Combat Manual Lesson 3 – Intangible Drivers
Who You Are — The Root of Everything
Taught by John Lenhart | flowcess.com
Who are you? Not what do you have, not what do you do — who are you?
I ask this question constantly, in classrooms, in counseling offices, at graduation parties, in prisons. And the answer almost never comes easily. People say, “I’m a doctor.” No — that’s what you do. “I’m a millionaire.” No — that’s what you have. We live in a world that has systematically confused cause and effect when it comes to human identity, and the damage from that confusion is everywhere.
This lesson is about getting to the cause. The actual you. What I call your Intangible Driver.
God looks at everything as: ARE → DO → HAVE. The world and the enemy work in reverse: HAVE → DO → ARE. One is a root. The other is a trap.
| GOD’S ORDER | THE WORLD’S ORDER | THE RESULT |
| ARE (Who you are) | HAVE (What you own) | ARE defines what you DO |
| DO (What you do) | DO (What you do to get it) | DO determines what you HAVE |
| HAVE (What you receive) | ARE (The identity you get) | HAVE is always the fruit, never the root |
Think about every advertisement you have ever seen. The structure is always the same: if you had this thing, it would allow you to do this thing, and then you would be somebody. HAVE, DO, ARE. The entire advertising industry is built on reversing the order God intended. And the enemy has been running this play since the beginning — it was the core of his argument with God over Job. God believed Job’s identity (ARE) was the root. The enemy believed his possessions and comforts (HAVE) were all that held him together.
Your Intangible Driver is your ARE. It is the cause. And understanding it changes everything downstream.
Why Personality Tests Are Not Enough
Before we get into the Intangible Drivers themselves, I want to address something that almost everyone in the room has encountered: personality tests. Myers-Briggs. DISC. Enneagram. StrengthsFinder. These tools are everywhere in churches, corporations, and counseling offices, and most people treat them as definitive answers to the question of who they are.
They are not — and understanding why matters for everything that follows.
In 1968, a psychologist named Walter Mischel made a decision that reshaped the entire field. He concluded that the human soul and mind were simply too complex to study directly — too hard to measure, too hard to quantify. So he proposed that psychology abandon the interior and focus entirely on observable behavior in specific contexts. And remarkably, the entire field of psychology followed him. From that point on, mainstream psychology essentially treated human beings as if they had no soul and no interior life — only behavior.
The personality test industry grew directly out of that decision. Every major personality test in use today is built on a framework called the Four Temperaments, originally proposed by Hippocrates over two thousand years ago. And here is the part that is almost never mentioned: Hippocrates himself said that these four behavioral patterns appeared when a person was unbalanced — when they had too much or too little of a particular bodily fluid. The word personality itself comes from the Latin persona, which means mask. So when someone proudly announces their personality type, they are technically describing the mask they wear when they are out of balance.
| WHAT PERSONALITY TESTS ARE ACTUALLY GOOD FOR If someone’s thought process is heading toward 160 and threatening to go to 320, personality typing can help you anticipate what they need in that moment — control, validation, connection, excitement — to prevent a breakdown. That is genuinely useful. But it describes a crisis-management tool, not an identity. And studies show that six months after taking a personality test, 50% of people score differently. That alone should tell you something fundamental is missing. |
The Intangible Driver: Your Real Identity
So if personality tests measure behavior under stress, what measures the real you? The answer is already in your Bible — most people have just never been taught to look at it this way.
There are three passages in Scripture that describe what are commonly called spiritual gifts: Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4. Most churches lump all three together as one list. But they are three distinct categories, each given by a different member of the Trinity, for entirely different purposes.
| For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. — Romans 12:4-8 (NKJV) |
The gifts listed in Romans 12 are different from the gifts in the other two passages in two critical ways. First, every person on earth has one of these gifts — not just Christians. These are motivational gifts given by God the Father to every human being He creates. Second, there is a right and a wrong way to use each of them. They can be expressed in ways that build people up, or in ways that damage them and others.
These are what I call Intangible Drivers — the God-given motivational engine built into every person before they ever make a single choice. Your Intangible Driver is not your behavior. It is not your personality under stress. It is the deep, stable WHY behind everything you do — the effect you are always trying to have on the people around you.
Your Intangible Driver looks away from you — toward the effect you want to have on others. It is the only way to see a person the way God sees them.
