126. WHAT’S YOUR TYPE? How Personality Shapes Your Life

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Hi, everybody.

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.

This is Glennon, and we've got Abby Wombach.

Abby, say hi.

Hi, everybody.

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.

That's good, babe.

Meet Amanda Doyle.

This is sister.

Sister, say hello to the pod squad.

Hello, pod squad.

How is everybody?

Could everybody give me a couple words to describe how you're doing today on this day,

babe?

I'm doing great.

I got a workout in

and I'm going to be going to do a driving experience at the Porsche track in Carson, California this afternoon.

And so I woke up like a little kid.

Me and my friend Kara are going to do it.

It's been a dream of mine, my entire life, to go and have an experience, like driving a real car experience, because we don't really have fast, speedy, sparks.

So you're going to race cars around in a circle.

Yeah, but it's, it's not just a circle.

There's tests.

Like there's like a skid track.

There's a GeForce angular part of the track, there's a steering track.

Do you wear a helmet?

I'm sure, yeah.

Do you have to try to like park on a narrow street with lots of rearview mirrors?

No, because that's the test that I fail.

No, I'm exploring the power of a 9-11 Porsche GT3.

It's really exciting.

Oh, she just said a bunch of letters and numbers that are impressive.

I have, I'm extrapolating by inference.

What happens if you wreck the car?

I have insurance and I've gotten the extra insurance.

I paid $50 extra

to have a deductible if I were to total the car.

Okay.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

I took care.

Thank you, sister, so horrible.

Just didn't, I didn't review any waivers.

So flagging that for the record.

I did this one on my own.

I think I'm going to be all right.

Okay.

We'll get nervous when you do things on your own.

So today is an exciting pod.

I think we, all three of us, are psyched about this conversation.

Yes.

Which is something that applies to every single person

on the earth because it's about personalities

what is a personality how do we

forge our personality are we born with it is it is it maybelline is it maybe it's maybelline

how

do we figure out what our personality traits are and what why do we as people feel so desperate to figure out who we are why are we we always doing buzzfeed quizzes about you know what disney princess we are etc etc and what do we do with this information yes we don't have answers as always we just have lots of more questions so if you want to know more about yourself and your people and figure out how to use that information to get along better

listen up yeah this is like an informational tool yeah hopefully maybe it's helped me a lot it actually has helped me a lot over the past week as we've been studying this stuff what about you sissy

i wouldn't say it's helped me like in the substance of the tools but i think it's been interesting i have learned a lot i will say i don't know that it's helped me a lot and that's true me neither actually it hasn't helped me that much okay me too has it really helped you yes okay because i've been doing this for years this is not just something i've i've explored over the last couple weeks because of this specific podcast this has been a big part of like my leadership and learning about myself and learning about other people and what motivates other people, what moves other people.

Okay.

This is kind of a big deal, especially in sport.

Oh, because you have to get along with because of team.

Yeah.

Team building.

Other people.

Yes.

Okay.

Well, what do we think?

What is personality?

Okay.

You read to us that

definition that you found, babe.

This one?

Yeah.

Something about a person that impacts how they tend to think, feel, and behave on an ongoing basis.

Right.

Okay.

Something about a person that impacts how they tend to think, feel, and behave on an ongoing basis.

That's what I just read.

Right.

My personality is asshole because I'm a teacher.

It's a teacher.

Repetition.

I do think this is interesting, though, because we think of our personalities as something that we're born with a lot of times.

But actually,

Wouldn't the culture you live in and the family you live in and the way you grow up impact how you tend to think, feel, and behave.

This is this nurture versus nature question.

What do you think about that, sister?

Well, of course, it does.

I think there's a preliminary question that just, is there any such thing as a personality?

Yeah.

There's this Harvard Law School grad and feminist thinker that I like called Kara Lowenthile, and she talks about how we don't have personalities.

We have a collection of thoughts.

And personality tests are basically taking a survey of our unconscious, unmanaged mind.

