Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    <scribbled by ellen Wed 30 Jul 08 20:38>
  

    

Shoya, after you respond to castle, I'd like to know what you would say to
people who are sceptical about these categories this quiz divides people
into? I came out a pretty strong Gold when I took the quiz, yet I reject
several of the personality traits ascribed to that type. "Golds ...  value
prosperity as evidence of hard work" for example doesn't describe my outlook
at all. And "They are also the most effective in making lists and
making plans in advance" doesn't match me at all. I *hate* lists and am not
very strong about long-range plans. I tend to address things as they come
up.
  

    
(ellen slipped in with a query while I was composing my post)
  

    
First of all this model should not be viewed as four boxes.

I use the analogy of a village with four neighborhoods, all of which
is in your brain.  You travel each day, or hour in some cases, from
neighborhood to neighborhood.  Your work may be in one, your children
in another, you clients in another.  You have the capacity to function
in all.  Home neighborhood however is where you function best, with
greatest ease, energy and skill.

So what is the big deal about knowing where home is.  It is hugely
stress reducing.  For example
It helps you define your strengths and unique abilities, 
understand how you interact (or conflict) with important people in
your life, 
choose the right people to make your project or volunteer committee
function well, 
pinpoint new fields or avocations you might want to explore and many
other things including the work I am doing on how your type impacts the
way you invest your money.  

So why all the confusion.  There could be a couple of reasons.  

You may have taken the MBTI originally when there were certain demands
made on your life.  You might have been in a very structured job.  Or
you might have grown up in a family where there was a predominance of a
type different from yours.  All of this skews the way you frame the
questions.  And that ultimately skews the way you answer them.

Most in the MBTI community believe people do not really change their
type in life..  They might however do two things.  

1) they get liberated to be who they really are sometime later in life
than usual (I have see this happen to people in their 40s and
overnight  You may remember my story of the accountant who has entered
the political fray).  

Or 2 sometime in their 40s they begin to develop their non
preferences.  Carl Jung said human beings have a yearning to develop
all parts of themselves.  

So for example my sister in law a VERY strong gold, who runs a
business and has more on her calendar a day than most have in a week,
suddenly said a few months ago, "I think I will go out and take a class
in philosophy."  I almost fell off my chair.  Now she does not love
this class, but she is experimenting with developing the abstract part
of her brain and she finds that kind of exhilarating. I have another
friend who is a Blue and an abstract thinker who has never had any
interest in concrete stuff.  All of a sudden she became a passionate
gardener and now can name every weed (sometimes even in Latin),studies
soil conditions and every other bit of detail needed for her garden. 
She is developing the concrete (S) part of her brain.  

let's going back to the original problem of determining what is your
real type (where your "home" neighborhood is,) If there is confusions,
you need to do a little more reading about what the preferences are and
how do they operate in real life situations.  So let me try to do a
little bit of that now.

To both Linda and Cynthia the differences (Gold and Red) and (NTP or
NTJ) come down to the J and P function or section III of my quiz.

you need to pinpoint whether you prefer to

a.have structure and schedules - not having a plan is uncomfortable
have a neat desk, purse, briefcase, closet etc.  
get things finished as early as possible,(well before the deadline). 
find it hard to concentrate if your environment is disorganized. 
before beginning a task like to review that everything is on hand
are always on time. Do not see why this is not a priority to others   
have pretty much a plan in life that you tend to stick to.  These are
the Js.  This makes you a (Gold) or an NTJ.

b. if on the other hand, you prefer to be flexible and spontaneous, 
tend to have a messy purse, briefcase and desk, 
get things done at the last minute, and often overschedule yourself
start new projects before finishing the last one.  It is not that you
lack focus, you have your own way of going back and forth
are relatively easy going, and adaptable
like surprises and the unexpected
when starting a project, just plunge and solve problems as they arise

 This makes you a Red or an NTP.  

Linda.  Look at your jewelry making space.  Do you put things away
when you are finished.  Are your supplies in clear categories.  Do you
tend to finish one piece before you start another.  It could be that
you are close, but again you do have a slight preference for one.  

You cannot be both of the above.  You can be moderately one way or
another,

Now Linda the difference between Blue and Green comes down whether you
a T (Thinker) or an F(feeler).  

If you are a thinker
you tend to be better at finding flaws in a system, 
good at analyzing plans and objectively evaluating people 
can be blunt and outspoken
like to debate, sometimes just to challenge will argue both sides
don't like to put emotions on display
more interested in what people think than what they feel

A preference for the above makes you a T and a Blue not a Green

If are an F 
you like to know how people feel about things
people seek you out because of your warmth and nurturing qualities
when you disagree with someone, you try to downplay it
sometimes have trouble asking for what you want or need
have deep empathy, understanding where people are coming from 
tend to avoid confrontation whenever possible.  (Ts don't particularly
like it but hey it is a part of life and let's just deal with it and
get on with things.  Fs often feel that once things are said, you can't
take them back.  Confrontation is painful.)  

Abigail Disney who is in my book and sits in many philanthropic boards
says she gets a nosebleed in the middle of the meeting if there are
too many arguments.  She now leaves the room and goes into a meditative
state to stop it.  Another individual who started her own company,
said she get nauseous during her board meetings, because her board
members confront her on many of the business issues. These are true Fs.
 

Now to Ellen's type conflict of INTJ (Blue) vs Red
Here the difference is whether you are a concrete (S) or abstract
(N)thinker. 

