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Meet Ches Learning To Feel Life-Purpose: To promote individuality, self-responsibility and personal accountability. Visionary /Empath/ Philosopher Profile boss: Philosopher

Ches doesn't have a lot of patience with superficiality in his daily encounters on campus these days, nor does he care much for people trying to feed him bull. If you want to talk with Ches, you'd better be open about yourself, because that's the way he is. To know him now, it's hard to believe it didn't used to be that way. Chesley is his given name. You can't blame him for shortening it. He says he just got tired of being called "Chesley." He grew up in Western Kentucky in what he calls an "emotionally restricted" environment. Feelings were not discussed. Academics were stressed, and Ches excelled. While classmates dealt with the more typical aspects of puberty, Ches specialized in Social Studies and General Knowledge on his middle school's academic team.

Ches and the team made it all the way to the state finals and WON the Quick Recall competition (a game of two 4-person teams opposing each other where the moderator asks a question and the first with the answer 'buzzes in'.) "We just jumped up and down and screamed for about 10 minutes."

Despite the display of camaraderie, Ches generally kept people at arm's length and struggled with issues deep inside that he couldn't even identify. Two years ago, it bubbled to the surface during an emotional period with his girlfriend. "We were having trouble," he said, "and I felt I was the one to blame, that I was the one causing the problems." So he did some searching, "poking around" as he calls it, to "see what was inside me."

He turned to the Internet and came across the Ansir Web site. "It kind of shocked my pants off, because it was just so accurate. I mean, it didn't tell me my grandmother's maiden name, but it was very specific at core. Once I took the test and read the Profiles, it basically confirmed the feelings I had and clarified my questions." The test showed 2 powerful intuitives, Visionary and Empath, combined with the logical Sentinel.

And so this young man, who admits to being 'sheltered by academics' as a boy, began to come out of his shell and get to know people. That summer, he worked in a factory and surrounded himself with people in a way he'd never done before. "I think this knowledge allowed me to emotionally bond with people in a way I've never been able to before. I was able to talk to and about people."

He's taken the Ansir test several times since, and while his Thinking and Working Styles have remained constant, he's moved to Philosopher in the Emoting realm (note: an unconfident Philosopher functions as Sentinel). "Ansir helped me clarify and think about my feelings, about what was inside of me, and then was there to track my progress as experiences in the big, wide world helped develop my personality."

He's getting his friends to take the test and is using the knowledge to think about how they think and feel. In so doing, he's becoming genuinely empathic and a great listener. "I had a 10-hour conversation with a friend the other day. 10 hours! She emotes Sentinel, and we talked about how she couldn't trust people."

And he's developed a low tolerance for people trying to, as he puts it, "feed me bull." He has a gift for getting others to open up simply by being open himself. "I've discovered that most of the time, they generally don't know themselves very well, and THAT'S why they feed me superficial garbage."

Ches is studying English in college and plans to get his master's in Linguistics and become an educator. He also belongs to a professional music fraternity and sings in four choirs. Why?

Because it FEELS good.

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