The 4 personality types that can tell you what you're missing in life
Have you ever found yourself struggling in a relationship and wondered what it is that you’re missing? Perhaps the same argument keeps rearing its head but no matter how many circles you turn, you don’t seem to inch any closer to a resolution. According to psychotherapist Emma Reed Turrell, this habit of repeating the same ‘mistakes’ or behaviours is thanks to a gap in our psychological awareness that clouds our judgement, otherwise known as our ‘emotional blind spot’.
'Most people will refer to their emotional blind spot simply as a sense that something isn't quite right,' explains Turrell. ‘You might feel you're constantly being pushed over in your friendships, or perhaps you're frustrated in your job because you feel like nobody is listening to you - either of these issues can alert us to a blind spot around power. Or perhaps the problems in your relationship stem from a reluctance to ask for help - this could point to a blind spot around vulnerability. Many of us have had a conversations with a friend or relative that have hit a nerve, but can't quite figure out why it's bothered us so much. More often than not, the root of this pain and confusion lies in a blind spot.'
In her new book, What am I Missing?, Turrell suggests that to really address our blind spots we must first align our thoughts and behaviours with one of four 'profiles' she has identified over the course of her 15-year career in the therapy space. While it is possible that our behaviours neatly fit into one profile (Rock, Gladiator, Hustler or Bridge), different profiles can feel appropriate for the different areas of our lives, such as work, family, friendships and romantic relationships.
Once we've learned how to recognise traits within ourselves, Turrell recommends that we can diagnose our 'primary' blind spot, which for many of us can feel like a light bulb moment - 'a jumping off point that finally allows us to see clearer and bring about positive change.'
We can then start to act in a way that's more intentional, productive and fulfilling, says Turrell, 'and attend to the thoughts, feelings and beliefs that can leave us feeling unloved, insecure or overwhelmed.'
What's your blind spot?
Below, Turrell outlines how to identify which of the four profiles you match most closely with, and how to unlock the 'primary' blind spot you're leaving unchecked.
How to understand your profile
'When diagnosing your own blind spot profile, try focusing on the areas of your life that feel are the most challenging, as these can most clearly illuminate what you’re missing,' advises Turrell. 'You may find that you fit a particular profile earlier in life, and then evolved into another, or you might recognise traits of multiple types within yourself. Perhaps you behave in different ways according to the situation you find yourself in, relating to one type at work and another within your family dynamic.'
Rock
Blind spot: Vulnerablity
Rocks are sometimes so disconnected from their feelings and needs that they can’t always point to their existence at all. Independent and hard-to-crack, they can appear rigid or standoffish, often limiting their options to what they know rather than what they want. They don’t like asking for help and may rarely, if ever, express their love in words.
Rocks can straight-up deny or ignore the reality of anything they’re not comfortable with, including emotions. They are supportive to others, though often practically rather than emotionally because discomfort with their own distress can make them intolerant of another’s. Their response to a child falling over and scraping their knee might be, ‘Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt!’, despite the child crying and insisting it does. Rocks have a habit of telling their children how to feel, meaning they may grow up lacking the experience of saying, ‘This is how it felt for me’ and feeling emotionally seen.
Known as ‘strong and stable’, Rocks may dismiss their vulnerability either to preserve a sense of safety or keep them in service to another person. ‘It’s just one of those things’ is a Rock’s favourite saying, and it can be hard to get them to share their experience authentically; they might be involved in a scary car accident, yet tell their friends it was ‘no big deal’ and defend their perspective to the hilt.
Instead of sitting with their own uncomfortable feelings, Rocks often ‘keep busy’ by trying to fix another person’s problems. They might text a friend to ask them how they’re doing or insist on running a poorly family member’s errands – anything to distract themselves from their own vulnerability.
Rocks often shoulder a lot of responsibility and seem to cope well with the everyday stresses of life. At work, they may find themselves taking on the role of ‘professional fixer’, solving complex problems and managing other people. However, their tendency to martyr themselves and prioritise others’ needs at their own expense can prevent them from seeing and acknowledging their own experiences.
A Rock often comes to therapy when they burn out or can’t seem to find any joy in life, not realising that when they switch off their ‘dangerous’ feelings like hurt, rejection and fear, they also surrender access to fun, excitement and play.
See clearer
Rocks often struggle to make big decisions because they haven’t taken the time to get to know themselves on a more granular level. To do this, think about small changes you could make in your daily life. What it is about a situation that’s not working for you? There is always a reason for our feelings, even if we don’t know what it is yet, and invalidating them doesn’t make them go away, it just makes them harder to act on.
Now consider what your next step might be. Perhaps you’ve realised that as a Rock, you are doing too much for others and subjugating yourself. Do you need to put a boundary in place with your family to feel freer? Reset an expectation at work? Or tell someone how you really are and experience feeling seen? If you’re not sure, try taking a step in any direction, as any shift can give you new perspective.
