Episode 17: Using Myers-Briggs to Improve your Life with Dr. Alan Mueller

What if you could understand, not just yourself better, but the people around you better so life could feel less chaotic?

Have you ever felt like you are playing a role to fit in rather than being yourself?

If so, this episode is for you.

In this episode with the amazing Dr Alan Mueller, you’ll learn how your personality type influences the way you energise yourself and how you make decisions. We dive deep into how knowing your Myers-Briggs personality type can help you build greater self-awareness and self-compassion; both essential skills to move your life in a positive direction.

Episode highlights:

• The history of the Myers-Briggs personality tool and its surprising creator
• How your preference for introversion or extroversion plays out in your work and personal life
• Knowing what gives you energy and what drains it
• What it’s like to have a resting ‘Mitch’ face 
• An insight into life as an introvert from an extrovert’s perspective
• What each of the four letters of the Myers-Briggs system represent and mean for you
• How to know when you are pulled out of type
• A free resource to uncover your type
• The lowdown on Alan’s brilliant course to take this work to the next level

I thoroughly enjoyed this episode, chatting with Alan gave me a wonderful insight into the value of the Myers-Briggs system and I know you’ll get A LOT out of listening too.

Access Alan’s course here.

Visit Alan’s website www.adaptivechallengeconsulting.com

Connect with Alan on LinkedIn here.

Are you fed-up of having your life ruled by stress? If what you need is more calm, better focus and improved productivity instead of constant frazzle and overwhelm, you'll love my brand new Stress Less PDF Guide.

Inside you'll find 21 practical, actionable stress reduction strategies to help you get your groove back. Buy the PDF guide here.

If you know you want more from your life or career but you're totally stuck about where to start, I invite you to book a complimentary strategy call with me here.

We'll uncover what's holding you back from the goals you want to achieve and you'll leave the call with actionable steps to get you moving in the right direction.

For the tea on me, how I work, who I coach and the packages I offer, please visit my website - www.emmaobriencoach.com

You can also connect with me on Instagram @emmaobriencoach where I share an abundance of tools, strategies and brilliant content, you might also see the occasional dog.

Check out two of my FREE online workshops:

My 7 Step Formula for Getting Unstuck

4 Ways to Stop Procrastination in its Tracks...

Transcript

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Emma O'Brien: Hi folks welcome to episode 17 of the lemons and pineapples. Podcast today, my guest is Alan mueller. And we're talking about how to use the Myers-briggs personality typing tool to tap your authenticity 1st a bit about my guest, Dr. Alan Mueller is a passionate advocate for authentic transformation. 

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Emma O'Brien: He's a former improvisational comedian with a doctorate in leadership, a rare combination. To be sure, he's an expert in personality type and uses storytelling and humor to help others learn welcome to the podcast Alan.

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alan: Thank you. I'm so thrilled to be here.

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Emma O'Brien: This is going to be a very interesting conversation, because the one thing that we didn't mention in your bio is that you're also a feminist man, which is why you're here talking in this series. It's very much about women and women's empowerment here.

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Emma O'Brien: So when it comes to Myers Briggs, I don't know very much about it, I can tell you. I'm an Infj.

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Emma O'Brien: However.

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alan: Well, I can't really.

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Emma O'Brien: Tell you what that means. Apart from it means I'm an introvert. And then people listening to it will be going. Really, you've got a podcast and you're all over social media. And you're an introvert. So I'm looking forward to hearing about how using my as Briggs can help us really with, get more self aware, be more emotionally intelligent, and and live more authentically. So

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Emma O'Brien: kick us off by sharing what the Myers-briggs personality typing tool is.

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alan: Sure. Sure. So the Myers Briggs is based on Jungian psychology.

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alan: But a woman in the in the Us. Named Isabella Briggs Myers. Her name's backwards from the Myers Briggs. She came across Young's work right around the World War, 2 era, and in the United States something was happening, particularly with women in the United States, which was women were entering the workforce in a a bunch of new sectors. Prior to that era in Us. History. Women were told largely by society.

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alan: Hey? Do you want a job? Good news! You can be a nurse or an elementary school teacher. Those were your options, right? That society presented. Yeah, and then fast forward to World War. 2 and many men were off to war. And suddenly women were entering all these new fields right. There's a famous icon in the Us. Known as Rosie the Riveter, and she was sort of an icon of the feminist movement. But riveting is welding bolts onto ships and submarines right?

