I was discussing this with a valued business partner the other day.

“When do you think I should send this email?”

“Yeah, I think you should wait, send it after the weekend.”

“Me too, probably even send it in the morning. Otherwise they’ll make a silly decision like they did before.”

We know it, they know it, we even joke about it together.

No blame. It’s a known feature & bug with humanity. At least, now it is known, to me. I never really acted like I knew about it when I was younger, and I regret that for sure.

I personally sent some business nasty-grams that were really bad. Justified in this or that way, but I would rewrite those in a second if I could.

But I also sent business normal-grams at times that were convenient to me, and that turned out to be really dumb in a lot of cases. The emotional issue wasn’t on my end, it was more like an awareness issue on my end plus an emotional issue on theirs.

This need for cooling off is such a great human thing to know about. It made me think about my other personal cooling-off periods:

• If there’s a problem I learn about and it pisses me off, I write a draft message now, and then edit & send later.
• If there’s a new thing I learn about and it gets me excited in a good way, the same applies to any notes I’m taking about it. I find SO MUCH ALL CAPS in those notes.
• If I’m shopping for things that are available as limited-time deals, I always note the deal expiration date and come back later after the emotions have cooled off. Knowing the expiration date is a really nice advantage when shopping for deals. When I’m cooled off, I am better prepared to decide—do I need the whole deal, or just part? And so on.

Corollary

I do have some personal corollaries to this. For example:

• If it’s a casual blog post, publish it and then edit down the emotions later if you need to. The risk of not posting at all is higher than the risk of some casual blog post causing alarming issues.

(This is tongue in cheek, but I think there are plenty of situations where cooling off is important, but you have to figure out how the cooling works best for you.)

Building a Perceptive Superpower

It can also be helpful to know about this for other reasons.

Sometimes you hear people say, “ah it’s depressing to learn too much,” but I’d always rather have the awareness, especially if I can execute on it. (Yeah, awareness alone can feel very depressing—always attempt to execute on your perceptions)

After you do this for a while, which is the same as saying “after you pay attention to this new set of perspectives for a while”, you can start to gain something that may even feel like a perceptive superpower:

• You can probably deal with stressful problems with more resilience and creativity.
• You know when and how to avoid raising the stakes for most situations. Raising the stakes is really dumb with very few exceptions.
• Still, you start to understand when and how to raise the stakes, if you ever need to.

You do have to take an executive standpoint on all this. You have to put it to use. But that’s fine with me.

I really like it when this happens—you start to notice how a thing works, then you get some ideas for making the thing better, and pretty soon your stress levels go down, because you’re human (weaknesses) but you’re also human (strengths)!

Filed in: Relationships /78/ | Control /112/ | Feeling /64/ | People /74/

After a lot of thought (years now?) I’ve finally changed the title of the blog to M.A.Y.B.E.

This stands for a variety of different things, as you can tell by reloading the page. I’ll probably write the title as MAYBE, leaving out those silly dots which are annoying to type, even if I enjoy looking at them.

This does mean the end of “Marc’s INTJ Blog” as a title for this area of the website. That’s been a fun chapter but it was a long-time goal to update the title to reflect where my focus is, or isn’t—M.A.Y.B.E. lots of things.

I will certainly still be blogging about INTJ stuff, both by nature of my own cognitive functionality and by direct subject matter. So probably no worries there if you are concerned that I may have shed my respect for four-letter type, or Jungian psychology, etc.

But restricting the blog to that topic entirely was no longer making as much sense.

I am guessing the title “M.A.Y.B.E.” could be terrible for SEO, but that itself is also kind of a fun idea. I’m more of a values-first, SEO-second type of person anyway. This is a fun experience for me, not really driving any corporate profits or dreams of public this or that.

I also took down the list of INTJ people you can watch on Youtube, but I will probably stick that somewhere else because it’s been fun to track.

There were also a lot of long-needed front and back-end changes, and tags should be working better than they did before.

That’s it for now—I’m looking forward to “whatever MAYBE becomes” :-)

(The post title above is a bit tongue-in-cheek)

Filed in: Technology /41/

Edit: The maintenance is complete.

Just a quick note—the website will be undergoing maintenance over the next few days. Some things may seem a bit off for the time being. —Marc, 14 Feb 2022

Filed in:

Change means stress.

