by Michelle A. Payton, Ph.D.

In the New Age industry, techniques such as astrology, numerology, and divination are often used to provide direction both personally and professionally. Many times this requires working with masters in these specialized areas. But what if you could have a bit more of a turn-key approach to hiring and managing store personnel using similar concepts?

Birth Mix Patterns constitute a technique I developed that combines basic elements of astrology, numerology, and birth order (whether a person was first-born, middle child, etc.) to create a profile of common traits and characteristics. This profile can be utilized both as a self-evaluation tool and as a way of analyzing how a relationship might play out between members of a partnership, working team, or family. With Birth Mix Patterns (BMP), I’ve helped many professionals learn how to optimize communication and deal effectively with almost anyone by understanding the underlying motivations driving each individual, including their own. This can be especially valuable when hiring a new employee or developing a new partnership—or even if you just want to find a way to improve the relationships among your staff. If you understand the core values and motivations of each person (which Birth Mix Patterns reveal), then your chances of creating a harmonious environment in your store and your working life go up dramatically.

First, we need two pieces of information about each individual; the best way to start is with your own profile. You will need:

• A full birth date (month, day, year)
• Birth order (in relation to one’s siblings, if any)

Keeping it simple, this process looks at:

The Astrology Sun Sign
The sun sign connects to the day and month of birth only (time, place, and year are not factors for this part of the exercise). The sun is the core of the solar system, and sustains all other planets. While more intricate Astrology provides much more detail (including more planets), BMP focuses on our core of being, the ruling planet in our astrological chart.

The Numerology Life Path Number
This is connected to the day, month and year of birth and is one of the most important calculations in a numerology chart. It summarizes your life—the challenges, karma, lessons, and general personality trends. Calculate the Life Path as follows:

August 15, 1963 ---> Get each to lowest denominator (1-9, 11, 22 or 33):
8 (August month of birth)
15 (day of birth) ---> 1+5=6
1963 (year of birth) ---> 1+9+6+3=19 ---> 1+9=10 ---> 1+0=1
Final number: 8+6+1=15---> 1+5=6 Life Path.

If any of the three numbers being calculated are 11, 22, or 33 then this would be the lowest denominator. The final number will be 1-9, 11, 22, or 33. For instance:
November 29, 1802 --->
11 (month of birth) ---> 11 (lowest denominator)
29 (day of birth) ---> 2+9=11 (lowest denominator)
1802 (year of birth) ---> 1+8+0+2=11 (lowest denominator)
Final number: 11+11+11=33 Life Path (lowest denominator)

This is also referred to as Life Path 33/6, depending on the free will choices of the individual.

The Numerology Major and Minor Sub-lessons
Sub-lesson numbers show additional life lessons within your path, and are connected to your day of birth. For instance:
August 15, 1963 equals:
15 (day of birth) --->1+5=6;
The major sub-lesson is 1+5=6;
The minor sub-lessons are 1 and 5.

With this particular birth date, the Life Path is 6, with a major sub-lesson of 6, and minor sub-lessons of 1 and 5. To further demonstrate the weight, or value of the lessons, say you have $20, $10, and $5 bills. The more money you have, the higher gain in your personality mix. The Life Path is your $20 (your highest gain). The major sub-lesson is $10 (additional ways to manifest). The minor sub-lesson(s) is $5 (a bit more to manifest).

Birth Order
This is connected to the order of birth, and the role you played out within the family that raised you from infancy, which many psychologists say can have a profound effect on one’s development and personality. An analysis of one’s birth order can be intricate, as it takes into account years between births, gender, physical/mental strengths, and weaknesses (handicaps, body build, physical attractiveness, intellect), size of family, adoption, and more.

There are differing opinions on birth order theories, but several rules of thumb that a variety of experts embrace have helped me in my baseline work:

• If the siblings are five years or more older or younger than you (and/or no other siblings are below, or above you), you can take on Only child traits.
• If you are second in birth line, but the sibling above you is of opposite gender, you are also First Born, but of the opposite gender, and can take on First Born patterns.
• If you are second in birth line but the sibling above you is handicapped, if you have problems with physical attractiveness, body build, or other perceived weaker qualities you may take on the traits of First Born (switching Birth Order in essence).
• If you are from a large family, the family units can run in fours—First Born is number one and fourth born is Youngest.
• Middle children are not always predictable. They can be the pleasers or rebels, but generally are negotiators.
• Adopted children can become rebellious regardless of order (ownership factors), and birth dates are not always accurate to get a full baseline.