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alan: And so Isabella Briggs Myers was very concerned with women entering different sectors in the workforce and keep in mind career centers as we know them in the United States weren't really a thing. And so she was concerned about, how could she and her contemporaries do some discernment and learn about themselves and their personality that would help them make that next decision.

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alan: And so she created the Myers Briggs. It's now the most widely used psychological instrument in the world. I think it's translated into 80 or so languages.

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alan: And there are some some disadvantages to it as well. But I became certified, and it's used so that I can help people navigate the disadvantages and use it as a proper tool, use it as a tool that will aid in communication aid in understanding aid in leadership and management, interpersonal relationships, all of these things. And so that's sort of where it came from. And it's named the Myers Briggs, because

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alan: Isabella Briggs Myers named it in part to honor her mother-in-law, Catherine Myers, who was a graduate, I believe, of Michigan State University, and keep in mind that if any, if any of your listeners know us history, and know that Isabella Briggs Myers was operating in the World war. 2 Era.

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alan: her mother-in-law, would have been a generation removed. And so it was a little remarkable for her to already have a degree in psychology, because the college and university system in the States was overwhelmingly dominated by men at the time, and so she named it in homage to her mother-in-law, who helped a lot with building the instrument. So that's why it's called the Myers Briggs after Catherine Myers, even though Isabella Briggs-myers did most of the building of the instrument.

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Emma O'Brien: I love that. And I love that. We're talking about a typing tool that was created by a woman because I've spoken to a couple of people on here about Enneagram. So I know there's a lot of different personality tools. But Enigram, of course, was created by 2 guys. I think, unfortunately, we're in a world where we're still

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Emma O'Brien: following a lot of systems that are mail created. Not that that's, you know. Not. That's a bad thing. I'm not here to man. Bash! But I think it's it's a refreshing change to

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Emma O'Brien: have something that's, you know, female created.

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alan: Very much so, and I mean so many instruments in the career counseling world. John Holland was one who created instruments. And so it's so when Isabella Briggs Myers came on the scene, she she made some waves, but but the best kind of waves, you know, and like you said, you know th these male dominated instruments and such. Sometimes they're just bad. And and other times they're just incomplete because they weren't taking women to account. And so so I like to sift through the ones that are just full of misogyny, and really, really bad, and then ones that

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alan: it's like, Well, you've got a good start. But let's let's talk to some women as we develop this theory further.

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Emma O'Brien: Yeah, absolutely. I'd love for you to share. I think if I'm correct, there are 26 different types in mys.

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alan: Sort of their 16 official.

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Emma O'Brien: 16. There we go. Okay, yeah.

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alan: Yep. And so I heard you mentioned. Infj, I'll I'll start by mentioning that thing you mentioned about introverts and extroverts, and this is fascinating, and it intersects gender a lot.

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alan: You know. So Jung and Isabella Briggs. Myers believe that we are born with a preference for introversion or an extroversion, one or the other

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alan: sort of like right handed and left handed. I'm gonna use this metaphor a little bit because I'm right handed.

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alan: However, I don't know if you know I can. I'm the for your listeners who can't see this. You see me on the video. I'm lifting my coffee mug with my left hand, and I can take a sip with my left hand.

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alan: I'm using this metaphor intentionally to remind people that when we start talking about your type. That's a preference like, I'm right-handed. It doesn't mean I don't have a left hand.

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alan: I've heard in your podcast. Conversations about the heart and the mind, and how the heart and the mind communicate with each other. That's the right and the left hand in many senses, right? And so extrovert and introvert is similar in that regard. So extroversion is about people with a preference for getting their energy from the outside. You know we call these people person or or outgoing or gregarious or charismatic. The people who I've never met a stranger, those kinds of tropes in our society about people who are just outgoing and get their energy from outside

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alan: introverts

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alan: energized from the inside. I've been married to an introvert for 28 years, and so I can tell you that when she's had a rough day.

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alan: She wants to sit on her spot on the couch, read her book, maybe her one best friend, her one show that she's watching, but there's an energizing from the inside that's happening.

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alan: And so again, introverts can act, extroverted. It just takes energy away. Extroverts can act, introverted. It takes energy away. So keep in mind this isn't about what we're capable of. Oh, my goodness, we are all capable of whatever.

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alan: However, we each have a little preference on the front end of what energizes us more quickly.

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alan: One of the things I mentioned. That intersex gender a lot. When I do this with large groups. I'll break them into extroverts and introverts, and I have them ask each other questions which is hilarious. It's so funny because the extroverts don't spend much time thinking about introverts. So there's sort of a privilege aspect, in a sense.

