Category: About Human Art

Human Art vs. Other Personality Tests: The Point of All This is You

Posted on February 25, 2019May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

*Painting by Donna O. Kearney, one of the original researchers of Human Art, and mother of Brook Thornley*

Just like anything else that is worth diving into, knowing and understanding one’s personality is a critical part of building a good, strong sense of self. It is an important part of learning how to support oneself. I love the business of personality profiling. It brings me an incredible sense of joy. One of the biggest reasons for that is, with every interaction or discovery of someone’s personality, on the other side of me and my responsibility to work hard for an individual to put their equation together is a human being. A person with many layers, with a story or perhaps many stories. A person with some level of independence and a functioning autonomy that is where I see the human spirit. We all have that in common. We all seem to be hungry for more clues into who we are, how we are made, and what authentically rings true to each of us in a way only we, as that individual, understand.

That responsibility is what I would like to focus on. Once you understand at any level who you are, it is your responsibility to move forward in life from the inside out. Keeping the good in and the bad out. Going into each day with those traits as a security and using them to the best of your ability. I see far too many times we human beings forgetting to look inside for our worth and instead looking to others to give it to us. It leaves us feeling lonely; lonely for someone. That someone is you – your authenticity.

I remember discussing this very thing with my father when our book, Human Art: Understanding your own Personal Design* first came out. My family is a large family of artists. My dad was a painter but a commercial artist by trade. Beautiful art was so important to him but so were words. He talked about the emotions that came up when he read the “forward” of the book. It was a plea of sorts to move “forward” as a human race. He said he had discussed this with some of his friends. He talked to me about how someone of his age could take these words in and look at each individual in that way.

I have a beautiful piece of white paper with one word on it that my father scribed with ink and pen by hand, hanging in my home. It is one word and to me it really does tell a story of each human being if you look deep enough. INCREDIBLE.

I, like my father, did believe every human is incredible. We owe them a deeper look—to find authenticity. We also owe ourselves that courtesy. Stop looking from the outside in with a script of what you think you should be. Start looking from the inside out and find your place in this world, your place authentically.

Find a word or an attribute, a simple trait that you believe about yourself—it could be anything—and hold on to it. Move FORWARD in a way only you can. Live in that way, love with understanding for each other, discover new things with an attitude of celebration and tolerance for others’ authenticity. We all deserve that because everyone is a masterpiece.

Brook

To learn more about Human Art, the history, and where it came from, visit our website: https://theoriginalpersonalitytest.com/about/welcome

*The book “Human Art: Understanding Your Own Personal Design” by Brook and Rod Thornley is currently out of print. We are hoping to offer a 2^nd Edition in the future. We will keep you posted!

Human Art vs. Other Personality Tests: Sensing vs. Intuitive

Posted on February 19, 2019May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

Picture yourself in a directive situation. It could be a classroom setting, or in a lecture, or possibly even listening to a video. What do you imagine you are doing? How is the information affecting you? More importantly, how are you taking it in or experiencing it? What dynamics come up? How aware are you of what is going on with your senses, and how much do you intuitively take in? Most self-report tests measure you in one or the other – sensing or intuition. At Human Art we look at both.

“It’s hard to separate sensing and feeling. For example, we all think in the here and now, but we can’t help but consider the possibilities of the future.”
-Rod Thornley, Clinical Director of Human Art

Children are a great example of this dynamic. You can watch them experience life and see this sensing and intuition happening. We have a pond near our home. It is in the center of a park and it is large. It has a bridge and many paths around it. The children in the neighborhood love to go there in the summer and catch frogs. They study them and then throw them back. Every once in a while, a child will do as the others do and take their bucket to the park and join in with the others catching frogs and observing them; then it occurs to them that they want to take it home. Let’s break down what happens just prior to them getting home, mom seeing the frog, and the well-known, and expected, march back to the pond to return the frog to his home.

The child might experience the frog by taking him out of the bucket. The sensing part will kick in first. The child will take the frog in his hands and feel the slime that coats the frog, he might sense the smell of the pond in the area around the frog. He moves on to how any mud left on the frog’s skin slithers around on his hands and makes it difficult to hold on to the frog.