There are always exceptions to these rules and many, many opinions. To correlate your results in each area with the corresponding traits, see the

Using Birth Mix Patterns as a New Age Personality Analysis Tool
Generally (and qualitatively) speaking, New Age store owners seem to be made up of out-of-the-box, creative, intuitive, community service professionals, looking to be a part of creating a better, more informed world. The thousands that I have come in contact with over more than a decade have demonstrated a very personal approach—many times their life partners and family members are working alongside them in some capacity, and they have a tendency to be connected to their business partners and employees (preferably in a positive way). To give you a clearer picture of how Birth Mix Patterns work, perhaps analyzing figures familiar to most of us—John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney—will help illustrate the technique. So here are charts of all four Birth Mix Patterns. 

 

	Paul McCartney	Linda McCartney
Birthdate	June 18, 1942	September 24, 1941
Life Path #	22~Material and Humanity Manifester (Master number)	3~Expert Communicator
Astrology Sun	Gemini~Artful Communicator	Libra~Balancer (of beauty in all things)
Major Sub-lesson #	9~Humanitarian	6~Responsible One/Server
Minor Sub-lesson #	1 and 8 ~ Leader and Material Manifester	2 and 4 ~ Diplomat and Process Builder, Hands on
Birth Order	First Born (one other brother and sister)	Unknown
Acceleration Points	22 and 9 show increased interest in humanitarian efforts. 22 and 8 show increased physical manifestation potential.	Libra and 6 building, serving and balancing relationships

McCartney’s (Paul) BMP Summary:
Paul McCartney was accelerated when it came to balancing spirit, and business. Looking at his birth mix, McCartney was a Gemini artful communicator with 22, 9, 1, and 8 power drivers. Paul was the yang (aggressor) of the relationship in connection with John Lennon and with Linda McCartney. This all added up to balancing humanitarian (doubly with 22, and 9) efforts with physical manifestations (double with 22, and 8). He would have been the one with the stronger business sense in the group.

Linda McCartney’s BMP Summary:
Linda McCartney had a similar mix to John Lennon’s (McCartney’s close friend at one time) with her major sub-lesson as a 6 server (of people, and community), and Libra looking for perfection, and beauty in all things. Her 3 energy is similar to Paul’s Gemini energy (so she could keep up with his clever tongue). And her 2 was that of a more introverted leader, complimenting Paul’s (1) extroverted leading style, and more aggressive 22 high achievement number.

Lennon’s BMP Summary:
“All we are saying, is give peace a chance” sums it up for this 6 Server (of people, and community), 9 humanitarian, and Libra looking for perfection and beauty in all things. He adopted a vegetarian diet in the late 1960’s, which would fit his 6, 9, Libra mix. And, Lennon not only went down in history for his music, but also for his admirable feminine qualities, including becoming a house-husband when his second son (Sean) was born in 1975 (with Yoko Ono). Lennon’s mix would say that he was process-oriented, one that would succeed by realizing others’ sponsorship, and admiration.

Ono’s BMP Summary:
As Linda McCartney was to Paul, John was to Yoko. Yoko was the yang in the Ono/Lennon partnership. She was an out-of-the-box artist, as well as a singer (some say she wasn’t as successful, perhaps because she was ahead of her time). She has double the humanitarian (9 Life Path, and day of birth), which matched perfectly with Lennon’s Libra/9 (perfect world) mix. And her Aquarian influence would say that she preferred to work on humanitarian projects. But her minor sub-lessons were duplicates to Paul’s—1 and 8, which could clash even in functional situations, as these are extroverted leadership numbers. Throw in the “don’t push me around” argumentative rebel Aquarian trait, and you’ve got conflict.

Let’s be clear that conflict didn’t have to exist because of the mixes. It may have been time for the life partner teams to go their separate ways, but it didn’t have to be bitter. Understanding each others’ basic core values and motivations could have created a smoother, more harmonious transition.

It’s fun to play with Birth Mix Patterns, but to really use this tool to create a more harmonious, professional, and personalized business, it’s important to examine yourself first, to know what you want from others, tighten up your definitions of job success, and understand how to motivate employees (that doesn’t necessarily mean money).

