Warming Up - Exercise 1

I plan to start my 365 Project next month, but I will do some warming up between now and then. That means I will pick out some pieces I wrote before and do something to update them for this blog. To get used to the idea of sharing my thoughts with others. The one below is the first speech I gave at Toastmasters, the Ice Breaker. The objective of the Ice Breaker speech is to introduce the speaker to the audience. It is an element of genius in the Toastmasters program because no one but the speaker is an expert on the subject. And that by itself removes some of the nervousness that new speakers feel.

My name is Sandra, and I am an INFJ.  While that may sound like an opening line for a 12-step program, I am actually quite proud of being an INFJ.  Are there any other INFJs in the room?

Is there anyone here who hasn’t completed at least one of the Foreign Service Institute's Leadership and Management Training Continuum courses?  That's where I learned about the matrix of 16 Myers Briggs Personality Types.

In my case, the first indicator, “I” for introversion, represents the source and direction of my energy:  I get my energy from my internal world.  When stress hits me, I retreat to a quiet place with a good book.  I find myself carried away in the worlds created by authors such as Iris Murdoch, Thornton Wilder, and Saul Bellow.  I am there with the protagonists as they face challenges and resolve them.  In doing so, I practice facing my own challenges, turning them into opportunities instead of problems.

The second indicator, “N” for intuition, represents how I know what to believe when facing the stream of information coming at me.  Unlike intuition’s counterpart, sensing, I don’t need tangible proof from the outside world to know what to believe.  My world is full of “facts” that cannot be seen, tasted, heard, touched, or smelled.  ESP is real.  Communication happens without telephone wires or radio waves or satellite signals. 

The third indicator, “F” for feeling, represents how I process the information in order to make decisions.  I make decisions based on emotion, not logic, or “thinking” in the MBTI vocabulary.  This is the indicator that has made me a believer in the MBTI matrix.  This is the indicator that has been the most difficult for me to accept.  The only unacceptable grade I can remember getting in school was an “N” (for “Needs Improvement”) for “Exercises self-control.”  Expressing emotion was not positively reinforced during my childhood.

So I spent many years suppressing that third indicator, feeling.  I used my childhood strategies for overcoming emotion – applying logic to every problem – to give the T of “thinking” in the MBTI world a boost.  But in spite of my protestations in the past, I admit that I have always looked for “signs” that my choices were right.  That’s not logic; that’s emotion.

And finally, the fourth indicator, “J” judging, represents how I use the information I receive.  I organize my life events and act strictly according to my plans.  I’m willing to adjust my plans when necessary, but I’m more likely to find ways to fit alternatives within my plans than to seek new alternatives or to improvise once I have begun as would someone with judging’s counterpart, “perceiving” indicator.  Once I find a car I want, I stop looking.  I don’t regret learning later that I could have gotten a better deal.

So what’s the bottom line?  How does the alphabet soup of MBTI attributes contribute to my self-portrait? 

First, being an INFJ puts me into a very exclusive group.  Just 1 to 2 percent of the world’s population fall into this group.  But what a group!  Other INFJs include former President Jimmy Carter, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Mohandes Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt; and just to ensure there is a little levity as well, Billy Crystal and Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau are also INFJs. 

Can you see why I am proud to be among such company?  We are “counselor idealists;” we hold deep convictions about the weightier matters of life, becoming activists for a cause, not for personal glory or political power.

Here’s what’s in it for me:  I like the company I am in.  And knowing that I am one of a very small group makes it easier to accept that I might be misunderstood by – or misunderstand – those around me.

What’s in it for you?  I hope that by sharing what I have learned about myself, I have provided you with a tool to understanding me, especially when I passionately leap into a discussion about my latest cause, my latest dream, my latest plan.  And I hope that along the way I’ll be able to sign many of you up as co-activists.