Why personality type doesn't actually matter

In?my courses about personality type, INFJs ask the most questions. ENTJs ask the fewest questions.

The only type less fun than an INTJ is an ISTJ. So if an INTJ wants to look fun they need to marry an ISTJ.

ENFJs were the nicest about me being late to every webinar and they were the type most likely to book a one-on-one coaching session after the course.

ENFPs take the?personality test?the most times and they get the most varied results.?When I tell them that, they still take the test a million more times.

Melissa?is the person I had the most fun doing courses with. We were both learning so much from each class. That’s the thing about courses — don’t ever take a course from someone who isn’t learning alongside you. Otherwise they won’t be engaged in the material. I remember that from college. The graduate level courses where the professors taught obscure topics from their unpublished books were the best courses because they were using each class to work out one of the chapters.

The courses weren’t as fun when Melissa wasn’t there. But you can really only motivate Melissa with interestingness. Money doesn’t motivate her. Well, she?is?motivated by relationships. She’s loyal. She might be the most loyal person in my life, to be honest. I have fired her 400 times. She stopped working for me many years ago and then I couldn’t fire her anymore so I just started firing her as my friend.

It’s super messed up. But even as I write that sentence, firing her as my friend, I admit that it’s almost comforting. Because she knows I have a problem and she is still there for me Melissa edited this post. And even though I get angry at her and rogue post without having her edit, if there’s a post in the last ten years that you loved, Melissa edited it.

If there was a post in the last ten years that you hated it was probably from a time I was really lonely. People ask me questions like, “What is the personality type that is always pushing away people who are nice to them?” The answer is that trauma trumps personality type. It’s so lonely growing up in an abusive home, and it’s so crazy comforting to recreate that loneliness wherever I go.

Now that I’ve mastered MBTI I always have my eye open for other useful tests, so I was struck by this AMA on Reddit: I got a 0 on the ACE and a 7 on the PCE. Ask me anything.

I looked up?ACE. It’s a test of 10 traumatic things that can happen to a child. In the US 65% of people will have a score of 1. About 13% of people will score about 4. I got a ten. I thought maybe I was answering the questions wrong, so I googled to see if a parent being arrested means I should answer yes to a parent being in prison. The answer I found was directed to healthcare practitioners, about how common it is for people who answer yes to a question and then to try to backpedal to the practitioner how actually it wasn’t that bad and tell them that the answer maybe actually should be a no.

Oh.

I looked at?the PCE. It’s a list of 7 things that happen before you’re 18 that build resilience. I read through the beginning quickly and score zero. What? I google what if I score zero on the PCE and I see that lots of people are triggered by the test questions. That makes me feel better. I read through the test again slowly and notice each question reminds me of all the times I tried to get people to help me and it didn’t work. I give myself two points for believing in my own abilities.

I read the test again to see if I’m a good parent. I panic that this is actually the list of what’s important in parenting but no one told me. It’s all about are there people in the child’s life who love the child and are available for the child. I want to give Z the test, but he’s an ISFP, he’ll just answer the questions in a way that he thinks will make me feel good. So I take a different tactic. I ask him questions at random times.

While we are setting the table for dinner I say, “Do you feel like you can talk to your family about your feelings?”

“Huh?”

“I’m just asking. I want to make sure I am supporting you.”

“You can support me by giving me your fries.”

“Okay you can have my fries. Do you enjoy participating in community traditions?”

“What are you even talking about? We don’t have a community. Is this a meme?”

It took me a few days to recover from that.

Later, while we were walking the dog, I ask another.

“Do you think there is an adult who loves you and cares about you besides me?”

“Melissa.”

This answer is nothing to him. Just another one of my crazy questions.

She has literally been the most important person in my kids’ lives. I can’t believe it. I’m impressed that she’s been able to maintain herself as such an important person all these years. That somehow she has known all the right things to do. I’m very impressed. I have to confess that I’m also a little surprised. I chalk that up to me having no idea about any of this stuff. I mean I scored terribly on all of this.

But it’s the culmination of everything I’ve learned from the last ten years of studying people and personality and patterns. That none of it matters. What matters is keeping people in your life and treating them with respect. That makes a good family and a good life, and we each have to overcome all our personality conceits in order to do that.