I am going to sketch out one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.

I’m not kidding—this is awesome. This will show you exactly where you fall in terms of being a beta male, an Alpha Male 1.0, or an Alpha Male 2.0.

This is something I sketched out three or four years ago on one of my blogs, but this will be the updated, more mathematically accurate version. This is going to help you a lot in terms of visualizing the different types of Alpha Males vs. beta males.

As I always talk about, there are three types of men: There are beta males, which are most guys, there are Alpha Males 1.0, and there are Alpha Males 2.0. What really differentiates these three types of men is how much confidence they have and what level of outcome independence they have. You already know what confidence means. Outcome independence means you don’t give a fuck. You don’t care. The more you care, the angrier and stressed out you’re going to get, and the more drama, conflict, and problems you’re going to have in your life.

The Alpha Male 2.0 is someone who’s very confident and very outcome independent.

The Alpha Male 1.0 is very confident, strong, and capable, but he has low outcome independence. He gives a shit. He cares a lot about who’s going to win this upcoming election, for example. He cares a lot about what the woman he’s dating is going to be doing this Thursday night. He cares a lot about what everyone is doing in his life, and if anyone does anything wrong (according to him), he gets pissed off. So he’s a strong, confident guy, but he’s outcome dependent.

The beta male is low on both scales. He has no confidence—he’s a pussy, he’s fearful, and he cares a lot. He’s very outcome dependent.

Now, there is a fourth combination that I’ve not covered: What happens if you are not confident, but you are outcome independent? There’s no such thing as that. It’s not possible to have low confidence and high outcome independence. Outcome independence is limited by the amount of confidence you have.

I wanted to explain that first because it’ll put the rest of this into context.

Here’s how this works. Visualize a line graph: On the vertical axis, your outcome independence rates between a 1 and a 10. The higher you are on that axis, the less you give a shit. The lower you are on the axis, the more you care about everything.

On the horizontal axis, you have your confidence on a scale from 1 to 10. The farther you are to the right on this axis, the more confident you are in yourself.

Now as I said, you cannot be outcome independent if you have no confidence. That creates a no-man’s-land on the graph into which you would fall if it was possible to be outcome independent without having confidence—which, again, it isn’t. Confidence is the delimiter to your outcome independence.

Beta Males

Where do beta males fit on this chart? The beta male’s confidence on a scale of 1 to 10 will top out around 7.5—that’s as far as he’ll ever get. There are “cool betas” who come across as reasonably confident, but as soon as they get home to their wives, they are truly betas. Their wives and bosses run their lives. Anything above about 7.5, and he’d be an Alpha Male. In terms of outcome independence, the highest beta males get on a 10-point scale is about a 4 (if that).

So to see where beta males fall on the graph, merge the 4 on the outcome independence (vertical) axis with the 7.5 on the confidence (horizontal) axis, and it forms a small rectangular area toward the bottom of the chart. All beta males will fall somewhere in this area, and if that’s you, you can plot out where you fall based on your own confidence and outcome independence. My rough but educated guess is that about 70% of men fall into this category.

Alpha Males 1.0

Where do Alpha Males 1.0 land on the chart? Remember, these guys are very confident, but they’re also very outcome dependent; they give a shit about everything. Their outcome independence will rate about 4 or below, but their confidence will rate above a 7.5, putting their area on the chart just to the right of beta males if you graph it out.

These are strong, confident men who get really pissed off anytime something in their life doesn’t go the way they want. An extreme example of an Alpha Male 1.0, whose confidence appears to be around 10 but whose outcome independence is 4 or below, would be Donald Trump. He is off-the-charts confident but ridiculously outcome dependent, constantly worried and pissed off about every little thing in his life. A more standard Alpha Male 1.0 would have a confidence rating of 8 or 9 with an outcome independence of around 3.