So, when she's saying, when you're taking a personality test, it's not revealing the kind of person you are, it's the kind of thoughts you're having.

And the very idea that we're over

identifying with those identities because we believe they're inherent

instead of having this idea that that's just a collection of thoughts.

And as you do any kind of work on yourself or even think about your thoughts as not just automatic, that then that becomes a different collection of thoughts.

Interesting.

So tell me if this is what you're saying.

So I am a person who's worried or hyper-aware of money.

Like I have a scarcity about money, right?

I watch it carefully.

I try not to overspend.

I feel nervous that there's not going to be enough.

That is a

personality trait, I would say.

Except for if I started to go to therapy and they started started retraining my brain to think there will be enough, you will be whatever, then I might over time,

and if I found out where that came from in childhood, I might be able to retrain my brain, which would change my thoughts to there is enough, I'll always be able to have enough, whatever.

So does that change your personality?

And then that would change if I took a personality test a couple years later, I might not have that trait because it's actually just a thought pattern.

Well, that is true.

Yes.

It's not like you're going to take this test and necessarily 10 years when you take the test, you'll have the same results.

Right.

People can be static throughout their lives or they can change a lot.

And yeah, I think whether or not you believe there's such thing as a personality, even entertaining the idea that the way that you answer these questions has to do with the collection of thoughts in your brain.

And then it seems less axiomatic.

It's like, oh, these are based on thoughts.

And then I

think the second step, yes, malleable.

Malleable.

Right.

If it's not working for you and you wish to have different thoughts then that's a second step but i even think it's just recognizing these are thoughts i think personality is like the definition we read it's something about a person that impacts how they tend to think feel and behave so the idea of your personality like the way that this harvard professor said is you are a bunch of thoughts like that is what your personality is i think that feelings and the way that you behave are also part of that and and so do you you think a thought and then that creates a feeling and then that creates behavior?

Yes.

Is that like the basis of this theory?

Yes.

Okay.

Good point.

Yes.

That everything is, everything starts in our thoughts.

I think there's not going to be enough money and then I feel scared and then I act controlling.

Okay.

Thought, feeling, action.

I tend to feel and then think.

Whoa, that's so interesting.

I'm sure that there's some sort of science that's going to disprove me and sister's going to come with it any any second.

Well, I mean, that's based on, I mean, that's one of the,

in the tests we're talking about, that's what thinking and feeling are one of the two dichotomies that they classify people based on.

When I think about these personality tests, I think it's just interesting because basically

what they're doing is telling us what is

your

your natural predisposition, right?

Your comfort zone, what you go to naturally, it doesn't mean you can't do the other thing, but there's a bunch of different reasons why you might naturally go to something.

Exactly.

If you were raised in a volatile house, you might naturally feel more, I don't know, introverted or whatever that is, but that doesn't mean you were born that way.

Exactly.

Like if you think of one of the, you know, iconic tests that people are always pointing to, which is this, the Stanford marshmallow experiment, right?

Where they, brought kids in and they said, okay, here's one marshmallow.

You can either eat this, or if you don't eat it in 15 minutes, I'm going to come back and bring you another marshmallow, and then you'll have two marshmallows.

And so, based on this test, they extrapolated all of this

very wide-ranging data.

Like these kids who were able to restrain themselves from having the first marshmallow had better life outcomes, had higher SAT scores, all the life measures were higher.

And so they were basically like, this is

a key factor for the future.

Delayed gratification, right?

Delayed gratification.

So that study is cited a bazillionteen times.

That was based on 32 kids who are from the nursery school of Stanford University.

So these are necessarily like affluent, educated people's kids.

If you, it never could be duplicated with a diverse population.

So if you're a kid who grows up with food scarcity, if you're a kid who grows up with adults who are consistently lying to you, it is actually the smartest to take

marshmallows.

To take the first marshmallow

because you could never rely on anyone to give you the second one, even if they said they would.

So what I'm saying is I think that all of this is adaptive.