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alan: And most of the extroverts. Questions to introverts are are subtly sort of framed around. Why aren't you more like us? What's wrong with you? Those kinds of questions, right? But one of the things I love to ask extroverts, I say, look across the room

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alan: and look at the men and look at the women who are in your introvert group.

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alan: And then I say to the extroverts. Dear extroverts! How many of you have ever heard the phrase resting? Mitch face Mitch with an m

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alan: And they've never heard this phrase, and I say. Well, there's a reason you've never heard this phrase, because men can be introverted and nobody bothers them about it. Men can be introverted and quiet in the workspace, quiet in the home space.

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alan: and and people don't create stereotypes about them being quiet, whereas with women who are quiet, we know what rhymes with resting Mitch face. Right? We know what there are tropes that women deal with, especially in the workplace. That are about being aloof or standoffish or frigid, and all these phrases right in the Us. And we have a very complicated history with race women of color deal with an extra set of stereotypes on top

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alan: of the ones that all women deal with, where it's attitude and things like this that get ascribed. But it the reality is, there's no such thing as Resting Mitch Face for men. And and similarly, I've been alive for 50 years. I've never had a stranger approach me and say, Oh, honey, you need to smile more. I've never had that experience as a man.

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alan: and I'm confident that most women have had that particularly introverted women

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alan: who might just have a regular face walking around town, and some guy thinks, Oh, it's my job to tell them to smile right. But but introversion isn't always emoting externally, and so that's 1 of the prices of introversion. Yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: Yeah, and it's it's really interesting. So I would class myself as an introvert. But

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Emma O'Brien: I'm kind of happy with the social media stuff. But you know, because I kind of got you've got to do it in this day and age of running an online business and chatting one-on-one to you is great, and there's lots of people listening to this. But I'm not really, you know I'm not. If I if I start to think too heavily about that.

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Emma O'Brien: and I'm quite happy. I spend a lot of my time at home on my own. We've got the dogs with me, but some it's usually me at home, and I'm quite happy.

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alan: Yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: Whereas my husband is an extrovert. He loves a group holiday. It's my idea of hell he loves, you know, hanging out with people and just chatting shit all all the time, and I'll kind of well, if I want to speak to people, I'll speak to them, but otherwise I'm not gonna go out of my way to be making conversations. So it's this delicate balancing act. And it sounds like in your house. You've got a similar dynamic going on as well.

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alan: Very similar to anyway. And so my oldest son and I are both extroverts, and my youngest son and my wife are both introverts, and my oldest son is away at university now, and so I'm at the home with 2 introverts, which is an interesting experiment, and both of them leave the house every day, one to go to school, and one to work at a school, and I'm a consultant, and so I do most of my work alone at home. And so it's really when they come home from work or from school, they just need quiet

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alan: for for like 30 min to an hour, and when they get home from school, and it's the 1st humans I've seen in 8 HI need to talk.

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Emma O'Brien: Yeah, so we.

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alan: We have to. We have to negotiate this one other thing that's fascinating is that introverts and extroverts perceive the passage of time differently. And this is I I learned this over time, but now I do this in my workshops.

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alan: I'll sit in Sil. I'll I'll ask all of my participants. I'll say we're going to sit in silence. I'm not going to tell you how long.

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alan: and then they get to guess at the end how long the silence was

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alan: the introverts. Guess it perfectly.

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alan: They guess I give them a multiple choice. Was this 60 seconds, 90 seconds, 2 min or 2 and a half minutes. The introverts understand how time moves through silence, and they're like that was 90 seconds. And I'm like you are correct.

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alan: Meanwhile the extroverts who've been sitting in silence, for only 90 seconds have been fidgeting nonverbal.

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Emma O'Brien: Bye, now.

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alan: With each other.

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alan: and they're like that has to have been 3 min at least. Right?

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alan: And the same thing happens. Sometimes I go to the grocery store with my younger son, who's the introvert.

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alan: and I'll see somebody with a shirt from my old university, or I'll see somebody with you know, just a commonality, and I'll strike up a conversation.

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alan: That conversation may only be 2 min, but my introvert son thinks it's going on for 10 min. Oh, my gosh! Where is this conversation going?

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Emma O'Brien: They could stop.

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alan: Make it stop. This has gone on for an hour now, and it's been 3 min, you know, and so we each perceive time passage as different, based on what energizes us right? And so understanding this can help with the 1st 3 years of my marriage. Oh, my goodness! And you may resonate with this the 1st 3 years of my marriage, I constantly ask, my wife, is something wrong, are you okay? What's wrong?

