How Your Temperament Affects Your Career

After experiences and much study of people due to one on one interaction I’ve realized that of a truth we have four temperaments. Since I cannot come up with more befitting acronymns for them I’ll use the already existing ones.

1. The Sanguine
2. The Choleric
3. The Melancholic
4. The Phlegmatic

Unless you were born in mars, had never been to school or don’t have a thing for reading,you must have come across these words before. Although, no person has one singular temperament, we have a maximum of two and a minimum of two. Also, environmental factors might give room for slight variations, but they are usually very negligible.

Most people believe they have a distinct trait, peculiar character or are ‘just them’ but I’ll tell you that you are not the only one that acts the way you do, not even in your street. Some others believe that they have temperaments but don’t know which exactly, confused. While the bandwagon would say abeg leave that thing, I don’t believe it. Well, if you finish my article which I am ‘painstakingly preparing’ and with sincerity, you will not only laugh, but also discover your temperament and how you can use it to improve your Life and Career.

Finally, emotional intelligence is a gift, at least to me. I have the funny but uncanny ability to tell ones personality trait or temperament(as the case may be) by several conversations or even one meeting. Yes one meeting, one conversation. This came effortless(so don’t think I’m hardworking).

For those who find this discuss alien, the book “why you act the way you do” by Tim Lahaye comes highly recommended for understanding temperament types and finding yours.

Fire (Choleric)
Wind (Sanguine)
Water(Melancholic)
Earth(Phlegmatic)

The Sanguine
The sanguine is arguably the most exciting, excited and interesting/interested temperament. This is a ‘people person’. Always noticed, always on the spotlight. Sanguines are the most Friendly of all the temperaments. They are really really nice. The Sanguine is the MOST extroverted of all temperaments. They are the attention getters, usually the most popular in the group and the chit-chatters. They are talkatives and can sometimes be lousy with a great sense of humour.

Sanguines are also the most DISORGANIZED and SCATTERED of all temperaments. Your Friend that uses his towel and keeps it in the kitchen is a sanguine. They are hardened LATECOMERS. A Sanguine will most probably go late for his own burial. Sanguines are RESTLESS. They cannot stay in one place. They have too many friends but no close or bosom friend because they are not dedicated and cannot keepup.
They are not dedicated to anything and mostly end up with abandoned projects and unrealized ideas despite a large pool of ideas.
Sanguines are great Exaggerators, often adding maggi and pepper to make their story more appealing.

Sanguines are easily carried away by the crowd, forgetting themselves in the process, they need approval and fellowship from people to be motivated and high. They are terrible at keeping secrets as they will leak or blow out without even realizing it. They are chatterboxes who often speak stupidly without even listening to understand what is being said or asked. They are trully and sincerely nice and friendly but their lack of dedication often betrays their good hearts. They are often bad mouthed and can kill with their word alone.

If you have an uncle who always easily makes promises but never keeps any, don’t blame him, he’s a Sanguine. They are always excited. But when you see them angry sad or depressed, don’t kill yourself, they will bounce back the next minute with Joy and Happiness singing to MayD’s new track ‘Ile-Ijo’ for no good reason. You would be shell shocked.

They are never thorough, often skimming through an article instead of reading it to get the important details. And at the end, they narrate that article as though they wrote it with keen expertise and apt grace, often foolishly leaving out the key details to the awe and assessment of other temperaments that know better.

Oh, Sanguine love conversations. They can gist, and gist and laugh and talk and gist and shout, with their loud voice. Total complete noisemakers. They are good motivators and inspiration to people with more depressing and lonely traits. They hate reading and never do too well in class, often reading a week to the exam date. They are generally forgetful, your neigbour that constantly burns his rice , mostly late in the night is most likely a Sanguine.

The Choleric
Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, General Buhari. These are choleric, but wait, they all have something in common. They are also all Leaders.

Cholerics are natural born leaders. They are dictators, rule givers and hardened/wicked controllers.
They Lead, others follow.

Your boyfriend that never really changes his mind until you have $ex with him as bribe is most likely a Choleric.
They are visionary Leaders and administrators. The Bishop that slapped a ‘witch’ is most likely a Choleric. They are the no-nonsense people who always believe in themselves.

They are very very optimistic, goal-driven and purposeful. Never loosing sight of their target. They easily get angry at the slightest provocation and can NEVER forget a harm done to them as well as a favour they owe.

They hardly accept correction, always carrying their I-Know-It-All attitude everywhere. Infact they don’t even listen, not to even imagine considering your opinions on a task.

They are perfect planners, organisers and administrators as they are forged to lead the pack. They do it effortlessly.
They are not very emotional. If you never really enjoyed your moms love and affection as a child, because of her strict and I don’t care if you cry to death attitude, forgive her, she’s most likely a Choleric.

If your Cheat on your Choleric fine and loving babe, you don enter. She will not only breakup, but see you as a low life and untrained dog who cannot control his kini.. She will never forgive you lai lai.

Cholerics are the strongest, most disciplined and most composed of all temperaments. They are good people managers and can ‘use’ people wella. They are good decision makers and are always Workaholics. Think Babatunde Fashola, former governor of Lagos state. They are extremely impatient, angry and intolerant. Think Anger, think Choleric.
A Choleric woman will no doubt control her husband except she is a well trained, well mannered, dedicated and good wife.

They hardly have friends, having hurt or scarred most people they know, they are usually the most hated in the class, or group. They hate to work with people, and believe that they must have it their way or you go the highway. They care less what you think and can use hate to destroy their homes and relationships. They are definitely not the worst people, it just that they are very strong people. They are very very Confident and Charismatic people.

