Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Do You Know Your True Personality? How to Use Myers Briggs to Go After Your Dreams

Episode Date: March 28, 2020

Chances are, at some point in your life you’ve traveled with someone for so long you start to drive each other a little crazy, and you don’t really know why.   Spending every moment together can be stressful, but it doesn’t have to be.   Assessments like Myers Briggs can make you a more compassionate person because you learn how we all see the world through a different lens. You start taking things less personally because you realize that people have diverse ways of learning and working, different ranges of how much alone time we need, different ways of organizing ourselves (or not).    On this episode of the Postcard Academy, I’m very happy to be speaking with Caitlin Hawekotte, who is an MBTI® Certified Practitioner, which means that she administers and interprets the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® assessment to help people discover more about their personality types and preferences.    Understanding your psychological type, and those of others, will make you a better communicator, something that’s very helpful in keeping your sanity while traveling with someone, and also while locked up in quarantine with them due to the COVID-19 coronavirus.    And on that glorious day when we can travel again, you can then take what you learn on today’s podcast about Myers Briggs to make traveling with a friend or partner more enjoyable and stress-free.   Visit postcardacademy.co for show notes.   *** I’m your host, Sarah Mikutel. Did you know I host another show called Podcasting Step by Step? Check it out if you’ve been wanting to start a podcast. Every week, I break down ‘how to podcast’ with a little loving motivation to give you the skills and confidence you need to finally launch that show of your dreams. Ready to start your podcast right now? Check out Podcast Launch Academy.   Ready to travel? Get your free guide to cheap airfare.   Thank you so much for listening to this show. I know you’re busy and have many listening options, so it means a lot to me that you’re here. You are the best.   P.S. Need simple and flexible travel insurance? Get a cost estimate from WorDo you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

This natural thing starts to occur where you're being a little bit more compassionate toward yourself because you understand that there's not anything wrong with you. It's just this is the way that you operate. And then sort of without even trying almost, you become more compassionate toward other people. Welcome to the Postcard Academy, a show about travel, living abroad, and location and dependence for people seeking a more meaningful freedom-fueled life. I'm your host, Sarah Mike Atele, an American, who first moved abroad on our own at age 18 and who has been permanently enjoying life in Europe since 2010.

I am so glad you're here. My guests and I will share with you how we made our travel, living abroad, and location independent dreams come true and how you can too, because you will never have this day again. Make it matter. Chances are at some point in your life, you've been on a trip with somebody, and at some point you start to drive each other a little bit crazy, and you don't really know why. Well, spending every moment together can be stressful, but it doesn't have to be. As I'm recording this, it's March 2020, and most of us aren't going anywhere due to the coronavirus. I'm officially on lockdown over here in the UK. Maybe you are quarantined with a roommate or partner who you haven't been spending a ton of time with lately, and now you're together 24-7. Well, if you've never gotten to know each other at this deep personal level, I encourage you to take you to take a time with lately, and now you're together 24-7. Well, if you've never gotten to know each other at this deep personal level, I encourage you to take

the Myers-Briggs personality assessment. As you'll learn from today's guest, this assessment has nothing to do with judgment or who is right or wrong. It simply reveals who you are in the world and what makes you tick, and this awareness will make you more compassionate toward each other. And make you more compassionate towards yourself. Understanding your psychological type and those of others will make you a better communicator, and that's something that's very helpful in keeping your sanity while in quarantine. Then on that glorious day when we are able to travel again, you can take these lessons that you learned today to make traveling together more enjoyable and stress-free. I'm very happy to be speaking with Caitlin Hawke, who is an MBTI certified practitioner, which

means that she administers and interprets the Myers-Briggs type indicator assessment, and this is to help people discover more about their personality types and preferences. Caitlin is also a student of mine in podcast Launch Academy, and I am so excited for the show that she's about to launch, which will be a real gift to the world, and we will talk about it later on in the show. If you would like my help launching a podcast, visit sarahigatel.com to learn more. This episode is so uplifting and fun thanks to Caitlin's stories and her words of wisdom. You are really going to love it, so without further ado, now into my conversation with Caitlin. Welcome, Caitlin. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

I wanted to talk to you about the Myers-Briggs assessment, something that I've really enjoyed talking to you about over the last few months. You have really opened my eyes to a bunch of different things. So for anyone who doesn't know, what is the Myers-Briggs assessment? So the Myers-Briggs assessment assesses people's personality types. It is based on the personality theory that was proposed by Carl Jung. He believed, that we had some inborn traits within us and that they had to do with how we take in information and how we make decisions about that information. And then a mother-daughter team, Catherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs-Meyers, took his personality theory and wanted to help people figure out what that meant for them and they developed the Myers-Briggs type indicator. Would you say based on his theory that, Jung's theory, that what came to be the Myers-Briggs assessment that's kind of like, if it's nature versus nurture, would you say it's more nature, this assessment?