It is at this point he moves to the intuitive part of his experience. It might occur to him right then that his mom might not be happy with the new member of the family that the child brings home. He might be wondering how the frog is going to like his home. He is now thinking intuitively by processing what could happen in the future.

We all have and experience both sensing and intuition. Depending on how we are made up, our design or our personality is how each of us would respond to the frog situation as a child. Some might think intuitively first, before the sensing experience. Others might alternate between the two very quickly and often. The important thing to remember is that we have both and we all have different degrees. So as unique as each human is, is how unique we will experience life and move in and out of sensing vs intuition. The point is to learn how you do it and then support yourself in it.

Your call to action today is to really evaluate how you do it. You would ask yourself in any given situation, “what would I do?” “How long do I stay in each?” Use your relationship with yourself. Have “self-talk” and learn to collect information from yourself in an honest way; not to please or impress others, but to really get to know yourself. Then take a step toward supporting yourself. Use this information as you better collaborate with others. It could be as simple as explaining the frog dynamic. You might find yourself standing up for yourself and really learning to love yourself.

You are unique, you are one of a kind. So is your neighbor, and whoever you interact with in a given day. Celebrate you, celebrate others, and remember everyone is a masterpiece.

Brook

Human Art vs Other Personality Tests: Thinking vs. Feeling

Posted on February 12, 2019May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

“Based on another test, I am a thinker not a feeler,” was the statement from one client. It is not the first time this issue has come up from clients that have been profiled by other personality tests (others might say they were told they are a feeler). One said that after taking a test that put them in a thinker category, they became very self-conscious about being perceived as cold and aloof. They find themselves being preoccupied in groups; worrying about how they are coming across and if it is too cold. They expressed they feel as though they have lost their natural curiosity when they are with other people because they are worried about it. This is an example of what happens when a personality test of any sort is limiting. If we start to specialize humans too much, we find ourselves in a place that we might be hurting more than we are helping.

In my opinion, a far more superior system is when we look for patterns and equations of how they do both thinking and feeling. At Human Art you have a profile of how you authentically think and how you authentically feel. We all do both. It might be in a different order or in different degrees. It can even show up differently when in different settings. Human Art can define that for you.

The most important step is that we, as a society of humans, really settle in to the idea that we are all beautiful in our own right. And defining the complexity of each one of us is far more rewarding than categorizing our ability or traits in too much of a simplistic way. I will tell you that over the years I have fought for this. We have had so many well-intentioned and intelligent people try to convince us that, from a business stand point, it is better to just identify each person with one or two of the Human Art designs (rather than a unique combination of all four) to make it more duplicatable. We refuse to do that because it is not authentic. I tell you that you as a human have the God-given right to have someone take the time to see you for who you really are. From your most obvious and predominant trait to the one that is so small it might be a just a “fume” – that “fume” changes everything that we think we know about you.

Showing the amounts and the order for each of the designs is the key to helping people fall in love with their authenticity again. The amount of thinker and the amount of feeler that you are, and what it looks like for each individual. We can talk about what it feels like to you and also what it looks and feels like to others around you.

Let’s go back and look at the client that was worried about coming across too cold. Her original test was correct in that she is a “thinker” first, but it failed to measure how fast the “feeling” part of her design accompanied that. It was amazing to me how fast it was. She is high in what we call the Saturated Design. Her thinking is done in an introverted, clear way, but immediately her feeling part of her design accompanies the thinking. This would lead her to move right away to how she felt about the things that she was drawing conclusions about. I saw it time and time again when I watched her interact with others. It was so beautiful to me. The minute that happened (the thinking) she would turn her head slightly, her chin would shift smoothly in the direction of her left shoulder, and she would immediately start to ask questions and deduct how the conversation was making the other person feel. She already knew how she felt because she is such a clear thinker. So before the person she was interacting with even has time to deem her cold, she was swimming in a pool of empathy for that person. No time at all for aloof feelings, just understanding. I also noticed that when she was preoccupied with the results of the prior test, her authentic come across, or that shift to feelings, would not happen. We did not get to experience that observable empathy because of her worry, so she would actually get more of what she was afraid of—negative reactions and less authenticity. When she was more authentic and understood herself, her Saturated and Blackened design did the thinking first and then quickly moved her into her Grayed that felt things in an intuitive way and with compassion and sensitivity.

