Okay, so it doesn’t come across nearly as cool as “Bond. James Bond.” But it FEELS that cool.

When I’m having a good INFP day, I feel complete unto myself. Calm, cool, collected, composed. Kind of like James Bond looks like at the bar when he says his immortal words.

But then, Sean Connery would look cool if he said “Kumquats. Fried kumquats.” But I digress.

Yesterday I was chatting with a friend about the joys of knowing your Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) … that four letter identification that might just help explain why you feel the way you feel, or think the way you think, or why you never felt like you fit in with all the other kids.

You might just be an introvert. Or an extrovert with strong Intuitive tendencies. Or any other of the sixteen combinations of letters in the MBTI test.

For those of you who have not heard of it, the Myers-Briggs test asks questions and the end result is four letters to identify how you approach life. This is a handy tool to have if you are an employer, since each type is more easily suited to different types of jobs.

Not everyone is cut out to do the tedious work required of a bookkeeper, or the compassionate work of a counselor, or the public demanding work of a teacher, or the easy life of a slug.

Or a writer. It helps to be a letter combination with NF in the middle if you want to be a writer.

At least according to this handy-dandy chart here.

The four letters describe you. Define you. Defame you.

I for introvert or E for extrovert
N for intuition or S for sensing
F for feeling or T for thinking
P for perception or J for judgment

Now this doesn’t mean if you get the letter F that you don’t think. Or if you get an E that you aren’t occasionally introverted. Or if you get the letter J that you aren’t perceptive.

Well, maybe that last one.

Can you tell I was married to an ESTJ?

Which brings me to the next interesting thing about these four letters. They can not only help you understand who you are and what you might enjoy for a career, they also can help you grow personally, choose a partner, be a better parent and reduce cavities.

I lied about the cavities.

It can make you feel special when you see how few other folks share the same four letter combination as you.

Although to be honest, once you divide 100% by 16 different personality types, you’ll probably get a small number (6.25). Which makes the ISFJ’s (13.8%) and ESFJ’s (12.3%) loom large against the INFJ’s (1.5%) and ENTJ’s (1.8%)

We INFP’s are just 4.4%-ers … so I feel pretty special.

And when I see a chart that shows other famous people who are the same as me … well … special doesn’t start to define how I feel.

 Sorry about the tiny version of the one on the right here, but if I am not mistaken, the letters ESTP are used to define our friend … Bond … James Bond.

Hey, take the test or check out the details of each of the personality types.

I feel like having some fun with these. Maybe tomorrow.

I want to thank the blog entry here for starting me on this rant excellent blog post today: http://jenniferswhite.com/whats-your-mbti-personality-type-enrich-your-life-through-self-discovery/