Essential Self, Essential Style: Align Your Inner Essence and Outer Expression

What happens when three leading innovators in their respective fields collaborate? They create an entirely new model of who we are, how we can live and how we can dress. Hurley and Donson, innovators in personality systems, and Parsons, a leading creator of style systems, join forces to give you a new, simple yet profoundly accurate way to identify your Essential Self and from it create your own Essential Style.

Every human being has three intelligences: thinking, feeling and doing. (This is the perennial teaching of cultures east and west now confirmed by modern brain research.) There are three corresponding styles: Elegant, Traditional and Sporty.

There are also three kinds of people: Go-getters (doers and thinkers), Networkers (feelers and doers), and Introspectives (thinkers and feelers).

What does each group need to discover its Essential Self and express its Essential Style? This book answers this question in an enjoyable way that penetrates to the heart of the issue. Easy to read, it demonstrates how our outer expression can support the growth of our inner essence.

Essential Self is who you really are. Essential Style is the attitude, communication, lifestyle and look that flow from the real you. When our outer expression is aligned with our inner essence, we are in union with self, others and the universe.

The key to this process is discovering, exploring and activating your hidden resource! Each of us has built our present lives on two-thirds of our Essential Self. The final third, lying dormant in us, is a hidden resource of vitality and meaning. Restoring this final third to its rightful place in our lives adds hope for overcoming obstacles and experiencing life's deepest pleasures. Because our hidden resource is one of the three centers of intelligence, it expresses itself in one of the three classic styles. Supporting our latent intelligence by expressing and using its corresponding classic style is a fun project that has remarkable effects in our lives.

Alyce Parsons, AICI, is a Certified Image Professsional and an international leader in the image consulting profession for over 20 years. As the foremost creator of image consulting systems, Alyce is a highly sought-after international speaker, trainer and author. Her books Universal Style, What's My Style?, and Universal Style for Men are used by colleges and image consultants worldwide. Her original systems in proportion, style and holistic image consulting have confirmed her standing as a trailblazer and visionary creating new possibilities for image consultants. Alyce is a founder and charter member of the Association of Image Consultants International and its first co-director.

Kathy Hurley and Theodorre Donson are spiritual teachers and international leaders in developing the Enneagram, a system of nine personality types which they apply both to personal growth and societal change. The foremost innovators in the field, their bestselling and award winning books include Discover Your Soul Potential, My Best Self, and What's My Type?, now published in eight languages. Their books and articles are sought after for their personal, practical and penetrating analysis of the forces that enhance relationships and increase compassion. People from all over the world attend their training programs and seminars. They are founders of the International Enneagram Association and served among its first leaders.