„Fire types love to talk. They carry their hearts on their tongues and their tongues hardly ever stand still. They simply have to confide, communicate, natter, chat and blether.“

Have a look at your phone bill: if you have to sit down to digest the figures then this chapter may be for you. Let me tell you the big secret straight away: Fire types love to talk. They carry their hearts on their tongues, and their tongues hardly ever stand still. They simply have to confide, communicate, natter, chat and blether. And since this is impossible without other humans their phone directories are as overloaded as their phone bills. You may think ‘Oh well, my phone bill is never that bad, neither is my directory.’ But honestly, how long can you go without communicating with a fellow human being? How long can you go about your daily chores, quietly and mindfully and perfectly happy without uttering a single word? But hang on! We are getting a bit ahead of ourselves here…we have skipped morning. Isn’t that something that sounds familiar? Skipping morning? It’s not that you are in principle against that time of day, far from it, but evenings are simply much better for getting among folk and therefore your preferred option. And evenings have the advantage that they can be extended well into the early hours, and not just at weekends! That’s the reason why you may have an ambiguous relationship with mornings: a super time if one didn’t have to make the effort to get up for it. But you have to. Because it’s so important to you to appear at your workplace shining like the morning sun. Your wardrobe is extensive. It is colourful, extravagant. It contains the latest fashion items. It’s jarring and shrill. It’s up to date. It is impressive. You are certainly keen to impress with your extravagance!

You are like a solar panel which only generates electricity when the light of attention is shining onto it. The more attention, the more electricity. That is why the solar panel has to be kept brightly polished. The hair has to be styled so as to match the clothes, the clothes the shoes, the shoes the watch, the watch the hair, and the hair has to match the mood. Not an easy task to undertake, especially if you consider that the clothes cover a range of colours which even a child with the largest collection of crayons imaginable would envy. That only leaves adding a decent cup of coffee to make sure that your nervous system is sufficiently sensitized and, hey presto, you are as ready for action as any US marine immediately prior to a mission. Now it’s off to work. Hopefully your job involves much communicating… Once at work, you have another cup of coffee. Just to be on the safe side. Then a quick barrage of emails, the obligatory ‘goodmorninghowareyouhaveyoualreadyheard’ kind.

Then it’s time for the first coffee break. After all a good climate among the workforce increases productivity and job satisfaction. You see it as your job to take care of that. But do you know what the catch is with the climate? Have you ever tried to talk with a muggy summer’s day? Have you ever tried to discuss with a miserable autumn day whether a bit less fog would be a possibility? Exactly! That’s the catch. The climate is simply there. It takes up its space. It makes its presence felt. But it doesn’t feel the presence of anything else. You don’t take care of the climate at your workplace. You are the climate. You take centre stage. You are a passionate storyteller. You know how to inspire. You radiate charm and wit and your laughter threatens to burst your belly. Credit where credit is due. But there is one thing where fire types fail: listening! The others feel as if they are talking to a muggy summer’s day. You pretend you are listening but really you are only awaiting the cue for your next performance…and since we are talking about performance… You certainly deliver, no doubt about it! You are constantly in action, here, there, and everywhere, always ‘incredibly busy’, as you are only too happy to tell your colleagues. When you run out of paper clips everybody in the company will know about it – up to and including the executive level,. And in case you manage to stock up your supplies without enlisting anybody’s help, you will definitely need a reward – a big cup of coffee. You are very busy indeed! Or let’s put it this way: it certainly looks as though you are busy. Especially since all your tasks are carried out with great intensity, passion and jittery, restless energy. You often become so immersed in your missions that you can’t even remember what it was you wanted to do. For this reason you choose to continue and pretend that everything was going according to plan. You are like a lively fire. Radiating sparks, bringing light to dreary offices.

But of course there is also the flip side of the medal: You easily become restless, nervous, unfocussed, inconsistent… If there exists one area in your life where your multifarious sunbeams become wonderfully focussed, reaching the intensity of a laser beam, it’s the interpersonal area concerned with love, relationships and sex. You can easily fall in love at least three times just on your way home from work. And in your mind act out the whole romance; beginning with getting to know the other person, the first date, the first sex, the first holiday, the first argument and the final word, which is, of course, yours. You need intimacy and emotional relationships and you spend your evenings accordingly. If you are in a relationship you will requisition all attention. To this end you will avail yourself of the entire range of emotions, which you know how to apply like Gustav Klimt did his paint brush. You are asked how your day was? That’s your starting shot for a verbal marathon that you gratefully acknowledge with a beaming smile. And what if you’re not asked about your day? That, on the other hand, is your prompt for an emotional drama which you equally enjoy, even if it means pretending that nobody loves you, culminating in questioning a world without love – but never mind.

You have a big circle of friends and your possibilities for evening entertainment are endless. Parties, feasts, dinners…Having found a stage where you can present yourself, that’s when your day really begins. But you are not a superficial person constantly searching for distraction. Not at all! Even at night there are important questions that need to be clarified: the hair has to match the clothes, the clothes the shoes, the shoes the watch, the watch the hair, and the hair the mood. Fire needs wood in order to burn well. Fire types need the boards of the interpersonal stage in order to burn. Fire types want to see and be seen. They want to talk and be asked to talk. They want to love and to suffer. They want to be excited and roused. They want to burn, to shine and to radiate heat – then they are in their element…