Explorers are curious. They have many interests: they love to learn, and they regularly seek novelty and adventure. Moreover, Explorers are likely to be impulsive, high energy, flexible, irreverent and very interested in sex. So two Explorers can have great fun together. They won’t argue over life’s little chores: when to take out the garbage is likely to be immaterial to both. They aren’t likely to quarrel about money either, as most believe cash should be used to fulfil their dreams.

Explorer and Explorer Match

Explorers don’t follow schedules or prescribed ways of doing things, unless necessary, so neither will be fussy about rules either. Explorers are optimists. And their positivity, flexibility and mutual irreverence enable these couples to keep their spirits up when life is strained. But two Explorers can find themselves in disastrous situations – financial or physical – because both are daring and impulsive. And what they gain in intellectual and/ or physical adventure, they can lose in emotional intimacy because Explorers are wildly independent – even from a mate.

Explorer and Explorer Match (cont’d)

Explorers aren’t generally introspective either. So two Explorers can leave serious family issues unresolved. Explorers also tend to be charismatic and flirtatious, so they can stumble into extra-marital romantic situations. They are prone to addiction, too. And Explorers can become restless and hanker to move on as the novelty wears off. Yet this restlessness may be their biological strength. Helen Fisher suspected this type is more prone to making a series of partnerships, hence producing more varied young – another viable reproductive strategy.

But what happens when an Explorer falls in love with a Builder? One is reckless, the other cautious; one likes novelty, the other basks in the familiar. Or when two Directors tie the knot? Both are sceptical, competitive and have poorer people skills. Can two Negotiators ever make a decision? Both vacillate. And how will someone predominantly expressive of both Explorer and Builder traits cope with someone who is largely a Director and Negotiator?

Other Matches (And Are They Doomed?)

Every match will have different joys and sorrows. Moreover, each of us is a unique combination of these four broad biological styles of thinking and behaving. In fact, in one of Helen Fisher’s studies of 100,000 individuals, no two people answered the 56 questions of her questionnaire the same way.

No Two People Are The Same

Nevertheless, each of these 100,000 men and women expressed these four broad personality constellations in some way: biological patterns to human personality do exist.So when a couple walks into the therapist’s office, they come not only with luggage from their childhood but with biologically based variations in whom and how they love. These predispositions are worth knowing as the couple therapist embarks upon the journey into their clients’ hearts.

Biological Patterns Walk In Therapy Along With Us

The late Helen Fisher, renowned biological anthropologist, identified four primary personality types based on brain chemistry and hormonal influences: the Explorer, the Builder, the Director and the Negotiator.

In love? Take a quiz. Long-term relationship. Heartbreak. Science of love

Understand yourself and those around you.

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Psychology

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Communication

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Love & Relationships

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Science & Nature

The 4 ‘Love Archetypes’ That Influence Partner Choice (part 2 of 2)

Many social, economic, psychological and biological forces contribute to mate preference. We tend to gravitate to someone with the same socio-economic and ethnic background, with a similar level of education, intelligence and physical attractiveness; a partner who shares our religious and social values; and someone who can provide the lifestyle we seek. Timing and proximity contribute.

“We Have So Much In Common”

Some psychologists believe we gravitate to someone similar to the parent with whom we have unresolved issues; who can provide the type of attachment we had with mother; or a mate who reflects the values and interests of our childhood friends. But academics don’t agree on the role of personality in mate choice. Some report we are attracted to those with similar personality traits; others conclude that opposites attract; still others maintain neither play a role. So Helen Fisher approached mate choice from a different perspective: biology.

“Ha! We Have Chemistry!”

Personality is composed of two basic types of traits: those an individual acquires through experience, traits of character; and those with biological underpinnings, traits of temperament. Traits of temperament are heritable, relatively stable across the life course and linked to specific genes, hormones and/or neurotransmitter systems. Indeed, some 50% of who we are stems from our biology. So Helen Fisher culled from the academic literature those personality traits currently linked with any physiological foundations.

