Some continue to ask us, “How is Shaquille O’Neal a #6 BEIR? He’s so goofy and outgoing.” While we’ve answered this question in detail many times before, let us remind our viewers, especially the new ones, of a few important points regarding the 7-foot superman. Jon Niednagel first spotted Shaquille during his transition from high school to college hoops at LSU, immediately noticing his uniqueness. O Neal was fierce, nasty, extremely coordinated, hawk-eyed, and perhaps most telling, fine-motor-skilled. After all, just look at his hook shot. Unlike your gross-motor Magic Johnson (#1 FEAR) and others, Shaq then and now has never had quite a true hook shot. His shot, in fact, has always relatively been a mere wrist-flick. Although at the time Niednagel had never met Shaquille, after careful observation, he met his motor-skills and other Type-identifiers, and soon realized that the young, big buck was a #6 BEIR. In turn, Niednagel predicted (telling 3 NBA teams) great things for the 7-foot center, a prediction that he never would have made for most of the other 15 BTs Of course, looking back, those predictions came truer than blue.
In terms of his “outgoing” nature, remember that BTI no longer uses the term introvert and extravert, largely due to this exact misleading misunderstanding (Back brain vs. Front brain dominant). O Neal was the oldest of three siblings, and their family moved often (even to Germany for a time), which is a recipe for any Type to have a more outgoing nature. (Also, both of Shaq’s parents are Front-brained another strong influence for offspring outgoingness/ extraversion.) In junior high in Germany I fought kids all the time, says Shaq. I had such a bad temper, I almost got thrown out of school. A few lickings from my dad got me out of that scene. He wore me out with a paddle. It’s commendable to see Shaq’s father kept the feisty #6 in line!
Lastly, if this isn’t enough to convince you, consider other “extraverted” #6s including Bill Walton, Gary Payton, Pete Rose, John McEnroe, and Bobby Knight.
Since Shaq’s draft in the early 90’s, Niednagel has had innumerable opportunities to validate his BT. He personally spent time with O Neal’s college coach, the venerable Dale Brown (#7 FEAL). This tell-it-like-it-is BT gave 1 example after another that, yes, Shaq was exactly as Niednagel had written. Also, Jon worked for an NBA team where Shaq played and reams of other #6 attributes were exposed. And finally, though much more could be said, please remember how nurturing can dramatically affect persona. The more a Back-brainer is forced to talk, the more he or she will activate the frontal lobe. This not only affects communication style but one’s actions.
This is a reason why we at BTI are disillusioned with all the non-scientific personality, psychological approaches permeating our world. Even the popular yet unreliable Myers-Briggs falls prey to a spurious questionnaire and self-evaluation approach, which is essentially intended to make one feel good Conversely, BT is intended to reveal who you really are, both in brain and body, not a day-to-day changing persona. BT’s goal is to make us all better people by revealing reality, even if it’s painful as we balance out are rough edges.
And now, finally getting to our article, Dwayne Wade (#2 BEAR) of the Miami Heat had a hilarious story to share recently regarding Mr. O’Neal, this time touching upon his business-sense. Yes, as we have written several times about in the past, BEIRs can also be shrewed businessmen (ala Michael Jordan). Back when Wade and O’Neal were teammates for Miami, Shaq was all business, on and off the court. Shaq was always talking business,” says Wade. “He came up to me one time, I’m not going to say where, but it was during the playoffs in a very big game on the road and it was maybe five minutes before we were going to start our pregame meeting and then we were going out to warmup, so maybe it was a half hour before tip-off. I happened to be sitting next to him in the locker room because it was a real small locker room. He turns to me and he says, I never should have turned that deal down. I was like, What are you talking about? He said, It was the biggest mistake of my life. I’m not going to mention the company, but I asked him why. And I remember his answer was so off the wall, so incongruous. We’re getting ready to play a huge game and just out of the clear blue sky he started talking to me about a business deal that he rejected. He said it was the biggest mistake of his life.”
Too funny! The dominant Inanimate Shaq couldn’t stop thinking about the deal, even before playoff game time! Like the #14 BCIR, their brains never shut off ruminating on inanimate subjects thinking issues. The only time a #6 can shut it down athletically is to transition into the front of the right brain, the visual region. This is the zone which many #6 athletes have a tough time accessing. Their never-ending analysis of matters doesn’t allow them to tap into the non-thinking, vision alone neurons. The great #6s, like Bird, Jordan, Gretzky, et al, all learned to modulate their analysis, much of the time. And by the way, most #6s have a tough time sleeping. You now know why.
As a side note, this is one reason why #6s don’t make top-notch quarterbacks. Unlike their care-free, vision-first #5 FEIR cousins, BEIRs can tend to over-think before throwing the big pass, getting them into trouble (and hampering their spatial vision).
Written by: Staff
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