Alchemical Potential Quiz

Instructions

This tool is designed to determine your relative strength with the 13 elements of alchemical leadership. The results will be most meaningful if you use the entire scale from least strength to most strength.

Question 1:

I often sense a problem or potential before it appears. As people describe things, I frequently feel a hesitation or exhilaration in my body. I may even have fleeting images and a sense of knowingness about what might unfold.

Question 2:

I immediately and easily sense a lot about every space I enter — like a home, office, or meeting room. I may even sense characteristics that are residuals of past events. What I am aware of is not perceivable using the five senses alone and often goes unnoticed by others.

Question 3:

I often find myself explaining to others what is really going on — the unstated feelings, positions, desires, and thoughts that shape a situation.

Question 4:

People tend to be more positive toward me than they are toward most others. I'm frequently surprised that a person I connect with easily is a thorn in the side to so many.

Question 5:

I almost always understand why others do the things they do and rarely say, "I can't believe they did that," even if they are behaving in a way I would never endorse.

Question 6:

I am equally comfortable around almost everyone I meet and find most new places highly familiar — as if I had been there many times before. I rarely feel isolated or separate around people with very different beliefs, lifestyles, philosophies, or politics.

Question 7:

I eliminate what is nonessential, unnecessary, or distracting in my life. I refuse to overextend financially or with my time and energy. My life feels spacious and sufficient.

Question 8:

I undergo rigorous purification practices designed to build clarity and power — fasting, focusing and quieting my mind, exercising, engaging in breathwork or yoga, releasing old emotions through forgiveness, etc. I endure the heat and discipline essential to burn out dross.

Question 9:

I get rid of contaminants that compromise situations — things like fear, entitlement, regret, judgment, self-interest, and attachment.

Question 10:

I can easily launch a cause-effect chain that takes me from where I am to where I want to go. I rarely struggle with what the next step is and seldom have to go back and do things over.

Question 11:

I understand that designing the habitat around people is essential to creating desired effects in them. I rarely address a difficult behavior in someone without first looking at the environment supporting the behavior. And I understand that a gift will surface effortlessly when someone is in a habitat resonant with the gift.

Question 12:

I am rarely overwhelmed by the complexity of organizational issues and know how to create the ideal stage to make our vision manifest.

Question 13:

I am one-pointed — consolidating my energies and focusing them. I can hold this focus day after day on what matters most and refuse to be drawn away by distractions. My energy is rarely scattered and when others fatigue or lose concentration, I am still able to hold the intensity.

Question 14:

I shape the world with internal force. What is inside me feels more potent than what is transpiring around me, so I rarely feel trapped or powerless. Things that would stop or stall others seem to melt away for me — as if a laser were penetrating the apparent wall or blockage.

Question 15:

I see the world as a collection of forces and often achieve impact by bringing things into alignment that were moving in different directions. I concentrate the energies in a group so it achieves unity to move forward together. When I am not present, the group loses focus and fractures back into competing interests.

Question 16:

As I go through the day, I am aware of what builds and depletes my energy. I manage the life force that flows into me as well as what flows out. When needed, I can infuse tremendous amounts of energy into a situation. And I can rapidly replenish.

Question 17:

People feel better when they are around me. They are more hopeful, inspired, and energized. Sometimes people seek me out for no apparent reason other than to be in my presence. I easily build energy in groups and am often described as charismatic.

Question 18:

I build energy in groups by drawing on what exists in each person and supplementing missing energies with my own — like gratitude, appreciation, curiosity, or awe.

Question 19:

I often identify potential strategic connections that others would not think possible. Some of the most unlikely collaborations have been the most important for my organization. I assume anyone, even a perceived nemesis, may become a valued partner.

Question 20:

I see almost everything around me as interrelated and understand how changing any one thing changes everything. I am rarely surprised by unanticipated consequences.

Question 21:

I see myself as the nexus in a large web of connectivity. I continually foster new and diverse relationships even if I don't understand their specific importance in the moment. Many of the most important projects in my community flow through me in some way.

Question 22:

I am part of several communities or groups of people that are antithetically opposed to each other. Each views their way of seeing the world as true and rarely venture beyond their own borders. I am a traveler between these worlds and feel at home in each of them.

Question 23:

I enjoy working with groups that are highly dissimilar, oppositional, or in conflict. I realize that groups in resistance to one another have inherently high potential when their energy is redirected through shared purpose. I recognize that things may be related that seem highly dissimilar.

Question 24:

I frequently bring seemingly disparate and disconnected elements into partnership to create something surprising — a first of its kind.

Question 25:

I quickly release difficult or emotionally-charged events — I seldom rehash and relive them over and over in my mind. Even the most difficult moments in my history no longer produce a negative emotional response, and I feel appreciative toward almost everyone.

Question 26:

I end things in a way that is clean, clear, and beautiful. I am conscious of the energy I use and how to bring things to a close purposefully — how to death them. It is easy for me to design endings with appreciation and gratitude. At times I have even made them celebratory.

Question 27:

I transition out of personal relationships smoothly and in a way that creates no resentment or sense of abandonment. I seldom feel a relationship went on too long.

Question 28:

Wherever I go a trail of innovations takes hold. Spaces that were stagnant or locked down for years begin to open up. I enable things to emerge that would otherwise languish for lack of essential nurturance, resources, and political support.

Question 29:

I seek to balance the four primal elements in anything I build. Fire to empower, air to conceptualize, water to nurture, and earth to ground.

Question 30:

I have a tolerance for exploring things before they are fully developed and proven. I don't need to know everything about an idea before giving it space and resources to grow.

Question 31:

I create pathways of descent for concepts to take material form. I am as comfortable working with a subtle concept as I am building its physical expression. I can build something without seeing one that has been built before.

Question 32:

As I move from idea to form, I'm rarely stopped by political, economic, or other external forces. I always see multiple pathways that allow my idea to take shape.

Question 33:

The final material form my idea takes reflects the beauty and essential qualities of my original concept — it's not an austere reduction.

Question 34:

I am often the missing ingredient in situations where almost everything necessary for transformation is already present. I unleash very large things with very little effort.

Question 35:

Projects and initiatives I lead frequently take form much more rapidly than anyone thought possible and are rarely stopped for a lack of resource or cooperation.

Question 36:

I often make the one perfect move that unleashes a cascade of events.

Question 37:

I infuse spaces at home and work with things that have symbolic meaning. When I choose or create art, I do it because of the story it tells about my purpose and identity — its mythic resonance. I also have deep appreciation for ritual, ceremony, great stories, places of power on the earth, and sacred spaces.

Question 38:

I notice patterns, relationships, and seeming coincidences. What others see as a chance intersection, I may recognize as an omen. I understand its symbolic meaning and energetic pattern — how it connects to something else.

Question 39:

I interpret things in my waking life in the same way I interpret dreams. Almost everything appears to me as a symbol of a larger pattern.