The 4 Primary Temperament Dimensions

Only four neural systems are regularly associated with a constellation of personality traits. Variations in the dopamine system have been linked with novelty, experience and adventure seeking, susceptibility to boredom, impulsivity, energy and enthusiasm. People expressive of certain genes in the dopamine system tend to lack introspection; they look out, not in. These men and women are also often intellectually curious, mentally flexible and creative. So Helen Fisher called this style of thinking and behaving ‘curious/energetic’ and dubbed them “Explorers”.

The Dopamine-Driven “Explorers”

The suite of traits associated with specific activities and genes in the serotonin system include sociability, caution (harm avoidance), less anxiety and more close friends. Elevated activity in the serotonin systems is also linked with observing social norms, following the rules, respecting authority, orderliness, adherence to plans, methods and habits, self-control, precision, interest in details, conscientiousness, figural and numeric creativity, and religiosity. So Helen Fisher called this trait constellation the ‘cautious/social norm compliant’ and dubbed them “Builders”.

The Serotonin-Driven “Builders”

Prenatal endogenous testosterone priming is linked with enhanced visual-spatial perception and a keen understanding of ‘rule-based systems’, from mechanics to computers, maths, engineering or music. Those expressive of testosterone regularly exhibit acute attention to details and have deep but narrow interests. They also tend to be less socially aware, with poorer emotion recognition, less eye contact, less verbal fluency, reduced empathy and extreme sensitivity to rank.

The Testosterone-Driven “Directors”

Yet those expressive of testosterone are often self-confident, forthright, assertive and emotionally contained, although they also experience more emotional flooding, particularly rage. Helen Fisher designated this trait constellation the ‘analytical/tough-minded’ temperament dimension and dubbed those particularly expressive of this trait constellation “Directors”.

The Testosterone-Driven “Directors” (cont’d)

Prenatal endogenous estrogen priming is associated with contextual, holistic and long-term thinking, as well as linguistic skills, agreeableness, co-operation, theory of mind (intuition), empathy and nurturing. Traits associated with estrogen activities also include generosity and trust, the drive to make social attachments, heightened memory for emotional experiences, keen imagination and mental flexibility.

The Estrogen-Driven “Negotiators”

Oxytocin, closely related to estrogen, is also associated with several prosocial traits, including trust, reading emotions in others and theory of mind. So Helen Fisher designated this trait constellation the ‘prosocial/empathetic’ temperament dimension and dubbed those predominantly expressive of this suite of trait “Negotiators”.

The Estrogen-Driven “Negotiators” (cont’d)

Helen Fisher found that men and women who were primarily novelty-seeking, energetic, curious and creative were statistically significantly more drawn to those who shared these traits, while those who were primarily conventional, cautious and rule following were also drawn to individuals like themselves. But those who were more analytical, tough minded, direct and decisive were disproportionately attracted to their opposite, those who were imaginative, intuitive, compassionate and socially skilled; and vice versa.

Mate Choice

In short, Explorers preferentially sought Explorers, Builders sought other Builders, and Directors and Negotiators were drawn to one another. Why does similarity attract in some cases while opposites attract in others? Perhaps these human appetites are primordial reproductive mechanisms that evolved to insure the survival of the young. Take a partnership between a Director and a Negotiator

So Is It “Similars Attract” Or “Opposites Attract”?

These are very different styles of thinking and behaving, yet the Director and Negotiator have important things in common. Foremost, their thinking meshes. Both dislike wasting time on irrelevant or superficial conversations, and both like to discuss abstract concepts and generate theories. Yet the Negotiator sees the big picture, while the Director is likely to focus on smaller pieces of the puzzle; so both can impress.

Director and Negotiator Match

They are also likely to make decisions well together. The Negotiator will see all the angles, while the Director will be decisive. Moreover, the Director needs the Negotiator’s empathy, verbal acuity and people skills, while the Negotiator can marvel at the Director’s candor, their goal-oriented focus and their gift of knowing their own mind.

Director and Negotiator Match (cont’d)

Problems can emerge, however. Directors strive for efficiency and logic, a trait that can disappoint the expressive, tenderhearted Negotiator. Directors don’t like redundancy either; they are not likely to say ‘I love you’ regularly or respond to other loving rituals the Negotiator needs to feel connected. Moreover, Directors admire self-control, so if the Negotiator becomes a drama queen (or king), the Director may retreat into hostile silence.

