unlocking the mastermind & becoming introverted

today was our all-day, bi-annual office team-building retreat. normally, staff meetings involve 4 hours spent in a fluorescently lit room, and i'd just as soon pour salt in my eyes than fidget through a meeting. but today was fun, b/c we did the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator! i think the timing was perfect, given all the new hires in the past year, and the accompanying shift in office dynamics. and i was curious b/c i hadn't taken the MBTI since it's 1998 revision, and i knew my personality type had changed since college & grad school. (i used to be an extravert and straddled between ENFJ/ENTJ). today, i learned that i have, indeed, crossed over to the "introvert" camp. no surprise there.

it turns out that i am an INTJ: "Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging". it's still a close call on the "T-F" (Thinking/Feeling) dimension, but the scales tip towards "thinking". maybe it just depends on the time of day or my mood. hehe! INTJ's are known as the "mastermind", or scientist:

"INTJ's have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. They quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, they organize a job and carry it through. Skeptical and independent, they have high standards of competence and performance for themselves and others.

INTJ's are only 1 to 3% of the population, and female INTJ's are rare, so i guess i should feel warm & fuzzy & special, huh? well guess what? i'm the only INTJ at work! interestingly, my co-workers are mostly introverts, with INFP being the dominant type. there are only two extraverts on our staff. who knew!?! (what a contrast to the university career office i worked at, where everyone else was an extravert, and the only introvert was the computer I.T. guy)! it shouldn't be such a surprise though:

see, my former boss, carrie, once said that people in healthcare, education, or social/human service fields often choose those jobs b/c of their extraversion, but become introverted over time. that's b/c these professions require extensive contact w/ people, which is draining. having down-time to recharge then becomes necessary. how true! i guess it's hard understand this unless you work in my field, so i can't begin to explain how draining it is to do client intakes. i enjoy meeting people and learning about them, but intake sessions are intense, intimate, and detailed. they are extensive, and involve questioning someone on their personal and medical background. sometimes clients (or their parents) become emotional. i find that it takes a lot of energy to be fully present to take in what a person is telling me, AND to perceive all of their non-verbal cues and pick up on what they are NOT telling me. i'm basically using all of my senses to take in information. so yes, when 3 or 4pm rolls around i often secretly hope my clients are no-shows.

oddly enough, a lot of us introverts said we were extraverts in college. or was it alcohol-induced? our facilitator pointed out that while it's common for slight- to moderate-extroverts to become introverted with age, the reverse doesn't hold true. if anything, born introverts become even more so as they get older. although i've got a few more thoughts on this, i'll save it for later b/c i'm feeling�uh--introverted. time to log-out and have some down-time!