The How to Manual for The Connectivator
Understanding the Connectivator Pack Mentality
by: Angie Johnsey
 
If you have heard of ph360.me you may be familiar with the word biotype. You may even know what your biotype may be. If not, take a few minutes now to take the 3 minute health type test.

Allow me to first briefly explain the word "Connectivator".

In the biotype family, according to the ph360 model, there is a group called the Activators and a group the called Connectors. You also have the Sensors, Crusaders, Guardians, and Diplomats. On the 360 degree biotype wheel, these two biotypes, the Activators and Connectors sit next to each other in the human gene pool. In this article, I will be lumping the two together because the psychology of these two biotypes are much the same...hence the name.. Connectivator. I did not come up with this term..I have heard this word spoken within the ph360 team, as I am part of that team. 
So now that you are up to speed on the word Connectivator, that brings me to the topic of this article.

The Connectivators are a sweet, loving group, if you know how to treat them correctly, but need to be thoroughly understood in order to maintain healthy communication and relationships.

For this conversation, I am going to be using the analogy of the canine family.. More specifically, the dog pack and the rules they live by.
 
If you work, play, or live with a Connectivator, this can help you understand their language, their boundaries, why they love, and why sometimes, they will attack.
 
Here are the main values held by the Connectivator pack:
 

• Love. We love connection and find safety in community and trusted friends. We love to be touched and petted.
• Praise. We thrive in an environment that recognizes and enjoys the beauty we create… an allows us to run free with our creations. We do not thrive in a critical, corrective or seemingly controlling environments. We become unhappy inside a fence or cage and will find a way to dig out… we can’t help it. Treat us with consistency, structure, and calmness and you will never need a fence or cage to keep us with you.
• Equality. Superior or “better than you” overconfident, cocky, condescending, know it all, controlling, attitudes, are not tolerated.
• Humility or the ability to be submissive at times... to give in..having to always have your way and never compromise, will create issues with the Connectivator...as in they will not like you or accept you in their pack.
• Truth. We are a highly intuitive group. We are very suspicious of being lied to and will constantly look for clues of this behavior as this indicates danger for our safety.
• Loyalty. We are extremely loyal to those we respect. If we ever feel you are no longer our equal and are weak, or disloyal to us, we lose respect and find others to give our loyalty too.. We are all about giving loyalty to those we feel safest around.
• Safety. Defend & Protect- Safety is extremely important. Calm, stable, consistent leadership will keep a calm, productive pack. We will also defend our leader and those in our pack if we feel they are threatened.

 
 
 
One leader.
Inside our pack, it’s understood there is one accepted leader. We like it simple. We don’t like to have to answer to and run things by 20 different people. Just one.
 
If we feel safe with that leader and feel that leader understands and obeys the rules of the "pack".. we are loyal till the end and our fighting nature is used to defend the leader..If we at anytime begin to feel unsafe, unloved, and unprotected by the leader, we will use that energy to attack the leader and then assign a new one.
 
If you are to be our leader, truth and loyalty are important. You must be loyal to us.. Meaning if you say something, you better mean it. If you start being inconsistent with your words or actions, or don’t take time to explain yourself, Connectivators become extremely suspicious, anxious, and we begin to whine and bark. This disloyal behavior feels very unsafe, unstable, and will cause a panic in the pack. We then begin to alert the other members of the pack to avoid any of us being in danger. If you confuse the pack with your behavior by not being clear, upfront, and honest, we will alert every pack member that will listen. We are not trying to cause trouble within the pack. We are trying to protect the pack from a seemingly unstable, disloyal pack leader.
 
We love praise.
As previously mentioned, Connectivators love to be free to create beauty in a spontaneous way. If we are asked to do something that feels exciting to us or stimulates our problem solving skills, we will focus on this project until it is complete. After we are happy with our work, we immediately look for praise and positive feedback for what we have created. Asking us to wait to receive our praise that we have worked so hard for, is torture to a Connectivator. It's like asking a dog who has brought his leader a present, to wait until tomorrow to receive praise and a pat on the head. We are a very "do it now" group. If it's not immediate praise, we become sad and then lose interest in producing anything for our leader. We think, you won't like what I bring you and I won't get the praise as a reward, so why bother. 