Alpha Males 2.0

What’s left on the chart is the Alpha Male 2.0. He is someone of high outcome independence and a high degree of confidence. If that’s you, you are a strong, confident Alpha Male, but you don’t give a fuck. If you go on a first date with a woman who’s a 10 (according to you), you don’t give a rat fuck what happens on that date or what she thinks. No matter what happens there, you don’t care.

As a rule, Alpha Males 2.0 don’t give a shit about any one individual interaction or any one individual transaction. This also applies to business. I’m sure you guys in the business world have, for instance, talked to a salesperson, and you could tell they really fucking needed the sale. That salesperson would be down in the Alpha Male 1.0 or beta male range.

But maybe you were talking to someone who was calm, cool, collected, didn’t give a shit, relaxed, but very confident—that’s an Alpha Male 2.0.

You need to figure out where you are on this chart. I have; my confidence is easily a 10, and my outcome independence is more like an 11. If anything, I sometimes cause trouble because I care so little.

A beginner Alpha Male 2.0 would have mid-level confidence and mid-level outcome independence both. Likewise, a recovering Alpha Male 1.0 is very confident, but he’s still working on his outcome independence.

Your objective, if you follow this material, is to find your way out of the two boxes labeled “beta male” and “Alpha Male 1.0.” To give you an example, when I first started, my confidence was about a 5 with an outcome independence rating of around 3. I quickly moved up in confidence while working on my outcome independence, and it took me a few years to get where I am now.

The process of moving upward on this chart will take a few years, and that’s fine. The point is that now you have a visual representation of where you fall in these two categories. Every man you know falls somewhere on this graph.

And here’s the beauty of it: You can decide where you reside on this chart. This is not one of those “That’s just how I am!” type things. No—if you hate being a beta male, you can move up into Alpha Male 2.0 territory if you work at it. You can! It takes time and effort, but it’s worth it. Now that you know where you are, you know where you need to go.

42 Comments on “The Alpha Scale

  1. https://alphamale20.com/blackdragonblog/2020/10/05/economic-predictions-for-every-region-of-the-world/#comment-455692

    “Off-topic comments are allowed, but Caleb will ignore those.

    Caleb responds to comments in person, but he only does so on the two most current blog articles.”

    Have I just missed the time frame for us to interact on this? We clearly have different time schedules. I’ve just read your linked articles and made up a detailed answer in my head. I recently got introduced to your work, read a few random stuff from your archives, but not these particular two articles. How can we handle this situation?

    The main point is this: I got to know you as a smart guy, smart businessman. You’ve probably heard of the concept Occam’s razor. What’s the more realistic possibility to you? That me, Sphere (not a native English speaker if you noticed) is disguised as geopolitical forecaster Peter Zeihan (born American) or am I just one of many people who likes his work? People upload his clips to YouTube, he is appreciated in diverse places like r/Geopolitics (one of the higher quality places on Reddit), he even had a topic dedicated to him on the Roosh V Forum if I recall correctly but it must have been purged when they purged the topics discussing casual sex. I don’t know why though, Peter’s work has of course nothing to do with it.

    Your China arguments wasn’t convincing, neither from the 2017 blog post, nor from two weeks ago. But you stated you are not an expert on international relations, so it’s fine. Interestingly some folks disagreed you in the comments (and are more aligned with my thinking) under your 2017 post saying things like it’s more complicated, you don’t read Chinese sources, only usually very one-sided Western sources, and the rise of China doesn’t imply the fall of the West. You conveniently didn’t interact with those commenters. A short teaser from Anthony Pompliano’s interview with Peter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KYL4M042yg. Yes, with some heated debate in the comments. But you have to watch the whole interview to have the big picture.

    TL;DR: I just though you interviewing Peter would be really cool to your audience, I for one would be very interested in what he had to say to you.

    It wouldn’t make much sense for him to pitch himself to you under the Sphere nick, why would he do so? He is a speaker at institutional conferences. Wouldn’t make any sense for him. Occam’s razor. But you know what? Peter is actually a commenter on your blog, but he is not me (I don’t speak English as a mother tongue), but he commented as David on calebjonesblog.com in 2018 and 2019. Fair enough?