The Director can also become impatient with the Negotiator’s intuitive side, regarding it as airy nonsense. Meanwhile, the Negotiator may find the Director’s insistence on tough-minded logic irritating, particularly if it tramples on someone’s feelings. But when the Director and Negotiator pool their complementary traits, they are likely to be an effective team for raising young.

If Directors and Negotiators are pooling different resources to rear their young, Builders appear to capitalize on many shared strengths. Builders tend to be calm, precise, managerial and social; both like building community ties. And because Builders are modest, civic-minded and often popular, two Builders can create a wide, stable, social network.

Builder and Builder Match

Nor are these men and women impulsive with their money, actions or feelings; security is important to both. Moreover, Builders are traditional. Duty, loyalty, patience, persistence and service are their strong suits, so both are likely to be devoted to domestic stability, overlooking their differences to make the marriage last. But Builders can be moralistic: both are likely to believe there is a ‘right’ thing to do and a ‘right’ way of doing it. And both can be critical. So Builders are likely to bicker over trivial matters, such as how to do the dishes.

Builder and Builder Match (cont’d)

And Builders refuse to compromise their standards: both can be stubborn. Moreover, Builders are the least sexual of the four broad styles of thinking and behaving. So sex – and the emotional closeness it often brings – can take a back seat to their individual schedules. Nevertheless, with two Builders, humanity has evolved another stable strategy for parenting.

The late Helen Fisher, renowned biological anthropologist, identified four primary personality types based on brain chemistry and hormonal influences: the Explorer, the Builder, the Director and  the Negotiator.

The 4 ‘Love Archetypes’ That Influence Partner Choice (part 1 of 2)

Creatives see the world at a slant, embracing the ambiguities and contradictions threaded throughout problems. Instead of being intimidated by the knot or jockeying for credit for untangling the snarl, the Creative is intrigued by the complexity of the challenge and promptly discards the “this is how we have always done it around here” mindset and gets to the messy work of figuring it out.

The Creative

Creatives are mission-driven, internally motivated, and highly ethical. Therefore, it is not unusual for Creatives to become whistleblowers when stumbling upon wrongdoing. Though these are all admirable and sought-after characteristics in innovative organizations that foster diverse voices, they can put Creatives on the target board in bureaucratic institutions with exclusive inner circles whose ticket to entry is groupthink and compliance.

The Creative (cont’d)

This fiery beast craves authority, accolades, and access. Though not necessarily possessing a formal leadership role, he employs gossip, gaslighting, manipulation, and sabotage in order to clear the opposition and climb his way to the top. Since power and recognition are the rewards he seeks, he carefully curates a persona framed by commitment and loyalty, while behind the scenes, his behaviors are conniving, unethical, and, at times, illegal. His ultimate kryptonite is the Creative, and he deploys the Shapeshifters and Community Builders to clear the competition keeping his claws clean.

The Dragon

Like Dragons, Shapeshifters crave influence and recognition yet lack the charisma to garner power of their own, so they search for coattails to drag them to the top. Sensing their desire and capitalizing on their vulnerabilities, Dragons create an inner circle, offering social influence and perceived prestige in exchange for following tight group norms and carrying out the Dragon’s dirty work, which often includes instigating gossip campaigns to sully the Creative’s reputation.

The Shapeshifters

Community Builders, like Creatives, are often hardworking and authentically dedicated to the mission. However, their aversion to conflict and need to belong to the dominant group causes them to be willowy, bending to the whims of the crowd in order to avoid making waves. Preying on their insecurities, the Dragon offers them a space at the table in exchange for their loyalty. Therefore, when the Dragon and his Shapeshifters target a Creative, the Community Builder is expected to participate in the gossip ring and ice her out, even if the Community Builder and Creative were once good pals.

The Community Builders

The Creatives that participated in relevant studies revealed that the Dragon wasn’t the source of their most significant pain, as they had always known he couldn’t be trusted. Instead, it was the betrayal and abandonment by the Community Builders—those they had helped, confided in, and considered friends—that inflicted the lasting wounds.