If you are not a Connectivator, you will not fully understand how to lead or communicate with the pack. The best you can hope for is to communicate with love, praise, and equality. You will need to leave the correction to a designated Connectivator who can act as the pack leader. If you go into the pack and try to correct them, they will bite you. It will be a dog fight that leaves you feeling frustrated and them feeling attacked. Remember to be a pack leader, you have to fully know and understand the Connectivator and how to reinforce the pride in their work and not crush their spirit or excitement. If you come in smelling of a superior, know it all attitude, and give corrective or negative feedback, you will meet resistance and could possibly be eaten. Connectivators value equality and need to be treated in a way that they feel you at least see them as an equal before you are accepted inside the circle of trust as a pack member.
 
 
Beware of Dog.
Outsiders or new people introduced to an already established pack of Connectivators are always perceived as a threat. Always. There is no gene in us that says...Yeah!!! A new friend!! Get in here!!
 
Introducing new people is a very delicate process in the Connectivator family.
 
If they are introduced to us inside of our group dynamic.. our intruder, outsider, “threat” bell alarms. We must be given time to individually sniff them out and approve of them and establish equality. We have to trust them and decide they are a friend. Once they are in, we will defend and protect them. We may still bark at them either to their face or behind their back, but we will defend them if someone outside the pack attacks them.
 
One exception is if we meet someone outside of the pack while we are solo... then we may wag our tail and consider accepting them as a friend but we do it with great caution. They must still be sniffed and sized up first. If they appear to think they are better than us (superior) they are put on the enemy list and we will bark and alert everyone else of this undesirable attitude… Equality, remember?
 
If a new person is thrown into our group as an authority of any kind without the pack being able to work out the balance and trust issues (equality) first..we will eat them and the horse (Crusader) they rode in on.. especially if that person seems bossy and over confident and uses condescending language..This unfortunate person will never survive the attack of the pack.
 
Why is this?
1. Equality among pack members is strong in our genes. Over confident people are a threat to our pack leader, and if that leader is trusted and respected, we will defend them against any threat because of our loyalty gene.
2. They are a threat to everyone of us and to our delicate balance.
3. Balance must be maintained for peace and safety in the group and new people always throw that off at first. There always needs to be time allowed for the adjustment and acceptance period before harmony is restored to the pack.
 
Why we leave our pack.
We will leave the group if we don't feel at least “equal”.. because to us.. being less than and not respected is the ultimate threat to our safety within the group. If this happens, we isolate and eventually leave the group feeling very rejected. Our pack is suppose to always love us.. not turn on us, ignore us, treat us as lesser members, or replace us. The group no longer offers safety, so we leave to find it.
 
Different Breeds
Just like in the canine family, there are different breeds of Connectivator. You have your labs who are energetic and love people 24/7. You have your small breeds that bark constantly about the smallest movement or disturbance. You have your laid back nothing bothers them golden retrievers. You have your doberman's that guard territory. You even have the wolf who likes to follow a pack but sometimes does the alone thing... but for the most part… the values encoded in our genes are the same.

If you are a Connectivator, what kind of dog breed are you? Here is a cute quiz you can take to find out.
 
My hopes are that this Connectivator How to Manual can help the Connectivator understand and accept their natural tendencies and can help the rest of you avoid being annoyed or bitten:) 

 by: Angie Johnsey
​
The secret every 9 year old should know...

My 9 year old son plays baseball.. he has been playing almost year around since he was 6.

For the most part, he really loves it and has developed a level of confidence in himself that I know can be attributed to having to be out of his little boy comfort zone at times and learning to trust himself and the split second decision making that baseball requires. 

This past Saturday, he and his teammates were in a tournament and lost both games they played, making them ineligible to proceed in the tournament. This was a rare occurrence for this group of Allstars who practice 3 days a week and play almost every weekend.
 
As he sat in the front seat of my car, he was crying.. not because he lost, but because a coach singled him out and embarrassed him for looking down instead of looking him in the eyes while he and his team mates were being shamed for losing. 

Hearing this, I sat there thinking about all of the adults that I work with and how this could easily be the same type of story they would tell me after we spent hours finally getting to the root cause of a lifetime of painful patterns they were now trying to break.

