Many advisors contact me with the following question: “My dad is a Type A personality and I am just like him. Is there any hope for me or am I doomed to be hyper and stressed in my advising career forever?”
Type A personality traits were actually discovered by two prominent cardiologists, partners in an office in San Francisco. That’s correct, it was two cardiologists, not psychologists, who began to explore the relationship between personality traits and cardiovascular disease.
These doctors noticed something unusual: Only the front parts of the cushions on the chairs in the waiting room were worn, not the main part of the cushions. Also, only the front of the armrests were worn, but not the main part of the armrests. The doctors were baffled by these discoveries, so they asked the front desk staff to casually observe what the patients were doing while waiting.
They observed that many of the patients were restless and agitated, while waiting to be called into the back offices for their appointments. As they sat there looking at the clock, getting irritated that they were being kept waiting, many were impatiently rubbing the fronts of the armrests and leaning on the front of the chair cushions, putting most of the wear on those two parts of the chairs.
After observing this phenomenon, they compared the cardiovascular diagnostic symptoms for those patients who were most agitated in the waiting room, and amazingly, they found that the patients who were the most agitated, impatient, irritable, etc., (i.e., Type A behaviors) had significant cardiovascular diseases.
As a result of these findings, they eventually compiled their data into a breakthrough book, Type A Behavior and Your Heart, with the goal of teaching patients with cardiovascular diseases how to prevent those symptoms, even if they were genetically wired with Type A traits. As one of the authors wrote, “We now know beyond any doubt what we suspected before -- that Type behavior can be treated effectively.”
An Advisor Case Study
Melanie is a financial planner who contacted me for private coaching. Her issues included feeling anxious most of the time, both in her job and in her life. Impatient in lines at the bank and supermarket and in congested traffic, she frequently got so frustrated that she said she could feel her blood pressure escalate. A rapid speaker, Melanie often found herself finishing sentences for people, because, as she put it, “They are just to slow getting their point out.”
Beginning in college, Melanie admitted to multi-tasking, simultaneously looking at her e-mails and message slips that her assistant put on her desk, while attempting to listen to clients on the phone. Because Melanie considered wasting any time unacceptable, she believed that if she took time just for herself or even for her family, she would fail to accomplish her goals. Therefore, her husband and children had to beg for time from her in the evenings and on weekends.
Melanie’s career goals were lofty; they included being honored as her firm’s no. 1 producer for the year, and not attaining that goal equaled failure in her mind. This competitive nature fueled free-floating hostility. Her hostility surfaced when anyone or anything got in the way of what she was trying to accomplish. Having a short fuse, some of her advisor colleagues accused her of making “20 dollar reactions to 20 cent provocations.”