Color Your Future: Using the Color Code to Strengthen Your Character

Following the success of The Color Code, in which psychologist and business coach Hartman popularized the use of color to characterize personality types (e.g., ""red"" people seek power; ""blues"" crave intimacy), the author has revised and retitled this companion volume, which he originally self-published in 1991 as The Character Code. However, fans of his initial pop-psychology blueprint for getting along with others may be disappointed with the meager fare here. Though brief, the book meanders and suffers from poor writing. It is most engaging when explaining the nuances of color typing, though it assumes some familiarity with the basic types. Hartman's aim is to bring readers who know their ""color"" to a higher plane of ""psycho-social-spiritual health,"" and to encourage readers to become ""charactered""--in other words, to assume the strengths of the other personality types. For example, the fun-loving ""yellow"" might benefit from learning the expressive power of the ""blue."" His steps to becoming ""charactered"" include learning to value oneself, to have ""clean"" motives, to focus one's commitments and to serve others. Unfortunately, the wisdom and validity of his thinking is obscured by an occasionally preachy tone and odd case histories. Self-improvement seekers would do better to look to Stephen Covey or others for more lucid writing, or to buy The Color Code for fun. (June)