Welcome Curator
. . . This is your story
PAST–PRESENT
You seek what’s likely to happen now based on what’s known.
Your unique point of view is formed by your blend of the three foundational priorities of mind: Past (Certainty), Present (Probability), and Future (Possibility). The result of this blending of priorities is your thinking style and it defines the value you bring to every aspect of your life. It is what motivates you and it shapes your personality. It is also at the root of most of our differences in the way we each think.
Your thinking is oriented towards understanding how things should work. There’s a right way and a wrong way and you are often keenly aware of the difference. You think deeply about the consequences of actions on many levels, especially when it comes to ensuring safety and avoiding risks. It can be stressful being asked to make decisions or commit to something without having enough time to understand it or come to terms with the changes it might bring.
You will always be driven by Certainty and Probability; you can be a trusted advisor because you know what you’re talking about and will do as you say. Use this ability as your foundation and align your efforts with what you do so well.
As a Curator, you have
- Practical knowledge from data; insight from other people’s learning
- A thorough competency to get things done and measure their success
- A need to evaluate what is known and bring insight and clarity to discussions
- The capacity to weigh the pros and cons before making a decision
- A love of your favorite things; you are somewhat nostalgic and attached to the way things were
- A loyalty and trust in certain people built on years of experiences
Your Archetype badge
Maximize Your Strengths
Get yourself to the safe place of knowing what’s going on and use that knowledge to keep control of what’s happening.
- Do remember that the past is always a reliable source of information that can be used in a very practical sense.
- Do focus on keeping control of where you are, using your knowledge of what worked before as a guide, but also stay open-minded about changes.
Growth Opportunities
Move quickly on new opportunities. Use innovative and imaginative thinking to push the boundaries.
- Don’t necessarily overlook opportunities that present themselves to you because you have little information about them. You might want to test the waters before you assume it’s not worth your trouble.
- Don’t forget that we’re all moving towards an unknown future and it’s important that we try to see all the possibilities.
IN FLOW
How you are in the world
You move softly, cautiously, stepping only when you think it’s the right thing to do. You’ve got a plan in mind. It wasn’t something you just pulled out of thin air. You took time and care with it. You did your research. Like a well-played game of chess, you imagined all possible outcomes before you moved. You’d rather step back and be a little late than rush in and make a mistake. You don’t want to be caught in a situation where you have no expectations, no plan, and no control.
Your flow is slow and steady. You rely on having solid ground under your feet when you move ahead. You have one chosen path that you generally stick to, careful of what might pop up along the way. Some things can’t be planned for, but you’re always prepared. You flow better when you know all the variables. Then you can move ahead fearlessly. For the way you flow, knowledge is power.
You don’t always fear change, but you also don’t always welcome it. Change often happens around you and you shift with it, if necessary. You don’t seek change because your flow is so well defined. The path you’ve taken is the best you can imagine, so why would you need to change? If you didn’t think this was the best path, you wouldn’t have taken it. You flow with certainty, sometimes arrogantly, that you’ve chosen the best path. And sometimes it takes external changes to show you that there is another way for you to go.
While you flow in search of knowledge and an understanding of how everything fits, you also use instincts to help you when knowledge can’t. This isn’t guessing. It’s more about feeling out a situation with your mind and gut working together—what you sense with your sharp intellect and what your sixth sense tells you based on its experiences. This kind of guidance system can help you flow more smoothly, but does it sometimes err on the side of being over-cautious? Do you ever find yourself playing too closely to the rules and doing everything you can to avoid risks? While this might help you flow, being over-cautious might also mean you lose opportunities.
WISDOM
What you bring to the world
You’re often seen as being wise beyond your years and in some sense, you are. That’s because much of your wisdom is based on the accumulated past. It’s knowledge tied up in the gold-edged pages of a leather-bound book, with line-after-line of wisdom passed down from some great mind you deeply respect. Having access to that wisdom is one thing, but by itself it might be considered a little removed from our daily life. What do the beliefs of someone from biblical time have to do with us now?
The reality is that old wisdom can have real relevance for us today, depending on how you’re able to apply it. You’ve got to work organically, taking the lessons from the past and seeing how they can be shaped to fit today’s situation. For you, wisdom might spring from the metaphoric sayings of great past minds, but it moves you in practical ways, and you’re able to apply those wise sayings and thoughts to current problems.
