anyhow.

You don’t need to know all the other types, just your own and its inherent suitability to money and each type of business.

A little knowledge is dangerous.

Something to be aware of an avoid is immediately seeing all people as one of four types, or assuming if you are a certain type then you are bound to succeed of fail.

There are successful business entrepreneurs and homeless in each category, however there is a higher frequency or likelihood for success or failure according to type.

Equally there are going to be exceptions, like the 90 year old, 40-a-day smoker.

DO use it to aid self-acceptance and self-awareness, which also promotes self-esteem and confidence.


DONT use it as a crutch... I’m no good because I’m such and such type, or wish to be another. We are who we are, better to accept it and make the most of what we have.

Out of all the different typing methods we are going to use the one which salesmen use. The reason for this, in my book, is that practicality beats theory any day of the week… this is a method used by people who make money with it.

Temperament kicks in after the excitement and the rush of the seminar, book or course has passed, usually in a couple of days people ‘revert to type’.

There’s nothing wrong with whoever you are but the reality is, unless you are a certain ‘type’, you’re probably not a natural born entrepreneur. It is much better to realise this and take the appropriate action.

Most people who start their own business have up until that point come from structured systems such as college and more commonly work.

In the case of running your own business you are normally on your own and thus your natural temperament, often suppressed by life’s constraints or the workplace starts coming out in your day to day actions.

It is these actions which can make or break any business.

Not one prospective business entrepreneur I spoke with had turned this on themselves to examine their inborn suitability to money and business.

Are entrepreneurs born or made?

Stereotyped business entrepreneurs are born with a temperament suited to becoming an entrepreneur.

For the majority it really can be the case of the square peg and the round hole.

Once we see the warts-and-all of ourselves and what we are bringing to the table regardless of what that is, then a realistic plan can be drawn up.

A plan that will work rather than a delusion that fails.

Business entrepreneurs: to see which temperament type describes you the best click here.

One of the wisest of ancient men left a message in his tomb, a lifetime of wisdom concentrated down to a few words: