PPERMA by Choys
The 16 work wellbeing types

16 ways to feel at work.

Like Myers-Briggs for how you experience your job. Four binary axes — Mood, Focus, Bond, Drive — derived from your PERMA scores. Each combination is a type, and each type tells you something specific about how to spend your work week well.

The four axes

Four questions about how you work.

Each axis is binary — high or low, one or the other. Combine them and you get one of 16 codes. Your code is a quick read on what to lean into, and where the shadow tends to live.

Mood · Positive emotion baseline
BBright

You run on optimism. Joy is your default state — you find sparks even on hard weeks.

GGrounded

You run on steadiness, not sparkle. You stay even-keeled when others run hot or cold.

Focus · How you engage with work
DDeep

You disappear into the work. Flow finds you easily; you can spend hours on a single thread.

WWide

You scan and connect. Your mind moves across topics; novelty energizes you more than depth.

Bond · Where energy comes from
TTeam

Other people are your fuel. You think out loud, you stay sharp when surrounded.

IIndependent

Solitude is your fuel. You do your best thinking alone, then bring it to the team.

Drive · What pulls you forward
MMission

You're pulled by the why. Purpose matters more than the polish of the output.

CCraft

You're pulled by the how. Doing the thing well IS the meaning; mastery is its own reward.

All 16 types

Skim the room. Click into any type.

Each code reads top-to-bottom from your scores: Mood · Focus · Bond · Drive.

BDTM·Bright · Deep · Team · Mission

The Lighthouse 🌅

Bright, focused, people-pulling, mission-led.

You're the person teams orient to in the fog. Your steady optimism plus a clear sense of why turns rooms into rallying points — and you can hold that energy for hours without dimming.

Lean into

Use your mood as a leadership tool: be the first to name what's working, in 1:1s and standups. People will mirror it.

Watch for

Lighthouses can over-shine. If everyone keeps coming to you for energy, you're subsidizing the team — protect your dark hours.

Try this week

Block a 90-min 'unreachable' window this week. Tell the team. Notice how it lands.

BDTC·Bright · Deep · Team · Craft

The Maestro 🎼

Bright, deeply absorbed, with a crew, making brilliant things.

Joyful and obsessive in equal measure. You collect collaborators like a conductor collects players, and the work you make together has texture only group craft can produce.

Lean into

Curate the room before you start the work. Who's in the band matters more than the brief.

Watch for

When the crew isn't right, the joy goes flat fast. Don't power through a wrong-fit ensemble — recast.

Try this week

Have one 30-min 'why we work well' chat with a teammate you love working with. Capture what makes it click.

BDIM·Bright · Deep · Independent · Mission

The Visionary 🔭

Bright, focused, solo, mission-led.

You see further than the room and walk steadily toward it, even when no one's walking with you yet. Your optimism is the rocket fuel for ideas that take years to land.

Lean into

Write your vision down often, in your own words. The page is your team.

Watch for

Visionaries can lose patience with people catching up. Translate, don't tower.

Try this week

Send one person a 5-sentence 'where I think we're going' note. See what they reflect back.

BDIC·Bright · Deep · Independent · Craft

The Artisan 🪶

Bright, deep, solo, craft-driven.

You disappear into the work and come out with something the team didn't know to ask for. Mood plus craft plus solitude is a recipe for taste — yours is sharp.

Lean into

Make taste visible. Show your drafts more often; it's a kind of teaching the team needs.

Watch for

Artisans can ship late chasing a private bar. Pick a public-facing 'good enough' before you start.

Try this week

Share one in-progress thing this week with a quick 'here's what I'm trying' note.

BWTM·Bright · Wide · Team · Mission

The Catalyst

Bright, scanning, connecting, mission-led.

You're the spark in the room. Wide-band attention plus high mood plus team energy means you make connections nobody else sees — between people, projects, ideas.

Lean into

Schedule the introductions you keep meaning to make. Each one compounds.

Watch for

Catalysts start more than they finish. Pair with a closer or set a 'no new fires' day each week.

Try this week

Make 3 specific introductions. Use the format: 'X meet Y, here's why this matters now.'

BWTC·Bright · Wide · Team · Craft

The Showrunner 🎬

Bright, broad, people-led, making it happen.

You hold the whole show in your head — the people, the plot, the deadlines. Your optimism keeps everyone moving even when the script changes mid-episode.

Lean into

Document the unwritten rules of your team. They live in your head; that's a single point of failure.

Watch for

Showrunners burn out quietly. Your team feels great while you fade. Track your own fuel weekly.

Try this week

Pick one meeting you run. Hand it to someone else for two weeks. Notice what changes.

BWIM·Bright · Wide · Independent · Mission

The Pathfinder 🧭

Bright, curious, solo, mission-led.

You find paths no one else has bothered to look for. Optimistic enough to believe the way exists, solitary enough to wander far, mission-driven enough to come back with a map.

Lean into

When you spot the path, narrate the route, not just the destination. People want to walk it with you.

Watch for

Pathfinders can drift. Set a checkpoint date with one trusted person and stick to it.