It's adapted to our environments.

It's adaptive to our trauma.

Our thoughts are adaptive.

Even our feelings, Abby, if you're basing your stuff on your feelings, what I'm saying is your feelings are adaptive based on your life.

I also was the one that ate the marshmallow.

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So regardless of whether it's immutable, personality is not, we're still obsessed with figuring it out.

I mean, the BuzzFeed quizzes, what character would you be?

What Harry Potter house

would you be?

We had a bunch of kids over the other day and they were making tea and they're like, okay, everybody say what kind of tea would each person be in this.

And one person was chamomile and one person was chai and like, what Disney princess?

The article about our podcast was like, are you an Abby?

Are you a Glennon?

Or are you a sister?

We are so into figuring out what types of people.

What is that about?

I think for me, it's a couple things.

Number one, I love when I read something.

that tells me that the way I am and all of my weird things are just like

because that's the type of person I am, not because of a bunch of inner flaws that I have to figure out that are totally personal to me and my fault.

That's, it makes me feel comforted because I feel like, oh,

this is just,

this is just a way of being.

This is a way of being.

This is not my personal shit.

It's like you only read or go after those things when you're feeling uber confident or uber sad to confirm your bestness and to confirm your worstness.

Maybe.

Yeah.

What do you guys think?

Why do you think that we are obsessed with these things?

I don't know that we'll ever know why, but we have been for only ever obsessed with it.

I mean, all of these Hippocrates, like yes, Plato, it's ancient times.

I mean, there was the early Greeks had their four temperaments.

One of them was melancholia, right?

That's mine.

Yes.

But then they've done studies in the 90s that are like, what are the motivations?

Why do people take these?

And there are three.

And one was self-assessment.

It's the pursuit of self-knowledge.

The second one was self-enhancement.

This is significant.

It's the pursuit of favorable self-knowledge.

We kind of latch onto the parts of the personality that are strongest or we view as most favorable.

And the third is self-verification.

It's becoming certain about things within ourselves.

But for me, I

I didn't realize I had any of this, but then I keep going back to the brainstorming list of podcast topics that we're all like throwing around.

And the one that everyone laughed at that I wanted to do is why

do i do what i don't want to do yes why why am i

why why why do i continuously do what i don't want to do in the sense of like why am i the way i am yes and it i think it's because

despite all of our advances we remain a mystery to ourselves that's right

it's it's part of the pursuit of solving the mystery of ourselves which we will never do

oh that's so annoying and i just think i mean,

I think I have always been a seeker, like trying to figure out more about not just the world, but myself.

If I can understand myself, maybe I'll understand the world better.

And I think there's something about safety in all of these testings.

Like, I mean, in Untamed, you talked about how we need to like strip away from all of the labels and the conditions that we were met with.

But I do think that there is a safety in labels and putting ourselves into into categories that makes us understand the world better or ourselves better.

Yeah, I think safety is kind of a big mechanism for me as to why I've wanted to do it.

And honestly, it makes sense because it's, it's not just how to see ourselves.

There is an insatiable craving to be seen and understood by others.

And we necessarily cannot translate who we are.

We don't have language for the fullness of who we are.

So when we can actually say, oh, look, this one thing, this is me.

And other people say, oh, I get that.

It satisfies this just very existential need that we have to be seen, even if it very inartfully describes us.

There's some nugget in there that we can say, this is me.

And that's a need too, I think.

And we need the and both.

Like, I think yay to that.

And also not just that, because like for me, I think about somebody who labeled herself or or allowed herself to get labeled so early as a straight person.

And so when you have an idea of who you are and you think that's immutable, you miss out on so many things.

Like I feel like I probably missed out on a million,

you know, relationship or whatever, all of these things that I would have had had I not allowed myself to be labeled in that immutable way.

Also, I think about thinking I was a freaking Pisces my whole life.

And then I find out that I'm an Aries.

I think half my problems is probably because I was following the wrong horoscope every single day.