Yes. Very good question. So this assessment takes into account your nature and what would have been your inborn, like, predisposition to these things. However, a lot of times why it helps to work through your results with somebody who's a certified practitioner, that's helpful because sometimes when we grow up in an environment, whether it be in our home or within our school or even the culture that we grow up within or the society that we're in, those things can influence how we show up. But this sort of brings into light what you might have been naturally inclined to do. And so sometimes this helps people realize, wow, this story I've been telling myself about how I am my whole life actually isn't really who I am. And so it seems like a complementary sort of assessment would be, the Enneagram, which from what I hear is more nurture. Would you say that's true?

100%. That's something that that's one distinction I've seen that I love, which is that the Myers-Briggs looks more at your nature. And then Enneagram helps discover, okay, what might some of the things that have come up for me in my life, like where might those things come from? And that's definitely the nurture side. So you can have people of all, you know, two people with the same personality type, according to Myers-Briggs, who have totally different anagram types because of different circumstances. Yeah, and we can get into the enneagram another day. But you were actually the person who introduced me to that. And it has just been a life-changing. So I feel like Myers-Briggs tells you who you are. And aneagram tells you more like why you do the things you do. And I've

just from a personal development point of view, have found it to be just life-changing. Yes. Same here. I'm glad you've enjoyed it so much. And I feel like I'm still more of a of the enneagram, whereas with Myers-Briggs, I've become a little bit more on the teacher side, but I still always have things that I'm learning. The thing that I love about Myers-Briggs is that it tells you who you are, but it doesn't tell you what that means for what you do with your life, because it's very much coming from a perspective that anyone of any personality type can do anything that they want to. They just might do it differently than someone else. Yeah, so let's, so supposedly there's 16 personalities. Obviously, we're more dynamic.

than that. And the creators of this assessments, they were more dynamic than that. But to help us, they've given us these 16 personalities to work with and to learn from. So can you tell us, like, how these, so it's like a bunch of letters, like makes them sense of this for people who don't know. Sure. Sure. Yes. So, yeah, I feel like there are three camps. It's either you're obsessed with Myers-Briggs and you know exactly what all the letters are and you speak in what sounds like code. you've never heard of it and have no idea or you've heard of it and you're just so frustrated by people shouting these letters around when you don't know what they mean. So to go through them real quick, you end up with a four letter code in the end. And what that means is that we're looking at four different areas.

In each of these four areas, you fall into one bucket or another according to the way the assessment works. So the four buckets are extroversion and introversion, which is how you get energy, sensing intuition, which are how you take in information, thinking and feeling, which are how you make decisions, and judging and perceiving, which are how you orient yourself to the world around you. So the first one is about where you get your energy from. And for that one, the two buckets are extroversion and introversion. So people with a preference for extroversion tend to get their energy by being around other people, not necessarily talking with them.

So there can be a sort of a characterization of extroverts as, oh, they're always talking or they always have to be conversing. They definitely can be outgoing and talkative and social. But many people who are extroverted, they sometimes get energy just by being maybe, say, in a coffee shop while they do work by themselves and they don't want to talk to anyone in the moment. Introverts are those who prefer introversion. For that one, again, I would say that there can sometimes be a misconception that introversion means that you don't want to be social. or that you're always quiet or shy. That's not true either. It just means primarily in the context of Myers-Briggs that you prefer to get your energy from within yourself. So you require more alone time to get refueled. Yeah. When I first learned about Myers-Briggs, so when I was working at Apple, this is the first time I came across it. We all took the

assessment and it just blew my mind. I felt like when I learned what my letters were, INFP, I was like, oh my god, I found my tribe. There's other people like me. It was like the heavens opened up. And I was so excited about this. But yeah, before I took this test, I had always, or like when I was first learning about it, I had assumed that extrovert, an introvert meant like shyness or outgoing. So it's good to point this out. Is it possible to be in eye and also be outgoing? Or is that just totally a rare unicorn? Oh, absolutely. It's possible. There are deeper layers to it that I won't get into today, but basically we all sort of have a balance within us of ways that we operate. And everybody has an extroverted way that they operate and an introverted

way that they operate. But people who prefer introversion lead with the thing that's introverted and people who prefer extroversion lead with the thing that's extroverted. And this can change over time, right? Because I've noticed that I'm getting much closer to the middle. I used to be like very more on the introversion side. And now I'm almost in between introversion and extroversion. Yeah. So there are a few things I would say point out about that. One is that it doesn't necessarily change over time. So like you mentioned earlier, this theory is about the nature, our core nature. And so that will always remain the same. According to this theory, that will always be the same. However, what I would say is that it sounds like, and this is the goal in Myers-Briggs,

