Human Design For Business
Strategies for How to use Human Design in your Business
Let’s talk all about human design for business. Human design is a powerful tool that you leverage in business to better understand yourself, your strengths, and when you are out of alignment with yourself. If you aren’t familiar with human design, think of it if enneagram, strengthsfinder, and DISC had a baby. That’s human design. Human design shines awareness on how you are designed to operate in the world and the energy you bring to the table. Now, you may be thinking, “well how do I use human design in my business?” or my personal favorite, “I’ve learned my human design now how do I apply that to my business?” We’re getting there.
First if you don’t have your chart, you can download your chart here. In the human design system, there are 5 types, Projector, Manifesting Generator, Generator, Manifestor, and Reflector and 12 profiles. When you get your chart, it will often say something like 3/5 Manifesting Generator with Emotional Authority. This is your Profile – 3/5, type – manifesting generator, and authority – emotional.
There are many ways to leverage your human design in business today I am going to share the top 10 ways I use human design with my clients in their businesses. One caveat that I like to note here is that if you are working with someone and your human design, be sure that they aren’t only looking at type and profile. While those are two important aspects of a chart, it is much deeper.
A human design coach holds the space for depth and can look at all aspects of your chart, including type and profile. Then the human design coach must consider authority, definition, defined, undefined and open centers, incarnation cross, variable, color and tone and how they all interreact together as well as your past lived experiences.
In human design, especially for business, it is important to look at all the pieces that make up someone’s chart as well as the chart as a whole. The pieces cannot exist without the whole and vice versus. I am seeing so many people only look at type or profile or pull out one specific thing and say, “if my mercury is in x this is how I market myself.”
In my experience, this misses the intention of human design. This is also what differentiates this system from other tools. It is all about the whole of a person and to look at the whole we must consider the pieces and then oscillate out to how that impacts the whole of the chart.
Human Design for Business – How to Use Human Design in Your Business
Human Design for Business Tip 1 – Understand Your Human Design Strategy
In business, understanding your human design strategy is critical to having successful interactions with both your clients and your team. Strategy is how we are designed to interact with the world around us. How we are designed to enter into relationships. For example, I’m a projector, and I need to wait for the invitation or the recognition. If I look back on my life, pre-human design, I can remember so many times when I didn’t wait for the invitation and it didn’t work out. In business, knowing if you need to respond, initiate, wait for the invite/recognition, or a lunar cycle is key.
When you understand your strategy in business, you avoid so much turbulence with clients. You can learn more about each of the strategies (which is based on your type) here – Projector, Manifestor, Manifesting Generator, Generator, Reflector
Human Design for Business Tip 2 – Get to know the Voices of the Throat Center
In business, our ability to communicate with others, market ourselves and effectively convey the value we bring to the table is critical to success. From my experience, understanding the different voices of the throat center plays a key role. In the bodygraph, all of the energy in the chart is working its way out of the body through the throat center.
The throat center is how we communicate our ideas, concepts, personality, and unique self to the world. It is how we make material, build community, and express our beliefs. When I work with clients, especially in my HD Wild, HD Roots, and HD Evolve programs, we dig into this in depth because this center is the key for releasing our energy into the world and has a direct correlation with our ability to have success as entrepreneurs in business. If you’d like to learn a bit more about the voices of the throat check out this article.
Human Design for Business Tip 3 – Understand Your Decision-Making Style
All too often, I see brilliant entrepreneurs outsource their decision-making to an expert or a guru. This guru who is supposedly building a business that “the entrepreneurs believes” they want to build. More often than not, once the entrepreneur gets into the thick of following the blueprint of “the guru,” they realize this is not for them and it feels icky.
When we use human design to build our business, we can then understand our decision-making strengths and step back into our power. This is especially important for entrepreneurs to own their decision-making style and strengths so that they don’t end up building a business they hate. Unfortunately, though, I see this happen all too often and leads to a great deal of frustration and overwhelm.
When we understand how we are designed to make decisions, we own our power and begin to thrive. For example, I am an emotional authority; this means I need to ride my emotional wave (the highs and lows) and get to an emotional neutral before deciding. With this authority, clarity comes over time, and you will never have 100% certainty that your decision is correct for you. If you can come to a 70 or 80% decision, then this is what is correct (or not) for you.
When I look back at social media agency days, this rings so true for me. I knew for the better part of a year I didn’t want to keep doing the work I was doing yet I never had 100% certainty so I kept on moving forward even though I had an 80% decision that it was time for a change. You can learn more here if you want to dig deeper into your authority.