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alan: Yeah. And so, because as an extrovert. If I see someone being quiet, I associate that with me with a problem.

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Emma O'Brien: Yeah.

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alan: But but that's not a problem. That's the that's the that's like water to fish.

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Emma O'Brien: Yes.

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alan: Is, is, introverts to quietness and and air to birds is like talkativeness to extroverts. Right? So it's our natural environment. And so it took me some time to stop projecting onto her, you know. Yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: Yeah. And I think it's so so valuable to know this difference between introversion and extroversion. Because

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Emma O'Brien: I think a lot of the problems we have in interpersonal relationships, and communication comes down to

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Emma O'Brien: the fact that we don't really understand other people's differences, and we don't take them into account.

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alan: Yes.

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Emma O'Brien: And it's just so important to realize that actually, there isn't. Somebody's not sulking because they're quiet. They're actually maybe recharging because they've had a meeting, and it's been a lot.

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alan: Rights.

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Emma O'Brien: And you know you kind of almost need to find your extrovert club to go and you know, chat to if you can't be quiet, and I and I I wonder, listening to this, if there's not

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Emma O'Brien: sometimes an opportunity for introverts

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Emma O'Brien: to put themselves out of their comfort zone a little bit.

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Emma O'Brien: and for extroverts to learn to sit quietly, sometimes a little bit, because that's hard.

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alan: It's yeah, it's so important. And the difference is, I tell people this all the time. Is that so? Introverts are pressured to act extroverted all the time. Right? Everybody in Western society celebrates extroversion. Right? We look at Hollywood and Bollywood, and we look at these places that celebrate the outgoingness.

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alan: and Isabella brings Meers in her book, talked about extroversion as a privilege. Right? I spent a lot of times in in universities and colleges as as a administrator and also a professor, and every time I handed out a syllabus that said class participation 20 points.

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alan: I recognize that every introvert in the room may have felt anxious about how much participating will I have to do.

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alan: Every extrovert in the room probably thought to themselves what.

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Emma O'Brien: Yes, free!

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alan: Points. Yeah, and so.

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Emma O'Brien: Sorted.

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alan: Exactly. And so there's a big difference and something else. You said the the second 2 letters of the Myers brings. If can I talk about those a little bit here.

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Emma O'Brien: Please. Yeah.

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alan: The the second lever is about how we absorb the world. So you mentioned n intuition.

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alan: The the 2 possibilities for the second letter are intuition or sensing

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alan: intuition. Intuition is people who absorb the world. This is all about how we absorb the world, how we see the world, or hear the world, or whatever senses we have around us.

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alan: You. If if infp is your type or I'm sorry, infj

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alan: you absorb the world through the patterns you absorb the world through the meanings you absorb the world through the connected knowing. And that's how you absorb things. Meanwhile there are people with a sensing preference who absorb the world stepwise like it's a like. It's a giant outline. I often put a picture up in front of my audiences.

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alan: and it's a fantastical picture that looks like it was from Ireland. It has stone carvings and children riding a rhinoceros and birds, and the sensing people will look at the picture, and when I ask them to describe it, they'll say there were 3 children. There were 7 birds. There were 12 stones with designs, and they list the picture as they had absorbed it in pieces. The intuitives will say.

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alan: I'm expecting a hobbit to come out from that. That rock cropping, or those aren't stones with designs. Those are gravestones. The intuitive view is, I'm going to read into what's in the picture.

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alan: not what's on the picture. And so when you think about your audience, this, your podcast audience. When you think about audiences that people speak to and live, and in person, half of your audience

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alan: is intuitive and half is sensing.

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alan: So the very best speakers I know will give some examples, so they'll give some concrete examples of of an outline and some statistics for your sensing audience.

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alan: and then a story to make the statistics come alive about a real human who was impacted by whatever we're talking about to make sure that the intuitives are on board. And so the second letter is about how we absorb the world around us. I'm an intuitive like you, and so I absorb the world in patterns

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alan: that sometimes means I miss some details.

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Emma O'Brien: Yeah, but you know.

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alan: Times, what? Yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: A bit of detail between friends. I mean.

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alan: I will drink to that. What's a bit of details with my friends? I love that I love that

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alan: so that second letter is how we absorb the world. But then the 3rd letter and this, this really plays into gender a lot, especially in in the Us. A little bit less so in Europe, and less so in Africa, but in the Us. And in South America very prominent. The 3rd letter, thinking and feeling is how we make decisions every day.