you find out the ways that you operate, that you have developed a stronger muscle in the ways that you are extroverted and show up externally to the world. You've worked on those more or had more experiences with it. So it's a little bit stronger of a muscle, but it will probably never be, I suppose you could have it, you could say it would be as strong as your introverted muscle, but probably never stronger. Oh, I get, I don't think I would, I guess I really wouldn't say as strong, but that's an excellent point. As we get older, we've been in a bunch of different experiences. We've had to learn to adapt and to your point earlier that we can all be whatever we want and we're not locked into a certain position in life based on our personality. We can

learn to flex different muscles and different parts of us can be brought out based on situations we've been in, I think. Exactly. Exactly. What's the next bucket? All right. So the next bucket we're looking at. So for the first ones in terms of keeping track of the letters, the extroversion preference is an E and the introversion preference is an I. But for these two, we are looking at sensing and intuition, which has to do with how we take in information from the outside world. These are what we call our perceiving functions. And for sensing, it would be an S, but for intuition, it's actually an N rather than an I since we already used I for introversion. So that can trip people up sometimes when they're looking at the results, but that's what's going on there.

Sensing has to do, I usually compare this to the way a detective gathers information. So when we're taking information from the world, people who prefer sensing rely on their five senses and they tend to pay the most attention to the things that are real, actual, measurable, tangible, all things that you take in through your five senses. People with intuition on the other hand, they tend to take in more of a big picture look at things. And they're not necessarily looking at definitive details. I usually compare it to say the way a psychic might work off a gut feeling or a vibe. The basic thing is that people with sensing tend to start small picture and look at details.

And then they back up and maybe look at the bigger picture. People with intuition have that big picture and then zoom in on the details later. So to round out that analogy, I usually say when you watch a crime show or something and you see the psychic maybe who they've brought in. to help. They think they know who the killer is. And maybe the detective has the same feeling about that same person, but they would build their cases differently. The psychic would have the big picture, like, I just know that this is them. And then they might have to prove it with evidence, whereas the detective is going to prove it with evidence, adding up, you know, one, two, three, ABC to get to that conclusion. Yeah. And maybe those two different types can be good partners.

You know, there's always different like business jargon floating around. Two things now are visionaries and implementers. So maybe the sensing people, those can be like the implementers who are like in the nitty gritty. And the visionaries are more the intuitive people who are the dreamers and seeing big picture. Absolutely. And another thing I was going to say about that too is for each of the four sets of things we're talking about when when they look at the numbers around the world, most of them are split 50-50, like 50. 50. extroverts, 50% introverts, even though it may not feel that way, depending on where you're living. However, with sensing and intuition, I know there are new numbers a few years ago that it was split at about 75% of the population had a sensing preference and only 25% had an intuition preference. However, that has shifted a bit more and they think that there are more people who prefer intuition or that there may be a bias that people are answering in a way, that maybe they feel like it's something that's preferred or special because it was less frequent or less

common. But I think it makes sense that there would be fewer people with the vision and more people who are excited to implement it. You know, I think that just would make sense to keep a world buzzing. Yeah, that's interesting what you say, though. If we want to get value out of these assessments, we have to be honest with them. And, you know, or else, There's no point. Exactly. And when people take it, I always, you know, tell them you take it wherever you feel like you are most yourself and most comfortable. For some people that's at home, for some people that's at work, you know, it just depends where they are when they take it. Because if you are, say, in an environment where you feel stressed or feel like to fit in,

you have to be something that doesn't come very naturally, you may answer in a way that reflects that. And you don't want to, you want the truest results to get the most benefit out of having taken it. Be yourself in these answers or else the results are going to come back for someone else. Exactly. And it's not going to help you. Exactly. All right. Anything else you want to say about the SN group?

Yes. This is a helpful little trick. If you're looking for a way to figure out what maybe somebody you love is or even yourself to if you're kind of listening and thinking which one do I fall into, people with the sensing preference, usually, you know, when you're starting a new project or going about. making decision about something, they want to know the what and the how. They want to know what is it that we're doing and how exactly is it going to work? How is it going to happen? And people with the intuition preference tend to really, before they can get excited to begin, the thing that they're most concerned with is the why. They want to know why we're doing this, what's at the core of it. This is why they probably fit that visionary category you talked about because when you have

somebody leading a team and they have this vision, they need to know that. core, or oftentimes they want to know that core why that drives them. And this is all really important stuff to know at work. And then in other areas of our life, the thing that you taught me about Myers-Briggs that I thought was so interesting and I didn't really think about before is that it can teach us how to understand and relate to other people. Once we know their motivations, everything feels a lot less personal. Yes. And we can be more compassionate and we can be more compassionate and we can serve them better. And once we're all on the same page, relationships seem to be a lot happier. Yes. Because when you see your personality type result and you're reading about it and you're

going, oh my gosh, that's so me, that's so me, that's so me. And then you read maybe somebody else's personality type to have the awareness that, oh my gosh, as much as mine feels like me, there's feels like them to them. And just like nothing I'm doing is, you know, a personal attack on anyone else is just me being myself, it's the same when other people are being themselves. And we're all just trying to bring to the world whatever the gifts are that we got. Can you talk to me about how this has impacted your own life? Yeah. Gosh, I feel like it infiltrates every area of my life. I first was introduced to it when my dad brought home a book called Please Understand Me Too. And it was written by Kiercy.