    The folks you recommended me I’m casually familiar with: Andrew Henderson, Doug Casey, and Jim Rogers. It’s a different pack. They are popular on different subreddits than r/Geopolitics and their books are published by different publishers that that of r/Geopolitics favorite authors. They hang out at different conferences to guys like Peter Zeihan. I still kind of appreciate Andrew Henderson, Doug Casey, and Jim Rogers for motivation and entertainment. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely don’t mean it to sound disrespectful. I truly mean I sometimes enjoy their rants. But their advice? Andrew isn’t an international tax adviser (reputable ones are just a Google search away) still charges much more than them. He is just the sales guy (and YouTube personality) for these folks who charges a pretty high commission. Jim Rogers’ token advice is when prices go down he buys more, when prices goes up he buys more. Usually natural resources and foreign stocks. The common criticism of him (not by me, but by the investment community) is he probably has endless cash reserves to give this advice. While Doug Casey is certainly a character just like the other two, he is in the investment newsletter business. He charges advising you which stocks to buy, a super sketchy business model to me, I’m sorry.

  2. Where would sociopaths and psychopaths, respectively, fall on the Alpha scale?

    I’m not a psychologist so I’m not qualified to answer that quesiton and if I attempted to I’d probably get it wrong. My wild guess is that they could land just about anywhere depending on the person (but that’s probably wrong).

  3. Doesn’t alpha 2.0 supposed to represent the same thing what other guys call a sigma? Anyway, it’s clever marketing on your part as many call it sigma and only you call it alpha 2.0. None of this alpha, beta, sigma talk is scientific when speaking of humans of course, as these terms were intended to describe wolf populations.

    Regardless of the above I’ve totally lost the plot with this one. I cannot bring it to common ground with more academic, healthy positive psychology. But I’ll just stick with the latter. This is where I stand on your scale.

  4. How many betas actually want to become alpha?

    Hardly anyone wants to change hardly anything in their life.

    And what % population was beta in the 70s 80s?

    Out of curiosity why do you care, and does it really matter?  It’s not like you can go back and forward from them to now.

    My recollection of that era is even the most macho of guys got neutered when he found “that one special girl”.  Eddie Van Halen just passed, and a jazz station I listen to played “Big Bad Bill (is Sweet William Now)” to commemorate his kind of obscure contribution to Ragtime.  It was written in 1924, that album was from 1982.  Anyway, I’d forgotten they did it but I still chuckled when I heard it. I’d post the link but it’s an express trip to moderation so you’ll have to search it out yourself. Point being….

    IMO, men and been putting their balls in some dames purse since the beginning of time.  Nothing changed but the times.  Just like hardly anyone changes, there’s rarely anything new under the sun.

  5. How many betas actually want to become alpha?

    My rough guess is about 5-7%. That’s my target audience (as well as the 10% or so of Alpha Male 1.0s who want to convert to 2.0).

    And what % population was beta in the 70s 80s?

    I don’t know that figure and I don’t think anyone else does either, but as a man who grew up during the 70s and 80s, it was absolutely less than the ~70% it is today. There are quite clearly more Alphas back then. Moreover and more importantly, though most men were still beta to some degree back then, betas of the 70s/80s were less beta.

    Doesn’t alpha 2.0 supposed to represent the same thing what other guys call a sigma?

    There are some strong similarities, yes, but it is not the same thing.

    Anyway, it’s clever marketing on your part as many call it sigma and only you call it alpha 2.0.

    Again, sigma male does not equal Alpha Male 2.0, though there are some similarities.

    Regarding the marketing aspect, correct, and I gave that  lot of thought when I developed all this. The old school Vox Day definitions of Gamma Male, Sigma Male, Omega Male, blah blah are far too nerdy and confusing for most typical internet readers and is thus terrible for marketing purposes. Alpha Male 2.0 is much more effective (including for those men who hate that term; it creates free marketing for me).