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alan: And so it's not how we absorb the world. That's letter 2. It's how we at. We've absorbed the world. Now we need to make a decision.

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alan: And are we gonna make a decision with thinking or feeling?

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alan: Thinking is logic and principles. First, st

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alan: feeling is person centered first, st Isabella Briggsmeyers warned us to not think of feeling as emotional, because as a woman, she already knew that emotional was becoming a stereotype, and she wanted to fight against that. So, she said. Person centered versus principle centered right? But just like driving an automobile just like driving a car. I use both of my hands right when I make a decision, and I heard a little bit of one of your podcasts. The heart and the mind are constantly communicating

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alan: in Jung and Isabella Briggsmeyer's framework.

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alan: One of them is in the front seat, and one of them is in the back seat, right? One of them subconsciously. So feeling is I'm driven by people-centered decisions first, st and then principles and logic will come along as they're needed.

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alan: and people with a thinking preference. It's the other way, principles and logic first, st

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alan: and then we'll consider the good of others as we go right. And so it's a little bit. That's that dichotomy there, which is a very gendered thing in the United States, 65% of women in the United States score feeling. And about 65, 66% of men score thinking.

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alan: And so that's very much. I I think that's more a condition of socialization in the United States than than our nature. Maybe. Yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: Yes, this is so interesting cause this has has kind of given me a lot more of a a sense of of kind of how my sprigs works, and then I'm a as I'm listening to you of how one would start to apply it

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Emma O'Brien: to to life. There's 1 more letter which I'd love to hear about. And then I have a couple of other questions for you.

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alan: Yes, yes, the last letter is a little. It's easy to understand in one way, and complicated in another way, so I'll give you the easy one. The easy one is the last letter is judging or perceiving.

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alan: And 1st of all, judging doesn't mean judgmental. We have a connotation in our world about judgmental. But judging and perceiving ultimately is sort of our social, organizational style. So the easiest way to tell this is, if you have colleagues in your office space, or if you have family in your home, some of their workspaces are very tidy. Some of their workspaces are very organized. That's Jay, judging. It's people who are oriented towards closure

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alan: some J's, for example. And this is a common experience for people with A. J. At the last letter they have a to-do list, and if they do something that was not on their to-do list, but maybe perhaps should have been, they will retroactively go add it to their to-do list so they can have the joy of marking it off as complete. Right

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alan: judging behavior is about closure and and organizing and completion.

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alan: The opposite is perceiving I'm a perceiver. I have a to-do list, and I rarely would

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alan: retroactively add something to the to do list for the joy of that I have no relationship with my to do list. My my to do list is just a tool to me.

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alan: and I'm very happy happy with open ended. I'm very happy without closure.

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alan: And so with more options. I know right that that look on your face. This is the judge. This is the judging in the perceiving dichotomy right, my my wife happens to be an Infj. And my younger sons and infj, so I I've spent

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alan: many years interacting with Infjs. And so so for the J. It's it's about closure. One thing I tell people, too, about in Fj's, and this is one of the things that so many infjs have told me

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alan: is oftentimes in a restaurant they'll be looking at a menu, and they know they have one good thing that they love.

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alan: But there's a constant wonder. I wonder if there's something that's better on here. I wonder if there's something that's better, and that J, that intuition and that feeling, the intuition is. There's a bigger picture here. I'm absorbing this whole menu through a patterned way, and that that J at the end is like.

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alan: I know I have a thing that I like. But do I have the best thing? Is there a best thing on the menu that I could be having, that I'm missing out on right, and so J. Is oriented towards closure, and P is oriented towards possibilities. And so this is a lifelong thing. If you saw my office space. It's it's not very tidy. It's pretty messy, but I have to learn to be tidy as as I go. Kind of like often introverts are pressured to learn to play extrovert. In a sense, you know.

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Emma O'Brien: Yeah. And I guess it's it's being aware of your innate traits. And

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Emma O'Brien: like you've said working with them, some of them need.

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Emma O'Brien: And I don't want to use the word to be improved upon, because that's not the right word to use, but some of them need to just be finessed a little bit.

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alan: Yes, yeah. And and and the reality is so many of us in our workplaces and our home places. We are already being pulled out of type, as we say, pulled out of type.

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alan: If you can study it. If you can learn your type, then you can at least understand what's going on.

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alan: and if you're in a workspace or in a home space, or wherever you are, if you can have this conversation with your work, best friend, or your supervisor, or your significant other, or a child.