The Community Builders (cont’d)

Though the character assassination and targeted attacks innate in workplace bullying often leave the Creative feeling ostracized and alone, if she is lucky, she finds a Confidant in the weeds of office life. That Confidant might be a Creative like herself, excited to take intellectual risks in an attempt to solve knotty problems, but that Confidant may also simply be an individual who is grounded in her values and steadfast in her worth, making her largely unsusceptible to the Dragon’s antics.

The Confidants and Upstanders

When the Creative comes under attack, the Confidant serves as a sounding board, validating the Creative’s experiences and sometimes steps into the role of Upstander, pushing back on the Dragon’s false narratives. The participants in relative studies shared repeatedly that the presence of just one Confidant in the workplace provided the necessary glue to retain them in the organization, as opposed to abandoning the ship in search of a better cultural fit, and, at times, even helped them to shift the cultural tide from one of small circle exclusion to big tent and big thinking belonging.

The Confidants and Upstanders (cont’d)

Most organizations are governed by an official hierarchy, placing a Big Figurehead at the top of the tower and multiple Little Figureheads in the surrounding departments. Figureheads are sometimes Dragons who achieved the ultimate takeover, but more often, they are “yes” people who have carefully built alliances with influential players and stealthily curated an image of care and compliance.

The Big and Little Figureheads

Such devotion to promotion leaves little time for expert work, so they utilize an inner circle to gather intel instead of spending time in the field. Therefore, it is not unusual for a Dragon to wiggle his way into the in-group where he enacts deceptive influence. In deep need of external approval, Figureheads are hesitant to offer original ideas and seldom go out on a limb for employees who are being subjected to harassment or harm, for they fear rocking the boat just might catapult them out of the captain's chair.

The Big and Little Figureheads (cont’d)

Leaders are unicorns, brilliant to behold yet rarely employed within organizations. Leaders are experts in the field with reputations as disruptors. Their place at the table was secured by creative inventions and measurable results. To foster a culture of diversity and intellectual risk-taking, they dismantle the hierarchy, inviting all players to speak. For Creatives, it is invigorating to work for a person who builds belonging, fosters innovation and invites disagreement, viewing critical conversations as essential elements for new growth.

Leaders

When a Leader restores civility and fair play, eliminating dysfunction, it is not unusual for the Community Builders to join the good guys as they discover the personal empowerment inherent in authentic belonging. No longer able to manipulate circumstance and sully reputations, Dragons and Shapeshifters willingly leave, are dismissed, or they change their behavior to adjust to the new culture. Figureheads follow, or they are transferred out of leadership roles, opening up a space for the Creatives to get to work.

Leaders (cont’d)

Though in our daily relationships, it is wise to resist the labeling of others; however, when it comes to dysfunctional, and at times toxic, work cultures, the impact can be dire, resulting in significant health consequences, both physical and emotional, as well as job loss. Identifying the characteristics of common players can help us understand the plotlines of work life, anticipate what various colleagues might do next, and remind us of the importance of seeking out allies who can help us on the journey — all of which provide powerful amor for navigating challenging circumstances.

Takeaways

Moreover, for the Creatives, recognizing the specific people who may wish to cause them harm allows them to avoid self-blame when coming under attack and gives them a runway to anticipate potential problems. It also reminds them of the importance of crafting a circle of innovative colleagues, both within and outside of their organization, who can help them to navigate the hard parts, allowing them to feed their spirit and avoid isolation. Moreover, as their circle grows, they can work together to search out unicorns who can lead their organization in new directions or, even better, become one.

Takeaways (cont’d)

There’s Creatives, Dragons, Shapeshifters, Community Builders, Confidants, Figureheads, and Leaders.

Dysfunctional workplaces employ a predictable cast of characters. Knowing the roles they play can help you navigate the complexity and find allies.

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Career

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Corporate Culture

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Teamwork

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Business

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Human Resources

Surviving Work: How To Identify The Pivotal Players Contributing To Unhealthy Dynamics At Work

People with resilient personalities, marked by high conscientiousness and extraversion, tend to engage in longer sessions of both physical activity and sedentary periods. In contrast, those with a brittle personality, often associated with neuroticism, interrupt sedentary times more frequently, which may benefit health.

