Littauer - Personality Plus

What makesyouso special?

A lot of things. Find out just how wonderfully and creatively God made you in Personality Plus. In these pages youll learn whether youre: or a combination of the above. Youll also learn how to best use these unique, God-given assets to bring harmony into all your relationships. Florence Littauer explains, When we know who we are and why we act the way we do, we can begin to understand our inner selves, improve our personalities, and learn to get along with others.

a spontaneous, vivacious, cheerful Sanguine

a thoughtful, faithful, persistent Melancholy

an adventurous, persuasive, confident Choleric

a friendly, patient, contented Phlegmatic

Once you understand how to bring out your best, youll find that others look better too. Discover the person youve always wanted to be in Personality Plus.

REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION

FLORENCE LITTAUER

Copyright 1983, 1992 by Florence Littauer

Published by Fleming H. Revell
a division of Baker Book House Company
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com

Thirty-eighth printing, August 2004

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalogingin-Publication Data

Littauer, Florence.

Personality plus / Florence Littauer.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-8007-5445-X

1. Personality. 2. Temperament. 3. SuccessReligious aspectsChristianity. 4. Christian life1960- I. Title.
BF698.L54 1992
155.26dc20 92-13275

Unless otherwise identified, Bible quotations in this volume are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Bible quotations identified GNB are from the Good News BibleOld Testament: Copyright American Bible Society, 1976; New Testament: Copyright American Bible Society, 1966, 1971, 1976.

Scripture quotations identified TLB are taken from The Living Bible, Copyright 1971 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

The Personality Profile is from After Every Wedding Comes a Marriage by Florence Littauer. Copyright 1981, Harvest House Publishers, 1075 Arrowsmith, Eugene, OR 97402.

Contents

PART I Personality Profile:
A Quick Method of Self-Examination

PART II Personality Potential:
A Look at Our Individual Assets

PART III Personality Plan:
A Way to Overcome Our Personal
Weaknesses

Introduction: Positives Carried to Extremes
Become Negatives

PART IV Personality Principles:
A Path to Improved Relations with Others

PART V Personality Power:
A Source of Strength to Achieve
Our Potential

Twenty-five years ago a friend of mine gave me a copy of Spirit ControlledTemperament by Tim LaHaye and asked me to read it. I was instantly fascinated with the four temperaments that originated with Hippocrates four hundred years before Christ was born. As I read on, I found the description of a person so like me, and then one so like Fred, that I felt the author must have secretly known us. Although I had never met Tim LaHaye, I really wanted to talk with a man of his perception. Within a year our paths crossed, and we both spoke at the same seminar. Tim was just as dynamic and exciting as Id hoped hed be, and he encouraged me in my further study of the temperaments.

After all these years of teaching and counseling, I have put together my compilation of Personality Plus temperaments, and I am dedicating this book to Tim LaHaye, who first inspired me. I agree with what he said to me in a letter:

I am more convinced now than when I wrote the book that the
fourtemperament theory is the best explanation of human behavior there is.

Thank you, Tim LaHaye, for your encouragement.

FLORENCE LITTAUER

PART ONE
Personality Profile
A Quick Method of
Self-Examination

Everyone wants a better personality. We all picture ourselves on Fantasy Island, where the ringing of the mission bells transforms us into articulate, attractively attired aristocrats. We no longer trip, fumble, spill, or grope; we converse, captivate, charm, and inspire. When the show is over, we switch off our mind-set and resume our test pattern of life. As we stare at our blank screens, we wonder why our situation comedy was canceled; why weve been replaced by the new stars who play their roles with confidence; why we seem to be cast as misfits.

We rush off to personality courses that promise to transform us into sparkling wits within twentyfour hours; self-evaluation experiences that will make us into minigods with maxipower; or sensitivity sessions, where we will feel our way into a fantastic future. We go expecting miracles and come home disappointed. We dont fit the mold of the exciting person, bursting with potential, pictured as the norm. We have different drives, abilities, and personalitiesand we cant be treated as the same.

No Two Alike

If we were all identical eggs in a carton, a giant mother hen could warm us up and turn us into slick chicks or roving roosters overnight; but we are all different. We were all born with our own set of strengths and weaknesses, and no magic formula works wonders for all of us. Until we recognize our uniqueness, we cant understand how people can sit in the same seminar with the same speaker for the same amount of time and all achieve different degrees of success.

Personality Plus looks at each one of us as an individual blend of the four basic temperaments and encourages us to get acquainted with the real me underneath before trying to change what shows on the surface.

Its Whats Underneath That Counts

When Michelangelo was ready to carve the statue of David, he spent a long time in selecting the marble, for he knew the quality of the raw material would determine the beauty of the finished product. He knew he could change the shape of the stone, but he couldnt transform the basic ingredient.

Every masterpiece he made was unique, for even if he had wanted to, he would not have been able to find a duplicate piece of marble. Even if he cut a block from the same quarry, it wouldnt have been exactly the same. Similar, yes, but not the same.

Each One of Us Is Unique

We started out with a combination of ingredients that made us different from our brothers and our sisters. Over the years people have chiseled on us, chipped, hammered, sanded, and buffed. Just when we thought we were finished products, someone would start shaping us up again. Occasionally wed enjoy a day in the park, when everyone who passed by admired us and stroked us, but at other times we were ridiculed, analyzed, or ignored.

We were all born with our own temperament traits, our raw material, our own kind of rock. Some of us are granite, some marble, some alabaster, some sandstone. Our type of rock doesnt change, but our shapes can be altered. So it is with our personalities. We start with our own set of inborn traits. Some of our qualities are beautiful with strains of gold. Some are blemished with fault lines of gray. Our circumstances, IQ, nationality, economics, environment, and parental influence can mold our personalities, but the rock underneath remains the same.