The “Developer” (12% of the population)
Your brain type tends to be a dynasty builder such as Barbara Walters, Sam Walton, Andrew Carnegie, Ray Kroc and Tina Turner. Use this gift to focus on your health as your dynasty and brand, to be passed on to others who can profit from your hard work. These people can be those you are helping, coaching or even your descendants.
You get personal satisfaction from watching things improve and grow, due to your personal contribution and hard work. Whether you are contributing to the growth and development of yourself, others, projects, or businesses, it’s all very rewarding to you, because you are a true helper and supporter.
Like Desmond Tutu, you are a true people-person, wanting to help as many people as possible to better themselves. When you learn a new concept that helps you personally, you become an enthusiastic evangelist of that concept in order to help others.
Helping other people get healthy and fit will be a huge motivator for you to stay on track yourself, so be sure to find someone to help, coach, or mentor. This can be done one-on-one, in a group or even publicly as in the case of starting your own blog, social media following, or Facebook group for instance.
You tend to take health and weight management seriously and will benefit from looking at health and weight control as a way of demonstrating personal responsibility.
If you are overweight, you generally dislike your situation more than most other brain types. You may even believe that to fail in weight management is a negative reflection on your identity, which in part, involves having things under control.
You may tend to eat faster than some of the other brain types, while at the same time, giving less consideration to what you are eating. You also tend to not want to stop eating certain foods because you are more apt to enjoy the taste, smell and texture through your senses than other brain types. This causes you to want to continue that pleasant sensation, even after you are full, which could lead to overeating. The Conscious Eating technique will be helpful to you. (see the summary section at the bottom of this page).
You may look to food for comfort, especially for quick consolation for emotional hurts. This may also result in the tendency to become emotionally attached to food. To counter this, planning ahead on how to best handle pressure situations will help you. Stress reduction techniques will help you in the moment as well.
You prefer attending seminars and learning from an expert that you can hear and see, over reading concepts in a book. The brain training videos will appeal to you more than reading about them, so while it is important to read information like this, you tend to learn and retain better by watching videos and lectures.
It’s important for you to listen to and understand the logical aspects of why health is important, or you can have a tendency to overlook important considerations since your decisions are easier to make based on feelings over logic.
You also like concepts, illustrated with people, like testimonials, personal stories and before and after pictures, so be sure to frequent this type of content for inspiration.
Your brain type needs constant personal contact with other people to stay motivated, so that is another reason to find a nutrition partner and a workout buddy to share your experience and journey. If you can’t find anyone for that, then find a way to post your journey publicly (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, email updates, etc.), so others can interact with you along the way, providing feedback and support.
You have an affinity for order and structure. Taking things in small steps makes projects seem more doable. For this reason, it is important for you to stay focused on each step along the way and fully master that step before moving on to the next step. Go at your own pace and no faster!
Try to look at the big picture and seek counsel from friends who are known to be more objective. These people will help you feel more balanced and will help anchor you so you can learn faster and more effectively.
You are an energetic, nurturing, natural host/hostess, so putting on cooking parties, fitness chocolate making gatherings and sharing healthy recipes and ideas with others will motivate and inspire you to stay on track. Taking care of others through preparing good food for them will be very satisfying to you and will help keep you motivated to spend time in the kitchen – beyond just cooking for yourself. In fact, cooking for just yourself might be extremely difficult, so if you find this to be the case, find someone else to share the food with who will enjoy and appreciate it (whether they share your health mission not).
When you do create a new recipe, be sure to record the ingredients and amounts carefully as you go because your gift of creativity and “flying by the seat of your pants” will cause you to have a tendency to just throw ingredients in as you think of them, without measuring them, and when you’re finished, you could have an amazing creation with no recollection of how to duplicate it. This would be a shame for others because your ability for delicious creations is better than most brain types and not being able to duplicate or pass on those recipes will be frustrating to you due to your other tendency for nurturing, helping and contributing to other’s success.
Being a nurturer, you tend to assume responsibility for the happiness, health, and well-being of others, which can be an asset, since you are certainly gifted at helping others. You will also want to teach others the great lessons you are learning, so be sure to share those as often as you can to help keep you motivated. You can do this through gatherings and hosting as mentioned, but also through coaching, Facebook posts, YouTube videos, Instagram, and other social media channels.