  6. Doesn’t alpha 2.0 supposed to represent the same thing what other guys call a sigma? Anyway, it’s clever marketing on your part as many call it sigma and only you call it alpha 2.0. None of this alpha, beta, sigma talk is scientific when speaking of humans of course, as these terms were intended to describe wolf populations.

    No, sigma is a masterful manipulator, working on controlling alphas and betas alike from the shadows.

    Alpha 2.0 is more like best parts of alpha mixed with best parts of omega.

  7. I have found that I am outcome dependent on one major thing.  It is a problem for me because I do stress about it.  More than one woman, one currently and one in the past, that I have dated are habitual liars.  They lie to me about anything that they think might bother me or bother the typical male.  So naturally I am honest that I sleep with other women, but the big lie they always pull is that they aren’t sleeping with other men, when in fact they are.  That’s not the only one, but that one bugs me because I like to have at least one woman I don’t have to wear a condom with.  I just want honesty so I know if I need to be using a condom with a specific girl etc.  But also I have one currently lieing about seeing her ex.  I wouldn’t give a shit except this guy stalks her and I, has spread rumors about me, contacted my friends to start drama between us, confronted me in public, etc.  This is this woman’s fault because she lies to me about the situation meanwhile the ex likely is being told lies about me by her as well.

    This results in drama that isn’t coming from the woman herself, but her ex, and this happens because of the lies.  If I knew originally there was a boyfriend highly involved, she wouldn’t have been an MLTR.  And I realize now that I can downgrade her to FB, maybe that’s the simple answer.  But still the lieing by so many woman so often gets to me.  I really value honesty.  Any advice on being less outcome dependent regarding lies?

  8. So naturally I am honest that I sleep with other women, but the big lie they always pull is that they aren’t sleeping with other men, when in fact they are.

    You shouldn’t care. Women lie to me all the time, including about this. I don’t care.

    That’s not the only one, but that one bugs me because I like to have at least one woman I don’t have to wear a condom with. I just want honesty so I know if I need to be using a condom with a specific girl etc.

    Have a conversation with the most chill woman you’re seeing and make it clear to her you don’t care at all if she fucks other guys. Then get the truth from her (if she fucking just one serious guy or multiple guys?). If it seems like she’s just hooking up with one guy and he’s a beta, and she has a long track record of mature actions, have her take an STD test and if it comes back clean and she’s one good birth control, you can take off the condom. There are more details to this but that’s the gist.

    I’ve done this (or something similar to this) several times in the past and I’ve never caught an STD from it.

    But also I have one currently lieing about seeing her ex. I wouldn’t give a shit except this guy stalks her and I

    You shouldn’t care. Her problem, not yours.

    has spread rumors about me,

    You shouldn’t care. People spread false rumors about me on the internet all the time. I don’t care. I don’t even think about it.

    contacted my friends to start drama between us

    That was your fault. There is nothing you could tell any of my friends that would start drama between us (mainly because I don’t do drama). That’s on you.

    confronted me in public

    That means you were hanging out in the same locations and/or social circles as this guy. Don’t do that. (Unless he’s literally following you around, which I doubt, but if that’s the case, call the cops and resolve it.)

    This is this woman’s fault

    No. A lot is your fault too.

    And if it’s really this much trouble, next this woman and move on.

    If I knew originally there was a boyfriend highly involved, she wouldn’t have been an MLTR.

    We all have problems like that with MLTRs occasionally. Just downgrade or next. Not a big deal. You’re choosing to make this a big deal.

    And I realize now that I can downgrade her to FB, maybe that’s the simple answer.

    It’s not the simple answer, it’s THE answer. Or just next her ass which is probably even better.

    Any advice on being less outcome dependent regarding lies?

    Yeah. Stop being touchy about what other people say about you (not one thing you’ve said above would bother me if it happened to me, and it has), don’t engage in drama with your friends, and learn to downgrade and/or next women much faster.