There's a Kiercy Temperament Sorter, which is very similar and uses some similar things, but it's not exactly the Myers-Briggs assessment, but it looks at the same letters and the same traits. And anyway, so my family and I, we all took the assessment that was in the book, and we all sat around talking about our types and what that meant for us. And I'm the youngest of four kids. So I always felt a little bit different in some ways. And it shed some light on why. One of the big things was that I am out of a family of six people, I'm the only one who prefers extroversion. So that answered a lot of questions right away that I had for myself. And I think that I always felt like I was doing things the wrong way. But when I saw this all laid out,

it kind of made me realize, oh, no, they just, it just happens to be that I'm in a house where a lot of the people in it had the same preference for how to do certain things. And I just have a different preference. It doesn't mean it's wrong. It's just another way to go about getting the same thing done. Once I had that experience for myself, then I got really into reading about just every single kind of assessment. It was at that time when I was in junior high, it was when the internet was becoming the thing that everybody was sitting on more often and looking things up. And I just took every quiz and assessment I could and loved self-exploration. And so then as I got older, I was always talking about this particular one with my friends and

reading books and talking about our types with each other. And then by the time I was, career coaching at a university, I realized the value that it could bring to the students there in figuring out their majors. So then I decided it was time to get certified in it and did that. And it's changed everything to be able to help other people sort of have the same aha moment that I had when I first took it and all of the aha moments that have continued to take place over the last 20 years. It feels like I'm never finished learning about it. Yeah. It's so wonderful that your family you wanted to take it together because I think a lot of people are afraid of assessments.

And because they're so afraid of judgment, they don't want to take a test because they think it might point out like a flaw or something. And this assessment's not about pointing out flaws. It's just pointing it out about, you know, who you are so it can help you like relate to other people. So could you talk about how learning who, how, what your letters were and what your type was and what your family's type was and like how your relationship improved based on that new knowledge? Yeah. So a couple interesting things that came out of taking this with my family. One, it makes sense. Like you said, it's cool that my family sat around and took it. Well, as it turns out, so I'm an ENFP. So I prefer extroversion, intuition, feeling, and perceiving in the way that

I operate. And my dad is an INFP like you. These are, they're kind of similar. And so it makes sense that he brought this home because I think that my dad probably grew up feeling similar to. how I had been feeling up until that point. What I also discovered years later, actually, because I cannot recall now if my mom had taken it at the time or if we were just, if we were between a few different things, we weren't sure which type she was. But a few years ago after I got certified, I convinced my mom to take the official assessment online and found out that she has all the exact opposite preferences as I do. So she has introversion, sensing, thinking, and judging. This was huge for us because we get along so well and we hang out and talk for hours

and so enjoy each other. But there were certain areas that we realized, you know, that would have tension in our relationship. And when we were able to look at these differences that we had, it became really clear what those areas were. And not only that, but then how we could go about bettering it. I tend to, I prioritize socializing above everything. So I, it can be hard to focus because if I have something going on that I should really be disciplined to sit down and do it myself, if somebody calls me up and they need to talk about something, I want to prioritize them in that relationship and that socialization time. So I would drop what I'm doing and go do that with them. So I think sometimes I would drop by my parents' house to visit, thinking that my mom

would feel the same way about it as I do. But my mom's an ISDJ, and they prefer to have plans and schedules and routines, and they tend to be very disciplined about those, which I think is super admirable, and it's something I want to develop, too. So I didn't realize that it was infringing upon the way that she had laid out her day, and maybe she had a certain idea of how things were going to go, and I just kind of threw a wrench in it when I would do that. And so I think it was frustrating for her, not only because the wrench,

she got thrown in, but also because she's my mom and wants me to feel loved. And then yet I was putting her in a position where she didn't want to tell me not to come over or hang out with her, but she just had wished she'd had more of a heads up. Right. Yeah. That's so good. And because often, you know, good intentions can be misinterpreted or just, it's just not your style, right? Right. You wanted to do a good thing and spend time with your mom. And I'm sure she wanted to see you, but like her vibe was like, oh my gosh, I had like all this stuff I wanted to do. I wish we could have planned to do like meet up at a certain time later. Exactly.