Notice something important about this framework: a personality test looks at you and takes you apart. It analyzes your reactions, your preferences, your stress responses. Your Intangible Driver looks away from you entirely. I am not asking what you are like. I am asking: what effect do you want to have on that person over there? What do you want them to experience because of your presence?
That outward focus — the effect you want to have on others — is what gives you energy. It is also what makes this the only framework that sees people the way God sees them: not defined by race, gender, background, or behavior, but by the design He placed in them before the world began.
The Seven Intangible Drivers
Each of the seven drivers has a WHY — the effect you want to produce in others — and a HOW — the method you use to bring that effect about. You are your WHY. Your HOW is the vehicle. And the energy you feel comes from seeing your WHY realized in someone else’s life.
| 1. PERCEIVER | Past-Oriented | |
| EFFECT ON OTHERS | Make others aware of a fact or truth — to see what the Perceiver sees. |
| METHOD | SAY — States facts and truth directly. Communicates in WHAT (observable reality). |
| INTERACTION PATTERN | Not settled until the other person is genuinely aware. Keeps bringing attention back to the truth until it lands. |
| HOW TO CONNECT | Begin with ‘I see…’ — acknowledge what they are pointing to first, even if you see it differently. Then engage. |
| OFTEN MISREAD AS | Negative, pessimistic, blunt, ‘Captain Obvious.’ Often misread because they state uncomfortable truths without softening them. |
| CAN BECOME | Divination, manipulation through truth, becoming dictatorial, dismissing emotion entirely, isolating others. |
| 2. TEACHER | Past-Oriented | |
| EFFECT ON OTHERS | Make others understand the WHY behind something — not just the what, but the reason. |
| METHOD | SAY — States explanations, reasons, and principles. Communicates in WHY. |
| INTERACTION PATTERN | Not settled until the other person genuinely understands. Will keep explaining from different angles until understanding is achieved. |
| HOW TO CONNECT | Say ‘I understand’ — and mean it. Give them evidence that you have grasped the WHY, not just the information. |
| OFTEN MISREAD AS | Know-it-all, bragger, condescending. Often misread because they are not showing off — they are trying to produce understanding. |
| CAN BECOME | Stubborn refusal to be taught anything new, blind pride, using knowledge to control rather than serve. |
| 3. COMPASSION | Past-Oriented | |
| EFFECT ON OTHERS | Help others not feel bad — to bear their emotional pain so they can grow without being crushed by it. |
| METHOD | DO — Bears pain actively. Enters the other person’s emotional experience to reduce it. |
| INTERACTION PATTERN | They feel what you feel. They take your pain onto themselves. They are not settled until you feel better. |
| HOW TO CONNECT | Share your feelings openly. Let them empathize. Don’t tell them not to feel bad on your behalf — that denies them their function. |
| OFTEN MISREAD AS | Weak, overly emotional, fragile. Misread because emotional depth looks like weakness to those who don’t share it. |
| CAN BECOME | Enabling harmful behavior to avoid pain, preventing growth by removing necessary difficulty, avoidance of confrontation, rage when pain is overwhelming. |
| 4. GIVER | Present-Oriented | |
| EFFECT ON OTHERS | Supply a tangible need or improvement — to give something real that makes your situation better. |
| METHOD | DO — Gives tangible value. Looks for what is concretely missing and fills it. |
| INTERACTION PATTERN | Not settled until you have received or gotten something. Focused on the present gap between what you have and what you need. |
| HOW TO CONNECT | Accept and appreciate the gift or improvement genuinely. Don’t minimize it or refuse it — that shuts the Giver down completely. |
| OFTEN MISREAD AS | Unemotional, superficial, non-spiritual, materialistic. Misread because their love language is tangible, not emotional. |
| CAN BECOME | Taking what isn’t given, giving in order to receive, theft of value, conditional giving. |
| 5. SERVER | Future-Oriented | |
| EFFECT ON OTHERS | Do whatever it takes to fill a need — to make sure nothing necessary is left undone. |
| METHOD | DO — Serves practically. Moves to wherever the need is, using any of the seven methods. |
| INTERACTION PATTERN | Not settled until the need is filled. Highly flexible — can approach as teacher, giver, compassion, etc., depending on what the need requires. |
