I'm an "ESFJ" Personality Type

After taking a short Myers Briggs personality type indicator assemssment, the results listed that I was an ESFJ.

Extrovert-Sensing-Feeling-Judging

• Extroverts tend to be more outgoing, talktative, socialable, and assertive.
• Sensing types use an organized structure to acquire factual and preferably quantitative details.
• Feeling types consider how their choices affect how their choices affect others; weighing options against their personal values more than rational logic
• Judging types prefer order & structure in relationships with the outer world; enjoy control of decision making and want to resolve problems quickly.

Personalityportrait.com describes ESFJs as "The Caregiver". [see link for full description]

Myer's Briggs is designed to:

• identify the way people prefer to percieve environment
• obtain and process information
• measure how people orient themselves to outer world

For me, the Myers Briggs assessment has increased awareness about my character and behavior. As stated in previous blogs, I'm currently experiencing a high level of evolution in regards to my growth & development. One of the first steps is to understand yourself. If you ever have the opportunity to take the MBTI assessment please do so. I also encourage comment posts to share and discuss different personality types.

REFERENCES

McShane, S., & Glinow, M. A. (2008). Organizational Behavior. New York: McGraw Hill/Irwin.

My Dear Friend, Pandora!

Oh how I love my friend Pandora, she knows exactly what music to play during any given moment. Music is such a great reliever of stress.

Lately I've been listening to Pandora as I prepare for class in the morning, & I can testify that this certainly makes my mornings start of awesome! Playing air guitar in the mirror while brushing my teeth with my crest spin brush couldn't get any better.

Just in case you aren't up to speed. Pandora is an internet radio application that plays music tailored to the listener's taste. How so? First you select a genre, artist, or song and Pandora will play songs similar to that particular category. Then as the user continues to like/dislike a song selection, Pandora will take note of music that the user does/doesn't prefer.

Pandora, she knows me so well.

When stakes are high!

Communication is recognized as one of the most critical skills in the business world. Casual dialogue is the most frequently used form of communication. One moment, you could be conducting a friendly safe discussion and then all of sudden, it takes a turn for the worse. Sporadically, voices are elevating, tempers are flaring, and you are completely oblivious how this innocent conversation turned into a explosive battlefield.

Soooo....what do you do when emotions are raging and the stakes are high? Well my friends, that's for you to discover. Fortunately, I'm going to suggest another book that I recently read entitled, Crucial Conversations. Believe it or not, there is a technique when manuevering around these heated interactions.

This book has helped me to be able to recognize when a crucial conversation has taken place or about to take place. Instead of feeling intimidated, I become encompassed with excitement for the opportunity to practice and improve my newly acquired communication skills.

Crucial Conversations is a great read!

Reason, Season, & Lifetime

One of my mentors shared a valuable piece of wisdom with me. "People come into your life for a reason, season, or for a lifetime." However, I'm puzzeled on how to disguish on which people in my life fit into which category.

When it comes to business settings, I can be a social butterfly. I have the ability to create genuine positive relationships in the professional environment. Unfortunately, I wish I could say the same for my personal life. Although I choose to keep a small "circle", something inside me wants to be able to open up, and let people in, actually allowing myself to trust people. Supposing that safety is of greatest concern, I fear of becoming vulnerable. My expecations for people's character are relatively low; therefore, I hesitate to engage in personal relationship, assuming that eventually, I will one day be betrayed.

Through growth & maturity, I've become more able and confident to having deeper personal friendships. Inner strength has served as a leverage in my life, to not only invest in personal relationships but initiate them as well. Learning that building human relationships is a skill in the business environment, I've been able to apply those skills to manage the relationships in my personal life.

Friend or foe, I'm learning to appreciate every encounter with people, for there is something valuable to gain from everybody. So I often ask myself "Why do I want to risk safety and trust people?" Well, to be honest, I really want people to want to take that risk with me. Let's just say that I've experienced my fair share of reasons and seasons and not enough lifetimes.

Learning - A Delayed Reaction

Sometimes we learn some of the most valuable lessons in the most unexpected way.