Exactly. And we have other things too. Like we talked about this one recently, the way that we express support for somebody, for instance. So I have that feeling preference. So people with the feeling preference tend to want to point out what's right in a situation and be, you know, oh, look, you did that part right. And maybe sometimes almost even ignore something else because they just want to be very supportive and encouraging. And this is not across the board. This is just generally.

And then those with a thinking preference tend to be pretty good at looking at a situation and figuring out if there's something that could be more efficient or could get fixed in some way and sharing what that is. And they would share pretty directly because it's not personal for them. It's just assessing a problem or a situation. And so my mom and I had this discussion about how when somebody is starting a new venture, say, so I'm working on like developing a book or a project. podcast. If I were to share something with her, her version of support and love would be, let me help you see where you could improve to make it the best that you can possibly make it before you share it with the world. And mine would be pumping up what's so great about it and the point that I might ignore the things that could be better because I just want to be

really supportive. And so when I realized that's where she's coming from, I appreciate it a lot because that's going to save me a lot of grief later. Because what if I release something and she held her tongue and didn't share with me what could be improved. And then I get a bunch of feedback from customers that they don't like this or that. So I think it is super helpful. And when I, you know, when you can understand where somebody is coming from, you just take it totally differently. Yeah. And can you repeat the letters in that bucket? Yes. So yeah, I'll address that one. So the third bucket is thinking and feeling. And these are what are called our judging functions. It's how we make decisions about the world and come to final judgment calls on them.

The thinking preference takes an approach to decision making that is very objective. So it's looking at the pros and cons of something, the cause and effect. The feeling preference tends to make decisions in more of a subjective way, stepping into a situation to understand it from within. So the feeling preference is more about being subjective when doing decision making and stepping in and trying to see things maybe from someone's point of view. and having a lot of focus on how decisions are going to affect people. People with a thinking preference also think about how things are going to affect people,

but it's not maybe the largest piece of the pie when you're looking at a pie chart that says all the factors to take into consideration. Do you have any other examples of these personalities? Oh, gosh, like I got my husband to take the assessment. We'd probably been married several years before I even had him do it. But it can be most difficult for me to figure out the better, the more you know people, the harder it is to assess them in a way. Anyway, so he took it and he was similar to my mom, but not quite. He has the preferences for introversion, sensing, thinking, and perceiving.

So he's an ISTP. So the only thing we had in common was perceiving. But when you look deeper into it, where I said, you know, there are ways that we operate either inwardly or outwardly. He and I are almost the exact opposite on everything. And it was, you know, he's really outdoorsy. He works with his hands. He's very, you know, he's a firefighter, which is very common for ISTPs. He's sort of the textbook, firefighter police pilot, helicopter rescue man kind of thing.

Those are very common for ISTPs. They very much like to be out in the world. They like to be physically active and challenge themselves in that way and be adventurous. put things together and fix problems. And for me, as an ENFP, I'm very much more in my head. I'm very theoretical. I love emotions, relationships, all of, you know, talking with people. And so we always thought that we were just so different. And when we first saw the results, it seemed pretty wild. But as we explored it more together, we were able to also find common ground, which was that we both really enjoy living life to the fullest, and that for each of us, we just do that in different ways. So for me, it might be

taking emotional risks or risks in leaping from one thing to another in my career, putting myself out there. But for him, it might look like literally putting his life in danger by climbing something that I would never, ever get on in my whole life. So once we realized that we were able to find areas where that sort of thirst for adventure could overlap, and travel has been one of those for us, for sure. That is really great that you guys took the time to do that together and then to take that knowledge and figure out how it could work best for your relationship. Thank you. Yeah, it's, I recommend it to everyone. I think it can be really powerful because again, like you mentioned, it's it takes it from taking things personally to just being more compassionate about other people's

perspectives and realizing also, I think in life it's very common that we want to see things in a hierarchical way. Like there's one personality or way of doing things that's better than another. But actually, this sort of flattens that all out. And the visual I like to use is one from my sister. She was a photojournalism major. And she said, you know, if you have a bunch of people in a, you know, we'll say 16 people in a giant circle and something is happening in the center of it. and people were taking pictures and reporting back about what they saw, all of them are going to have different things that they focused on, different things that they noticed. And all of them are valid and real and true for them. And they all got a vision of this. But they're all going to look

different. And the cool thing is that when you put them all together, you get the full picture. And I think when I realized that that everybody has a slice of that pie of what matters in life, what's reality and what can be and all these things. I think when you recognize that suddenly, instead of being frustrated with other people, I think it becomes almost like this sense of excitement and celebration around what do they bring to the table that I don't necessarily. Yeah, I love that analogy. I was actually at a little concert the other day, like upstairs in this pub. It was this really beautiful four-string quartet. Their music was just so lovely and haunting. And so I'm sitting there watching the music. But when I'm watching something, even if I enjoy it, my mind tends to drift. And then I'll be thinking about all of these other things. And then I'll come back and listen to some of the music. And then I'll be telling stories in my head. But then as I was watching this show, I was thinking, oh, my God, other people are not experiencing this the same way as me. Like other people are actually