| HOW TO CONNECT | Let them fill your need. Name the need clearly and let them move toward it. Don’t refuse their service. |
| OFTEN MISREAD AS | Busy-body, no personality, background figure. Misread because they don’t lead — they serve, and that gets overlooked. |
| CAN BECOME | Martyrdom, slavery, feeling perpetually obligated, resentment when service is not reciprocated. |
| 6. ADMINISTRATOR | Future-Oriented | |
| EFFECT ON OTHERS | Coordinate a group or manage the space between two entities — to help people or things find their right relationship to each other. |
| METHOD | SAY — Leads and directs. Sees the space, the gap, the positioning — and speaks to close it. |
| INTERACTION PATTERN | Focused on the space between entities — people, goals, timelines, organizations. Not focused on individuals but on alignment. |
| HOW TO CONNECT | Tell them the goal and let them lead toward it. Give them a problem with another person or system involved — that is when they come alive. |
| OFTEN MISREAD AS | Controlling, bossy, game-player, manipulative. Misread because they direct traffic even when nobody asked them to. |
| CAN BECOME | Manipulation, seduction, sadism, laziness (directing others to do what they could do themselves). |
| 7. EXHORTER | Future-Oriented (Infinitely) | |
| EFFECT ON OTHERS | Encourage others to move forward — to feel what the Exhorter feels about the future and be energized by it. |
| METHOD | SAY — Positive vision. Casts the future in terms that create forward momentum and excitement. |
| INTERACTION PATTERN | Not settled until you feel what they feel — until the excitement, hope, or vision has transferred. Highly attuned to your emotional state. |
| HOW TO CONNECT | Be genuinely excited about the future with them. Reflect their energy. Don’t be cynical or dismissive — that cuts them off completely. |
| OFTEN MISREAD AS | Cheerleader, dreamer, unrealistic, narcissistic. Misread because their enthusiasm can seem disconnected from present reality. |
| CAN BECOME | Promoting fear instead of hope, sociopathic self-promotion, living in an imaginary world, no self-awareness. |
WHY and HOW: The Two Dimensions of Your Driver
Here is one of the most important distinctions in this entire framework, and the one that most commonly gets missed: you have both a WHY and a HOW. The WHY is your Intangible Driver — the effect you are built to produce. The HOW is the method you naturally use to bring that effect about.
You are your WHY. If someone asked me to reduce you to one thing, I would say your WHY. But the HOW is what the people around you actually experience day to day. And this is where most relationship friction originates.
| DRIVER (WHY) | EFFECT YOU WANT | TIME FOCUS | METHOD | ENERGY COMES FROM |
| Perceiver | Awareness | Past | SAY | Seeing the effect in others |
| Teacher | Understanding | Past | SAY | Seeing the effect in others |
| Compassion | Relief of Pain | Past | DO | Doing — the act of serving/giving/bearing |
| Giver | Tangible Need | Present | DO | Doing — the act of serving/giving/bearing |
| Server | Fill a Need | Future | DO | Doing — the act of serving/giving/bearing |
| Administrator | Group/Space | Future | SAY | Seeing the effect in others |
| Exhorter | Forward Motion | Future | SAY | Seeing the effect in others |
Ed is a Perceiver WHY with a Teacher HOW. What that means is: Ed’s deep drive is to make you aware — to open your eyes to something you were not seeing. But the way he does it is by teaching — by giving you the reasoning, the understanding, the WHY behind what he wants you to see. He teaches you so that you can see what he sees.
I am an Administrator WHY with a Teacher HOW. My drive is to get you in the right position relative to something or someone else. But I teach in order to do that — I explain the space, the alignment, the goal. If you ask me to teach you something purely for the sake of knowledge, with no goal involved, no group, no problem to solve — I drain. The moment there’s another entity in the picture — a person to align, a goal to reach, a project to manage — I come alive.
Ed and I are both Teacher HOWs. That is why we can co-teach effectively and why our collaboration feels natural even though our WHYs are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Perceiver is position one. Administrator is position six. There is real tension between those two WHYs — and tension, handled correctly, is creative. It is part of why this course covers as much ground as it does.