Self-acceptance usually implies change, from not-self-accepting to self-accepting.

So self-acceptance means stressing yourself out, in some ways.

“Accept yourself”? It’s stressful to hear that sometimes.

It’s also vague. (I don’t like that aspect of it at all.)

So, the next time someone tells you to accept yourself, consider telling them, “I don’t need that kind of stress in my life.” I think it’d be pretty funny, anyway.

Plus this is their bitter reward for throwing around pat phrases, maybe.

But also, thinking more logically, watching them struggle with the depth of the equation could be your reward for already accepting yourself, insofar as you haven’t changed.

(Do you see how silly this accept/not accept dichotomy is?)

Filed in: Coaching /27/ | Publications /44/ | Energy /121/ | Relationships /78/ | Therapeutic Practice /146/

TL;DR: Summaries are a troubling subject to moi lately. So let me dig into what I’m thinking about that.

Summarizing: What’s Actually Being Communicated When We’re Doing It

When we summarize, this very interesting messaging sub-channel is opened up. If you know to look for it, you can use it to your advantage.

Below I’ve listed some possible thoughts that open the sub-channel. At the top of the list, more & sloppier summarizing is happening:

• (I am summarizing your stuff because….) I really disrespect you and your ideas
• …You always say this
• …I am pretty sure I’ve heard this before, maybe even from you
• …I’m completely out of energy and can’t get into this
• …I can’t devote a reasonable amount of time to thinking about this right now
• …I don’t think you can devote a reasonable amount of time to thinking about this right now (maybe even a trust issue)
• …I am not really sure whether you have everyone’s best interests at heart
• …I want to communicate efficiently because there are a lot of viewpoints to cover
• …I want to communicate helpfully to someone who I can tell needs things to be summarized

With those last few items, less brutal, more gentle, effective summarizing is usually happening.

Who’s doin’ it: Which summarizin’ scenarios suck most?

There’s also this consideration of the scenario, and this makes a big difference. Who is summarizing, and who are they summarizing for?

• Least risky: I am summarizing what someone else said, to another audience that knows them well.
• Mid-risky: I am summarizing what you just said, to a group that is neutral toward you.
• Very risky: I am summarizing what you just said, to you.
• Yikes: I am not known to like your stuff, and I am summarizing what you just said, to an audience that doesn’t like you, while you’re standing there with the full capability of representing yourself.

On top of everything else, those last two can come off like a direct “fix your communication style” and boy howdy that’s not a good way to even wade into that arena.

Being a Gentle-summarizer: Context-compatible Summarizing

The thing is, sometimes it’s hard to tell what kind of summarizing context it is.

So if you’re the one summarizing, I think it can be very helpful…well, and polite…nay, even necessary to offer a bit of context.

Here are some ideas on how to set up a nice, context-compatible summary:

• “Really quick, I’m totally exhausted for unrelated reasons, but I want to register my attention to what you’re saying, so does this sound about right?”
• “So, if I could get your feedback on some takeaways as a total beginner…”
• “I need to take all this in and give it the respect it deserves, but I want to start somewhere, so how does this sound?”
• “I know I have a lot to learn, but to start with…”

Self-Defence against Brutal Summarizing

Sometimes it can help to protect oneself against being summarized. To offer just a few examples of that:

• Question-focus / Object-focus: “Can I ask your (or your audience’s) level of experience with the topic before we get into summarizing? How long have you worked in the field, and are there credentials, or other experiences you can touch on for me?”
• Skip-to-application-focus: “I’m really not sure if it’s helpful to summarize it quite yet. After all, I love to hike in the mountains, but it never even occurred to me to try to summarize how hiking worked before I tried it. So could we try the application or exercises first, see how it goes?”
• Humor-focus: “Just to acknowledge that I spent years studying this from wizards, so I want to say that summarizing the whole of it right now may utterly fail in doing it justice. All wizards know this, and I was warned about people like you.”
• Depth-focus: “It’s very hard to summarize something like this, and I want to acknowledge that directly. There are probably many different summaries, in different contexts, that would be required to come at it with the right attitude.”
• Values-focus: “I know you want to have a high-quality discussion here, so I want to be fair to the details and make sure this isn’t just a battle to share various hot takes. So maybe we could pick some specific contexts or item and discuss those, giving proper respect to the breadth and depth of the topic.”