I had a conversation with another client who is very high in her ability to feel. She took a test that was helping her employer define the best task for her and they came up with the task of typing. They actually told her that she should focus only on that. That is just far to limiting for this particular client, or for any other human being. In Human Art, we would see that this person is high in the Whitened personality and has large amounts of it at first. This type of feeler is a free spirit and full of natural curiosity with no guile. She is very curious and full of spontaneity. She loves social interactions and can enroll others easily. Taking a test that is too simplistic would see that and be able to point that out. What it would miss is that she then has an underlying amount of thinker that is done in a serious and detailed way. These come from her second and third designs. That means she has the ability to be serious and logical in her tasks as well. This is critical to know. I agree with the original test based on the Myers-Briggs, she would be an excellent typist, but it falls too short and depreciates the breadth of what she can do. Her employer is missing out on so much that she has to offer by basing their idea of her abilities on such a narrow perspective. That is the mindset we are trying to challenge.

So again, I worry that when tests that are accurate in the application but not the complexity, they run the risk of marginalizing or devaluing the totality and the capability of what a person can offer. You run the risk of putting someone in a corner to do a job and, though they will do it well, they could also have the potential and the desire to be more—maybe even a great executive. It is not just in business this happens. It is in family, friendships, learning settings, and social settings.

The point I am adamant about making is that we all have something so unique to add to this great earth and it is time to get smarter about discovering it. We as a human race can define other complex systems and we have evolved enough and are intelligent enough to demand them. We wouldn’t settle for limited or simplistic ways of interacting and contacting each other, so we demanded it until we got social media and better networks. We knew we were falling short of how we take care of ourselves, so we are constantly finding ways to be healthier—we demand it. It is time to want a more complex system to measure a person, and to demand for ourselves nothing short of our full and complete authenticity. You need to find it, we can define it, and we all need to require it of each other. We are unique, we are all complex, we are all beautiful, we are all one of a kind.

We cannot settle for anything less, because everyone is a masterpiece.

Brook

To learn more about Human Art: The Original Personality Test, visit our website at https://theoriginalpersonalitytest.com

Human Art and Myers-Briggs — How Do We Compare to Other Personality Tests?

Posted on February 4, 2019May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

When someone new runs across Human Art, our personality methodology, they are often very curious as to how our methodology compares to other personality typing approaches. There are many that we are aware of and probably a few that we are not. One that comes up a lot because it is so well known is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Several of the other personality tests are also a spin-off of the Myers-Briggs, so we will use that as an example to compare, but know that this analysis also applies to the other tests.

Self Report vs. Empirical

The first important distinction is that the Myers-Briggs (as well as others) is based on self-report; meaning you are answering questions or providing the information yourself. Human Art, on the other hand, is empirically based so it is observable. You do not need to take a test to see one’s personality. You can simply start to deduct what their design or personality is within seconds of them walking through the door or approaching them.

This is important for several reasons but the most obvious is that when needing the benefits of a personality test you do not always have the luxury of sitting down, administering a test, sending it in to an expert to evaluate it and draw conclusions and then sending the results back to you. With Human Art you start to get a clear view of someone’s personality within seconds, and you can do it for yourself. We use correct principles of art, design, and psychology and the elements of color, line, sound, and movement to quickly observe someone’s personality or design.

Potential for Skewed Results

The second reason self-report like a Myers-Briggs test and those that spin off of it might not always be the superior option is that an individual taking a self-report test can skew the test results. This can happen when a person answers a question to portray the way they want to be seen, rather than how they truly are. Or if there are traits seen as more valued than others, they may answer in an effort to show they have that valued characteristic or meet an expectation. This skewing could be a conscious or subconscious decision. Regardless, it has the potential to cloud the results, leading to a gap in which unhealthy relating seeps in.

