ABOUT US
Learn about Primal Nature in an interview with our founder, bestselling author William Thomson FRGS.
William, what is the story behind Primal Nature?
Primal Nature began as an unexpected journey of discovery. While running the successful Tide School, I travelled to Polynesia to learn the ancient art of natural navigation. Immersing myself in their strategies for wayfinding, I realised these principles extended far beyond the open sea—they could guide everyday life.
At the time, I found myself at a professional crossroads. Tide School no longer challenged me in the way I needed, and I was searching for a deeper sense of purpose. During this exploration, I tried countless personality profiling systems to better understand my path in life, like Myers-Briggs and Enneagram, but none of them truly captured the essence of who I was. They felt too vague and disconnected.
This inspired me to develop my own personality profiling system and I started to experiment with AI to create something entirely new. I called it Primal Nature because it digs deep to uncover who you really are at your core. Drawing from the lessons of Polynesian wayfinding, I developed a system that not only highlights your strengths but also maps how you can bring your best traits to the key areas of your life so you can chart a course to success.
Inspired by my time in the South Pacific, I designed an island for each of life’s environments—Work, Social, Exercise, and Recharge—and paired them with guided meditations to help you navigate between these spaces. The result is a system that empowers you to set your intentions, refocus your energy, and bring your best self to every area of your life.
Primal Nature is more than a personality system—it’s a way to navigate life.
What makes Primal Nature better than the traditional personality profiling systems?
While I think these systems are definitely useful at understanding people, giving someone a four-digit Myers-Briggs code, an Enneagram number or a DISC letter puts them in a one dimensional box that fails to acknowledge that we are multi-dimensional. The big difference with Primal Nature is that we focus on what makes each and every person unique, giving practical support to help you harness you innate traits depending on the environment you’re navigating.
With understanding, we can work together to maximise our strengths and minimise our struggles
Primal Nature is the only system that does this, embracing the fact we all have contrasting parts within us - but instead of struggling against them we can use them to our advantage depending on the situation we’re in. For example, we may need to draw upon our extraverted traits when at work, but can celebrate our introverted nature when recharging at home. None of the traditional systems help people do this, but Primal Nature does.
This is the foundation of what Primal Nature is built on. It’s the fact that we are all incredibly complex beings, with a unique mix of traits, strengths and struggles. Through our unique blend of advanced pattern recognition technology and nature visualisations, we’re able to get the root of your authentic nature and present it in a way that both you and the people around you can understand. With that understanding, we can then all work together to maximise our strengths and minimise our struggles, improving our lives on this fascinating planet.
Who is Primal Nature made for?
Individuals : you can use Primal Nature’s guidance in all aspects of life; whether it’s boosting relationships or balancing your own health and wellbeing. If you’re a parent, it gives you tips to bring out the best in your kids, and if you need to recharge after a long day at work it helps you switch off and unwind. At its core, our goal is to make Primal Nature your personal advisor who has unlimited knowledge and knows you better than yourself, always giving logical advice based on your nature and the specific problem you’re encountering.
Schools : our self-assessment works on kids as young as 6 and helps pinpoint their natural strengths while giving tips to overcome struggles. This massively helps boost self-esteem and confidence in children. As they get older, students can then use the system for career guidance, finding jobs that that they will naturally be well suited to and enjoy. The earlier you do this the better, because you can then choose the subjects at school that keep that path open.
Businesses : the interpersonal dynamics of Primal Nature are incredibly valuable. Teams can create groups and the system analyses everyone’s natures, giving tips for who should be in what role and how everyone can understand each others perspectives to work better towards their shared goals. When conflicts arise (which they often do with contrasting personalities in a group) you can use Primal Nature to resolve tensions and get back on track to achieve the team’s targets.
How does Primal Nature balance technology with the human touch?
Firstly, our team at Primal Nature is made up of trained psycho-therapists whose focus is to enhance your human experience. We see technology as a tool to help with this thanks to its phenomenal computing power, but as we all know humans are complex beings and the experiences thrown into our lives, that shape our character, can’t always be simplified into an algorithm. This is why we offer human coaching, to give you the human touch.
Our coaches come from a variety of backgrounds and specialise in a range of areas, from wellbeing to corporate, which means we can connect users with the right coach. Whether you need 1-on-1 support to overcome personal struggles at home or are looking for fun and effective teambuilding sessions to help people better understand eachother and work more synergistically towards their shared goal, our coaches can help.