In the last post I introduced Sally Hogshead's The Fascination Advantage and explained the basic premise of her system to analyze and classify communication styles and personality traits.
If you're following along, this is another of a series of posts where I explore the results of various personality and strengths assessments I've done through the years.
My official Fascination Advantage Archetype is Trendsetter. That's the focus of today's post.
My Fascination Advantages
Yesterday I revealed the results of my two Fascination Advantage assessments:
Primary Advantage: Innovation
Secondary Advantage: Prestige
Tertiary Advantage: Mystique
So what does this mean? Quite honestly, I'm not entirely sure. But when I dive more deeply into the description of Innovation, Prestige and Mystique Advantages I can see how those measures correlate with my MBTI and StrengthsFinder results and even the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory from way back in 1980.
The Innovation Advantage
My primary advantage is Innovation.
According to the Report that came with my Fascination Advantage results, Innovation is all about creativity, vision, adventure, exploration.
- “Embraces opportunities for change and exploration” (I've heard that before)
- “Is driven by a profound sense of adventure and creativity” (See SCII results and StrengthsFinder)
- “Captivates with spontaneity and a quick wit”
The Innovation type in the Fascination Advantage system is someone who:
- “Quickly solves problems with fresh solutions”
- “Generate[s] ideas that surprise people with a new perspective”
Both of these statements are consistent with the results from my other assessments.
The Prestige Advantage
My secondary advantage is Prestige.
The Prestige Advantage is all about excellence, execution and accomplishment. This certainly correlates with the Maximizer and Achiever StrengthsFinder typology.
Someone with Prestige as the secondary advantage is:
- “Conscientious of the smallest details”
- “Motivated by a competitive spirit and determined outlook”
- “Constantly envision[ing] ways to improve and upgrade'
The Mystique Advantage
I call this my tertiary advantage because I had the same score for Prestige and Mystique in my results from the second time I took The Fascination Advantage assessment. According to the report for those results, a tie-breaking question revealed Prestige as my secondary advantage. That would be consistent with the results from the first time I took the test.
Mystique is the Advantage I know the least about. Mystique is briefly described in in my reports:
- Someone with the Mystique Advantage is described as the “solo intellect behind-the-scenes.”
- “Mystique is the language of listening.”
- “Mystique communicates with substance”
It wasn't until I found this video that I understood how I could score strong strongly on Mystique, the point of being one question away from having Mystique as my secondary Advantage.
As Sally explains here, someone with the Mystique Advantage is unlikely to self-promote. As I've said before, I never felt the need to promote myself but I've come to realize that it's absolutely necessary that I tell my own story, not to brag, but simply to communicate what I can offer. That is how I embarked on this project.
In the light of this explanation, Mystique makes a lot of sense.
Dormant Advantage: Trust
The labels used in The Fascination Advantage are not intuitive and Trust, in particular, is the one that is most confusing to me and seemingly the most mis-labeled.
The Trust Advantage refers to a preference for stability, normalcy, routine. The “dormant” aspect of this refers to my desire to avoid “falling into a rut” or “performing the same duties every day.”
When I think of trust, I think of trustworthy, not stability or a preference for routines.
The explanations about my “Dormant Trust Advantage” make perfectly good sense:
“You have an entrepreneurial approach to your career….You appreciate variety and actively seek new ways to solve a problem.”
“You love to explore….People are attracted to your expressive and curious nature. You are unlikely to be seen as boring.”
“You intuitively know how to persuade others through your self-expression and enthusiasm. You typically find it easy to brainstorm ideas.”
Each of these statements is supported in the results from my other assessments. I just wish this was labeled something other than “trust” because a “dormant trust advantage” makes it sound like (to me, anyway) that someone is not trustworthy. Yet the Trust Advantage has nothing to do with trust in the ethical sense.
This sentence, perhaps, best sums up this part of my Fascination Advantage results:
“If you do not naturally enjoy repeating the same process over and over, you will never reach your full potential in a job that forces you to follow a rigid path.”
The Trendsetter Archetype
When you combine the Innovation Advantage with the Prestige Advantage you get the Trendsetter Archetype.
Cutting-edge, Elite, Progressive, Imaginative, Edgy
“You're good at sensing what the next big thing will be.”
“You're competitive and ambitious.”
“You're a trailblazer who guides others in often uncharted territories.”
“You impress with your intellect and inventiveness.”
“You are able to see opportunities where others see only threats.”
“You implement change with determination.”
“You get the most out of developing and implementing your unique vision.”
I certainly feel like these describe me. The question is whether this is really how OTHERS see me, since I'm the one who answered the questions that yielded these results.
Advantages Correlate with Strenths
It's pretty clear to me that my Fascination Advantages directly correlate with the results of my StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessments and MBTI personality type. I'll be pulling all of this together soon, in a post that brings everything together.
In the meantime, here's Sally Hogshead on MarieTV talking about The Fascination Advantage. It's interesting to see that back in 2013 she was using some different terms for the Advantages. Innovation was once labeled as Rebellion, or something like that, even though it was still focused on creativity.
Have YOU taken The Fascination Advantage assessment? I'd love to hear what you think about the results. Leave me a comment! I'd love to hear from you.