You know, Tuesday morning.

That's the main thing.

If we were to go back and audit, it's definitely you were following the wrong horse.

I was open in Cosmo Tuesday morning.

Today's the day.

Go get them.

And maybe Aries said today is not the day.

And that is why everything

do not go get these.

Exactly.

But you know what I'm saying?

It's like we have to be careful.

Well, and untamed, we have to be careful about the stories we tell ourselves.

Like we have to hold these things very loosely.

Yes.

And because I think that based on all the stuff we're going to talk about today, like even like type A or type B, like in the culture that we live in, there are certain personality types that are seen as quote unquote stronger and others as quote unquote weaker.

And so we have to be really careful about putting ourselves in these boxes because sometimes it takes you.

out of what the culture sees as somebody who is successful or or whatnot, like type A's, type A's and type B's or extroverted and introverted.

Well, speaking of being careful, I mean, you also have to very carefully consider the source because

in type A's and type Bs,

the entire concept of type A personality arose from tens of millions of dollars of tobacco industry funding dating from the 1950s through 1997.

So it's ongoing.

And the whole purpose of those studies was to popularize the lie that personality, i.e., stressed out type A's, was the reason that folks were getting cancer and heart disease.

No.

So whatever.

Yes, all of that.

So, so they basically all of the money went into the studies to try to create this causal connection between personality so that cigarettes and cancer were just basically a symptom of the stress that type A's had.

Okay, so you're saying that that the study said, because what they needed it to say was that type A people are just uptight and so they have to smoke.

But that's, that's not, it's just the type A-ness that's causing it.

Type A people are predisposed to,

because they are so stressed out, are predisposed to getting cancer and getting coronary heart disease.

Incidentally, because they're so stressed out, they are also smoking cigarettes.

Yeah, it's nuts.

There is no causal link between the cigarettes and

the cancer.

So, I mean, tens of millions of dollars.

And now, how many people have identified themselves or others, including myself, with absolute certainty about type A's?

But that all came out of

a

very clear intention to nefarious motives.

Shields.

I think about that all the time with drinking.

It's like, oh, there's those people who are broken, as opposed to like the actual concept of alcohol being fucked up.

Okay.

All right.

So while we are going to hold all of this loosely, because we are going to be very careful about the stories we tell about ourselves,

it's still fun and cool to do these tests, figure out some stuff.

figure out a little bit of why we are the way we are and also learn about our people.

Because

what I find is,

like when we did this test, we did that, we were talking about the Myers-Briggs test today.

And when you did your test and I read all of your stuff, this thing happens where I'm like, oh, I can stop taking that thing she does personally.

That's something that I think is really interesting.

It helps you take what other people do less personally, which takes the charge out of, well, that's what understanding does, I guess, when we understand each other a little bit.

But it's interesting because I think we talked a little bit about this, that when you look at your own personal results, it's harder to take that less personally.

Like the criticisms that we have on ourselves.

Like when I read your results, I'm like, wow, this is so informative.

And I'm going to use this in the next time we have an argument or in my daily life with you.

But when I look at my results, I'm like,

oh.

Did you not see yourself in them?

No, I did.

I guess I like when I see my results, I only look at the things that annoy me the most about myself.

And I'm like, oh, it's so annoying.

I mean,

it reminds me of, I was reading Jessica

Kantrowitz's new poem yesterday, and the first line was, just because I am overwhelmed doesn't mean you're too much.

And that, to me, is a

great example of what these tests do.

It's like, end both.

Like, I can be overwhelmed and this cannot be good for me.

And you are not too much.

You are just right for you.

But the interaction of our personalities at this moment means

a new thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a chemical reaction, like an energetic chemical reaction that happens between two people that is not necessarily my fault, not necessarily your fault.

It's just that moment.

Yeah.

Well, the Myers-Briggs, okay, developed most popular personality test in the world, 2 million people take it a year, made by two people, two women, and a mother and a daughter.