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alan: or a friend

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alan: having this intentional conversation means that when you're working out of type you're aware you're aware of it, and you can talk about it. And that's so empowering, because, instead of just being sort of subconsciously pressured to fill roles that we that we don't want to fill, and again, mostly done roles established by patriarchal ideas. Right?

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alan: Most filling those when we're just sort of being pressured into it is different than if we're having this conversation out loud, you know. And so there's there's a lot of power. And and I also tell people, if you're an introvert. Just be an introvert. Don't pretend to be an extrovert, but

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alan: when you're at peace, when you're when you are, when you have energy to spare.

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alan: run some experiments and practice extrovert a little bit

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alan: same with extroverts. I tell extroverts, extroverts, you know how you're always the 1st one to talk every once in a while.

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alan: count count to 90 in your head, which is only 30 seconds, because you're an expert, but count to 90 in your head, and let some other people speak as a way to practice. Still, don't, don't forsake who you are, but practice with an intentional way. If that makes sense. Yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: Yeah. And I think that's just such such a brilliant piece of advice. There, I've got a friend who is also an introvert, not the same, quite the same type as me, and she, in fully understanding herself, knows she's got limited social time with people. So she

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Emma O'Brien: She's also an Enneagram 9. So she's done quite a lot of work to get to the point where she does what I'm going to tell you, which is, she will manage social, interactive time. So she will, I mean and cause I'm I'm someone who can just sit and chat for ages. So she'll say to me, I've got half an hour for this conversation.

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Emma O'Brien: Okay? And she might say, if we go to her house, for instance, actually in the you know I love you all very much, but I need you to be gone by half past 5, cause my my extraversion is going to run out at that point, and it's about guarding. She guards her her boundaries around her energy really?

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Emma O'Brien: Well, so.

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alan: And I, and I love what your friend says, which is, I love you all, and I need my me time.

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alan: And so one of the things that introverts deal with is, if extroverts invite them somewhere, or if extroverts want to linger longer at the event.

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Emma O'Brien: That.

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alan: If I, if I say I need you to go, extroverts, will take it personally, because that's how extroverts are right. And so your your friend sounds very wise because she's saying I love and appreciate all of you, and

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alan: I need, and I need some me time, because the the when that 1st part, isn't there? The extroverts could leave feeling hurt, leave feeling bruised, leave feeling not wanted.

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alan: Yeah. And so your friend is very wise. I'm a kudos to your friend, yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: Yeah. Yeah. Well, she's she's a wise being.

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alan: It's like, here's who I am, and I understand and see and recognize fully who you are, and I can speak to both of these needs. I can speak to your need to run, to be reminded, dear extrovert, that you're valuable to me, and that I love you

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alan: and my need for some some alone time, so get out of the house, please.

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Emma O'Brien: Well, folks listening, who, I think, after this conversation, if they don't know what their Myers-briggs type is, are going to be like. Oh, my God, I have to find out now, is there a resource you can recommend for people to go and do a test, because I know there's a Bajillion of these tests online, is there one in particular you recommend people go and do to get a real, accurate

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Emma O'Brien: typing test done.

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alan: Sure, sure. So there's a free one that's available online that I'll mention in just a moment. I do wanna say that one of the best ways to get a good understanding is to to talk with someone who's Myers-briggs certified because one of the things that happens when we take this instrument is our minds. We all play many roles right? I play the role of father and the role of spouse, and I was a dean at a University, and all of these roles that I play when you take the Myers-briggs or any young based typology.

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alan: it's best to imagine what we call your shoes off self that that self of. I am relaxed. Nobody needs something for me right now.

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alan: And I say this as as a man I play even less roles, right? Women play additional roles just by nature of the fact that they're women and societal expectations, and such.

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alan: But so to try. I imagine myself at Epcot, at Disney World, sipping some espresso, and I'm retired, and nobody needs anything from me. Right. Somebody else is gonna do the dishes. Someone else is going to cook. There's gonna be. Everything's gonna smell nice because it's Disney. Everything's perfect.

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alan: And I imagine that mindset before I take the instrument. The reason that's important is because maybe at work you have to be more extroverted, or maybe at work. You're a P, which is the open ended, and you have to be more J, be more closed ended because it's a work environment

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alan: that can show up in the instrument, and so it can give you a false reading if that makes sense. So that being said

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alan: for those of you who are still curious and want to like tentatively dip your toes in this one of the better websites for a free version is human human metrics.com.