So I said, "Cooper, I'm going to tell you a secret.

This secret is what I have to tell all the adults I talk to in order to help them feel better and stop creating painful life experiences for themselves.

I have to work for hours getting them to reprogram things they believe based off of this single belief they accepted as truth. They started believing it as a kid and then they grow up and act as if this belief is true.

These behaviors are then conducted in front of their own kids, until their children come to the exact same conclusion that these adults did when they were growing up...and on and on the dysfunctional cycle goes.

So Cooper, if you, no matter how the adults in your world treat you, or how other kids who have already accepted this faulty program treat you... if you will never be tricked into believing this one thing, you will never create the destructive patterns that create a life of suffering and struggle.

Instead, what you will create, is a world of beauty that causes you to always feel loved and supported." 

"What is it?" he said, with a tearful and now muddy face.

I said, "Never, ever, ever, tell yourself, "something must be wrong with me"... those words are like poison.. and if you start saying it to yourself, you will have the same poison in you that 98% of adults have ingested. They unknowingly try to pass this poison, this disease, to you by acting out of the deep down belief  "something must be wrong with me".

Don't fall for it! 
​
If they are yelling and screaming and having a fit, it's because they unknowingly took the poison from some adult in their life who unknowingly passed it down to them.

They have a fault in their program now. This poison makes them anxious, unhappy children in adult bodies, doing behaviors they are embarrassed and ashamed of later. They do all kinds of things to try to make themselves feel better, including taking out their pain on their kids, and people they love, not knowing that this little belief is what is causing all of the pain inside of them and all of the problems outside of them.

They spend their whole lives wondering why they can't control their reactions and behaviors and this is the reason why. They believed "something must be wrong with me" and now, something is. Then one day, when they've had enough, they say, "something is wrong with me, I need help."

The tiny seed of a belief that started the whole sad experience is the very thought that makes them realize they need help.

"Nothing is wrong with you. The problem or faulty program is in them, the ones mistreating people, not you...and it can never be in you unless you start saying to yourself the same thing they did years ago, "something must be wrong with me or else the adults yelling at me or abusing me wouldn't act that way."

​If you grow up believing it too, you will be an adult who mistreats people, mistreats yourself, and one who allows others to mistreat you."

So Cooper, what's the secret?"
"Nothing is wrong with me. I'm ok.", he said, seeming very empowered.

I said, " And can you remember it even if people aren't treating you nice, even adults?" "Yes", he said. 

"Good", I said... "And if you will never forget it, and never let anyone convince you otherwise, you will have the most amazing and happiest life ever."

I have him repeat the "secret" to me everyday.

Q. What causes us to look outside of ourselves for love, kindness, and reassurance?

A. When you can't find those things inside, the only place left to look is outside.

Deeper Explanation:
If your inner dialogue is full of self hatred and self loathing, if you speak to your inner child as if you hate it and wish it would die, there is no love, kindness, and reassurance to be found.

When someone comes along who speaks kindly and gently and doesn't verbally abuse you for innocent mistakes, your inner child takes notice. Not only does this child notice, it attaches. It holds on tightly for dear life to the only source of love in can find in this world. It then becomes needy, clingy, addicted to this outside source of love, and incredibly fearful that it will go away.

So how do you stop this?

You have to learn to be this child's source of love. You have to stop hating it when it embarrasses you or does things that look childish or draws attention to you. You have to love it even more than the source outside of you does. You have to be it's protector.

It will then begin to feel love from you and begin to trust you, however it will have to be constantly reminded that you are it's source of love or it will attach to someone outside of you.

Q. Why is it unsafe to attach to someone outside of you?

A. This outside source, although kind and loving, has a mind of it's own and no obligation to this child. If it decides to leave, you are left with a screaming, hurt, abandoned, rejected, fearful child and no way to calm it down because it doesn't trust you or like you.

It only wants the person outside of you. Love from that outside source is the only thing that will calm it. Now that outside source has full control over how you feel emotionally... and you have absolutely no control over the actions of this outside source. This is a very unstable and insecure position to find yourself in. 

Begin now building a loving relationship with this part of you, and you will have the power to keep it calm at all times.