there are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception

I took the DISC personality test (here). "DISC assessments are behavioral self-assessment tools based on psychologist William Moulton Marston's DISC emotional and behavioral theory, first published in 1928. These assessments aim to predict job performance by categorizing individuals into four personality traits."

These traits are:

• Dominance: the active use of force to overcome resistance in the environment

• Inducement: use of charm in order to deal with obstacles

• Submission: warm and voluntary acceptance of the need to fulfill a request

• Compliance: fearful adjustment to a superior force

It is generally used in the employment realm, to determine whether to hire or how to arrange teams or whether to promote.

According to this test, I'm evenly split between Dominant and Cautious, which is apparently not typical.
    "Some words that describe you are: Directive, Analytical, Results-oriented, and Logical.
    You have more a task-oriented than people-oriented perspective. You have both outgoing and reserved traits. You probably enjoy solving problems and making things happen in a logical way. You probably like to do things on your own rather than work with others."

There are two styles identified by the test—basic/natural and adapted/environmental. The basic style "represents the internal motivations that drive you the most. This is the part of you that is likely to represent how you think or feel about situations more than it represents how you act or behave. Some people say that this represents who you are rather than what you do. It is also the part of you least likely to change throughout your lifetime." It is also described as the part of you that is seen only by yourself and those very close to you.

    I read this in the following way: I am least internally motivated to use inducement—charm—to deal with work situations. Again, internally, an average amount of submission—"warm and voluntary acceptance"—drives me to accomplish what I need to do. And I most often am compelled by either compliance or dominance to get things done.

    What does this really mean? That I know what I need to do, how to play it, to make things happen: either by my own force, or by deferring to "a superior force".

    "Your adapted style tends to represent the actual behaviors you have learned to use to be the most successful in the environment that you were thinking about when you took the assessment. This is the part of you most visible to other people because this is the part of you that shows up in your behaviors (your body language, facial expressions, tone, etc.) The bar graph attempts to represent the relative frequency with which you use each behavior style as you interact and work with others." It is also described as how you have learned to adapt or adjust your behaviors to be successful in your environment.

    So, even though my insides are sometimes extremely dominant, my behavior conforms rarely to dominance or inducement, average degrees of submission, and overall to compliance. 

    In other words, if you think I'm compliant down to the bone—even though I can act like it—you might be wrong.

[the title quotation is from Aldous Huxley]