Human Design for Business Tip 4 – Determine Your Business Model Based on Your Human Design
After working with nearly hundreds of entrepreneurs for the last (almost) two decades, themes emerge about what works for certain people and what doesn’t. Through the lens of human design in business, I can look at type and profile (and the rest of the chart) to synthesize together the best business models.
One of my clients, who has been working with me for the last 7 years, jokes that I have been coaching her to her human design since before I knew human design, especially when it comes to her business model. Human design type, profile, and centers coupled with claiming what you want your life to look like is a great lens to discern what business models work best by human design.
If you are new to business or at a pivot point in your business, you can use human design to discern what business model may be best for you. If you want to dig a bit deeper with this you can check out this blog post or my Business Design With Human Design Workshop.
Human Design for Business Tip 5 – Recognizing When You Have Given Your Power Away and are Out of Alignment aka Your Not Self Themes
In my own human design experiment, especially in business, I have found great flow when I can recognize when I have gone off track. With human design, we can look at both the not-self themes of type and the not-self themes of the centers to better understand when we have gone astray from who we are, and we can use the beam from our lighthouse of strategy and authority to call us back home again.
The Not-Self Themes of the Types are:
Projector – Bitterness & Resentment
Manifestor – Anger
Manfesting Generator – Frustration & Anger
Generator – Frustration & Overwhelm
Reflector – Disappointment
And the not-self themes of the centers are:
We create awareness when we can use these themes to discern when we are out of alignment with ourselves. Or as I like to say, we can see, like in American football, a flag on the field of our lives tells us we are in the not-self. When we can become aware, in minutes or hours instead of days or weeks or months, or even years, we create more flow in our businesses.
The not-self themes of types and centers are some of the most valuable tools for entrepreneurs who want to use human design in business to overcome mindset blocks and plateaus and support us in keeping us on track with our goals and the life and business we want to create. You can learn more about the centers here and shoulding yourself in business here.
Human Design for Business Tip 6 – Your Productivity Superpowers
In business, we can use the sacral center of the bodygraph in human design to look to the gates of productivity that are present in our chart. The sacral center is one of the places where (along with the root) our pure power to do comes from. When we can understand our productivity strengths, we can also understand the best use of our time.
We live in a society that is placing constant demands on our attention. I truly believe it is imperative for us, especially entrepreneurs, to reclaim our focus and take back our attention. While productivity apps can be useful, they can also be a major distraction and just an added layer of complexity for us working in and on our business. Through the lens of human design, we can look at productivity and address the three main challenges I see with entrepreneurs and accomplishing their goals.
- The task is too big for the time allotted
- The task is too small for the time allotted
- There is no task for the time that is set aside.
We must become “snobs about our time” and take back control of when and how we respond to the ever-present pressure “to be on” and connected. This means setting reasonable expectations about response times and communication. This begins by understanding our productivity strengths, sacral center and root center stresses and pressures.
Human Design for Business Tip 7 – Your Team Building Strengths (and Weaknesses)
When thinking about how to use human design in your business, we can look to what is known as connection charts – when two people are working together and the Penta – when 3 to 10 people are together to understand how our energy flows. There is also a Wa which is more than 10 people but I’m not going to get into that in this article.
In connection charts, we can look at when people have connection, dominance, compromise, and electromagnetics. This gives us insight into the dynamics of what may happen when two people come together. Of course, when we look at two charts together, it simply looks at the present energetic dynamics, and it does not take into account past lived experiences. Connection charts give you insights into how the energy may flow (or not) between two people and points out potential areas for compromise.
For example, I had a client who would map out a whole strategy and plan for her business, and then she would take it to her assistant to implement. Every time the assistant would come in and make a bunch of changes to the plan, which would leave the client feeling frustrated. This was because the client was in compromise and dominated by the assistant with the identity center.
Since the client had an undefined identity center and the assistant had a defined identity center, it took a tremendous amount of effort to get the client in tune with their desires, purpose, and plan. Then in moments, the assistant would come in and take over. Of course, this was well-meaning by the assistant but she was dominating the client’s identity center. This is just one example of how you can look at a connection chart.
When in a group of 3 to 10, this is known as a Penta. This changes the dynamic of a chart, but within the Penta, there is what is known as Penta skills. You can discern which skills you bring to the group when you are in a group. I will create a blog about this in the near future, but you can look at the image to see the Penta skills.
Connection charts and the Penta are great ways to look at how team dynamics play out in business through the lens of human design. When we look at connections charts and the Penta we can better understand what strengths you bring to the table in a relationship and where you may need to shine some awareness. It gives insight into where you may need to be mindful in your work dynamics so you don’t end up being conditioned by others, or they influence your decision-making and get you out of alignment.
