Ozempic is the on/off switch I’ve been looking for

I spent ten days preparing for my court case, telling myself each day that tomorrow I wouldn’t need to prepare anymore. But when I get so focused on something I can’t get enough of it. I bound out of bed in the morning because I’m so excited to think about it and have new ideas to organize. And then I thought: this is why autistic people are so effective at what they do. But also: this is such a dangerous skill to have. Because it’s destroying my life. Where is the rest of my life while I’m doing this

Read more

/0 Comments

Three questions. One type.

I don’t use personality type systems the way they’re taught. Memorizing what each letter means is just the entry point. After that, it’s faster to stop using the system directly and start using pattern recognition instead. Read more

/1 Comment

Why no one interviews me anymore

A few months ago, someone emailed asking to interview me about my writing routine. His name was Hao. He runs a publication called Famous Writing Routines. I said sure.

I’m publishing this interview because it’s the most honest thing I’ve ever accidentally said about writing. I don’t know what it felt like for Hao, but he never published it. So here it is: Read more

/5 Comments

New personality posts + Why we mistype the people we love

Most people don’t mistype strangers. They mistype the people they love.

That’s what I realized after years of using personality type in parenting, partnerships, and work. I knew all the frameworks, but I still got my family members wrong over and over again. The problem wasn’t the system. The problem was that I was emotionally invested in the wrong version of them.

This is one of the biggest weaknesses of personality typing: it only works if you’re honest with yourself, and most of us aren’t. When we’re close to someone, we don’t type them based on how they see the world. We type them based on how they make us feel. Read more

/0 Comments

My kid crushed every title I suggested

My oldest kid sent me an email with the subject line: “DO NOT LET Z SEE THIS EMAIL UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES OR I WILL KILL YOU AND HIM.”

She was telling me she’s trans.

When she was really young she wore girl clothes. I went with it for a while. We have pictures of her in a tutu. At Target she insisted we shop in the girls’ section. But around age five we said that’s enough. And she said okay. Read more

/4 Comments

Personality type posts! Come and get ’em!

Each week I post about personality type. If you don’t want to miss a post, subscribe!

INFJs are not negative; it’s fundamentally positive to think everyone can do better

INTJ: What happens when you optimize the wrong thing

ENFP hazard: learning forever, producing nothin

INFPs don’t need motivation, they need inevitability

ENTPs think rule-breaking is why they succeed

ENFJ trap: turning parenting into coaching

INTPs don’t need to master emotional conversation — just show up

ENTJ danger zone: I should just take this over

/0 Comments

How to fill an empty nest? With beach volleyballs. Of course.

I coach a recovering alcoholic and she tells me about the power and confidence she felt when she was drinking and how much she misses that. I wonder about my own power and confidence. I thought it would come back when the kids left for school. Read more

/6 Comments

This guy said I charge too much for coaching, then he showed up to my door

There are some people I’ve been coaching since they were in high school. Usually their parents pay for the first few sessions and then I get overinvested in the kid.

So I have to stop and ask myself: “Does this family have $30,000 for me to coach the kid for a year?”

Sometimes the answer is yes, and then my rent is on time for so many months in a row that the landlord stops by to see if I got married. Read more

/25 Comments

Friends vs special interests: Which is more fulfilling?

Melissa wants you to know that she did not edit the post about how doctors are the most annoying of all the professional women I coach. I did not, in fact, write that in the post. Melissa points out that it’s what I was trying to write, but I got distracted piling on all the links she’d normally be taking out. Read more

/15 Comments

Boys in crisis: the decay of masculinity and how to renew it

Feminism provided girls with a whole new language to express the myriad problems-that-have-no-name, but there have been no credible equivalents for boys. In fact, the definition of masculinity seems to be contracting, according to Peggy Orenstein.

When asked what traits society values most in boys, only 2% of male respondents in PerryUndem’s survey asked men what traits society values most in boys, 2% answered honesty and morality, and 8% said leadership skills—traits that are, of course, admirable in anyone but have traditionally been considered masculine. Orenstein says that when she asked boys what they liked about being a boy, most of them drew a blank.  One college sophomore said, “Huh, that’s interesting. I never really thought about that. You hear a lot more about what’s wrong with guys.”

Here are some areas where we lack clear language to describe a phenomenon the media covers over and over again:

Read more

/59 Comments