Then you are in a situation where the advantage of knowing someone, or using a test to know how to best work with an individual, is based off false information; which then has the potential for failure and negates the reason you were administering the test in the first place. The test has the potential to be inaccurate. For example, if an employer administers a Myers-Briggs or other similar test, if any answer is skewed or based on false report, it gives the employer a false sense of what the profile means; which then leads to an incorrect expectation or view of the person they are hiring. That could give you the opposite result, low job satisfaction and high turnover.

The original intention from the other personality tests, in my opinion, is to categorize which type of people can do certain tasks. At Human Art we just simply tell how all personalities do that same task in their best way.

Motivation and Categorization

The third reason, and the most important one to me, is the motivation of the Myers-Briggs and other tests seem to be too simple in my opinion. It is trying to categorize a human and put them in a specific category, which is counter-intuitive to human independence and the need for a healthy autonomy. I hear this all the time with people who are afraid of personality tests; they all say about the same thing: “I don’t want to be put in a box.”

I Googled how many people are on the planet and got the answer 7 billion. Because we are all so different and unique, that would require a personality system that had approximately seven billion boxes.

The Purpose of Human Art

I feel very strongly about this. It is not in my nature to compare. My usual response is to find the good in all systems. I have done that. Today it is not about that. Today it is simply a warning to not let our industry, one that yes I am a part of, in any way rob you of your autonomy and independence. My intention is to have a healthy debate about how we use personality tests and move into a space where we get more of what we all want: healthy independence, more efficacy and higher sense of self. No more beating each other up over who has a superior personality type and who has the superior thought process.

To be clear, every human being is born with a basic right to be acknowledged for who they are, understood for what they need, seen for how they feel and think and love, and to be one of a kind.

Here is an example of this. One of my mentors, we will just call her Nancy for today, was high up in a very large international company. She did a lot of public speaking and training. It was time for one of her first appearances with this new and rather large company. Her boss, a very smart and well-respected man in the business community, was trying to get her to be more of a prototype business personality type. He had worked with her on this with all the good intentions in the world. As often happens, he had his view on how she would best find success. As she was about to walk on stage, he mentioned something that had a negative ring to her and led her to believe in her mind that she was not enough. The thought rang through her head, “Don’t be Nancy.” This is the problem I am talking about.

When she got on stage she recounts how she made the decision to not only be Nancy but to really be Nancy, in an attempt to stay true to the Nancy she knew was authentic. When she was done, she said to her boss, “don’t ever ask me to speak again unless you want me to be Nancy.” She turned and noticed the crowd and they were all on their feet giving her her first standing ovation.

Later, in an attempt to find the “real Nancy,” she was administered another self-report test like Myers-Briggs. When we finally caught up with her at Human Art, the first thing she did was throw the report at us and said, “here you might have more use for this than me. I don’t even understand it.” She recounts her first interaction at Human Art when I had the privilege to explain her equation and design. She said it hit her so hard when I told her she was introverted first and then in social settings she became more extroverted. She told me I was the first person who had ever understood that about her. Every other personality test she had taken identified her as extremely extroverted. She said it meant so much to her that I knew her, and it was all because of the principles behind Human Art. That was my goal and always will be—to know someone for who they really are.

Everyone is A Unique Masterpiece

At Human Art, we use four personality types, we call them harmonies or designs, to find a unique equation of a person’s personality. Everyone is a unique combination of all four. The slightest amount of one makes a totally different profile than what someone else’s is. I personally have done thousands of personality profiles over the years and no two people have ever been the same. I can attest to the fact that EVERYONE IS UNIQUE. Even though I have not met everyone, it just makes sense to me that if everyone I have profiled is different and unique, so must be the rest, and I will spend the rest of my life observing personalities and their uniqueness.

Our test is empirical and can be observed. You do not have to fill out a self-report test. You can watch and see with your own eyes, the study, the science, the art of being human—Human Art—where everyone is a masterpiece.

~Brook

To learn more about Human Art: The Original Personality Test and what we do, visit our main website at theoriginalpersonalitytest.com

My Plea: “To all mankind…one person at a time.”