Resiliently Active And Resiliently Sedentary…?

This research highlights how personality can shape health behaviors and may impact long-term well-being. The findings suggest that resilient individuals are more inclined to structured activities, while brittle types prefer shorter, lighter tasks. Understanding these patterns may aid in designing personalized health interventions based on personality.

Health Interventions Based On Personality

A new study reveals that personality traits influence both physical activity and sedentary behavior patterns.

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Food

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Health

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Exercise & Fitness

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Sports

Personality Traits Linked to Physical Activity and Sedentary Patterns

You can do a lot of things with bayonets, except sit on them.

Weapons are only useful if you use them, but if you use them, well, now you have used them. You can sit on a weapon, and you can sit on a weapon.

Graeme Dobell looks at humanitarian intervention in theory and practice

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Philosophy

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History

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Politics

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Leadership & Management

The Bayonet Conundrum Or, The Pointy End

We often hear that we live in an attention economy, where tech companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook present us with an overwhelming amount of irresistible information that steals our attention.This is not wrong, but our understanding of how attention works is imprecise. In a new study, researchers from the University of Copenhagen show that our attention works surprisingly well. And that it enables us to achieve exactly what our brains most desire—rewards.

What Our Brains Most Desire Is Rewards

The study found that when presented with multiple tasks, participants consistently chose the option with the highest reward, even if it conflicted with a trained habit.This reward-driven attention helps explain why digital technology is so engaging; it taps into our natural preference for immediate, valuable rewards. Understanding how we choose actions in the moment could inform future studies on long-term planning, especially for actions tied to personal values. In essence, it’s not technology but our reward-seeking minds that drive attention shifts.

Reward-Seeking Minds = Reward-Driven Attention

The experiments showed that reward is a decisive factor in determining what we notice and remember to do when we are presented with multiple opportunities.It is, therefore, imprecise to talk about the digital world stealing or controlling our attention. It is almost the opposite. The technologies often exploit our ability to choose exactly the content that gives us the greatest reward when presented with a wide range of possibilities.In other words, what tech companies leverage are our subjective values by rewarding our attention shifts and actions.

The Digital World In Fact Exploits Our Ability, Not Our Weakness

Normally we think of habits as close to unbreakable, but here too the experiments tell us something important.They tell us something about our behavior in a situation where we have been trained for a certain action. The participants in our experiments spent a lot of time learning how to connect a single box with a shift of attention to a particular corner of the screen.Training the attention shifts should make them into habits. But when they were presented with four competing actions that they had a short time to decide on, participants chose the reward over the habitual behavior.

Habits Versus Rewards

In the experimental situation, the action with the highest subjective value is most likely to be selected, even though other actions have been trained extensively, conclude the study’s authors.This means that a person’s values compete with ingrained habits—a competition the habit often loses if another action is more important. This insight is also worth bringing into the discussion about attention economy.

Values Trump Habits

The next step for the researchers will be a project in which they will examine how we plan in the long term. The current experiment shows something about what activates our shift in attention in the short term, but what happens when we try to plan actions in the future?The researchers expect that here too we will focus our attention on the action to which we attach the highest value. But when we are in the real world as opposed to a laboratory, other factors come into play. Previous research has shown, for example, that our surroundings play an important role in how we remember things.

Short-Term & Long-term Planning; Real World & Laboratory

New research suggests our brains prioritize actions based on rewards, not habits, challenging the idea that tech simply “steals” attention.

New research suggests our brains prioritize actions based on rewards, not habits, challenging the idea that tech simply "steals" attention.

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Productivity

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Motivation & Inspiration

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Habits

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Time Management

Why Our Brains Prefer Rewards Over Habits

On most sunny days, the sight of bees buzzing around flowers brightens our day. They fly around with a certain zest, full of purpose.But what if these hardworking bees can feel the weight of the world like we do?Scientists at Newcastle University have discovered that bees, just like us humans, exhibit emotion-like responses to stressful events.What does this mean? Well, the research findings tell us that when stressed, bees lower their expectations of rewards, which eventually influences how they approach pollination.

