When a Psychometric Profile Gives You a Word for Something You Already Knew
- Marina Shearer
- 52 minutes ago
- 4 min read
I've completed psychometric profiles for years. I've worked with them professionally, debriefed them, trained others in their use, and seen the powerful insights they can provide. Like many people who work in this field, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of myself.
Then my Drawmetrics profile described me as sentimental.
I paused.
Not because I disagreed with it. Quite the opposite. I knew immediately that it was true. What surprised me was that no psychometric tool had ever reflected this part of me back to me before. I found myself wondering how Drawmetrics could possibly know that. How could a profile identify something that felt so personal? So specific? So deeply woven into who I am?
Yet there it was, that one word. Sentimental. And it landed with surprising force.
The more I sat with it, the more I realised that this wasn't a new discovery at all. It was something I had always known about myself. Drawmetrics hadn't created the insight. It had simply given a name to something that had been quietly living beneath the surface for many years.
Sometimes the most powerful insights are not the ones that surprise us. They are the ones that validate us. There was something incredibly reassuring about seeing this trait reflected back to me. Instead of dismissing it as a quirk, or something that sat outside my professional identity, I found myself accepting it more fully. In fact, I found a sense of peace with it.
Around the same time, I had completed a book about my family's story. If there is ever a project that reveals a sentimental heart, that might be it. I spent years researching, collecting stories, preserving memories, understanding the lives of people who came before me, and trying to honour their experiences through my writing.
Yet if I'm honest, I had unconsciously separated that part of my life from my professional identity.
There was "professional Marina" and there was "author Marina". There was the coach and facilitator. And then there was the family historian, storyteller, and keeper of memories. Without realising it, I had placed them in different boxes.
What Drawmetrics helped me see is that they were never separate.
They are both me.
The same trait that drives me to preserve family stories is present when I sit with a coaching client and listen deeply to their experiences. The same appreciation for people's journeys is present when I facilitate leadership development. The same desire to understand where people have come from is present when I help them explore where they are going.
My sentimentality is not something that sits outside my professional life.
It enriches it, and allows me to connect, to care and to see the human being behind the role, the title, the challenge, or the behaviour.
For a long time, I think I viewed sentimentality as something soft. Something personal. Something that belonged outside the workplace. Now I see it differently.
I see it as a strength because it helps me value people, relationships, history, meaning, and legacy. Those things matter.
They matter in families.
They matter in leadership.
They matter in coaching.
And they matter in life.
One of the things I have learned through profiling is that self-awareness is not always about uncovering something new. Sometimes it is about recognising something that has been there all along and finally giving yourself permission to embrace it.
That is what happened for me. A single word gave me a deeper understanding of myself. It helped me stop treating part of who I am as separate from the rest. It helped me see that my authorship, my coaching, my facilitation, my curiosity about people, and my love of family stories are not disconnected interests.
They are expressions of the same underlying trait.
And perhaps most importantly, it reminded me that I do not need to hide that part of myself. I can bring it with me, into my writing, into my coaching, into my leadership and into all my work.
Because the things we sometimes see as our differences are often the very things that create our greatest value.
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DIRECTOR PROFILE Coaching Ltd
BSc.psychology
Diploma Professional Coaching
Certified Practitioner and Accreditation Coach
Marina Shearer is a seasoned leader, educator, and innovator with over 30 years of experience across various industries in New Zealand. Holding a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Canterbury and a Diploma in Professional Coaching from the Southern Institute of Technology, she has dedicated her career to empowering others.
As the Director of PROFILE Coaching NZ, Marina specialises in certifying coaches and HR professionals in psychometric profiles, enhancing their ability to understand and develop talent effectively. Her passion for teaching and commitment to personal growth have made her a respected figure in the coaching community. Marina facilitates the PROFILE Coaching Coaches Collective and the NZ Coaching Collective, places where professional coaches connect, collaborate and grow.
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