If you're still not any closer to meeting your need, ask yourself if you need to try a different tack again. This discovery approach is important because by navigating relationships with feeling, not just thinking, and by using your heart as well as your head, you are exercising vulnerability, recognising it not as a weakness but an essential component of strength.
Gladiator
Blind spot: Empathy
Gladiators tend to be in touch with their feelings and needs, but they don’t trust others to help meet them, often falling back on the mantra, ‘If you want something done well, do it yourself’. Determined, ambitious and confident with a strong work ethic, they excel in leadership positions. However, they can be demanding and single-minded, too often failing to consider others and acting in a cut-throat or self-centric manner. The Gladiator will push back forcefully if they don’t like what another person is saying, shutting them down without listening to their point of view and often missing out on a grain of truth that may be helpful.
Gladiators suffer no fools, often turning the specific into the general and assuming the worst of others. If a junior screws up once, they’ll immediately start making plans to fire them, without considering the nuance of the situation. Their ability to make tough calls can be advantageous, and they may often do what needs to be done, but their lack of empathy and inability to see that relationships can be negotiated and rupture can be repaired keeps others at a distance.
A Gladiator may have been shown either a lack or an excess of empathy when growing up, making them less considerate of other people. By prioritising the individual over the team, they can miss out on relationships of balance driven by mutual respect, trust and compassion – the opportunity for me and you. Their sensitivity to criticism and lack of faith in others can also drive the very rejection they fear.
Feeling ‘exposed’ around others is a Gladiator’s worst nightmare. If a conversation takes a turn for the closer or more personal, they’re quick to change the subject or move the focus onto someone else. They're quick to criticise in other people what they dislike about themselves - you ma hear them bad-mouthing the colleague who leaves at 5pm to head to the gym because they struggle to draw a similar work/life boundary and let themselves rest.
The Gladiator may arrive at therapy having come up against a situation that can’t be ‘fixed’ through hard graft alone, requiring them to dig deeper and add empathy to their perspective so that their untouchable lone wolf can enjoy the security of a pack.
See clearer
Try the ‘I see, I feel, I need’ process to discover and exercise empathy. As a Gladiator, you’re good at identifying what you want, often leading to the pursuit of instant gratification, but discovering your deeper need and longer-term goal can prove trickier. Perhaps you have a tendency to steam-roll in friendships, taking the lead and making all the plans to get in there first with what you want to do – to see a certain movie on a certain date, for example. But can you see your need? It might be for companionship that you don’t believe will be offered freely if you don’t make it happen. Or maybe you don’t expect others to care about what you want, driving you to make demands, when really you need to find out that they do care and have all along.
To practise open communication, starting with an acknowledging ‘I see’. Let’s say your friends are declining your cinema invite because they're too busy: ‘I see you’re juggling a lot of commitments right now, which sounds tough’. To express some more vulnerability, now try 'I feel: ‘I feel hurt when friends don’t make me a priority and rejected when people make excuses’.To enact change, try a ‘I need’: ‘I need some reassurance that it’s this specific plan that you’re turning down, not me’.
This exercise helps you account for the other person’s experience, share your genuine feelings, and let your friends know what’s really important to you – all steps that will help strengthen your connections.
Hustler
Blind spot: Self-acceptance
Hustlers know that they need others but tend to think they must earn or justify love or support. Typical people pleasers, they fear being disliked or judged badly, believing they must always get everything right for others to accept them. As such, they may struggle to ask for help directly and are usually conflict-averse, often tying themselves in knots in trying to keep others on side.
Hustlers tend to be considerate, creative and adaptive. They can also be manipulative - a word they may disagree with because they are always trying to be morally perfect in order for others to accept them. They can lack self-compassion and curiosity about why they struggle to state their needs directly, instead taking the unscrupulous descriptor of ‘manipulative’ as a sign they haven’t yet managed to please everyone or learned not to care so much. Being trapped between the two is a problem they can’t solve.
Hustlers often grew up around adults who called all the shots, discouraged independence and/or criticised failure, meaning they developed a fear that their feelings and wishes would be unacceptable. And so, they bite their tongue, offer to help in the hope of reciprocity or flatter others into rewarding them with what they wanted all along. They often attempt to back up their needs with rational arguments, instead of accepting them as they are.
The Hustler has been trained to keep other people comfortable, even if that means tolerating their own discomfort. Their relentless efforts to maintain happiness and harmony often involve ‘polishing up’ a difficult situation into something more acceptable, turning a negative into a positive by insisting that something ‘isn’t that bad really’, or feeling compelled to mention that ‘at least’ something worse didn’t happen.
Lacking in self-compassion, Hustlers are quick to accept things from other people that they will not accept from themselves. They may do whatever it takes to avoid feeling guilty in the moment, whether that’s helpful in the long run or not. They tend to rely on charm, persuasion and guilt trips to prop up a fragile sense of acceptance but lost in the Hustler’s blind spot is the validity of their own needs and the option to ask for and receive help directly.