The keys to managing your personnel with the Birth Mix Patterns process begin by (but are not limited to):

• Understanding yourself before evaluating others. What are your strengths and weaknesses? Where might you need certain strengths in others to offset your weaknesses?
• Tightening up your job definition buzzwords to gain role clarity. Maybe “leading” or being a “self-starter” is a key component to success in your store. But look at what those terms really mean. There are many ways to lead. There are times to lead and times to allow others to lead. Some lead when actively listening. Some lead through verbalizing. Some lead by not participating in certain activities (gossip, drama, negativity). Some lead by example – maintaining certain health practices for instance – not seeking approvals, simply doing.
• Having the interest and energy to allow others to express themselves to their satisfaction. For instance, let’s say you are not detail-oriented, so the person you hired must be. Though you’re not particularly interested in every nitty-gritty detail, your employee may need to connect and communicate with you in this way to feel fulfilled in her job. Give her the boundaries, space, and appreciation she needs.
• Knowing what you prefer your role to be, your goals/plans, and how others can feed those. For example: If you want to be a team manager you’ll look for mixes that can lead as well as follow. When enabling leaders, you should put clear boundaries in place to define territories (yours as owner and theirs as project or activity leaders). If you want a worker bee to take orders and follow directions, then you will look for another type of birth mix. Maybe you are looking for a worker bee that is also detailed. This is where it would be important to honor her strengths when she may not see the big picture (that may be your job).

When I have analyzed others prior to hiring or getting into relationships of all levels, people have asked me whether they should get into or out of a relationship with a certain person or group. My answer is always the same: Only you can determine what your plans are for this person and only you know all the aspects of your particular circumstances. Begin noticing the people that you bring into your life—in all areas. Some look for people like themselves. Some bring in their opposites. The question is, how successful is that?

In general, you should seek people who have qualities you or your business needs. If you have a position that requires a detailed person, don’t put a visionary person in that place unless she has proof that she is capable of fulfilling your need, since a visionary’s strength is seeing the big picture. If you need someone who will take charge and get things done without much direction, look for leadership qualities that will produce that result.

The Birth Mix Patterns are simply a window into the values and motivations of individuals—they are a tool to measure with, and the best way to use that tool is to start with yourself. Understanding your own personality traits, communication needs, and inner motivations will help you build a team that complements not only your management style, but each others’ working style, and this creates harmony in your store and beyond. In this, we honor ourselves and others for who we truly are. And isn’t that what we are about, after all?

Aries (Ram): March 21st-April 20th
The Charming Achiever
Personality Theme: To be admirably first.
Role: Inspiring leader.
Best at (on good days): Being assertive. Generating ideas. Moving on impulse/intuition.
Challenges (on bad days): Changing on the Aries terms. Being temperamental, inpatient, and curt. Finishing, focusing, and specializing.

Taurus (Bull): April 20th-May 21st
The Stabilizer
Personality Theme: The calm in the midst of any storm. Creates solid homes, friends, jobs, marriages, and children.
Role: Always there for you. Secure and stable (less impulsive).
Best at (on good days): Being there for long-term, honesty.
Challenges (on bad days): Being lazy, stubborn, too comfortable, money hungry, or complacent.

Gemini (Twins): May 21st-June 22nd
The Witty Change Agent
Personality Theme: Trying new things. Being clever, communicating strategically yet artistically.
Role: Communicating like it’s an art form. Make out-of-the-box changes because you can.
Best at (on good days): Being clever, witty communicators, multi-tasking.
Challenges (on bad days): Staying interested in anything, or anyone long-term. Slowing down, and being in the moment. Focusing.

Cancer (Crab): June 22nd-July 23rd
The Comforter
Personality Theme: Cosmic Mothers and Fathers.
Role: Nurturers. Empathizers.
Best at (on good days): Being dependable. Being intuitive, and sensitive to change, and (as a result) being great visionaries.
Challenges (on bad days): Smothering those they care about. Hanging on too tightly to events, people, things (including money). Feeling safe to show true emotions.
 

Leo (Lion): July 23rd-August 22nd
The Leader of the Pride
Personality Theme: Being in the spotlight. Establishing a pride—community, group, or circle.
Role: To take care of the pride—circle of friends, family, business. To lead, and shine.
Best at (on good days): Outward self-expression, creativity, and willpower.
Challenges (on bad days): Being self-absorbed. Being overly generous as result of taking care of the pride--circle of friends, family, community, business.

Virgo (Virgin): August 22nd-September 22nd
The Detailed Constant Expander
Personality Theme: Serving the greater good. Seeking detailed order. Constant self-improvement.
Role: Worker bee. Organizer, and Analyzer (on own detailed terms).
Best at (on good days): Helping, organizing, analyzing and efficiently fixing things on own detailed terms—knowing where everything is, even when observers perceive disorganization.
Challenges (on bad days): Letting the mind, body, and spirit relax in the moment as opposed to constantly improving and analyzing the details.