Your nurturing quality can also be a liability if you feel like you are failing other people because you may take this failure personally. If they aren’t succeeding with your help, step back and look at the whole picture logically. When you do, you will see that it is because of their brain wiring, not because of any fault of yours.
As a natural nurturer, you tend to want control over your family and their lives, because you feel that you know what is best for them (even more than they do sometimes). This can work to your advantage because once you adopt a passion for health, you will also create that atmosphere in your own household with your family who will benefit greatly from the lifestyle changes that you are sharing with them. A way this could work against you, however, is that you might push someone away who has a brain type wired to resist control. Be sensitive to that and back off if you see this happening, gently coaxing them along with your nurturing and caring ways, until they come around on their own, so they own the idea on their own.
You find other people fascinating, which tends to draw them out, allowing them to open up to you more easily than other people (like Barbara Walters pictured above). This gift can be especially helpful with your more introverted friends because you can facilitate getting things out they might normally hold in for too long.
You may tend to be too busy taking care of others to notice that you have neglected to adequately take care of yourself, so be sure to focus some of that nurturing energy on yourself with little rewards like a massage or a relaxing bath to keep your nurturing abilities charged. The Affirmations technique will help you to nurture yourself, so make sure to do that each day (see summary below).
You tend to make decisions based on how others are affected, so it could be helpful to imagine how your improved health will affect someone close to you. You might choose to focus on how their opinion of you improves, or how your change will help them. Both of these can be powerful motivating factors for you.
You may find yourself feeling anxious if you move forward too fast in a health or fitness program before you feel like you have mastered the previous step. You will, of course, desire to move forward as fast as possible because of your high energy level, but stepping back and objectively making sure you have truly mastered a step before moving to the next one is crucial.
Most of your decisions are generally made by your feelings, through “gut instinct,” considering how those decisions will affect others. This can be a wonderful asset as you help others along, but it can also be a liability in cases of making decisions based on negative emotions or fear. In that case, you will find it very beneficial to step back and look at things as objectively and logically as possible. If you find this difficult because your emotions are “getting the best of you,” ask your most logical, objective friend to be a sounding board for you. If a friend like that is not available, use the “50-foot view” brain training technique.
You tend to live in the present, without giving much thought to long-term perspectives. The more active part of your brain is your subconscious, which tends to want immediate gratification and seeks to fall back on established habits and the status quo. This will work to your advantage though after you establish new cravings for healthy food and create new healthy lifestyle patterns, as all that becomes your new norm.
You will find that the easiest way for you to obtain those new and healthy habits will be through focusing on short-term objectives. Set little goals for yourself along the way – even weekly or daily – so you can find short-term successes to focus on and celebrate.
You tend to derive energy simply from mingling with people and being around others, whether they are friends, acquaintances, or even complete strangers, so posting successes publicly on social media and connecting with accountability partners when you are struggling will be very helpful to you. Be sure to keep yourself surrounded by positive, supportive people through this journey to keep you energized and motivated. You are heavily influenced by your peer group so make sure the majority of them are fans and cheerleaders of your goals.
Your brain type tends to have a broad field of relationships, so you have a larger influence on others than most other brain types. You can use this influence to start a group, blog, or other social gatherings to help people and keep you motivated.
With practical knowledge of what to do, what to wear, and where to go, you actively assist others in the direction they should be headed. You find it easy to give advice to others and it’s usually the correct advice because of your more accurate “gut instinct.”
As you learn more information and become more of an expert, you get better at helping others and are able to help more people, so continuing to learn new and useful facts will always be fun for you.
Because of your gift of empathy, you tend to carry too many burdens around – your own and those of others. Take care not to spread yourself too thin, which may lead to physical or emotional exhaustion. Get better at graciously saying “no” to people when their requests aren’t particularly urgent or necessary.
You need to minimize your anxieties and penchant for controlling people and things around you in order to maintain balance in your life. Focus on improving your ability to relax and allow for grace to be given to yourself and others for mistakes made in this imperfect world. You find it easier to give grace to others than yourself. You are also good at reminding others to give people grace, but you need to remember to give grace to yourself too!