Stressed Bees Lose Their Buzz

The study shows that bees are more pessimistic after stress as their behavior suggests that they do not expect to get rewards. Emotions are complex states and in humans involve a subjective understanding of what you are feeling. We might never know if bees feel something similar, however, what this research can say is that bees have similar responses when they are stressed and make pessimistic choices.The best explanation for their behavior is that they expect high rewards to be less likely and exhibit traits of pessimistic people.

Bees Exhibit Traits Of Pessimistic People

Why does stress in bees matter? Well, it matters a lot, especially for our ecosystem. Stress can impact how bees approach flowers and pollinate plants, and their ability to access high-quality rewards.So, this stress-induced shift in behavior can potentially affect the entire pollination process.On the brighter side, this research broadens our understanding of emotions, as we found similar traits in an organism as different as an insect.

The Implications Of Stressed Bees

Understanding the emotional states of bees offers profound insights not just on a theoretical level but also in practical applications affecting agriculture and ecology.Bees play a crucial role in pollinating approximately 80% of flowering plants and a staggering one-third of the human food supply is dependent on bee pollination.

Why Should We Be Bothered About The Emotional States Of Bees…?

Recognizing how stress influences their foraging patterns could lead to improved strategies for managing bee populations and mitigating the adverse effects of environmental stressors.Enhanced satellite monitoring of bee habitats, development of stress-reducing habitats, and focused conservation efforts could be devised to maintain vital bee populations, thereby ensuring the stability and sustainability of many ecosystems.

Stress-Free Bees Make For Stable And Sustainable Ecosystems

The findings from Newcastle University serve as a springboard for further studies, encouraging scientists to explore the emotional capacities of insects.The next phase of research could focus on the long-term effects of stress on bee populations and analyze whether similar emotional responses are evident in other arthropods.Additionally, interdisciplinary approaches involving neuroscience, ethology, and environmental science might uncover the neural pathways and physiological mechanisms driving these emotion-like states in bees.

The Emotional Capabilities Of Insects

Fascinating new research reveals that bees experience stress, and it drives them to make pessimistic choices, just like us.

Research from Newcastle University reveals that stress makes bees pessimistic. Stressed bees associate fewer rewards with ambiguous stimuli.

Discover the world of business and economics.

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Economics

Stressed-Out Bees Get Depressed and Make Bad Decisions

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.

Becky Ripley and Sophie Ward take a cold hard look at the psychology behind each of the seven deadly sins, in the order established by Pope Gregory the Great: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and lazy old sloth. Why have we evolved these ugly emotions? What’s going on in the brain and the body when we feel them? And how best can we live alongside them - in ourselves and with others?Greed is in the spotlight today. And we're not talking food. (That’s gluttony, we come to that later in the series.) We're talking greed for money, for land, for material things – and ultimately for control, status, dominance, power. The kind of greed that separates the "haves" from the "have nots". On one hand, greed is a great motivator, driving us all forward in our pursuit to get more of whatever it is we want. But at its ugliest, greed can come at a huge cost to other people, and to the planet. When does self-interested behaviour become selfish? And can we be greedy for the good? To guide us through this mess is evolutionary anthropologist Dr Anna Machin from the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, psychologist and social scientist Professor Paul Piff from the Department of Psychological Science at the University of California, Executive Director of the New Economy Organisers Network, Ayeisha Thomas-Smith, and a few wise words from Sir David Attenborough.Producer: Becky Ripley

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Money & Investments

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Seven Deadly Psychologies - 2. Greed

A recent study of the careers of scientists, film directors and artists, conducted by academics at Northwestern University, looked at hot streaks in people’s careers – intense periods of high achievement, lasting a decade or more. What conditions have to be present for a hot streak to occur? The study found that before the hot streak begins there is an exploration phase, when new ideas are gathered, which is followed by a period of exploitation, when those new ideas are turned into original and impactful work.

Exploration - Exploitation - Hot Streak

This is similar to the explore/exploit dynamic, an idea from computer science, which says that to make the best decisions we should find the correct balance between gathering information (exploring our options) and making the most of what we know (exploiting that information). To make the best decisions, we need to balance exploration and exploitation.