  9. Excellent advice, that really does help me.  I agree with you on the points except about the drama between friends.  It was mid-level friends, not anyone real close, just people close enough to care (women I have not dated).  The guy literally found mutual friends we have and made up stuff that I supposedly told my MLTR about them.  It wasn’t true, and my friends and I worked it out, but it was stupid to be dealing with.

    True I need to next/downgrade faster.  I’m working on it.  I already told myself I was going to just next her, but being a lieing cheater, she actually would make a good fb so I’ll consider that.

    I’m glad to hear that women do this all the time and it isn’t just me dealing with it.  The ones that lie constantly, I think I shouldn’t have as MLTR.

  10. You shouldn’t care.

    I don’t think you get to choose your emotional responses.  That said….

    You’re choosing to make this a big deal.

    While you can’t choose your emotional response, you can choose how you will respond to it.  As in….

    But also I have one currently lieing about seeing her ex. I wouldn’t give a shit except….

    Except my ass.  You give a shit.  And this is a binary decision, you either next her or you tolerate it.  I don’t think downgrading her or soft nexting her would lesson the drama enough to make a difference (but maybe).

    By choosing to keep her in your life you are actively choosing the drama that comes with her.  If I didn’t learn anything about humans and relationships between them in this lifetime, it’s that people show up in your life as they are.

    There are people out there who proclaim that they don’t do drama, and there are people out there who legit don’t do drama.  The former allow people who bring drama into your life to stay, the latter next them regardless of who they are.

    You have a easy choice here.  Make up your mind which sort you are, and accept the consequences.

  11.  I agree with you on the points except about the drama between friends.

    You did it again!  There is no except – you don’t agree.

    This is like a variation of “there’s this one special girl” isn’t it?  I think it is!

    True I need to next/downgrade faster.  I’m working on it.

    Practice makes practice better.  Nobody comes into the world with these skills.  You’ll get there if you keep chipping away.

  12. Except my ass. You give a shit. And this is a binary decision, you either next her or you tolerate it. I don’t think downgrading her or soft nexting her would lesson the drama enough to make a difference (but maybe).

    No.  And you are incorrect with your assumptions on just about everything you posted. 

    I have an FB that is total drama and bullshit. She’s an FB that I maybe see once a month. Her drama doesn’t affect me in the slightest. You are wrong again.
    BD had it right, but thanks for trying.

  13. I’ve never understood all these terms — alpha, beta, gamma, blah blah blah.  In the manosphere I always thought alpha was like the popular frat boy or jock who leads a crowd of betas.  It was about social magnetism.  The life of the party dude.

    Your definition seems to imply a confident, outcome independent guy can also be introverted.  As long as it’s by choice and not because of some shyness.  The manosphere definition is a much more rare person, because it takes some kind of special success in life to be a popularity leader.

     

     

  14. I don’t think you get to choose your emotional responses.

    That’s rubbish. It may take a bit of time and effort, but you absolutely can learn not to respond with particular emotions

  15. That’s rubbish. It may take a bit of time and effort, but you absolutely can learn not to respond with particular emotions.

    Let me reframe this:

    You can train yourself to not be angry if somebody socks you in the face?  You can probably teach yourself to bottle that, but you aren’t unangry.  You just stuffed it.  I assure you that it will eat you alive from the inside out sooner or later.

    What you can teach yourself to do is to choose to not react.  Which I think is what you are saying.

    It might seem subtle but it’s not.  Somebody makes you mad, be mad (or whatever).  But don’t give them the satisfaction of pushing your buttons unless you want it that way.

     

  16. Now, there is a fourth combination that I’ve not covered: What happens if you are not confident, but you are outcome independent? There’s no such thing as that. It’s not possible to have low confidence and high outcome independence. Outcome independence is limited by the amount of confidence you have.