Why Do All This?

So—why go to all the trouble? Well, I’d say: Do it for you. Seriously, do it for yourself. You’ll win more friends and influence more people, if that’s what you’re wanting to do. They’ll think, “you know who never summarizes me unfairly? That person.” Right?

But you may also save yourself from some big headaches.

And the next time someone summarizes you, you might even be able to think more effectively about what they’re doing. You’ll have a better read on the situation, at the very least:

• I’m being summarized a lot. Am I around a bunch of exhausted people (could be), or what is the context here?
• This person summarized what I said to the group. Is the group looking for a quick, bite-sized offering in what I say next? Well, I’m good at that, and no one speaks better for me than me…

This could open up valuable opportunities to ask for more time, alter your communication style, more closely align yourself with others like you, etc.

Finally, you’ll probably be able to understand your pals better. Always a good idea.

I’m sure there are lots more reasons, too.

A Final Tip

When you summarize yourself for others, use “but that’s another story” liberally, to cover huge swaths of details. Nobody can really expect your summaries to give the full story, BUT, in case they really have such lofty expectations, it can help to directly acknowledge this, and it sets you up for other responses like, “I would love to go there, but really, we need more time for this discussion.”

(Which, for anybody who understands the depth of their topic, is like arranging to have air to breathe…always a good idea)

Filed in: Essays /53/ | Relationships /78/ | People /74/

Have you ever done the “As Someone Who” or “As A” thing when commenting online?

It’s funny to read these and realize there’s this obvious continuum from “OK, that’s impressive, those are great qualifications” to “hmm, OK, I guess it’s better than nothing,” but just starting the sentence with “As Someone Who…” seems useful to the author, because…

oh god, someone pay attention to what I’m about to say, it’s important!

(I have definitely felt this before)

The continuum itself is always something like, top to bottom:

“As an experimental rocket pilot who flew in top secret aircraft projects,”

“As a jet pilot who has seen combat,”

“As a commercial pilot,”

“As a private pilot,”

“As a private pilot in training,”

“As someone who flies in flight simulators a LOT,”

“As someone who watches a lot of Youtube aviation channels,”

“As someone who has a lot of airplane activity in their general vicinity,”

“As someone who looks up, every once in a while….”

And of course, some kind person will usually at least reply and say “DEAR GOD ABOVE, YOU LOOK UP TOO? THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE ABOVE ALL OF THIS MADNESS” which is always nice.

Filed in: Interests /112/ | Energy /121/

Is there a more INTJ set of terms around which to re-brand your organization?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_Platforms

It made me laugh…we get it, you want us to know that you pay lots of attention to Ni…

(Now, about those other cognitive functions…)

Filed in: Technology /41/ | Ni /42/

Back when I was studying my personal energy levels, one of my earliest experiences taught me an important lesson about low energy:

As we lose energy, we tend to experience a lot of pressure to redirect our focus to one thing.

That one thing could be: One conclusion, one main idea, one person, one solution, one outcome that is near-certain.

We can also say that introversion in general is like this: Where extroversion focuses on “the many,” introversion focuses on “the one”.

Here are some additional, specific singularities of this sort, which I’ve also mapped onto the introverted cognitive functions:

1. A single narrative or account that led to this point. “This all started when…” (Si)
2. A single relational perspective that describes the characteristics of this point. “This is unfair because…” (Fi)
3. A single logical structure or logical conclusion that must be reached about this point. “Conclusion X is a logical certainty because…” (Ti)
4. A single metaphor, example, or analogy that maps to this situation exactly. “Let’s compare this situation to a…” (Ni)

For INTJs, I would say that we tend to believe more of 1 & 3 when expressed by others, and create more of 2 & 4 on our own.

(Looking at other types, for example the INTP or ISFJ, I’d say that the opposite is more likely.)

When used to make important arguments and reach important conclusions, these points should almost certainly be given additional time for examination. Why? Because they typically represent a discarding of multiple perspectives and a redirect of total energy into one perspective. This is an important moment of energy exchange, and there may be no turning back, depending on the various structures that apply to the situation.

These actions will tend to work against creativity, in the sense that creativity represents the ability to express oneself “outside the box,” against the approved narrative, counter to the dominant impression, reformative to the known logic, and counter-intuitive to existing analogy.