The Explore/Exploit Dynamic (or Tradeoff)

What the research found was that neither exploration nor exploitation alone was critical to a hot streak: it was the transition from explore to exploit that mattered. Exploring before exploiting means you can discover the most productive ideas and expand your creative possibilities. What matters is the switch.Too much exploration can be risky: you end up as a dabbler, a dilettante. Too much exploitation can be boring: you don’t discover enough new information to do interesting, original work. To have a hot streak, a burst of your best work, we need to switch from explore to exploit.

What Matters Is The Switch

Importantly, the study’s findings were robust whether the hot streak came early in a career or late. We can make the switch later in our career and still see the same effect.This broad pattern, of shifting from exploring to exploiting, can be observed in the lives of late bloomers.

The Switch And The Late Bloomers

Most late bloomers go through these two stages. First, they take a long and winding road, an essentially unplanned career path. Then, they get the opportunity for success through some combination of the right people, the right place and the right time. Their network, the culture they move to, a personal transformation – or some combination of these – take the disparate experiences of the first stage and turn them into the focused output of the second stage. They make the switch from explore to exploit and enter a hot streak. They just happen to do it later than their peers.

From Disparate Experiences To Focused Output

Late bloomers rarely take conventional career paths to success; if they did, perhaps they would not be late. Their progress is punctuated and disrupted, not smooth and steady. In this stage, their careers are often either dormant or patchwork, made of seemingly disparate parts. This might look listless, directionless or inefficient: rather than working towards a specific goal, late bloomers prepare for the unknown, the unexpected, the unstated.

Late Bloomers Prepare For The Unknown & The Unexpected

Second, late bloomers find their niche or opportunity – some turn in their luck, some discovery, some change in their circumstances comes along and makes them a channel for their talents. They get direction, focus, challenge, resources, support, opportunity. This is when they exploit the capabilities and preparation from the first stage. We shall see, again and again, the importance of preparing for your luck – chance really does favor the prepared mind.

And Then A Channel Comes Along

This second stage has three conditions, which are not all present in all cases, but which are reasonably consistent: right people, right place, right time. To understand how late bloomers leave the long and winding road and arrive at the place where they achieve so much, how they switch from explore to exploit, we need to look at their networks, the culture they live and work in, and the transformational moments in their lives, or their crisis points.

3 Conditions: Right People, Right Place, Right Time (or Crisis)

What we will see is that weak ties – the phrase sociologists use to describe people we are only slightly acquainted with – are the people who can change our prospects, but only if they are influential. Good networking is not about knowing all the best people, but the few who can be credible and persuasive to the people we need to reach.

Right People (The Bridges)

Personal transformation happens through cultural immersion, sampling the world and changing our surroundings. In new circumstances, gradually sampling our way into a new mode of thinking, living or working, we can change our opportunities, perhaps even change ourselves.

Right Place (The Waters)

Moments of crisis have to be taken advantage of, not ignored or suffered through, whether that’s a personal tragedy, a moment of inspiration, or a gradual attrition of your will, causing dissatisfaction that culminates in desperation to change. Sometimes there are good reasons to have a midlife crisis, not to accept a slump but to use it as a pivot point.

Right Time (The Dive)

Persistence: Though they often don’t work towards a specific goal, neither do late bloomers “lavish their life away on useless trifles”, in Samuel Johnson’s phrase. They persist in following their interests and ambitions; they are unable to let it go, but, sometimes by necessity, sometimes by choice, they have to be flexible about how and when this persistence accrues into a tangible achievement or accomplishment.

3 Traits: Persistence, Earnestness, Quiet Ambition

Excerpted from “Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success And Reinventing Your Life”, by Henry Oliver.

Late bloomers tend to follow unconventional paths, quietly developing key qualities and skills while being overlooked.

The 4 ‘Love Archetypes’ That Influence Partner Choice (part 2 of 2)

The 4 ‘Love Archetypes’ That Influence Partner Choice (part 1 of 2)

Surviving Work: How To Identify The Pivotal Players Contributing To Unhealthy Dynamics At Work

Personality Traits Linked to Physical Activity and Sedentary Patterns

The Bayonet Conundrum Or, The Pointy End

Xarikleia