    I would completely disagree: no confidence and total outcome independence is a hallmark of DEPRESSION. Plenty of former Beta guys who burned out so badly they do not care at all, and thus are passively outcome independent. Atop of that, you have a plenty of mildly Autistic and Asexual guys who are shy but also do not care for sex or success at all, and thus they have no outcomes to depend on.

  17. What you can teach yourself to do is to choose to not react.  Which I think is what you are saying.

    There’s a bit more than just the way you react with other people. If you change your attitudes (and circumstances) so you don’t care, say, if one of your women is having sex elsewhere, then you aren’t going to have strong emotional reactions to it

  18. I agree with you on the points except about the drama between friends. It was mid-level friends, not anyone real close, just people close enough to care (women I have not dated).

    Irrelevant and still your fault.

    I don’t think you get to choose your emotional responses.

    Incorrect. You can indeed train yourself to be feel less reactive. It’s hard (harder for some than others) and it takes time but it can be done.

    Your definition seems to imply a confident, outcome independent guy can also be introverted.

    Correct. Example: me.

    As long as it’s by choice and not because of some shyness.

    Agree.

    Shyness has nothing to do with introvert or extrovert. Pink Firefly is an extrovert but she’s very shy and often nervous. I’m an introvert and I’m literally never shy or nervous. (I would barely know what feeling “shy” would feel like.)

    The manosphere definition is a much more rare person, because it takes some kind of special success in life to be a popularity leader.

    Yes, the manosphere definition is a strong ENFP or ENTJ. Nothing to do with Alpha Male or Alpha 1.0 or 2.0 in my parlance.

    You can train yourself to not be angry if somebody socks you in the face?

    Yes, you can. Monks have done it. That’s an extreme scenario so it would be much more difficult / time consuming to do, but yes, you could do it.

    I would completely disagree: no confidence and total outcome independence is a hallmark of DEPRESSION. Plenty of former Beta guys who burned out so badly they do not care at all, and thus are passively outcome independent.

    Incorrect. These guys are plenty outcome dependent. I could think of many little things I could do that would really piss these guys off.

    This depression = outcome independence argument is a very bizare one I’ve seen presented before. It makes no sense.

    Atop of that, you have a plenty of mildly Autistic and Asexual guys who are shy but also do not care for sex or success at all, and thus they have no outcomes to depend on.

    They have other outcomes they depend on, like how clean their kitchen is or how their sock drawers are organized. Guys like this are usually very anal and are easily angered when there’s a disruption in their systems

  19. C Lo-“I don’t think you get to choose your emotional responses.” “You can train yourself to not be angry if somebody socks you in the face?  You can probably teach yourself to bottle that, but you aren’t unangry. ”

    This entire conversation is fantastic but your comments hit home.  As a kid, i didn’t understand hostility and domination by the bullies.  But being a small athlete, i wrestled & boxed & was on the weight lifting team.   Eventually, the many instances(a dozen?) of surprising aggression by others were welcome to me.  It gave me an opportunity to try out my fighting skills IRL (in real life).  One guy attacked me at a party where I gently put him down in a wrestling move and with my free hand asked for a beer.  I was on probation for a year for nearly killing a kid in a fight where he spent the week in the hospital.  I think I may be on the extreme end of liking violence and death; I wish i could still do it but society has changed.  I don’t know how this all ties in, but a person’s responses can eventually change.

     

     

  20. China has started something called a social credit system

    like a fico score the higher your actions conform to societal norms the higher your score …very outcome dependent

    if a foreigner is living and working in China to develop his Alpha Male 2.0 lifestyle  will this impact him?

  21. If someone hits you in the face and the fight-flight response kicks in, that sounds like a perfectly functional positive response. That’s why all animals, including humans, tend to respond that way. If you feel the need to sublimate that to achieve nirvana, cool. Twenty years of vipassana practice should get you there. Be like the early incarnation of the Buddha, who let the tiger eat him to prevent it from satisfying its hunger elsewhere.