So: Watching out for “the one” should by definition help one to be aware of limited thinking, and spot new opportunities for creativity.

We can say, “OK, that’s a good example,” or “Fine, that’s very logical,” with the follow-up:

“…and also, I want to make sure we have a reasonable amount of time to consider the various perspectives here before dedicating all of our attention to one conclusion.”

And at this point, there are a lot of really helpful steps that can be employed to celebrate “one-ness” of conclusions, while also bringing in new ideas. The result is often something like “a new, different expression which is still satisfactory or even surprising in its one-ness”, rather than a “separatedness” or a disintegration, which I suppose a really introverted person would tend to fear.

Filed in: ISFJ /6/ | Publications /44/ | Essays /53/ | Ni /42/ | INTP /7/ | Fi /35/ | Ti /30/ | Energy /121/ | Si /19/

I was thinking about some early-stage adult INTJ development moves today. Here’s one idea of three basic moves, or migrations, to start early on:

First, learn to separate rumination from intuition. A key difference is that ruminations are like intuitions or imaginings that over-emphasize fearful or stressful contents. This change will help you move your focus from “the problems I can imagine” to “the actual problems that are literally in front of me, right now,” and this will make you a more efficient, productive, nimble person on a day-to-day basis. Your INTJ intuition can otherwise start to weigh you down.

Second, learn to offer, and listen for, gentle communication. This change will help you move from “giving” to “expressing” in relationships, which is really important because a huge segment of the population, including people you will meet and wish to befriend, mostly cares about how you express yourself, not what you’re giving. Keep an eye on the way people word things. Your typical INTJ focus on “goodness” can quickly be subverted by phrasing that is too direct or blunt.

Third, learn to be so forward-thinking and open-minded that even the worst ideas and outcomes, sitting in front of you right now, don’t cause you to waver from your confidence in yourself and others. This change will help you move out of the critic role, which can only take you so far in life, and into more of an exploratory creative role, which tends to get INTJs really excited to take on new projects in the future. Otherwise your INTJ focus on critique can quickly lead to unnecessary social and professional alienation.

It was fun to try to narrow these down. I think they would be my big three for early-adulthood INTJs. What do you think?

(P.S. I also just noticed that these moves each generally focus in the direction of extroversion: Toward a direct appraisal of circumstances as they are, toward proactive relations with other people, and toward new, future-facing ideas.)

Filed in: Intuition /63/ | Careers /40/ | Coaching /27/

• Daryl’s First Law: There’s a workaround for the issue.
• Daryl’s Second Law: Always use the workaround.
• Daryl’s Third Law: If you’re in a hurry, don’t try to think of a workaround if one doesn’t come to mind. Instead, think about how not to be in a hurry.
• Bascombe’s Meta-Corollary: The problematic system itself was probably started as a workaround. It thus encourages workarounds by the philosophy of its design.
• (Scott) Newton’s First Implication: The universe is likely a workaround event.
• Newton’s Second Implication: The universe happened because the original method for accomplishing the same ends totally sucked.
• Bascombe’s Meta-Riposte: More perspectives will generate more workarounds.
• Newton’s Third Implication: If you want your system to think about, and possibly improve itself, ensure that it does so from a variety of perspectives, so that the workarounds will be good ones.
• Newton’s Basic People Principle: Different people generate different perspectives.
• Daryl’s Fourth Law: If you’re in a hurry, it’s better to be in a hurry with a group of people who are in the same hurry as you are. You’ll be able to work around problems faster, and you can thus keep your general sense of being in a hurry, insofar as it serves your needs.
• Bascombe’s Final Observation: Being alone and in a hurry makes systems appear more perfectly inscrutable, insofar as the state itself tends to obscure workarounds.
• Bascombe’s Final Observation, Second Part: As you slow things down, the world should start to look more terribly flawed and open to change and input.
• Daryl’s Final Comfort: Nobody who talks fast, moves fast, and thinks fast is aware of the opportunities for creativity that they pass by with every new millisecond. Slow down and you’ll be able to observe giant opportunities, and even make changes that fix the universe.
• Daryl’s Asterisk: Most of those changes will probably start as workarounds.

Filed in: People /74/ | Productivity /120/ | Thinking /70/ | Technology /41/