A mother and a daughter.

And the New Yorker article I read, one of them said that they did it to make people less unhappy.

Which I was like, okay, that's good.

That's kind of like right in line with what we're trying to do with this podcast.

It won't fix you, it just will make you less unhappy.

They basically took Carl Jung's

theories of personalities.

He's the one who came up with introvert and extrovert and a bunch of other stuff.

He also is very problematic for a lot of reasons.

But he, they basically wanted to take his research and find an easier way for people to be using it in their everyday lives.

So they spent years on this.

And some people think it's nonsense, and some people live by it, and that's great.

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I think it's important to talk about it's used all over the place.

I mean, it's 88%

of companies use this in their hiring and their trainings, and it's used in universities and churches and the military and all of that, we should say, like any value of this test and understanding each other is great, but it also should, in my opinion, absolutely not be used in hiring decisions, in university acceptance decisions.

There was a recent lawsuit by an Asian American group against Harvard because they used this this very specific personality test in their admissions process where Asian Americans were routinely rated lower on things like positive personality and courage and likability and being widely respected.

So there's inherently all kinds of class-based, gender-based, race-based biases in the interpretation of this data.

So

not for that purpose, please, world.

Okay, great.

And other things, you know, like it's self-reporting.

So you're answering your own questions about yourself.

So self-deception is always, you know, a factor.

How honest are you?

In reporting your own self?

And also, the Myers-Briggs is largely based on binaries, right?

It's like, are you this or that?

Are you this or that?

And that's the challenge that I have with the test.

Oh, God.

You two know I'm not.

Sitting next to Glenn and taking this test, she's like, What do you think I am?

Well, nobody's one thing or the other thing.

Like, I feel like we're all the things on before 10 a.m.

on Tuesday.

So, anyway, the binary of it, this or that, is challenging.

But it's based on

four and five now, five areas that are kind of like more,

they call them traits okay and they could be seen as habits or ways ways we lean one way or another the first one is are you introverted or extroverted okay now we know that most people are ambiverted right or both but is that a word amperted is that a word or did you make that up no no that's a real word actually now and now you're making me doubt it i don't know maybe i made it up

I feel like it's a word.

I love this.

I mean, it wouldn't be the first time.

If it's not, it should be.

We're making it.

So

introverted or extroverted we're going to tell pod squad we're going to tell you what all of these categories are so you can figure out kind of where you land in this the test gives you a bunch of questions to decide whether on any given day you lean more towards introverted or extroverted our definition of that is do you feel more energized and comfortable turning towards your inner world or your outer world

Okay.

I like that.

Do you feel more energized or comfortable?

Because people usually just say energized, but actually I don't always want to be energized.

Sometimes I'm just going to my comfortable, safe, cozy place.

Yeah.

The other ways that it's described is, you know, what feels like the real world to you.

Does the real world feel like the outside world or your inside world?

And, you know, where do you make sense of the world?

Do you make sense of it on the outside or do you make sense of it on the inside?

Okay.

Oh, I like, I love that.

So introverts would turn towards their inner world more.

Emotionally, they'd value their own thoughts and decisions more.

They tend to to enjoy deep and meaningful social interaction, and their recharge comes from spending time alone, where extroverts enjoy focusing on the world around them.

They tend to be action-oriented, feel energized by social interactions, and this outward-facing view does tend to make them more collaborative.

So we all tested, you will be stunned to know, I tested 80% introvert.

I couldn't believe there was 20% extrovert in me.

I always love the introvert-extrovert thing because

I think a lot of introverts end up feeling like there's something wrong with them because our world is so focused, kind of built for extroversion.

It's celebrated in our culture.

Right.

And I think what what introverts end up feeling or the line on us is that we don't like people.

So introverts are like curmudgeony, mean or you're shy,

shy, weak, right, unapproachable, yeah, weak, unable to handle.

These are words that are incorrect.

They're just so incorrect.

They're incorrect.

Yeah.

