Who Are You Meant to Be? (19 page)

Remember my name (Fame)

I’m gonna…Light up the sky like a flame (Fame).

—“Fame,” Irene Cara

Y
OU KNOW
P
ERFORMERS THE
minute one walks into the room. Whether it’s through their wardrobe, their grand entrance, or their effusive greeting, Performers stand out. They capture attention easily and demand attention constantly. They don’t just “do” things; they perform them and then look for the recognition they need for having done such an outstanding job! They are easily the most energetic of the Striving Styles, seemingly ready to take on the world at a moment’s notice. They explode into life in the pursuit of their latest ambitious goal. It’s obvious from the time you meet them that they enjoy being center stage, and they do it in a delightful and entertaining fashion. Performers love to be the “star” wherever they find themselves.

Goals excite and stimulate Performers, and they are energized by the process of doing whatever it takes to achieve them. Their appetite for success and recognition fuels their motivation to go for more. No sooner have they achieved their goal that they create another to strive toward, bigger and better than the last. A manager must become a director; a singer must become a diva; a homemaker must be the head of the parent-teacher association. Performers achieve more than most others of the same age do through focus, hard work, and their need to win. Singularly directed, they push themselves beyond what others may consider reasonable for a human being to accomplish or even aspire to.

Heather’s story is a good example. She grew her consulting business from five employees to fifteen in just three years and was recognized as one of British Columbia’s fastest-growing businesses three years in a row. As the company’s tenth anniversary approached, she found herself avoiding the office, instead keeping busy with client meetings and new business prospects. She had reached her limit with employees who were constantly complaining about how she was never at the office and blaming her when they didn’t do their work properly. Heather was frustrated because she had hired them so she wouldn’t have to deal with the routine aspects of client work. They weren’t doing their work in a way that supported her continuing to grow the business.

Heather loved the “wins” of selling client projects and working with senior leaders. She couldn’t believe her staff needed her as much as they did and was shocked by their complaints about her and the expectation that she should be more available to them when they needed help.

Through discussions with me (Anne), it soon became apparent to Heather that she needed a bigger challenge. The reality was that she didn’t like having to lead the business; she just liked growing it. Her staff couldn’t do what she needed them to do to keep meeting her need to be recognized. She decided to close down her business instead and take on a new challenge that would more consistently meet her need: working with me to take the Striving Styles to market.

Performers dislike the mundane and routine, and they approach everything they do with an idea of how to make it more fun. They instinctively know how to enliven activities and are uniquely talented in the way they manage to make so many things exciting, including work. Their youthful energy is attractive to others, and they like to be around people who are similarly buoyant in personality. They take on social and familial activities in the home, extended family, and community that provide further opportunities for time in the spotlight. Performers do not do anything at half measure; they prefer to throw themselves into everything they do. A party becomes an event, a family gathering an opportunity to dress up and entertain.

Performers have a talent for seeing life as pregnant with exciting possibilities. They can be anyone they imagine they can be, and the sky is the limit when it comes to inventing and reinventing themselves. Their lives are likely to be like a book containing a number of different yet equally exciting chapters. They do not always finish everything they start, but all their ideas are exciting at the outset. Their motto could easily be “keep your options open” or “leave no stone unturned.” Their life path is often the road less travelled. Performers live with childlike optimism and naïveté, going from one goal to the next with faith that things will work out and that everyone will be supportive of their undertakings. Whatever they do, they do it to win, or to be first. They get such pleasure from competing and winning that they don’t always realize that no one else has noticed the race. Not that it matters—their enjoyment and pleasure come from winning and knowing that they are out in front of others who must be admiring them, even though they may not be giving any indication of it.

What Makes Performers Tick?

The Performer Style lives out of the right rational brain, the area that imagines and envisions what is possible. This part of the brain processes things in a holistic fashion and leaps to conclusions rather than troubling itself to sort out the facts. It knows without knowing why and is strongly intuitive and perceptive. It sees the big picture and gets excited about the possibility of making it real. Driven by a vision of their desired future state, Performers launch into an all-out effort to make it happen, and they gain recognition as a result.

Because they use this part of the brain to imagine what they can be, Performers tend to reinvent themselves continually. They are caught up in what they think is possible for them to do or be. They create their self-image—their vision of who they want to be—and then strive to be that person. For them, the phrase “you can be anything you want to be” isn’t just a cliché; it is an organizing principle for life. Acting like who they are trying to become helps Performers determine their behavior, their wardrobe, and what they show of themselves to the world. They behave according to the current image they have of themselves. They don’t really worry about whether how they’re behaving is different from what they said they were like last month. To them, it’s all authentic. “Fake it till you make it” is the approach to becoming who they want to be that Performers tend to take. Performers are driven to become who they imagine themselves to be.

No matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter where you’ve come from, you can always change, become a better version of yourself.

—Madonna

Because they set their goals so high, Performers work hard to be the best at whatever is important to them—money, social status, sports, good looks, or intelligence. Performers believe in themselves and their ability to make their glittering image come alive through hard work and dedication to their goals. They will work tirelessly to achieve recognition in their particular social environment. Being average is an insult to them, and if they can’t be the life of the party, they’d rather not be invited at all.

Performers have great difficulty staying with any one thing for long because they become bored easily, especially when they are not getting enough attention. Because of this, they run the risk of working or doing things in an unfocused fashion and wasting time and energy in the pursuit of ways to alleviate their boredom. They are not as stimulated by obstacles as others are unless there is external approval and validation for doing this. Performers are easily discouraged and rarely do things they don’t enjoy.