Posted on October 16, 2018May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

In 2006, my husband Rod and I finished our book “Human Art: Understanding Your Own Personal Design.” We had only one thing left to do on the manuscript and that was to finish the dedication. We could not figure out who to dedicate it to. There were too many people that had come along the way of writing it to pick just one person or group to dedicate it to. The obvious first group was our children. We both took time out of our lives with our family to complete the goal of each of us writing and working on the book for at least an hour a day. There were people who helped. The list goes on and on.

Something happened during that same time that in the end led to our decision; we decided to dedicate the book to you. Yes you. Let me walk you through what happened.

I received a phone call one day from an Emmy Award winning agent, let’s call him Brian. He had a small amount of information about Human Art. He had produced many shows and projects for actual celebrities but most of his time was spent helping advise celebrities on how to navigate being famous. His proposal for me was overwhelming and my appreciation that he would even consider helping me was profound.

I remember walking in the office for our first meeting. Looking at the wall of fame as I walked down the hallway into his waiting room was intimidating to say the least. There were a variety of gold records, pictures of celebrities I admired, and even shots of award shows with him attending lining the walls of the hallway leading to the waiting room outside his rather large office. What was a girl like me doing in a place like this?

I was invited into his office. As we were talking he laid out a plan for me and the first thing on that plan was to practice a strategy for when I walked in the room to boost my confidence. I was all on board for this because I can’t say my confidence was at an all time high sitting in that office. He explained that the first thing a celebrity does when they walk in the room at the beginning of any event was to separate the idea of being human and focus on being the star in the room to give them the personification of a star. This strategy was designed for his clients to boost their confidence and to see themselves as a star. I could definitely see how that would be effective if you were a famous actor or singer. It in fact had been very affective for some of the people he was working with at the time. I remember thinking of the people that he was working with from politicians to celebrities, singers with gold records that had been on the charts. Then I started to imagine what that would be like for me to try this strategy.

It would not work. I was the only person, of the all the people he worked with, that this would not work with. In our next meeting I expressed this concern so we went on to the next item on his agenda. He explained we needed to pick “the face of Human Art.” I sat quietly so to be respectful as he went through a list of possibilities. Again as I found myself imagining this strategy it just felt profoundly wrong.

A few weeks passed of going back and forth and I knew it was time to have a serious discussion with him. This just wasn’t working. It was a fail-proof strategy for the caliber of professionals he worked with but I was not a fit for this strategy. Out of respect for him I didn’t want to take anymore of his time or frustrate him further. So I made the call.

The conversation started with me thanking him. I then explained that it wasn’t going to work. He asked why. I stated that it was as if he was interviewing me and I was interviewing him and we were both failing. I didn’t want to frustrate him further. I will never forget his answer. “This is the biggest mistake of your life. I could make one phone call and have you on Larry King Live and Oprah.” (popular talk shows at the time) I told him I understood. He asked what I was thinking when I came to this conclusion. I told him something that is still true today.

Human Art is not a theory or methodology that is starring me. It is starring the person I am teaching it to. When I walk into a room I cannot separate myself from the person or the humans, because it is about them. It is about YOU. It is Human Art, starring you. You are the face of Human Art. I told him I agreed that it was a missed opportunity, but I expressed that I would never regret it. Instead of dedicating my life to getting to the masses (which was something he was brilliant at), I would spend my life teaching humans of their design and authenticity one person at a time.

So we had it. The dedication: “to all mankind…one person at a time.”

This is very important to me. I can tell you I have done this consistently since that experience years ago.

I want to give you an invitation, because you are that “one person at a time.” We will be in Salt Lake City on November 3rd.* We will be doing a class and speaking to your personality. If you are someone who still does not know who you are, what your worth is or doesn’t know how to even start to define it, I am talking to you. Please come. I do believe that everyone is a masterpiece and I want you to know it and believe it too.

So this is a plea from me—not on a talk show, not from a famous person, just me in my office at my home. Please be a part of that group and come learn how wonderful your authenticity is. So you will know too that everyone is a masterpiece.

~Brook

*This class has already been held. No current registration available.