focusing on all of this type of stuff. And so after the performance, I asked one of my friends who I was with, I was like, what were you thinking about when you saw my show? Because I was telling it was going on my head. And she's a musician. And so she was telling me she was watching all of like their movements of like their arms. And when they did this and, you know, she was like listening out for like certain notes and different things like that. She was like very focused on the. the actual music being played. There was no like stories going on in their head. But I just think that's so interesting. Like I see everything with this lens now. Like, oh, I'm not, we're, we are all experiencing this stuff in a different way. Yes. And if you each reported back about your experience to somebody, they might not even know that you were both at the same show. Yeah. Yeah. It's totally different. And they, I was going to say too, I think one of the big things that that was probably at play for you there is the difference between the sensing and the intuition. Sensing, so I'll give an example, when we do exercises to determine which one people are

in, or at least to have them really see how these things are at play. One thing I did in a class once was each group was given a white styrofoam cup and they were told, okay, those with a preference for sensing, you write down as many words as you can to describe this cup. And, and intuition group, you do the same. And then at the end, we'll come back and we'll read our lists. What happened was, I was in the intuition group at the time and I just thought, how is this going to be that different? It's pretty simple and straightforward. It's just a white sterephome cup. What else is there to say? And so in the intuition group, we started talking about, okay, it's a white styrofoam cup. And, oh, man, it reminds me of, you know, when I was a kid and I used to rip

them apart and build things with them or, oh, I like, want to bite it because it's squishy and all this stuff. We all go off on these tangents talking about what it could be and what it reminds us of and what else it's like. And then, but I just thought, how is this going on so long? What is the sensing group going to say? So we read our list and the sensing group is cracking up. Like you guys, what is going on your heads? The sensing group starts to read theirs. And they said, well, it's a three inch tall white styrofoam cup and with this written on the bottom. It's made by this manufacturer and it's this circumference on the bottom of the cup. And we were cracking up. Oh my gosh, I could have never seen that item. And how do you describe it to me? I could have recreated it because you're so detailed. That's so funny. Yeah. The world, it takes all kinds. Yes. I need a little bit of everything. Yes. But I feel like I've been attracting a lot of people of my type lately, which I love. I have so many INFP enegram 9 friends now. Oh my gosh. I asked one of them the other day, just out of curiosity, when you get a massage, are you relaxing and zoning out, or is your mind completely racing? And she said, my mind is completely racing. And I was like,

oh, my God, me too. And I was like, finally somebody else who is, like, thinking the same way as me. Yes. Yeah, it's validating, right? It is so wild. I often tell people if you're, sometimes people can be stuck between a couple of types. They're not sure which one they are. even after taking the assessment, they want to talk it through and you help figure out their best fit type. And one suggestion I always have when we go over this stuff is, why don't you peek into whether it be on Facebook or Reddit or, you know, wherever, peek into some groups that are based on each personality type. And when you start seeing the things that people are talking about and sharing, it will become very clear, very quickly which people feel like they're in your head or not.

So I think definitely when we come across, it's very telling that when you find out your type and you go and find these kinds of groups, it just reinforces, yes, this is so how I operate and that it's a cool way to, you know, realize you're not alone in the world and that there are so many other people who think and process just like you do. Yeah, I think it's very fun. So we touched on the last bucket, but can we dive into that a bit? Yeah. So the last bucket is sort of our attitude toward the world around us or the way we orient ourselves to the outside world. And the two buckets on this are judging and perceiving. Judging, I always say, you know, the little caveat there is this does not mean judgmental. A lot of times it can have a negative connotation at first. And people say, oh, I don't want to be called judging. But it's more about being able to make quick decisions and come to a judgment.

call about something. And people with the judging preference, not always, but they tend to be a little more structured, want things a little more decided. They tend to think and plan ahead and be quite thorough about it. And then people with the perceiving preference tend to be a little bit more go with the flow, a little more in the moment, and kind of, yeah, the word flow. That just, I feel like that kind of describes, you know, rolling with what's happening. Both of them are really helpful when making decisions and plans and things like that. But I do find that, especially in the workplace and also possibly in partner relationships, that this can be one of the biggest points of contention out of all four of these that we've talked about. Could you give us an

example of maybe a conflict a couple might have and how they could resolve it? Yeah. So sometimes in partnerships where one person has a judging preference and another has a perceiving preference, There could be things like the person with the judging preference might feel like the person with the perceiving preference isn't kind of following the schedule like things should go or is a little bit unpredictable. And that can be off putting when you want to have a little more sense of stability or it can be difficult. And the person with the perceiving preference might feel like, oh, why are, you know, you're trying to box me in or, you know, make me live my life according to this way. but I just want to see how it goes when we get there. Like if there is, oh gosh. So, well, one thing that just popped in my head for a workplace example, and this happens

