An Ardent Plea

Have you taken the Meyers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator yet?

I have been infatuated with this temperament test for 5 years now, ever since I was introduced to Please Understand Me II (D. Kiersey) by a friend at work. I've taken it in a variety of forms: long vs. short, online vs. paper, at work vs. at home. Almost every time I take it, I second-guess myself into thinking that I will get different results than before - but it has never happened. I am unbelievably consistent.

When you're taking the test, go with your gut instinct - you may waver in-between questions, but go with you do or think most often.

Here is a bit of info on what the letters and their combinations mean:

NF: Idealist - abstract in terminology, cooperative in tool usage
NT: Rational - abstract in terminology, utilitarian in tool usage
SJ: Guardian - concrete in terminology, cooperative in tool usage
SP: Artisan - concrete in terminology, utilitarian in tool usage

E: Extroverted (energy from people)
I: Introverted (energy from being alone)
N: Intuitive (abstract)
S: Sensing (concrete)
T: Thinking (decisions based on logic and reason)
F: Feeling (decisions based on feeling)
J: Judging (not judgmental - judging. Having a basic instinct on what you think/feel)
P: Perceiving/Probing (having to probe into things to see what you think/feel)

Read Please Understand Me II for a deeper understanding. It is written in layman's terms; it costs 15 dollars and is available at your local bookstore. But take the test online first. When you've completed the test, google your letter-combination: for example, INTJ or ESFP. You'll find several different sites with descriptions of your results. I like the pages within the "Portrait" family. You'll see what I mean.

If your curious about me, I am an ENFP: The Champion. Or, as this page says, The Inspirer. And yes, this description describes me to a T. There are things within it that I've never been able to verbalize, but when I read it, I thought, "That's it!! How did they know??"

A word to the critics: This test is not meant to pigeon-hole folks. It points people in a general direction rather than forcing them into a particular mold. With 4 basic categories and 16 different sub-categories, there is a lot of wiggle room.