Your wisdom is truth-based. You seek what is right and honest and true. While it might be an intellectual truth you’re looking for, it’s your heart that helps guide you to those truths. You’ve got a finely tuned sense for what is true and right. This comes from experience, from questioning rather than just accepting, from stepping back from the world and taking the time to look at what is really going on around you.
Your search for truth and accuracy makes you a judicious and fair person. You have a structure to your wisdom. People who use more Future in their perspective base their wisdom on personal experience more than past knowledge. It’s a street-wise wisdom that shifts depending on points of view. You prefer to hold certain truths to be undeniable, and those truths apply equally to everyone. Like a revered judge, you dispense your wisdom fairly and evenly.
PERCEPTION
How you see the world
For you, truth is something absolute. Truth is what can be proven. Fact. You can hang your hopes and thoughts on it because it’s reliable. You can use it like a tool to get the job done. You know all of this in your mind, and you feel it in your gut. This is instinct, but not some weird psychic hit – your intuition comes from learned experiences. You can sniff B.S. a mile away because you’ve encountered it before and learned from it. You can tell when something is true because it “rings true”. Think about that. When something rings true, you’re hearing something beyond the words, like you’ve got an organic computer lurking somewhere inside that alerts you when something doesn’t gel.
You’ve learned your truths from seeing what happens around you and from reading books. It comes from scientific formulas and tangible facts. You can poke and prod at truth but you won’t find holes. Lies fall apart, but truth is solid. You’ll stand by what you believe to be truth. In fact, you’ll even fight for what you believe is true because it’s that important to you.
Do your truths ever change? Absolutely not! What if you believed a truth that was later proven to be incorrect? That means the first truth wasn’t a truth, right? In your view, this is a wrong way of looking at it. Truth is dependant on the information you’ve got. You don’t like guessing at things, so the information has to be pretty substantial. Sure, people were wrong to believe that the earth was flat, but if the information they had was wrong then the conclusion would be wrong. So the truth that the world is flat was valid given what people believed to be the facts at the time. Here’s the system as you see it: if facts change, the subsequent truth may change too, but truth itself is absolute, so it can’t be wrong.
Do you ever bend the rules on this? Are there times when you accept that there might be truths that don’t have a basis in absolute fact? How do you do when we someone needs a truth that’s based on experience, beliefs, personal judgment, and the balance of probability? Are there times when there are no absolute truths? Before you say these cases don’t exist, think about a friend coming to you and asking what they should do about a relationship they’re in. Some of the time, they’re happy, other times they’re not. There aren’t clearly defined past experiences or rules to govern the truth in this situation. You’re going to have to come up with some wishy- washy truth that isn’t empirical.
IN RELATIONSHIP
The Curator is the Informed Planner
We all have relationships, they’re a natural and important part of most people’s lives. Why is it that even in our most intimate and important relationships we struggle, at times, to make things work, to understand each other, to see eye-to-eye? The simple fact is that we do not think the same way. We each bring our own point of view and use that to further what is important to us in the moment, whether it be in our private life, our work or with friends.
Knowing how we think—specifically our archetype—helps us to hear with more compassion. To listen and hear beyond a person’s words. To understand where they are coming from, what they need, and where they are trying to get to in conversation with us.
Find Out How Curators Relate With Each Archetype
Choose your friend or partner’s archetype below to gain insights into your relationship.
Pros
You understand their need for mining the past for the kind of information that allows them feel comfortable and secure because you do it too.
Cons
They might not understand why you need to be so organized and keep so much control. You need to understand that they’re totally focused on playing it safe.
Pros
You share a need for control, organization and structure, and a good base for understanding where each other is coming from.
Cons
The present is central to who they are whereas you have a need for the past. They may not appreciate your need to hang things on the safety of knowing what happened before.
Pros
If you pool your resources and work together, you’re capable of anything.
Cons
You won’t meet anyone more your opposite in how they do things. Be patient with their seeming flakiness. It’s not personal, it’s just how they survive. They don’t share your passion for the past or control.
Pros
You both use the present and past, so there’s a good chance you understand what the other person is all about.