in relationships too, but it looks a little different, is when you think about deadlines in the workplace, people with the judging preference tend to work steadily toward a deadline, but people with a perceiving preference, because they love perceiving, they want to take in a bunch of options and keep exploring things before they have to sit down and make a final decision and finish a project. So they might not look like they're doing much up until, say, the last couple of days before it's due. So if you have a project manager who has a judging preference and an employee underneath them who has a perceiving preference, the project manager might be starting to get worried that they're not going to meet the deadline because they haven't seen them do much. And if they

check in a lot on that person who has the perceiving preference, they might feel pressured and like they're not able to work in their own way towards something. And I think the same thing can happen in romantic relationships, you know, with each having a different approach to when to get started on things and how, what the process looks like to get there, even though they could still both end up with the same great result. And even friendships. Yes, there are definitely things in my friendships that we've laughed about where like my concept of time isn't quite the same as my friends with a judging preference. So they've, they've often maybe told me that the something starts 15 minutes earlier than it does, just to be sure that I didn't get caught up to talk with,

you know, talking to somebody or not realize how long it was going to take to get there. Likewise, when I'm meeting up with them, I know to work as hard as I can to be on time or early because I want to respect what makes them feel comfortable to. There's an online assessment that I really like called 16 personalities. So it's the numeral 16 personalities.com. And I think they do a great assessment. I did it for mine and I got INFP. like I always do. And I love the description. So that's a free assessment if anybody wants to do that. And so once people have this knowledge, Caitlin, like it's really fun to like see this reflection of you. But what can we do this with this knowledge? You know, what's like the easiest way to take the next step to do something with it to improve our relationships? Yeah. So I think if, you know, if you've taken it yourself, I will say my, my,

My thought is, and people may go about this differently because it's all different, but I always think building the self-awareness about your own type first can help a lot. Similarly, I spent a couple years learning to be a marriage and family therapist before I switched programs. And they would talk about couples therapy. And what they talk about a lot is that, you know, it's not one person or another who's at fault. Like we've talked about how not one personality type is better or more right. It's just more about the dynamic that occurs between them and to tackle the issues in that dynamic together. And so a lot of times they look at that and they say, you know, for each person who's in therapy, they would need to say, well, I only have control over myself. And that may help contribute to changing the dynamic between us. So similarly, I think in your life, if you can really get to know yourself really well, this natural thing starts to occur where you're being a little bit more compassionate toward yourself because you understand that there's not anything wrong with you. It's just

this is the way that you operate. And then sort of without even trying almost, you become more compassionate toward other people because you're understanding that. So I think that starting with looking at one's own type, like I mentioned, getting into some groups online if you just search your personality type, reading all that you can about your type, reading all that you can from other people of those types, and then starting to explore the other ones, once you have a solid understanding of your own. Also, maybe if you want to then focus on another, maybe if you have a partner that you're looking at or a friend and you want to work on this together, then there's maybe the first next type, I would say, to do a deep dive into.

Yeah, this sounds like something that if you were about to go on like a five-week trip with somebody. Yes. Or say you were quarantined at home for two. months. Right. Maybe this would be a good opportunity to find out what that other person's type is, and then you can like negotiate, you know, how you're interacting, you know, your life together, essentially. Exactly. I think when you both know each other's types, and you can talk about, especially before any conflicts occur, and you can speak very, just impersonally and objectively about, oh, this is kind of how I operate and how I like to do things. Oh, and this is how I like to do it. So then if something comes up, you can both go, oh, the reason I love Myers-Briggs is because it gives words to these things. So it says something like, oh, yeah, I prefer extroversion. So I usually want to be going out a lot on a trip and meeting all kinds of people and stuff. And I want you there with me. And the person with the introversion might say, yeah, that sounds really fun. But I also, because I prefer introversion, I'm going to need some downtime by myself. But it doesn't mean I don't love you or want to be around you. This is just what I need, just like you need that.

So maybe there could be days where I stay in or I go do my own thing and maybe you would make new friends or do something else out with other people. You know, so we each get what we need without offending one another. Yeah, that's right. It's all about open communication. Yep. All right. Excellent. Caitlin, is there an online assessment that you would recommend for people to do?

Yeah. I mean, of course, you know, as a certified practitioner, I should say the Myers Briggs. The Myersbriggs.com is what you would look up. is where you can find the official assessment. However, that's not always feasible for everybody. So the free options are awesome. And of those, you mentioned 16 personalities. And then I would also add in Truity, T-R-U-I-T-Y-T-Y-T-Y-Y-T-Y-T-Y.com has not only an assessment similar to that, but also some other ones that are fun to check out. And one of them, they recently launched, was the Enneagram assessment. Ooh, and you've written quite a few articles for them, haven't you?