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alan: And so human metrics.com has what they call the young typology test. And so again, the Myers-briggs is based on Union psychology. The young typology test, and it can give you a good feel. And again, I hope your listeners understand that the very best situation is, and for some people how you get to that relaxed shoes off self. It's different for different people. Some people it's a glass of wine for some people it's meditation for some people it's sitting by a beach. Whatever the case is

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alan: to try to get yourself there before you start answering the questions, because the questions are very situational, right? The questions, I mean, this is not one of the questions. But do you like hard or soft? And I'm like, I don't know. Are you talking about a good chair for my desk or a pillow like what what you know. Give me some context, right? And so so when you think about your shoes off self, that's the best way to take it. So human metrics.com is one thing, and then also my course that I and we can talk about this later. But my course

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alan: takes you through the process of discerning before you take the instrument. That's 1 of the great pieces. Is that

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alan: having a conversation about well, where do you get your energy.

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alan: or when it's time to absorb the world, do you absorb through patterns and intuition? Or do user observe through direct individual pieces of the picture like a sensing person having that conversation first, st

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alan: then taking the instrument to be another expert in the conversation, and then sort of sit down with that person to sort of break the tie to really discern your type.

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alan: But for the short term people can visit human metrics.com. They can take the young typology test, and they can do some preliminary reading about about what their type might be right. And if you take that instrument, I would say, if you really get in that mindset if you get in that mindset where you shed all the roles where you know if you're a caretaker for an elder in the home, or children in the home or fur babies in the home, or whatever, who constantly meet us.

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alan: If you can

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alan: turn off that switch and it's hard. It's hard because I I can't turn off my dad's, which I I would. My younger son's 15, and 2 days ago I checked to make sure. He was still breathing when he was sleeping like.

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Emma O'Brien: I don't know what this is about.

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alan: Like right? I mean when when they're one and 2. That's sort of normal. But he's 15 now, right and so to switch that off is hard work. And so but that's the best you can do in trying to discern your type. Yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: Yeah, so it's it's almost kind of putting aside your

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Emma O'Brien: masks. You you wear in different situations. And I think that's quite hard for a lot of people, because

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Emma O'Brien: we're often very forced into so many situations where we have to fit a mold that you can end up actually losing touch with who you fundamentally are, which is a whole other conversation entirely to be honest. But

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Emma O'Brien: starting with the the Myers Briggs test is Gonna give you a really great insight into your your way of being in the world. And then, like we've said, when you know why, you do certain things.

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Emma O'Brien: you can perhaps have a little bit more self-compassion

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Emma O'Brien: if you think I wish I would stop doing stuff like that and actually work with what you have, or as we've touched on. If you need to polish it a little bit and and come out of the

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Emma O'Brien: whichever letter box you happen to be in, you can gently start to do that. And just.

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alan: S-.

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Emma O'Brien: With kindness to yourself. I think often we're so mean to ourselves, and I think introversion and extroversion is a perfect example of if people are chronically shy.

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Emma O'Brien: If you beat yourself up about it.

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Emma O'Brien: it's you just erode your own self confidence, and if you're fundamentally introverted, it's time to have a look at. Well, maybe I don't want to be going out with big groups of people. Maybe I could rather see the friends in a group of 2, or individually, and and actually

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Emma O'Brien: speak your truth and say, God, these big gatherings, actually so uncomfortable for me, could we do something else? And when you understand yourself better. I think it's much easier to assert your needs, which

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Emma O'Brien: makes life flow a lot better.

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alan: All all about that. And and and I think that one of the things that I spend a lot of times doing is coaching extroverts to understand introverts better introvert introverts, understand extroverts very well because we're loud and because we're

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alan: because society is built around us. But I asked extroverts for example, when I break them into groups, I say, dear extroverts, how many of you wear earbuds or or headphones without listening to any music or any sound.

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alan: and the extroverts look at me like I'm like I'm speaking another language. They're so confused, and I turn to the introverts, and immediately all of the hands start going up because introverts have grown accustomed to. I'm going to bring a small social barrier with me into a large social situation. Now this does intersect gender. I do have extroverted women who are like well, sometimes when I'm at the gym, and I just want to be left alone. I'm like, yes, fair. That's very fair, because guys at the gym don't behave.

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alan: And so so, but that social barrier right and understanding the our different needs. And then the other thing about this is the Myers brings is preference, but it's not skill. And so so people at at my my doctorate in leadership, and so many people equate

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alan: extroversion and leadership. And I'm like, we need to stop this. My friends, we need to stop this, maybe speech making. And being in the public face is one tiny aspect of leadership. But, oh, my goodness, friends, there's so many more important aspects of leadership that aren't on stage, and not just that. But some of the best speech makers I've known are introverts in the United States. We had Barack Obama.