Try this week

Pick one 'I keep meaning to look into this' thread and spend 2 focused hours on it.

BWIC·Bright · Wide · Independent · Craft

The Tinkerer 🧪

Bright, broad, solo, craft-driven.

You're a workshop on legs. Wide curiosity + a maker's hands + cheerful solitude = a constant trail of clever things in your wake. Some of them will be quietly important.

Lean into

Publish more of what you make, even rough. The world calibrates on shipped weirdness.

Watch for

Tinkerers underestimate their own output. Keep a one-line log of every weird thing you ship.

Try this week

Pick the smallest thing you've prototyped privately and post it where one person will see.

GDTM·Grounded · Deep · Team · Mission

The Steward 🛡️

Grounded, focused, team-led, mission-driven.

You hold the team together in the hard parts. Calm under load, deeply attentive, present for people — your reliability is the foundation others build careers on.

Lean into

Make your presence legible. Stewards often go unnoticed because nothing breaks; tell people what you're protecting.

Watch for

Stewards absorb stress they're not asked to carry. Be honest about the load.

Try this week

Write down the three things you're quietly carrying. Share one with your manager.

GDTC·Grounded · Deep · Team · Craft

The Builder 🏗️

Grounded, deep, with a tight crew, shipping.

Calm, focused, in a small circle — you make things that last. Builders don't need spotlight; they need a clear brief, a few teammates they trust, and the time to do it right.

Lean into

Protect the tight-crew structure. Don't let your circle keep widening; it dilutes the throughput.

Watch for

Builders can outgrow their crew. Notice when you're carrying others vs. building with them.

Try this week

Have one direct chat with someone in your inner circle about what's working and what's draining.

GDIM·Grounded · Deep · Independent · Mission

The Architect 📐

Grounded, focused, solo, mission-led.

You quietly design the systems companies are built on. Calm depth + solo time + a sense of where it all should go = the kind of mind that gets dragged onto every important decision eventually.

Lean into

Make the system visible. Architects' value is invisible until they leave; counteract that.

Watch for

Architects undersell themselves because the work feels obvious to them. It isn't.

Try this week

Pick one system you designed. Write a 5-bullet doc explaining why it's shaped that way.

GDIC·Grounded · Deep · Independent · Craft

The Forge 🔨

Grounded, deep, solo, craft-driven.

Heads-down. Output-strong. The work IS the meaning. Forges are the quiet engines of any team — when one disappears, you suddenly notice how much got made there.

Lean into

Set up the conditions for deep work and defend them. Forges don't multitask; don't try.

Watch for

Forges can over-isolate. One 30-min weekly check-in with a teammate is non-negotiable.

Try this week

Identify your two best deep-work hours and put a recurring block on the calendar for the next month.

GWTM·Grounded · Wide · Team · Mission

The Diplomat 🤝

Grounded, broad, people-led, mission-driven.

You read every room and steer it toward what matters. Calm, curious, well-connected, purpose-anchored — you're the person who can move a contentious decision without anyone losing face.

Lean into

Use your read of the room out loud. People want to know what you're noticing.

Watch for

Diplomats can over-mediate. Sometimes the team needs you to take a side, not balance one.

Try this week

Pick a decision you've been holding neutral on. Write down what you'd choose and why.

GWTC·Grounded · Wide · Team · Craft

The Bridge 🌉

Grounded, broad, people-led, building.

You translate between worlds. Engineers ↔ designers, exec ↔ team, vision ↔ ship date. Calm breadth plus a builder's hands means the in-between is your home, and you ship the connective tissue.

Lean into

Name the translation. People often don't notice the bridge until it's gone — point at it.

Watch for

Bridges absorb friction from both sides. Track who's actually paying you for that work.

Try this week

Pick a translation you do regularly. Write the one-pager so someone else could do it too.

GWIM·Grounded · Wide · Independent · Mission

The Cartographer 🗺️

Grounded, broad, solo, mission-led.

You map the territory others rush across. Calm and curious in equal measure, working alone but with a strong sense of why the map matters, you find structure in places that looked like noise.

Lean into

Publish your maps. The artifact is the contribution; the map without the publish is a notebook.

Watch for

Cartographers can over-map. Set a 'this is good enough to share' bar before you start.

Try this week

Pick one fuzzy area in your work. Spend 60 min sketching the territory and send it to one person.

GWIC·Grounded · Wide · Independent · Craft

The Generalist 🧰

Grounded, broad, solo, craft-driven.

Quiet polymath. Whatever needs doing, you can do — and often have. Calm, wide-ranging, working alone, motivated by the doing itself — you're the secret weapon every team eventually realizes they have.

Lean into

Make your range legible. Generalists get pigeonholed when the org only sees one thread.

Watch for

Generalists can drift into 'whatever's on fire'. Pick a season-long anchor each quarter.

Try this week

Write down 5 things you've shipped this year that aren't in your job description.

Which type are you?

10 minutes, anonymous if you want, AI report you'll actually want to share.

Find my type