Human Design for Business Tip 8 – How Best Your Learn and Digest Information
The variables in human design are especially insightful for non-energy beings. I particularly like looking at Determination which is the top left arrow in the human design variable that provides texture and depth to how best we digest food and information.
I like looking at this variable since it offers great nuance to what keeps me performing at a high level as an entrepreneur. Since learning about my determination which is calm touch. I have continued to lean into ensuring I am part of the cooking process of my food, and when I sit down to eat, I make sure I get myself centered in a distraction-free environment. I’ve also found this particularly helpful with my children as well and in 2023 I will be teaching HD Nourish a program for parenting your children to their design.
I firmly believe for us entrepreneurs to reach our full potential, we have to nourish our bodies (and souls) well. The demands of being an entrepreneur are many and it becomes particularly key for us to optimize our performance and health. This is where determination comes in. This is not only how we process and digest food but also information. This gives us insight into how best we learn from others.
Human Design for Business Tip 9 – Understand the Environment You Thrive In
For entrepreneurs, understanding the environment that they thrive in is often a crucial part of success. When we look at human design for business, we can dive into the environment (the bottom left arrow), which is known as variable in human design. There are six different environments:
- Caves
- Markets
- Kitchens
- Mountains
- Valleys
- Shores
Environment in human design supports us in determining which physical environment best nourishes our body and being. In experimenting with this for myself and my own environment, mountains, I have found that this to be greatly supportive. Working in my office near the window where I can see what is going on below, provides a different perspective that great nourishes my being.
When we leverage the lens of environment in human design for business we can see how the environment supports us (or not). An environment where we can thrive and feel nourished helps us in maximizing our potential. For non-energy beings, like manifestors, projectors and reflectors, as well as those with an undefined identity center and any profile with a line 2 environment is critical in living at your highest expression.
Human Design for Business Tip 10 – Let Go of the Should’s
Since living in alignment with my human design and entering into my human design experiment, one of the biggest changes is letting go of the shoulds. I should be jumping on this trend. I should be on x platform. I should join this program. I should be further along. I should do this so I don’t miss out. I should be charging more. I should be clear on my purpose. I should trust that I know enough. I should have more ideas. I should do more, be more, have more….and the list goes on and on.
Shoulding ourselves in business is a huge challenge for entrepreneurs. It robs us of our joy, steals our power, and leaves us feeling less than while constantly chasing our own tail. It keeps us in a state of fight, flight or freeze constantly pressuring us for more. If I’m being vulnerable, I’m sick of the shoulding and shaming culture that has permeated the online business space. I believe it is time for an evolution when it comes to how we support entrepreneurs. The one size fits all approach is going extinct. I know a part of my role is to be a steward of this evolution that embraces the whole human, that teaches, that holds space for the depth, that allows and cultivates trust and belief in the human while guiding them along the way on their path. My role is to guide entrepreneurs in stepping away from the should and embracing the possibilities, allowing and trusting themselves.
This evolution happens when we trust and better know ourselves and recognize our shoulds. For me, it took nearly nine months of looking inward, doing the deep and often uncomfortable work of learning to trust myself to step out from underneath all the shoulds. When we can stop shoulding ourselves in business through the lens of human design we can reclaim our power and begin to evolve. But first we must learn and become aware of where this is happening, which is often more embedded in our being than we may even realize.
It is in this way we can use human design in our business as a tool to unlearn what we think we “should” do and embrace what we truly want to do, what we desire, what sparks a fire in us instead of half-hearted giving ourselves to stuff that doesn’t feel aligned. If you want to dig deeper into the shoulds you can learn more here or join in me in the HD Your Biz or HD in the Wild Program, where we dive into this on a deeper level.
Human Design Your Business Distilled
There is a plethora of ways in which you can use your human design in business and life. This is just a small sampling of my favorite ways at the moment. One thing I believe that is important to keep in mind with human design is that you, the diver, determine the depth with which you can use and leverage this tool in your life. I believe my role is to be a steward and hold space for your depth. From my experience, once you see human design, you can’t unsee it.
It changes the lens through which you view yourself and the world around you. It validates what you know to intuitively be true and provides a framework for your intuition. It adds a layer of understanding to why certain things happened the way they did and provides you with a depth of understanding of yourself and in others. In business, human design is life-changing because it empowers you to use your strengths and your voice and instill more belief in your becoming. The one-sized fits all approach to building an online business is stale and outdated. If you are ready to evolve, I invite you to join HD In the Wild or HD Your Biz.
If you are into human design these articles might be of interest to you:
10 Strategies for How to Use Your Human Design In Business
This was very in-depth! Thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom!
You are so very welcome.