Telluride Times, April 2, 2026

“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter sent me a copy of a character assessment from her employer, adding that it was a routine occurrence and that the tools varied each time. She felt hers was spot on, and I thought so, too. I had seen some of these qualities in her from the get-go.

Although no one wants to be boxed in, it can be enormously helpful to gain new insight into our tendencies and their effects on our lives. How is my awareness of who I am affecting myself and others? How does this affect my mental and emotional health? And can I ever change?

Most people are familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, but many other assessments exist for the purposes, in the employment space at least, of communication styles, character, values, and personal growth.

A lot has changed since my early (and only) days in the corporate world—New York in the 80s in publishing and advertising. And though a number of assessments were being used at the time (Myers-Briggs, DISC, Big Five), I was too much of a newbie to warrant one, even if they had been using them then at Bantam Books.

So when I quit my job after two years, my iron-lady boss, who had worked her way up from secretary to VP, saw fit to say to me, “Do you want to know why you’ll never make it in this business?” I remember the answer, but not as much as the tone of the question and its implication that the secret sauce was missing from my sandwich profile.

She was probably right in terms of prognostications of me as a corporate employee in a non-creative environment, but the delivery felt vindictive and unnecessarily mean-spirited. Looking back, what felt like a hard slap now rests as a fortuitously irreconcilable misalignment. Had an assessment been in place, she and I might have both had more accurate language with which to communicate and move forward with clarity. At the very least, we might have reaffirmed that not every person is meant for every environment.

Now as ever, many of us want to know more about who we are—whether it’s in the workplace, in relationships, in the material world and in our bodies, or in the grand and cosmic scheme of things. Who are we and who are we not? How do we continue to accept ourselves while also working on what needs improvement? These questions track many of us through every stage of life. I estimate the question mark appeared over my own head at around age fifteen, and then never really left.

In health coaching, the VIA Strengths Finder assessment is sometimes recommended because it is a simple, no-cost quiz that ranks 24 strengths in the categories of wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. For the first time, a client might learn, for instance, that honesty is their strength and something to treasure. What might once have been dismissed or taken for granted is reframed as a core part of identity and given both worth and practical meaning.

The umbrella over all of it, in coaching at least, is the positive spin, and for one simple reason: people need to feel good in order to move forward in a healthy way. They need to build on strengths rather than navigate the land mines of comparison so ubiquitous in our culture today. Now more than ever, we are likely to compare and despair, as they say, rather than stand where we are and water our roots. Strength-based approaches offer an important shift: instead of asking “What is wrong with me?” we can begin with the better-feeling question, “What’s right?”

Of course, long before corporate assessments—and still in use today—people have turned to more esoteric or symbolic systems to understand themselves. Astrology, numerology, the Enneagram, and more recently Human Design, to name a few, have offered insight into enduring patterns of personality/behavior. Even more contemplative systems, such as Jungian archetypes or Ayurvedic types, extend a similar impulse, offering language for the inner life in more reflective ways. The I Ching and tarot, as well, offer a chance to reflect on ourselves through symbol and story.

Whether in a corporate office, a coaching session, or more personal exploration, we naturally seek systems in which to recognize ourselves and a language to safely explore whatever patterns we carry—not as life sentences but, with perseverance, as steps toward personal growth and liberation.