I mean, to all my introverts out there, I think about when I was little and I used to, I remember when mom grounded me outside.

I would get grounded like, you have to go outside.

You're grounded for three days.

And that means you have to go outside after school every day and do what, God knows what with all those people, you know, or we'd go to a babysitter and I would just want to sit inside and read after school day.

Like,

and then, and we'd have to go outside and play.

Yeah.

Palet.

What the hell is that?

You know, I think about people who

take a lot of baths and we think, oh, we just love water.

Like, no, the bath is the only socially acceptable place in a home where people will give you alone time.

You can be like, I'm taking a bath.

And that means it's your only excuse.

to be alone.

Or, you know, I think of a party, you want to go to a party, babe.

To me, a party, if I go to a party, it's, I am doing my own exposure therapy.

That is what a party is to me.

It's an attempt to

be less agitated by an outer world situation.

What did you all get for yours?

You got.

I'm 60% extroverted, ironically.

Isn't that so interesting?

Only 60%.

I've gotten less and less extroverted as I've gotten older.

And I think that our lifestyle now, I think COVID really helped me settle into like learn more about my internal world and spend more time alone.

I think that the older I get, the more to the middle I become on all of these tests.

Yeah, that was my issue with it too, Abby, is the binary idea because

I got extroverted, but I got 51% extroverted.

And on any given day, it'll be like 49.51 the other way.

And that's the part that I I am just like, that that is very imprecise because it's like saying there's tall people and there's short people.

So if you are five, seven and a half, you're tall.

And if you're below that, you're short.

So, so the five, seven and a half people are tall, and so are the six, five people.

It's saying that the five, seven and a half, and six, five are the same, and they're not.

Just like if you're 51% or you're 90%, you're the same.

And so for me, that is just one of the very imprecise parts about it.

And I think people who know me not well might be surprised that I have that much of an introvert in me.

And this goes with the over-identification with an identity.

If you're just assumed to be a certain personality, you think something's wrong with you

when you're not complying or not feeling healthful with that identity.

So I do

need time with people and I also need a lot of time without people.

And unless I knew that I was so closely matched on both sides, I might think, what's wrong with you that you need to be alone during this time?

You know, especially because so many people would label you as an extrovert.

I mean, I used to think that I was 100% extroverted.

And I think it's just because I was so scared.

and maybe afraid of myself.

Like, I think I was so scared to be alone, be by myself.

Like any ex of mine would be like, yes, 100% extrovert, scared to be alone.

And I think ever since I met you,

I have not just watched you and your introversion and self-awareness.

And I don't know, you've given me the confidence to be by myself.

I think it's your sobriety that's given me the confidence to be by yourself.

I don't think it's me.

I think both.

I think it's like.

When your inner world is at peace,

because it's not full of, you know, shame and all of those uncomfortable things, It becomes much more comfortable to be with yourself and be at peace.

You also like to be alone.

So I have to like get good support.

Yeah, that's right.

I can't feel that.

It's adaptive.

Yeah.

I've been telling you.

That's right.

That's good.

I mean, you know, and I think to all of my introverted friends.

It affects everything.

It affects family life.

Like I will, so how often is the whole family inside, like being together?

And I will be outside on the deck reading.

And I'll always feel guilty.

I'll look in and be like, aren't I supposed to be?

you do?

Yeah, I do.

A lot of times I look in and I'm like, I should want to go in there.

And those are the people I love the most.

Yeah.

And I also think the introverted, extroverted thing shows up in

the way we are in the world in practical ways.

For example, my sometimes what would be perceived as spaciness.

getting lost all the time in the car or just like wandering into rooms and not knowing why I'm there or leaving my coffee mug in the dryer or finding my phone in the the refrigerator, like all of these things.

I actually think that's completely tied to introversion, extroversion in terms of where I'm turning is my internal world.

I might be walking around the place, but I'm like sleepwalking because I'm inside myself.

It's because we actually were more present on our inside than our outside world.