Libra (Scales): September 22nd-October 23rd
The Balancer
Personality Theme: Strives for balance, and harmony in all things.
Role: Joining/Restoring both sides/halves with the ultimate goal of achieving beauty, and harmony.
Best at (on good days): Manifesting beauty (often expressed with the arts), charm, socializing, pacifying.
Challenge (on bad days): Being decisive. Unrealistically looking for perfection in all things.

Scorpio (Scorpion): October 23rd-November 22nd
The Patient Achiever
Personality Theme: Keeping everything and everyone in line.
Role: In control.
Best at (on good days): Being patient while inwardly maintaining passion and commitment.
Challenges (on bad days): Sharing feelings. Can be intense and need a lot of space when processing. Feelings get hurt easily, and has difficulty forgiving and forgetting.

Sagittarius (Archer): November 22nd-December 22nd
The Life Partaker
Personality Theme: Combining fun and freedom to the journey to eventually find the meaning of life that unites everyone (or many key people).
Role: Life of the party (of a large admiring audience). Networker—makes sure knows key people.
Best at (on good days): Adjusting to changes in scenery and life situations. Idea generation.
Challenges (on bad days): Complete commitment (calming the stallion) and attention to detail.

Capricorn (Goat): December 22nd-January 21st
The Climber
Personality Theme: The “One” in ultimate control and power of themselves and others.
Role: Ambitious and goal-oriented to build something that will last (stable). Willing to move slowly to reach the fullest power potential.
Best at (on good days): Manifesting success through slow, organized, calculated methods. Patience. Helping build a situation, society, event that serves the masses. Creating foundation.
Challenge (on bad days): Positively remembering the people that sponsored success, and not always linking relationships to power and position. Being okay that it can be lonely at the top, when leadership style is aggressive—may require overcoming tendency to be cold, rigid, or suspicious if feeling position is threatened.

Aquarius (Water Bearer): January 21st-February 19th
Out of the Box
Personality Theme: Diverse, out-of-the-box trend detectives and setters.
Role: Open-minded--sometimes considered eccentric--change agents (but stubbornly firm once ideas are “truth”).
Best at (on good days): Manifesting ideas well before their time--not limited to one area of expertise, or current truth. Seeing past self, and more toward masses. Being social.
Challenges (on bad days): Being bored and detached. Can be very social, but connecting with individuals can sometimes be a chore when consumed with innovation. Rebellious.

Pisces (Fishes): February 19th-March 21st
The Intuitive Visualizer
Personality Theme: Believing in, and understanding others. Having faith.
Role: Intuitive/Heightened sensitive. Spiritual motivator and visualizer.
Best at (on good days): Bringing others to higher levels through listening, compassion, sympathy, and empathy, while effectively protecting yourself from psychic over-stimulation of others.
Challenges (on bad days): Taking on others’ feelings as own. Being realistic. Connecting to the physical world.

Life Path 1: The Leader
Personality Theme: Being ahead. Do it better and faster. Seek finer things.
Role: Provider. Leader.
Best at (on good days): Being own boss.
Challenges (on bad days): Taking orders from others. Following. Finding value in listening.

Life Path 2: The Inward Creator/Motivator
Personality Theme: The perfect tranquil environment.
Role: Counselor. The bringer of balance within diverse situations.
Best at (on good days): Team motivating. Listening. Inward creativity.
Challenges(on bad days): Overt leading. Fully expanding own talents as tend to hold back to serve others, and keep the peace.

Life Path 3: The Informed Speaker/Communicator
Personality Theme: Being informed. Being respected as a result of being informed. Being heard.
Role: The expert and/or informer to inspire others.
Best at (on good days): Sharing information. Executing as a result of being well-informed, but requires focus/education.
Challenge (on bad days): So busy at being informed, and informing, may prefer not to do detailed processes of running daily life.
 

Life Path 4: The Realist, Problem Solver, Builder of Order
Personality Theme: Create order. Create method and process to overcome life challenges—sometimes physical, or emotional.
Role: Problem Solver. Hard Worker. Establish foundation.
Best at (on good days): Making decisions, organizing, persevering, being detailed and dependable.
Challenges (on bad days): Scattering energy too far to solve too many problems at one time. Being too rigid, or dogmatic. Taking a lot longer to learn a lesson because has to experience on own (can’t take others’ word).