If you feel like you are failing in your journey to optimum health, or even temporarily backsliding for that matter, you tend to be too hard on yourself and take it personally, as a reflection on who you are as a person. Step back, regroup, and affirm that you are an imperfect person in an imperfect world, who deserves grace and slack. This will help you get back on track as fast as possible. Focus on what is going right and where you are seeing improvements in your health and body, rather than the perceived wrongs.
The majority, but not all people with your brain type, tend to complain about physical aches or pains and health problems. If this is you, catch yourself doing this, stop, regroup, and focus on what is feeling good to prevent that pattern from developing. Keep health issues in a realistic perspective, being careful of imagining that things might be worse than they really are.
Your extroversion and feelings can work against you because you tend to eat socially. Getting caught up in the moment with friends can distract you from noticing when you are full, which is another reason the Hunger Scale technique will be helpful to you.
You may also find that certain dishes and recipes become addicting fast, and that is all you are interested in eating for a while. Make sure to force yourself to continue eating a variety of dishes and to try new recipes regularly, because this will be a great wiring exercise for your brain.
Your brain type tends to get anxious about hunger more than other brain types because you want to fix that unpleasant sensation before it gets too intense. The hunger scale technique will be another brain training method you will find useful. This technique might not make much sense to you at first, but it will fine tune your senses, helping you to know when you are physically hungry, instead of merely craving a sensation you enjoy. It will also help you become familiar with hunger and that it is OK and even healthy in some cases, to be moderately hungry, as this is a sign that your cells are cleaning themselves out and getting rid of unwanted toxins.
Since you are in better touch with your sensations than most people, pain, and discomfort can limit your exercise intensity if you aren’t mindful of this fact. It might be more difficult for you to push as hard as other brain types, so you may need more duration and frequency with your training sessions. Wear a heart rate monitor as a more objective measure to give you feedback on your true exercise intensity. If you find it difficult to push yourself into your anaerobic zones for more than a few minutes, then just add more time and/or frequency to your workouts.
It would be wise for you to avoid the scale because normal fluctuations in body weight might cause you anxiety. Men can fluctuate 5 pounds in a day, simply due to water retention and elimination but women can fluctuate 10 pounds. If you see this happening (especially if you are a woman during your menstrual cycle, when you could gain 4 pounds of water weight in a day and then another 4 pounds the next day), you may panic and slide into an emotional funk, causing you to turn to food to medicate your brain out of that funk. It’s better for you to focus on general health improvements and how your clothes are fitting than on your scale weight.
Don’t bother with food logs or journaling if they seem too tedious for you. You will find it easy, however, to write down the positive things that you are grateful for and focus on those. Keep notes during the day and then write them in a quick, short journal at the end of each day. The Last 90 Minutes of the day technique will help you tremendously.
Summary and Recap
Goal setting: Set your short-term goals based on how you look (especially in great clothes), and on how your improved health and fitness might help someone close to you (or make them proud of you). Set your long-term goals based on health improvement, in order to enjoy a longer, more fulfilling, and confident and active life.
Best Workout: Group classes with a high-energy instructor will be best for you.You will also do well with a personal trainer or workout partner, as long as they can push you in a safe way, with an adjustable intensity, based on your capabilities and current mental state for that day and time. Longer workouts with moderate intensity might be better for you than short, high-intensity sessions.
Motivated by: Helping people, taking small steps with frequent successes, and celebrating those successes (both your own and those of others).
Supported by: An encouraging and affirming friend who will take this journey with you and help hold you accountable.
Areas to strengthen: Your hunger and satiety sensations. Avoid allowing your imagination to go to “worse case scenarios,” by catching yourself doing that and then creating a “best case scenario” story instead.
Strengths to use: Host cooking or Fitness Chocolate parties often! Support and help others to enjoy their success with them and to keep you on track.
Brain training techniques: EFT, Conscious Eating (Part 1 and Part 2), Hunger Scale, Stories, Last 90 minutes, Bonus brain exercises for your type!