| THE KEY INSIGHT You connect with people through your HOW — the sameness in method creates rapport and ease. The tension you feel with someone comes from the gap in your WHYs — the difference in what you are each ultimately trying to produce. Tension is not bad. Unmanaged tension is bad. Understanding the source of it changes everything. |
Intangible Drivers in Relationships
Once you understand WHY and HOW, you can map the dynamics of any relationship — friendship, marriage, workplace partnership — with remarkable precision. There are three types of relationship combinations, and each has its own natural pattern of connection and conflict:
| TYPE | HOW COMBINATION | NATURAL ALIGNMENT | PRACTICAL INSIGHT |
| Type 1 | Two non-Server/non-Minister Hows — both have fixed methods | Only when using same How | Must consciously take turns (50/50). Conflict arises when one won’t yield their How. |
| Type 2 | One Server/Minister How + one non-Server How | Server moves to match — naturally flexible | Server/Minister is the glue. They adapt to the other. Conflict arises when the non-Server stops appreciating the adaptation. |
| Type 3 | Two Server/Minister Hows — both move around to fill need | Naturally 1 in 7 chance of alignment | Ask: “What do you think the need is?” When they name the same need, they connect instantly. Teaching this question resolves most conflict. |
I tested this at a graduation party on a couple who had been married four years. She was Server Giver. I tested him as Teacher Server. I said to him: every time you two get along, it is because he has agreed to give her something or make something better. Every time you fight, it is because he won’t agree to that. He looked at me and said, “How could you know this? Are you looking in our window at night?” That is the power of knowing someone’s uniqueness. You understand them, not because you know their history, but because you know the cause.
Your Driver and Spiritual Warfare
Here is why this matters beyond self-knowledge, and why it belongs in a spiritual warfare course specifically.
The enemy attacks you in your uniqueness. Always. He does not attack you generically — he attacks the specific design God placed in you, because that design is the source of your greatest potential impact for the kingdom. A Perceiver will be attacked through isolation and the distortion of their truth-telling into harshness or paranoia. A Compassion will be attacked through enabling and the perversion of empathy into emotional captivity. A Teacher will be attacked through pride and the corruption of understanding into control.
But here is the other side: your Intangible Driver is also how you mount your most effective defense. It is how you hear from God most naturally. It is how you communicate back to Him most authentically. A Teacher hears from God in understanding — in suddenly grasping the WHY behind something that was previously opaque. A Perceiver hears from God in awareness — in suddenly seeing something that was hidden. An Exhorter hears from God in vision — in a sense of what the future could be that arrives with clarity and excitement.
| “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” — Jeremiah 1:5 (NKJV) |
Jehovah knew you before you were formed. Your Intangible Driver is not something you developed — it is something He placed. The enemy knows this. He has been studying your uniqueness since before you were born, looking for the specific ways your design can be turned against you or suppressed entirely. Learning your own uniqueness is not a luxury or a personality exercise. It is strategic intelligence.
Your Intangible Driver is your city. Your full uniqueness is your home address. Knowing the city tells someone a great deal about you — but knowing your address tells them everything.
Your Intangible Driver is only the first step. In the lessons ahead, we will continue drilling down — from your city to your street to your door. Each layer will give you more precision in understanding how God made you, how the enemy attacks you, and how to show up with maximum effectiveness in every context of your life.
Find Your Driver: Take the Assessment
Go to www.flowcess.com and take the Intangible Driver quiz. The assessment is approximately 85% accurate. A few things to keep in mind:
First, answer from who you actually are, not who you think you should be or who you want to be. The most common source of error is choosing the answer that sounds most admirable rather than most true.
Second, be aware that we unconsciously absorb traits from the adults who raised us. Men often test as their fathers. Women often test as their mothers. If your result does not feel right, consider whether you might be describing your role model rather than yourself, and retake the quiz with that in mind.
After you have taken the quiz and identified your driver, you will be given access to a video series I produced with my partner Colin Stevensen, with detailed explanations of each driver from both a WHY and HOW standpoint. I strongly recommend watching all seven videos — not just the one for your own driver. Understanding every driver is what allows you to relate to, motivate, and communicate effectively with every person in your life.
| REFLECTION: YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION OF YOUR DRIVER Before you take the quiz, write your gut answer here. Based on what you have read, which WHY feels most true to you? What effect do you most naturally want to have on the people around you? What drains you when it is absent, and energizes you when it is present? _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ |
| AFTER THE QUIZ: WHAT DID YOU DISCOVER? Once you have taken the assessment at www.flowcess.com, record your result here. What is your WHY? What is your HOW? Does it ring true? What in your life — patterns of energy, recurring frustrations, how you show up in relationships — makes more sense now? _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ |
You were known before you were formed. Now it is time to know yourself.
Next: We go deeper into your uniqueness — from your Intangible Driver down to the specific wiring that makes you unlike anyone else with the same drive.