Life Path 5: The Unending Talent
Personality Theme: New experiences. Change. New Ideas. Freedom.
Role: Change Agent. Out-of-the-box on their terms.
Best at (on good days): Brainstorming. Innovation. Multi-tasker.
Challenges (on bad days): Focus and finishing due to so many ideas, and overall talent. Sometimes quality suffers.

Life Path 6: The Responsible One/The Server
Personality Theme: Serving others. Compassionate.
Role: Cosmic Mother or Father. Organizer to help others accomplish goals/heal.
Best at (on good days): Leading charismatically and reliably.
Challenges (on bad days): Interfering or saving others too much. Creatively expressing him/herself fully. Over-tasking.

Life Path 7: The Source of Knowledge. Expert/Thinker/Analyzer
Personality Theme: Absorbing vast amounts of information to become an expert.
Role: Utilizing or sharing knowledge to create clarity for others, self, and/or events.
Best at (on good days): Exploring, thinking, and putting the pieces together for “truth.”
Challenges (on bad days): Being too guarded and self-centered. Not being open and trusting of others and their ideas.
 
Life Path 8: The Material Manifester
Personality Theme: Accumulate wealth. Create wealth.
Role: Manager. Visionary.
Best at (on good days): Manifesting money or other means when needed.
Challenges(on bad days): Holding onto wealth longer-term and effectively managing flow. Connecting to less material areas of life.

Life Path 9: The Humanitarian
Personality Theme: A better world.
Role: Faith. Commitment.
Best at (on good days): Breaking ground where few others have the compassion to.
Challenges (on bad days): Balancing needs for physical rewards with spiritual. Can be too focused on dreams, and when not achieved can detach and may even blame others (feels victimized).

Life Path 11: The In-the-Moment Intuitive
Personality Theme: Maximizing the journey, and life experiences (highly charged “2”).
Role: Seer, or Visionary.
Best at (on good days): Inventing in the moment (as life flows). Leading intuitively.
Challenges(on bad days): Grounding, and being practical with matters in the physical.

Life Path 22: The Material, and Humanity Master
Personality Theme: Achieve ultimate financial and spiritual dreams (highly charged 4 builder/insightful 11).
Role: Committed to balance. Ambitious. Insightful. Methodical.
Best at (on good days): Breaking ground where no others could. Self-confident.
Challenges (on bad days): Resting, and taking a back seat to the constant opportunities and projects that present themselves.

Life Path 33: The Spiritual Teacher
Personality Theme: Spiritually uplifting to (wo)mankind (highly charged server 6).
Role: Devotion. Seeker of Understanding, and Wisdom. Judgment- Free.
Best at (on good days): Strong spiritual influence. Compassion.
Challenges (on bad days): Interfering, and enabling rather than helping.

First Born: The Achiever
Personality Theme: In control. The one in power.
Role: Ambitious, goal-oriented, conformist, responsible, organized.
Best at (on good days): Bringing people, projects, events together on time, following rules.
Challenges (on bad days): Being too controlling, and putting pressure on self and others to perform to their expectations.

Only: The Turbo Achiever
Personality Theme: The Center of the World. Independent Creator.
Role: Goal-oriented, accumulator of knowledge, independent problem solver/creator.
Best at (on good days): Planning, setting, and reaching goals that clearly benefit the Only.
Challenges (on bad days): Seeing past the “Only” way.

Middle: The Negotiator
Personality Theme: Weaving own dreams with realism.
Role: Diplomat, negotiator, risk-taker, competitor (when larger family, can be less competitive).
Best at (on good days): Compromising. Making friends. Being flexible, and cooperative.
Challenges (on bad days): Not comfortable with confrontation (rather please others), but can be rebel, independent, stubborn, and/or secretive. Competitiveness varies.

Youngest: The Charmer
Personality Theme: Enjoy life. Outgoing. Expressive.
Role: Fun, funny, people person, loving, and lovable.
Best at (on good days): Working with small groups, or one-on-one. Creative, innovative thinking, as they are more fun-loving, open, and feel less pressure to perform.
Challenges (on bad days): Listening. Being grown up. Following rules (question authority).
 

Michelle A. Payton, Ph.D.  has authored six books (three on Birth Mix Patterns), is owner/founder of The Left Side Wholesale Art Coop (www.theleftside.com) and divisions www.michellepayton.com, and www.helpinguexpand.com