Cons
Sometimes too much of the same thing is not so good. Without some Future perspective between you, there might not be much to look forward to. While you’re both being careful about where you’ve been and where you are, who’s figuring out where you’re going?
Pros
You share using the past to keep yourselves informed, so you both understand why you ask lots of questions.
Cons
You’re looking to organize and structure your life using the past as a tool, they use it to help them decide which exciting new opportunities to follow. Be careful of using the same tool for different purposes.
Pros
You both use the past and present to understand the world. If you find a common ground, things could work out well.
Cons
You focus more on the past, they focus more on the present. While you might see each other’s points of view, you’re likely to think the other is seeing things from the wrong angle.
Pros
You both appreciate the need to keep things ordered and structured. Cons: they thrive on this structure and match it with a need for novelty and excitement.
Cons
You’re primarily concerned with what happened in the past, something they might not see as important.
Pros
You have a middle ground in using the past to ground yourselves.
Cons
The past is ultimately most important to you. Your life force comes from understanding the past and using it to help you control the present moment. They’re looking for opportunities and only use the past as a tool.
Pros
They’ll understand your need to be organized and have structure, even if they don’t always share it.
Cons
You’re probably more of a homebody, looking for some routine in your life and something solid you can rely on, whereas they’re looking more for adventure and new experiences.
Pros
They understand where you’re coming from because they use present and past as well as future in their perspective.
Cons
Since they’re always trying to find a balance, they can lack total commitment. Accept their need to keep finding compromises to make things work.
IN COLLABORATION
Curators Organize and Validate
- Information and organization are both important to you.
- You’re likely to manage the group’s data, adding to it with your own thorough research.
- Your caution and practicality provide a solid foundation for decision making. You help the group avoid unnecessary risks.
The secret to happiness and success is knowing where to look for the value in ourselves and others. When you’re aware of the value your colleagues bring—especially when it’s different from your own—you can partner with them to drive your mutual success.
The 10 Archetypes Collaboration Styles
Truth-seekers help the group develop a deeper understanding of its mission.
Truth-seekers teach people how to reduce the risk of failure and measure progress realistically.
Truth-seekers’ skepticism and independence militate against “group-think” and blind conformity.
Organizers keep their teammates focused on outcomes.
Organizers ensure that goals are realistic and the group doesn’t take on more work than it can handle.
Organizers hold people accountable and make sure they honor their deadlines and commitments.
Visionaries champion innovation, focus on solutions, and help others begin to think outside-the-box.
Visionaries inspire others and remind them of the bigger picture.
Visionaries help the group adapt to new circumstances.
Information and organization are both important to Curators.
Curators are likely to manage the group’s data, adding to it with their own thorough research.
Curators caution and practicality provide a solid foundation for decision making. They help the group avoid unnecessary risks.
Researchers ensure that the group makes decisions with full knowledge of the risks and consequences.
Others come to rely on their experience and wisdom.
Researchers are good at detecting when rules and structures become too confining for the group.
Engineers create efficient systems: organizing information, people, and the flow of work.
A team player, Engineers help the group stay focused on its collective goals.
Engineers promote accountability, reliability, and trustworthiness, helping bring projects to completion.
A Navigator’s attention to trends and changing markets is a valuable contribution to the group.
Navigators encourage others to act in a timely manner.
Navigators combine vision, action, and a knack for organizing. People say that they are natural leaders.
Explorers help the group set goals with a “grain of salt,” insisting that their vision be backed up with solid facts.
Explorers counsel against snap decisions.
Explorers find it easy to motivate others because they’re confident that their goals are viable.
Leaders make sure the group grabs new opportunities before it’s too late.
Leaders are more open to change than most Present thinkers, and understand the benefits of deviating from a plan.
Leaders are inspiring but pragmatic.
With their unusual ability to engage all thinking styles, Connectors have a clear understanding of group process.
Connectors sense when members are focusing on only one thinking styles and a minority perspective is being pushed to the margins.
Connectors serve as a mediator, help resolve conflicts, and keep everyone focused on constructive interaction.
Want to read more about this Archetype?
The Curator’s Perspective
MindTime’s Archetype e-Handbooks offer over 50 pages of science-backed insights about each Archetype.
Archetype handbooks can be purchased individually by anyone who doesn’t own MindTime Cards.