    But it may not be so functional to still be angry about it a year later, and that’s where humans tend to differ from the other animals, and it might be worth working on. See Robert Sapolsky’s ‘Why zebras don’t get stress.’

  22. “Yes, the manosphere definition is a strong ENFP or ENTJ.”

    Wait, do you still use MBTI? Why? The psychologist community have found it unscientific (as much as psychology is a science) and more or less unfit for their purposes. So do guys who want to be on top of understanding themselves, women, and male-female dynamics. The consensus is to use the Big Five personality traits, a much more comprehensive, contemporary model instead. I’ve searched your blog and a commenter already suggested this to you back in 2012 under your MBTI post. It’s cool to be a prolific blogger, you get lots of valuable feedback. I’m a little disappointed you haven’t updated your model since then. It seems we are on very different pages not only in regards to world affairs, but on the human psychology side of things, too. I don’t know which of these two is the more important aspect to your business.

  23. if a foreigner is living and working in China to develop his Alpha Male 2.0 lifestyle will this impact him?

    Not really. If you aren’t a Chinese citizen most of that garbage isn’t going to affect you. As I’ve said many times, the negatives of countries (and every country has many) are more an issue for the unfortunate location-dependent citizens who live there than the international Alpha Male 2.0 (triple that if you do five flags).

  24. Wait, do you still use MBTI? Why?

    Because that’s what most of the audience understands.

    The psychologist community have found it unscientific (as much as psychology is a science)

    More or less correct. It is not as scientific as I would like. That’s why I prefer indexes such as Kolbe, Enneagram, etc. Thats why my SMIC members get the Kolbe test. But again, MBTI is A) what people understand and that’s how I need to communicate to a wide audience and B) it does at least give you a strong indicator of personality tendencies, i.e. it’s better than nothing and does help regardless of the fact its reasonably unscientific.

    The consensus is to use the Big Five personality traits

    Yeah but most people have no idea what Big Five means, but a hell of a lot know what ENTJ means. (I’m not communicating just to you, but to a large audience here.)

  25. I appreciate your answer. Sure, your audience not only consists of me, but speaking for myself, I never really bothered to learn about MBTI. The Big Five is easy (for me), it has only five dimensions while MBTI has 16. That’s too much. Also Jordan Peterson is a pretty popular figure and he popularized the Big Five to a new audience. And that’s where I entered the discussion. I totally missed out on MBTI. Never heard of Kolbe, will look it up, but at a first glance it’s proprietary stuff while you can always take a free Big Five test on a page like openpsychometrics.org.

  26. Why is there a picture of blacksmith here? It may seem masculine work but its very location dependent and usually they worked for someone else.

  27. That’s why I prefer indexes such as Kolbe, Enneagram, etc.

    One of the great things about the Enneagram is that it gives you different levels of development for each type, high functioning and low functioning. No-one can change type, but they can move up and down the levels of development. It’s also great for predicting people’s behavior — once you’ve got their type, you can pretty much guess what they will do and say.

    A woman I know said one or two things about her husband, who I’d never met, that let me peg him as Type One, the Moralist, who believes in a strong code of ethics that he thinks everyone should follow. I was able to guess that when they fought, he’d just tell her that if she shut up and followed this “universal code,” everything would be fine. It never occurred to him that it was just his code — and he couldn’t follow it anyway. She was like “Ohmygod! Have you bugged our apartment?!”

  28. @Incognito

    A woman I know said one or two things about her husband, who I’d never met, that let me peg him as Type One, the Moralist, who believes in a strong code of ethics that he thinks everyone should follow.

    From The Enneagram Institute website:

    1 THE REFORMER

    The Rational, Idealistic Type: Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic

    Not exactly how you described it. There are similarities in the descriptions but it’s called the Reformer which isn’t quite the same as a Moralist. Is it?

  29. Not exactly how you described it. There are similarities in the descriptions but it’s called the Reformer which isn’t quite the same as a Moralist. Is it?