The Melancholic Temperament.
Oh Gosh I love this temperament because it is full of Labyrinths and cannot fully be understood.

The Melancholy is by far the most amazingly unique and special of all temperaments. They are the most Intuitive, QUIET, RESERVED and ORGANIZED individuals on the milky-way.

They are the most Intelligent and Brilliant Minds You can find. They think and think and think before they talk. And when they do talk, brilliance. But of course, it is not a general rule.

Those who fall into this category are usually very Spiritual, often having extremely religious attitudes and Life style. They are more prone to metaphysical and extraterrestrial revelations because of their ability to absorb easily and interpret correctly given their peaceful and quiet demeanor.

The Melancholy is by FAR the most EMOTIONAL of all temperaments. The melancholy is so emotional that they can easily get depressed and suppressed by their thoughts.

They love Love.
They are Spend thrifts and sometimes stingy.
They are the most Intelligent in class, as the are not just sharp to absorb, they have a sharp mind.
The melancholy is extremely self conscious and shy. The worst thing you can do to them is to publicly or even privately embarrass them. You had better kill them.

Melancholies are great at keeping secrets. They can take a secret to their grave. They are very difficult to decipher. When the bible talked about the heart of man being desperately wicked, who can know it. It was referring to the Melancholy. They can keep things in their mind without saying a word for ages. Mostly inflicting pain and anguish on themselves.

They are very wise and cunning, or should I say carlos. They know what to do but will just leave you to fool yourself while they laugh at you inside.
Non expressive, quiet.

One major characteristic of Melancholics are their extremely Organized Lifestyle, Organized homes, Organized words, Organized dressing, Organized’ Organized… They are Organized. Your Brother who would iron his shirt for hours till the gators become razor like is a melancholy. The slightest stain will ruin the whole cloth.

The Melancholy is easily a perfectionist. Every touch must be accurate and exquisite or its not getting in. When they do anything, they do it perfectly. Excellently.

They are very very reliable. When they make a promise, they keep it.
When given a price, they execute it with accuracy and precision and of course, on time.
They are hardly ever late for any function, or even, in fact, they are always punctual.

They are slow decision makers, shy, and Love their space and quiet time.

The most Obvious and accurate of all the traits is their Mood swings. They are easily hurt, sad and depressed. And never ever forgive until they revenge, and when they do, it will be far worse than they even imagined.

The Phlegmatic is Easily the most Unmotivated and Lazy of all the Temperaments. They procrastinate like there’s no tomorrow. They will shift what is meant for today to the rapture day. They will postpone till they miss what comes with being timely.

The Phleg is the most peaceful and easy going of all temperaments. This makes them great diplomats and truce makers.
The Phleg is very secluded and loves their space but unlike the melancholy who needs the space to recharge and come out stronger, the phleg will stay in all day.

Your husband who stays in his study all day long, day in, day out and hates it when people come visiting because they have come to disturb the peace of the his home is most likely a Phlegmatic.
A Phleg works well under pressure because of their cool calm and collected nature. Phlegs are mostly snobbish in nature or so you think, until you know them only to discover a Pandora’s box.

They are very humorous and subtle with their rib cracking Jokes. they are never ever volunteers for any thing or project and would always drag the team behind with their sluggish nature, of course with their ‘tag- team partner’, the Sanguine’s.
They love to stay at the background if at all the are involved. As they never compete and are always contented with what Life gives them

Our Career paths are most often determined by a couple of factors e.g

Background: Kobe Bryants Father was a basketball coach, Tiger Woods’ father played golf.

Passion: Barack Obama was a Lawyer and former Leader in Harvard.

Interest also plays a role, but our temperaments go a long way in determining our level of Success in our various careers.

The Sanguine.
Since the Sanguine is good with words, he tends to succeed where his verbal prowess is needed. A Sanguine will make a good Sales Executive. He would be your favourite salesman or ‘customer’ as he would always be friendly, happy and exciting/excited.

The Choleric will not make such a good marketer/salesperson. They lack the patience and Amiable and welcoming nature needed for the job. Impatience and anger will most probably cloud their good understanding of the product. Their inability to sweet-tongue or sugar-coat when displeased with a Customers sluggish or hard-to-get attitude sets in and ruins an almost perfect scenario.

The Melancholy will not be too bad in that position if and if only they can overcome two major powerful traits namely their almost impulsive urge to mistrust any new investor, their lack of motivation to be overly friendly and accepting and their constant mood swings. They will probably frustrate the customer by making them feel they are not ready to sell or that the customer is bugging them unnecessarily.

The Phlegmatic will be the next best sales person after the Sanguine. Giving him a run for his money with his easy going and calm ambience. The Phleg will not make a great Marketer because of his Lazy, uninterested and unmotivated nature. If given a marketing task, he/she would rather report saying no one was interested, while in fact they never took active part in the exercise.

A Sanguine will make a great lawyer. His verbal skills and ability to add flair to his presentation will give him an ultimate edge over the Choleric and Phlegmatic. These two can also make good presentations but the both lack the ability to excite and capture the jury and/or the judge.

The Melancholy would give the Sanguine a run for his money in the Law Court with his intuitive and concrete reasoning. The Sanguine who would mostly depend on his flair and energy will as usual miss or overlook critical details necessary to nail the case.
This is something the Mel cannot miss out on. They take their time to critically dissect and scrutinize every detail or clue and come up with the perfect presentation and evidence to bury the case.
Since the Sanguine is not half as thorough as his reserved counterpart, he would even sell himself out by giving out information without the much needed ‘lids’.
And of course the melancholy will see the loop-hole in his presentation and attack with precision and intellectually orchestrated accuracy.

I apologies for the continuous use of the male gender represented by he/him/his. I support gender equality.