Ss tend to 
be practical realistic and matter of fact
like utilizing the skills they already have
speak, hear and interpret things literally
be good observers of surroundings and detail
be more interested in talking about real situations than theories and
ideas.  often like to read history and biographies
more interested in facts than theories

this would make you a Red

Ns 
look for the underlying pattern and don't like getting caught up in
facts.  are not observant of detail
read between the lines, pay attention to implications
like to speculate about what is not stated
don't pay much attention to immediate surroundings.  
enjoy conversations about abstractions and theories.  
like to do things in new ways
tend to use metaphors and analogies in their speech.  usually have
longer and more complicated sentences.
like books like Future Shock and Clicking

If you have chosen more in the first set you are a Red.  

If you have chosen more items in the lower section you are a Blue or
INTJ.  

Does this help?
  

    
Shaya, you are REALLY good at explaining the differences!  In fact, you
should write a book... Oh, you already did!  :o)

You have been incredibly helpful!
  

    

I agree with #80.  I don't think I've encountered anyone who is as able to
describe the different preferences and how they manifest as clearly and
practically as you do, Shoya.
  

    
This has been an interesting read. I took the test and was green, but not
strongly green. What Linda said about the meeting was exactly what I was
thinking. I would hate all of the small talk when I had flown in for
something else.

But then when you described how Greens feel about finances and the
surrounding info, I laughed. I have the same financial advisor as Libbi
does. She sends me letters that start out with news about her family (I know
these folks and am happy to hear about what's going on with them). Then the
letters go into the financia details. I skip them, and go to the end to see
if she's recommended any changes, and breathe a sigh of relief when I don't
have to do anything. And I have never once opened a financial statement from
the investment companies.
  

    

<heh>  I'm clearly channeling Donna in the way I deal with correspondence
from our mutual financial advisor!
  

    

Whom I have yet to call, but will.  Soon.  Very soon.  %^)

I am so clearly a mix.  The question you asked about my jewelry-making
space illustrates it perfectly.

When I first started, I bought a lot of little organizer things and put
the things in it.  Then, I had more stuff than organizer things.  But
still, I strictly made myself finish a project and put everything away
before starting a new project.  Then, I started a project, and started
getting special requests that people would pay for immediately, so I put
down the project and addressed the special requests.  Then, I took a class
that inspired me to do a bunch of other stuff and never went back to the
other project, and left out on the table all the pieces for doing these
particular pieces that there'd been a lot of demand for in case I had a
minute or two to do some.  Then, I kept buying these different kinds of
work trays.  Now what I have is a different project under construction in
each work tray, all the new materials are piled up haphazardly all over
the table instead of finding some place to put them and my work space is
steadily creeping out of the dining room and into the living room.  Every
time I sit down to work on a project - like right now where everything is
a Christmas gift - I strongly want to straighten everything up and clear
up the clutter so my eyes can concentrate on the project at hand, but I
recognize that if I do so, I will never start the project, so the piles
stay and I make the piece.  But I am never completely at peace with myself
while doing so.  It's a constant struggle.

I experience a similar struggle between scheduling and wanting to be
spontaneous.
  

    

And the preference for Judging in your latest MBTI was very slight, Linda.
Last time I think you scored a slight preference for Perceiving.  So this
being betwixt and between makes sense to me.
  

    
well thank you all.

To Strega, you do sound like a green.

To Linda, you do sound like a perceiver

And at some point we should put this financial planner on the list of
recommended service providers .  I do think, people do better when
working with their own type.  I suspect however that the world is not
overflowing with green financial planners.  
  

    

>the world is not overflowing with Green financial planners.

Amen to that.

When Donna recommended her to me, I felt like I'd been given a gift I could
never repay.
  

    

I keep thinking about your image of one's "home" as the way to describe the
way it feels to be operating inside your preferences, and realize that's the
best analogy I've encountered so far.  It's true - when you're operating in
a place that draws on your preferences (or living in that Red or Gold
house), you feel comfortable.  Things come easily.  There's little or no
stress, and very little seems out of place.

That doesn't mean you never go outside your house, obviously, or get rained
on or chilled or whatever - it just means that you understand where that
comfortable space is.

Thanks for that image, Shoya!
  

    

I remember having a dream once, where I understood that when you operated
in that space, which Shoya calls home, that you actually vibrate at the
correct frequency.  In the dream that was represented by images of
exquisite white dresses whose proportions and styling were simply perfect
to gaze upon.  Since then, I've understood that "vibrating at the correct
frequency" is the way you feel when looking at something that is somehow
so right, whose colors fill your eyes with delight, or hearing music that
touches your very soul, or the way that light refracts into a million
rainbows from the surface of a gem.  That's home.

I guess I got carried away just a bit, there.

I came to say thank you, Shoya and Libbi, for the delightful job you did
in introducing us to this work and these concepts.  I definitely want to
know more now!  I thank you for being with us for these last two
weeks.  You are welcome to continue for as long as you like, we'd love to
have you as long as you would like to stay.
  

    

Let me join Linda in thanking Shoya for her thoughtful responses to all the
questions we hurled her way, and for her creating the LeadershipQ.  I urge
you to find a copy of her book and read it - it's as well-written and
informative as everything she's shared here.
  

    
thanks to you both.  It has indeed been a pleasure and a lot of fun.

I will check in from time to time if anyone has any more questions on
different applications of this model

Happy holidays to all.  
  

    
THANKS! (and I'm awaiting the arrival of my book -- ordered last
week!)
  

    
Shoya, I've been lurking, not posting but reading your fascinating
responses. I've learned a lot, and I appreciate the time and effort you
spent here.
  

    
Same here.  I found your work to be very enlightening.
  

    
Well,I am delighted. Considering it as my mission to get this info out
like a giant virus, new "sneezers" are always welcome.