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alan: who was an introvert, and arguably the best speech maker I've observed in my lifetime, and an introvert right? But so introversion is a preference about how you energize. Your skill is something you build over time. Now it is fair to say that I mentioned right-handed and left-handed. I'm more skilled with my right hand than I am with my left hand.

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alan: because I have a preference for right-handedness. So sometimes skill can build on top of your preference. But they are different things, and so the like. You said, like, I say, understand yourself so that you can stretch yourself when you want to, so you can stretch yourself intentionally instead of accidentally. Yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: I love that, and I think that's what a wonderful place for us to bring this to a close. Here is

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Emma O'Brien: choosing when to take yourself out of your comfort zone. Why are you taking yourself out of your comfort zone? What's the benefit for it? And when it comes from that it's easier to do that with confidence rather than like, Oh, God, I have to do this.

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Emma O'Brien: It's nothing ever good comes from a place of forcing yourself to do something you don't want to do.

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alan: Agreed, agreed so so wholeheartedly agreed yes.

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Emma O'Brien: And can you share a little bit more about your online course for.

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alan: Sexual.

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Emma O'Brien: I'm going to pop a link into the show notes so people can access it. But just talk to us a bit more about what's included with that, and why it might be of benefit to take that.

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alan: Sure. So my website is adaptivechallengeconsulting.com.

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alan: And what this course does. It's about a 5 h self-paced course. But what it does is, it takes you through each of the 4 letters of the Myers sprigs, but in a very nuanced way.

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alan: and then, after you discern your type. And this happens about 2 and a half hours in 3 h. In there are advanced levels of understanding. The Myers brings. We mentioned that there are 16 types. But these 16 types also sort of fold into 4 meta types that are very practical when it comes to relationships when it comes to the workplace. So in my course, as it helps you discern what your type is in a very deep way.

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alan: It also helps you understand how your type operates under stress because the Myers-briggs letters. We have 4 letters, but there are hidden letters that operate when we're under stress helps. You understand that Isabella Briggs Myers called it, our Blind Spot, our psychological Blind spot. It helps you understand how to manage stress. And then I have several sections on. Okay. Now you know your type.

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alan: How do you think about this from an interpersonal vantage point with with relationships? How do you think about this in a leadership setting? How do you think of it in different ways for the application. So I I took 20 years of me doing these workshops all over the United States, and poured my heart and soul, and it took me about 4 months to put this together, and it just went live in December. And so it's it's live, and I think it's it's a very affordable way

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alan: to really take a deep dive, because a lot of times people take the instrument that they're not imagining their shoes off self. They're just taking it on their lunch break, and then they get a reading. They read some descriptions, they read what famous people are like them, and they go about their business, and that's good. It can help you start the conversation. But if you really want to learn, and also one of the things I'm proud of myself about is that

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alan: I'm an academic, but only accidentally so. I'm very blue collar in my real life, and was an administrator for 20 years. Well, before going on to get a doctorate and joining the Academy. And so one of the things that I love about this course and that I bring is, I'm taking

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alan: Doctoral Master's degree and doctoral level concepts, but just making them plain, making them as plain as possible through metaphors, through analogies, through stories, so that we can really understand this because so many of the people in the Academy use so much fancy language. That's unnecessary.

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Emma O'Brien: Yeah, totally. I I, I sort of get very put off by jargon. And I think I, you trying to sound clever or yeah, no. I was just thinking as you're talking the accidental academic sounds like the perfect title for A podcast or a rock band. I don't know.

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alan: Or Iraq. And yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: Rock band. Alan, thank you. I'm going to pop the link to the course in the show notes. Where can people connect with you online?

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alan: Linkedin is one of the best places. And so adaptive challenge consulting. We are on Linkedin. We're also on Facebook as well. Adaptive challenge consulting a few other social media platforms. But Linkedin and Facebook is where we spend most of our time updating you on free. We have a free webinar coming up in a little bit. And we offer free webinars with some regularity, and many of them are on personality type. So yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: Brilliant. I will share all the links in the show notes. Thank you again for joining me. This has been a really fun conversation, and I've learned a lot, and I've really enjoyed spending time with you today.

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alan: Thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate it.

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Emma O'Brien: Thank you for listening today, folks. I really hope you've enjoyed today's episode, and I will see you next time, bye, for now.