In my ealier college years, I remember taking a couple of GE courses in world literature instructed by professor Dr. Lisowski. His class included one simple daily routine assignment that has made his class unique compared to any other class I've completed. Students were not required to participate in this assignment and those who opted to do so, did not receive any credit towards their grade average. My professor called this assignment, "Active Critical Thinking".

At the beginning of each class, Dr. Lisowski would reserve a section of the dry erase board and label it "Active Critical Thinking". While Dr. Lisowski conducted roll call, students were free to post anything on the board that provoked (the title of this assignment) active critical thinking. This post could be a quote, phrase, picture, word or even a single character. This post did not have to relate to world literature. In fact, most of the time, none of the posts were related to the class whatsoever. Once Dr. Lisowski finished calling the roll, he would dedicate about five (5) minutes of class discussion for any posts on the board.

This activity was a great way, (especially for those 8am classes) to get students' minds stimulated. A lot of times students would post quotes that were significant to them personally. One student posted a quote in Latin that I had seen for the first time, "Dubit ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum", meaning "I doubt therefore think, I think therefore I am." Sometimes the posts were simply random, yet entertaining and humorous. I remember one Friday morning, a student posted "TGIF". Often times, the mornings after a televised sport event, one might post "How about them (sports team)".

Surprisingly, the meanings to most of the posts were not so obvious and discovering the message was an exciting challenge. It was very satifying to see my peers contribute in this activity as it also increased my interest in learning.

I really appreciate Dr. Lisowski including "Activity Critical Thinking" as apart of his routine lesson plan. He would only serve as a moderator during this activity; however, he would occasionally engage in class dialogue considering he was learning just as much as the rest of the class. But I believe he thoroughly enjoyed the interaction amongst his students as they particpated in healthy positive discussion.

Empowering students to discuss topics that we deem important and challenging our minds to determine the meanings of these posts has accomplished what I suspect few teachers have, promoting students teach students.

Thank you Dr. Lisowski and I apologize that it took me so long to understand and value the lesson you were trying to teach.

A New Addition to My Shoe Collection

I know it's not the Italian handcrafted dress shoe from Johnston and Murphy, but it is still a very stylish shoe in my opinion.

I found this mahogany Alfani dress shoe on sale for $49.00 at Macy's. This shoe has a very sleek, sophisticated, and polished finish to it. I've been wanting a new pair of brown dress shoes for quite some time, & I've finally made the investment.

I'd really appreciate your feedback, positive or negative, I can roll with the punches.

7 Habits You'll Want to Pick Up

Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has published one of the best pieces of literature I've ever had the pleasure of reading.

A good friend and mentor recommended this book to me a while back when he introduced Habit #5 (Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood) as apart of his leadership development presentation to myself along with my fellow student government cabinet members. Ever since, I've been anxious to get my hands on a copy so that I could absorb as much knowledge from it as possible.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is about focusing on paradigms. Our paradigms often hinder us from successfully performing tasks, completing projects, and managing human relationships to the best of our abilities. Covey explains that we often try to solve problems without analyzing the symptons to provide an accurate diagnosis. Before we fully understand the delimma we automatically shift responsibility on others. Our paradigms however, are frequently the issue and they simply need maintenance to eliminate and prevent future issues. We can alter our paradigms by improving our habits. This book outlines 7 effective habits to succesfully enhance our paradigms.

Habit #2 talks about "Beginning with the End in Mind". To know the end, you have to know where you going; therefore, Covey includes an exercise that involves visioning your own funeral. While reading this book, I did practice this activity. I imagined myself driving to my funeral, noticing who attended, observing their facial expressions, and listened to Eulogies from friends, family, co-workers, and church members. I even approached the casket to see myself lying there lifeless. The objective is to listen to the eulogies to determine what the end is, in other words our deepest goals. This exercise will then help you to develop your own personal mission statement. I haven't written mine yet, but I will publish it as a blog post as soon as it is finalized. This was just one of the many interesting activities this book has to offer.

I encourage you to purchase this book to not only read for yourself, but to keep in your personal book collection for reference and review. There is so much knowlege in 7 Habits for Highly Effective People that you will want to read it multiple times.