So we're in the outside world, we're like running into walls more.

It makes me feel a little sad that you feel guilty because if you were to come inside and be with the family, you would probably not feel a kind of inner peace and you would do or say or be a way in that family environment that actually made you feel bad because you would be

you know, so it's like,

do you, will you ever feel that, that peace about being this introvert?

Because you're always like on the outside and I should be being a different way.

Yeah, I don't, I hate that.

I hate that for you.

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I think about the story Brene told where she

actually told her little boy that she couldn't go to his school event because she was too tired and she just needed some alone time.

Yeah.

She's an introvert and she felt so guilty because she's violating the mom rules.

And then later, her little boy came and said, I'm, I didn't know we could do that.

I sometimes don't want to be to go to the things.

I sometimes need time alone.

But he had never seen introversion positively modeled as okay, even when it butts up against cultural expectations.

And so, in

saying what she needed,

she

freed him.

And I I think about, you know, this weekend, we had a friend who wanted to come over.

And I love this friend, but I was tapped out.

And I, I, the second she called and said she wanted to stop over, I started to feel

truly, it's so weird, like clenchy and like angry,

close to angry.

An introvert can feel like somebody else is taking the time we need.

It's almost like you only have enough food and somebody's taking that food from you.

And you know, you need that food to be nourished and to feel peaceful and to carry on.

And somebody's going to take it from you.

But then I remember, I only feel angry when I've given away my power.

So I said, I really want to see you, but I can only see you for a half an hour.

I'm just tired and I need this time.

And please allow me to just say what I need.

And she was like, yes.

Like she was so wonderful about it, came over for half an hour.

And like for introverts, we really need those, that structure because

we do want to have friends just as much as everybody else.

That's the thing.

I

cut out people from my life for a very long time, not because I didn't want people, but because there were no structure.

So it felt all or nothing to me.

Yeah, that has been my experience.

And I think that that is a

really like varsity level

understanding because it is much easier just to like sulk away and hide than it is to say,

I

want and need you in my life.

And also I have this other set of needs that means that it only works for me under these parameters.

And so disappearing, which I've done a lot, is

easier than having the courage to acknowledge that

you are going to ask to both have that person and have that person under the conditions that work for you.

So, I think that's great that you were able to do that.

And I do think that it would probably work a lot better for a lot of people if they were able to.

Because when you invite someone into your house, shouldn't you be able to like decide how and when and for how long?

If that's what you need for during the time, you know, I mean, sometimes you might want it open-ended.

The second criteria that they base on is either sensory or intuitive.

So, sensing people tend to take an information through their senses.

That's how they got that.

And they focus on here and now.

They trust in the certain and the concrete.

They value realism and common sense.

They present information in a step-by-step fashion, work well with details.

Okay.

Intuitive people.

are future focused, trust inspiration and inference, value imagination and innovation.

They are bored easily after getting really good at tasks.

They present information through leaps in a roundabout manner.

And they tend to be general and figurative.

So that's the dichotomy we're working with there.

Okay, I want to tell a story to like get to what Abby and I have decided this category is about.

Okay.

Can you guess which category she is?

Because in describing this category, she'd like to tell a story.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Your whole list thing sounds like Charlie Brown lists do to me, though.

here's a story.

Okay, so we're, Abby and I are on a little vacation in the desert.

We walk or walking.

We approach this cactus.

This cactus is so gorgeous.

And so we stand, I stand in front of the cactus and stare at it for a little while.

Abby comes and humors me by standing next to me and staring at the cactus.

Okay.

We're on a couple's retreat.

Abby says to me, okay, what are you thinking?

After like five minutes, I turn to her and I say, I am looking at this cactus and thinking about how much this is exactly like people.

Like people who do not have enough water and food in the soil of their lives, they end up having to grow prickly.

And then everyone thinks they're prickly and mean, but really they had to grow these spikes in order to defend themselves against not having enough nutrients in their soil.

Prickly people are that way because of

their environment.

