Personality type is especially valuable for neurodivergent people because it systematizes things we find difficult to understand intuitively. The problem is that autism and ADHD make us nearly impossible to type correctly — including ourselves. Read more
Chairs (1970) Tom Berg
This is a guest post from a college senior I coached.
When my parents divorced, my mom more or less kept my younger brother and my dad more or less kept me. We each saw the other parent, but never very much and never for very long. My brother and I only saw one another every other weekend for the better part of four years. Read more
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
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
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
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
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
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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
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
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