Relationship Style of the Performer

More than most of the other Styles, Performers are dependent on other people. They need others to be the audience for their performances and to mirror back to them how wonderful and amazing they are. Because of their natural charisma and charm, they usually have a large number and variety of friends and acquaintances to keep them energized. Charming and attractive to others, they delight in being the center of attention, entertaining and captivating others in conversations. They make both interesting and playful parents and mates. They consider activities in the home, extended family, and community as more stages on which they can play to their audience, accessing further opportunities to be in the spotlight.

It is not enough just to do something well. If I can’t be recognized by others for having done so, why bother!

—Blake Taylor (Performer)

Performers love being with people. They both enjoy and need people to keep them energized, so they gravitate to situations that have the potential to meet their needs. Because their image of themselves is one of success, prominence, and attractiveness, they seek out people who have achieved these qualities. Being with socially prominent people who are doing things worthy of recognition—such as politicians, leaders of organizations, and celebrities—is extremely important to Performers. They will do whatever it takes to be among people they feel increase their feelings of self-worth. Because Performers need to be seen as successful, they work hard to make sure that everyone knows that their relationships are both ideal and enviable. Although they love their families and are usually deeply committed to them, they sometimes seem to use them as objects for enhancing their self-image.

Denise, a successful broadcaster and mother of two teenaged girls, is having drinks with a few female friends and recounting the wonderful weekend her family just had. She is excited because her girls are doing so well at school and one of them made the cheerleading team. One of her daughters turned down a date on Sunday night so that she could hang out with her mom, as they have an “amazing” relationship that includes a Sunday night “girls’ ritual” of doing their nails and talking about what’s going on. The accounts are detailed and entertaining, with carefully chosen bits of information added to support the notion of successful and admirable relationships. What is edited from the stories is the normal conflict and emotional ups and downs that are a part of daily life. The other women sit in silent envy, reflecting on their own kids’ behavior and on their longing to have the kind of relationship the Performer describes, where they just “hang out” together.

Often extremely perceptive, Performers work hard at understanding people rather than judging them. They do not like to categorize people or to put them in boxes, as they intensely dislike when others do this to them. They are attuned to what is going on with other people, and they will adapt themselves to others’ behavior to gain approval. When they focus on people, they often have remarkable insight into what motivates them. They have gut feelings about people and are usually right. They also notice when something is off, doesn’t add up, or feels wrong. Although others accuse the Performer of talking more than listening, or of not paying attention, they can be shocked at how much the Performer has taken in and how well the Performer actually knows them.

Performers learn early in life how to perform in ways that get them the most recognition and attention. They learn to be very adaptable, using their intuition to inform them of what they need to do or say to get back in the game. When Performers sense that others want them to be entertaining, they can make serious errors in judgment about what they say. They may say something insensitive in an attempt to be funny, offending others without meaning to. Or they will say things that are illogical to sound smart when they actually miss the mark.

How Performers Satisfy Their Need to Be Recognized

Being the Center of Attention

Performers have a tendency to believe that the action gets going when they show up, and often they’re right. Their charismatic and charming personality adds color and dimension to otherwise mundane events. They are confident talking, and once they have the floor, they don’t easily give it up. Performers are the type of people whose behavior seems to say, “Enough about me. Tell me, what do you think about me?” They are masters at directing the conversation back to themselves, as they, and often others, believe that what Performers have to say is much more interesting than what others might. You won’t often see Performers at a silent meditation retreat or alone in a mountain cabin. They want to be where the action is, hanging out with other exciting and interesting people—as long as those people are not so exciting and interesting that the Performer must take a backseat!

Self-Protective Performers act in a grandiose and entitled fashion.
Self-Protective Performers’ notion that they are special can cause them to act as though the rules of society don’t apply to them. They are preoccupied with their own aspirations, needs, and appetites, as well as how others perceive them. They believe in their own preeminence and expect everyone to treat them accordingly. Self-Protective Performers think they are entitled to do what gives them pleasure and meets their need to be recognized without consideration for the needs of others. They can easily dismiss or disregard anyone who doesn’t affirm their value.

Cathy loved to go to dinner parties where she would inevitably get attention from both her male and female friends for her good looks and her stories. She was fun to be with—smart, charming, and witty. Once Cathy arrived, the other women seemed to fade into the background. While her (mostly female) friends were together in the kitchen getting the food ready, Cathy would stay in the living room with the men, entertaining and being entertained. She didn’t see anything wrong with this because she didn’t enjoy cooking and preferred the attention from men. Once the party was winding down and others were cleaning up, Cathy would leave, usually for another social gathering. Her female friends kept vowing never to invite her again, but they couldn’t deny that she made parties a lot more enjoyable, so they never kept their vow. Instead, they just complained about Cathy’s behavior behind her back. They were afraid to confront her about it for fear she would fly into an ugly rant. Too many times, they had seen that criticizing Cathy only instigated a Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation, in which Cathy’s sharp tongue would tear the offender to pieces.

Self-Actualizing Performers share the spotlight.
Self-Actualizing Performers have developed the ability to know when they are using others to satisfy the need for recognition. They have a greater sense of others’ needs and are willing to help meet them, even if it means putting their own needs on hold for a time. In addition, they take time to consider the impact of their actions and decisions on people’s feelings. They no longer have difficulty when the spotlight shifts away from them in social situations, and they stop insisting on special treatment. They find comfort in being a part of a group that accepts them for who they actually are, and they are able to talk about their challenges and difficulties in a way that invites intimacy with others. The closeness that other people have always shared is present in the SA Performer’s relationships as well.