    Different books give the different types different names. Don Riso, who is probably the best writer on the subject, uses Reformer. Personally, I think Moralist is a better fit. I should have stuck to the standard to avoid confusion.

  30. Not exactly how you described it. There are similarities in the descriptions but it’s called the Reformer which isn’t quite the same as a Moralist. Is it?

    Different books give the different types different names. Don Riso, who is probably the best writer on the subject, uses Reformer. Personally, I think Moralist is a better fit. I should have stuck to the standard to avoid confusion. The description of the type you give is correct, but at the lower levels, he becomes fanatic, rigid, often hypocritical because he can’t live by the standards he sets. Religious and political fanatics often fall into that category. Highly functional individuals of that type still have strong principles and a code, but manage to live with it better. The guy I was talking about was low average. I recommend Riso’s Personality Types for further reading

  31. Outcome independence…ok makes sense when dealing with just one woman

    but does it also apply to passion,mission and goals or are they different?

  32. Outcome independence…ok makes sense when dealing with just one woman

    but does it also apply to passion,mission and goals or are they different?

    Read this.

  33. @Incognito

    Thanks for your clarification and recommendation. The Personality Types book you recommended is co-written by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. The Enneagram Insitute I quoted from is founded by the two of them. Don Richard Riso passed away in 2012 and now the Institute is run by Russ Hudson. This is how everything is intertwined.

  34. More or less correct. It is not as scientific as I would like. That’s why I prefer indexes such as Kolbe, Enneagram, etc. Thats why my SMIC members get the Kolbe test. But again, MBTI is A) what people understand and that’s how I need to communicate to a wide audience and B) it does at least give you a strong indicator of personality tendencies, i.e. it’s better than nothing and does help regardless of the fact its reasonably unscientific.

    Yeah but most people have no idea what Big Five means, but a hell of a lot know what ENTJ means. (I’m not communicating just to you, but to a large audience here.

    Some more thoughts on this. I got to know you as a competent marketer. I enjoyed the rundown in your post How Alpha 2.0 Business Models Compare To Others. So I wonder if any relevant business model you subscribe to suggests you to dumb down your message – especially if you are in the coaching business. For example you said more of your clients/people you write to are familiar with the less scientific, less cool, less up to date MBTI than the Big Five or other personality models you would personally prefer. Not me, (I’m clueless about MBTI), but more people you write to. I suppose none of the business models suggest that your message has to be dumbed down to the MBTI level (for the sake of argument let’s say it’s a dumbing down from your level). You are free to post an article/video about how MBTI even if it’s so popular, it’s not scientific or not cool anymore and people who follow you should use the Big Five or Enneagram or whatever model instead. Especially as part of your master plan, you put up educational videos on YouTube five times a week.

    If I run a coaching business similar to yours I dumbed down my message less, rather I’d put the focus more on raising people. I think it’s more fun or rewarding for the coach himself if he isn’t miles ahead, just slightly ahead of his clients and they can learn together in this fashion. He wouldn’t get bored so easily of coaching. Raise prices and fire customers, the saying goes. As I see from the outside you may have the luxury to fine tune your message to lower or higher levels. If I had this choice I would definitely tune it to a little higher.

    Maybe I managed to get my point across.

  35. I wonder if any relevant business model you subscribe to suggests you to dumb down your message

    I dumb down my message on a semi-regular basis, including when I talk about business advice. It’s a requirement when you’re a blogger speaking to a wide audience.

    And you’re weirdly obsessed with this MBTI thing. I won’t be discussing it further in this thread since it’s off-topic (but you are welcome to).

  36. And you’re weirdly obsessed with this MBTI thing.

    Really? It that how it sounds like from your side?

    Maybe I managed to get my point across.

    (Again, I’m not a native speaker of English like this other person you somehow mixed me up with when we first interacted.)

    All I intended to use MBTI for as an example when discussing the implications of one dumbing his message down or not.

  37. For Alphas, what sort of male friends or males do they get along with best?

    Is it common for alphas to have few male friends?

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