And I said,

what are you thinking when you look at this cactus?

And Abby said, I'm thinking, look,

a cactus.

Okay.

So to me, that is the difference one example of the difference between

an intuitive thinker and an observant thinker and one would think that the intuitive thinker is like deeper and like whatever but actually most spiritual guides try to get us to the observant place because when when abby's looking at something she's actually seeing what it is

she is seeing it for what it is a person a place a moment she's seeing all the actual beauty and cactusness of the cactus.

I am looking at it thinking, I could make this shit better.

And just

that's true.

That's true.

Right.

Yeah.

Like, what's the truest, most beautiful cactus I can imagine?

It's not this one.

I'll tell you what this means.

Like, it's taking up, there's beautiful parts of both, right?

Writers, poets, we're probably intuitive.

But I think sort of looking at something

and

seeing for it for what it could be can make make for a beautiful activist, can make for a beautiful, but also probably makes for a pretty hard partner.

No, because I'm always trying to change people.

No, you make it interesting.

Okay.

Are you kidding me sitting there looking at that cactus?

I was bored out of my mind.

And when you went into your story, I was less bored.

I was just standing there next to you wondering, when is this going to end?

That's why I asked you what you're thinking because I knew you'd make it better.

So,

and I think that's probably why we work so well together.

You know, you might want to see things maybe in some ways just for how they are and what they are giving you in that moment, not for what you can make it give you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you think about this category, Sissy?

It's like the practical doer versus the like imaginative dreamer, right?

Which we need all, maybe?

Yeah.

I think we need all.

I think this is where it probably works well in teams to be able to identify the values because I think you could easily see

how

the practical person on a even a work or a family team could begin to resent the imaginative person

and vice versa saying, you know, I'm building this thing,

but really you need, you need the person who's at the 10,000 feet and you need the person in the weeds.

Without either one, you're not building much.

So

I think that's great.

I was hiking with Chase recently

and I'm walking.

You've used this story like 10 times.

I think you just really want to convince everyone you're going hiking a lot.

This is a different noticing.

This is a different noticing on the hike.

I had a lot of spiritual discoveries on that short hike.

Okay.

I was hiking and I was like, I couldn't figure out whether to look right in front of me so that I didn't trip.

or look way ahead of me so I could see everything beautiful.

Interesting.

But I couldn't freaking figure it out.

Like, do I keep looking down and miss all of the beautiful things?

Or do I look up and fall on my ass?

And that I never get to the beautiful things because I've broken my ankle falling up.

Exactly.

What did you fall on?

Like, what did you land on?

Well, no, I mean, I just kept looking up and down.

And honestly, that makes you a person a little bit dizzy.

So I thought is anyway.

I'm like so retroactively nervous that you've fallen down this

mountain.

You're here.

You're alive.

It's all good.

It's something and both.

It's something both.

Y'all, we have loved this conversation so much that we are going to continue it into the next episode.

So let's stop there.

Maybe

your next right thing could be to go take one of these tests.

Yes.

So that when you come back to the next episode, it will mean more to you.

So find it somewhere on the web.

We use

16personalities.com.

We have no connection with them.

We're not vouching for them.

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Take it.

Come back.

Be with us next time.

And we will continue to try to figure out the mystery of who the hell we are.

See you then.

I give you Tish Milton and Brandy Carlisle.

I walked through fire, I came out the other side.

I chased desire,

I made sure I got what's mine,

and I continue to believe

that I'm the one for me.

And because I'm mine,

I walk the line.

Cause we're adventurers, and heartbreaks are back.

A final destination

lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a heart again.

I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

I'm not the problem,

sometimes things fall apart.

And I continue to believe

the best

people are free,

and it took some time,

but I'm finally fine

because we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

Our final destination

we lack.

We stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a hard thing.

to adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

We might get lost, but we're okay with that.

We've stopped asking directions

in some places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do hard things.

Yeah, we can do hard things.

Yeah, we

can do hard

things.

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