Yeah, yeah, I just submitted another one recently, so there should be more coming out. Excellent. And you have a podcast coming out soon. Can you tell us more about that? Yes. In light of the fact that, you know, it can be hard to figure out how to navigate the world when you feel like maybe your traits aren't the ones that are most common or valued. I decided that it would be fun to do a podcast that I'm calling L-I-F-E with an ENFP or life with an ENFP. It is all about helping. I wouldn't say just ENFPs because I think a lot of people will gain something. out of it, but it's being filtered through me and I am an ENFP, so that's hence the title. And what each episode is going to go over is ways that people can sort of maximize and leverage their natural traits in order to get things done in their life that are maybe goals that they've been having

difficulty achieving or routines that they've been having difficulty sticking to. Because I had found over the years of reading all sorts of self-improvement books and articles and listening to podcasts, that a lot of times, you know, we hear this advice from people and maybe start to feel bad that what they're suggesting we should do doesn't seem like anything that we would ever be able to do maybe or doesn't come naturally. And the reason for that is because that person has a perspective too. They may be a completely different personality type with a lot of different natural tendencies. So what I think is really important to keep in mind is maybe to treat all these self-improvement things like more of a buffet. and take what works for you and it's going to be sort of more natural for you to do based on your

personality type and focus on those and not be yourself up about the ones that are sort of out of, I don't know, your wheelhouse, I would say. So I'm going to be taking those things that I've learned over the years that have worked very well for me, given the perspective of my being an NFP and sharing them with others in hopes that they will be able to follow the things that they're passionate about and get those things put out into the world. So it's kind of like life coaching with an ENFP. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah, exactly. That should be my tagline, my elevator pitch version. And you actually do one-on-one coaching for Myers-Briggs, right? Yeah. So when people take the assessment, I provide a link and then we get to spend an hour kind of going over and interpreting what these things mean for them and really making sure that the result that they got really is their best fit type. Because as we talked about earlier, there's the nature piece. but then also that nurture piece. So being able to talk it over with somebody is helpful, and I love walking people through that.

Awesome. Well, Caitlin, where can we find out more about your coaching and also about your podcast, which will be launching soon, I hope? Yes, yes, it will. And because of you, because of your expertise and encouragement. So if anyone wants to find out about what I offer or my upcoming podcast, they can go to my website, Caitlinhawcett.com. little difficult to spell. So it's C-A-I-T-L-I-N and then H-A-W-E-K-O-T-E dot com.

And I will include the spelling in the show notes, so no worries about that. All right, thank you so much again, Caitlin. Thank you so much. This is really awesome. And honestly, I'm so, oh, I meant to tell you the other day, Kyle and I were, you know, bored. So we were going through these like question cards that I have and just ran. random questions. And one of them was who has had the most impact or influence in your life over the last year. And you're the very first person I thought of. Really? You are the first person I would think of as well. Thank you. You really like put my life on a new trajectory. I find you so inspiring and wise. And I feel like I have a new direction in life. Like I honestly am so interested in the enneagram. I want to pursue like becoming an enneagram coach. Oh, my, I think you'd be so good at it.

Oh, thank you. You're welcome. Yeah. I mean, A, your passion for it. And just I know how awesome you are at, I don't know, you're a good, what I want to say, like, I think you're a great example of how an INFP can, you know, really make things happen. Because you, I don't know, I find that so inspiring because it's so difficult for me to focus and nail down the direction. that I want to go with these million different ideas I have and stuff. So I think that the way you make

things happen, the way you put information together and the way that you dive deep and understand things, I think when you do that with the enneagram and you help people with that, it's going to be really awesome. I would love to. I feel like my mission in life and I would never have found it if it weren't for you. So thank you so much. I'm so glad we've inspired each other this year. That makes me so happy. Yeah, I feel like this, none of this would be happening. I was just thinking like, thank goodness, you know, there have been little nudges along the way to get these things done because I probably never would have done it. So I'm very, very grateful. All right. Well, I will talk to you soon, my friend. Thank you. All right. Talk to you later, Sarah. I'm so glad that you got to hear from

Caitlin today. I've been wanting to bring her onto the show for a while, even before she became one of my podcast students. I love personal development and believe that it's essential for living a happy and meaningful life. And so I'm just very grateful for everything that she shared with us today. And I mentioned before, I'm really excited about her new podcast, Life Within Enfp. And I will include a link in the show notes so that you can sign up to get notified when it launches. And again, if you would like my help in launching your own podcast, then visit sarahmicatel.com for more information. That's all for now. Thank you so much for listening. And have a beautiful and safe week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot?

I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.