Hustlers often come to therapy feeling overwhelmed and lacking boundaries or torn between two people and unable to please both. They leave having reclaimed their right to pass their needs through their own moral compass, sign them off as ‘acceptable’ and communicate directly.
See clearer
Get clear on your needs and risk asking for help directly. So, whether you need your partner to listen to you, some space in a friendship or to renegotiate your working hours, if your needs feel reasonable, try stating them to others directly instead of hinting or hoping. You might not always get what you ask for, but you won’t be annoying others by manipulating them or missing out.
Perhaps you have a relationship in which you overwork, or someone whose approval you hustle and chase. See what happens if you bring yourself back to the halfway line, which is where healthy adult relationships involving broadly 50/50 effort happen. Try practising different phrases and ways to state your position more plainly. ‘It’s not no, but it’s not now’ is a good one to try with a colleague who asks you for help when your plate is already full (and the chances are, they might say ‘Don’t worry, it’s not urgent’, meaning you haven’t needlessly added something to your list with an automatic ‘Of course!’)
It might feel uncomfortable at first, but remember that you are not responsible for how someone else responds to a boundary you put in place. Holding firm will help you gain confidence that you can tolerate others’ discontent and over time, your brain will learn that this is a safe and welcome way to behave with the people who care about you. Those who don’t welcome your new authenticity or choose not to make the extra effort? Perhaps they don’t deserve to travel with you further. It can be incredibly empowering for a Hustler to discover that strength comes not through acceptance from others but through acceptance from themselves.
Bridge
Blind spot: Power
Bridges come across as friendly and unassuming, always seeking collaborative and harmonious connections, but their primary blind spot is a perceived lack of power that can leave them open to exploitation. Often introverted and sometimes quiet, they are usually happy to ‘go with the flow’, believing the safest option is to accept things as they are presented to them rather than risk conflict by pushing for change, even when their suggestions would have been valued.
The Bridge might have grown up with a parent who did all their thinking for them or wrapped them in cotton wool, or perhaps they became a master of appeasing others and defusing tension to survive in a chaotic environment. Either way, they take comfort in the misjudged idea that they have no control, believing ‘whatever happens, happens’ and giving up when things get tough. Nothing’s going to change, so what’s the point?
The Bridge’s passivity can mean they unfairly leave others with the responsibility for reading their mind or making decisions. They tend to jump into life’s passenger seat, only to wind up feeling resentful when they don’t end up where they wanted to be, whether that’s in the wrong house, career or friendship group. Bridges outsource their happiness to third parties, blindly hoping for a good outcome without taking any steps to influence it.
Unlike Hustlers who get creative pulling strings to manipulate an outcome, Bridges take their own power and preferences off the table, instead running a racket of peace and flexibility to avoid ‘rocking the boat’. Their lack of agency can leave them feeling lost, confused and unfulfilled, and their efforts to avoid upsetting others can make authentic connection impossible.
Bridges tend to see themselves as the fly in every ointment, believing ‘It’s me, not them’ without realising that nobody is solely responsible for any success or failure. Like the Rock, if something is bothering a Bridge, they will take their mind off their feelings instead of confronting them. They will ‘keep busy’ and may indulge in numbing behaviours like over-exercising or comfort eating, leaving the problem to get bigger while they’re looking the other way.
The Bridge will come to therapy facing an identity crisis and complaining about being treated like a doormat, having never questioned why they’re lying down.
See clearer
Ask yourself: ‘Is it me that’s not OK, or is there something about this that’s not OK?’ Bridges are quick to see everything as their own responsibility or shortcoming that they don’t pause to acknowledge an expectation as unfair or a deadline as unreasonable. Most of the time, your contribution to a situation has been far more minimal than you believe. This doesn’t mean you don’t need to own your share of the responsibility – you absolutely do. Just make sure that the accounting is accurate, because no amount of guilt or self-loathing can repair a problem that was not of your making – or at least all yours to solve.
Many Bridges struggle with imposter syndrome, in which you doubt your own abilities and fear being exposed as a fraud, giving you protection against being judged by leading you to pre-emptively judge yourself. To overcome this, bring it out into the light and call it what it is. Next time you find yourself feeling like you don’t belong, aren’t good enough, and that everyone else is better than you, try saying to yourself, ‘I am having imposter thoughts’. Thoughts are not the same as facts, so what you’re doing here is questioning their validity.
Next, look for alternative realities: that you are already good enough, or that everyone has to start somewhere. And when you’re with others, check out your pluralistic ignorance – the mistaken belief that the majority of others hold a different opinion to your own. You can say something like, ‘Is anyone else not quite getting this?’ Merely sharing your observations with someone else can reassure you that you’re not the odd one out.
What Am I Missing? by Emma Reed Turrell is out now
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