Ep 1: Live Your Life from the Front Seat – Meyers Briggs Overview

Welcome back to the Front Seat Life Podcast!
Hello, I’m so glad you are here. This is the episode where we start to get into the “meat” of the show and I can’t wait to share. You’ll find out where that comes from during this episode as I start to unpack my fascination with Meyers-Briggs and what I mean when I say, “Live your life from the front seat!”

My Obsession
I have been obsessed with the Meyers-Briggs personality type indicator since I was about 20 years old. I was working as an HR director and we had this Meyers-Briggs experience at work and I completely had one of the “Holy Sh*t!” moments. So much in relationships and life became crystal clear.

My obsession has lead me to do a deep dive into the world of Meyers-Briggs throughout my career and in my personal life. I have tried to distill it all down into a format people can consume easily so they can understand it and get value from it, because that can be huge!

I’m Shocked
I am completely shocked to see how many people feel Meyers-Briggs is a bunch of “hooey!” When it’s one of the most amazing tools (if not THE most amazing tool) we must help us to understand ourselves and others in our life.

I Hope This Helps
This episode is meant to educate you on all things Meyers-Briggs in a way that I hope helps you to understand it, and how you can use it. I want this to be so relatable, that you can use your understanding to show up, unapologetically who you are in your life, your love, and your business.

But this is not just about us, it’s about understanding the people in our lives.

To Infinity, and Beyond!
First, I want you to imagine there’s an infinity symbol, and on one side is “Differentiation.” This is understanding who we are in this world. The other side of the infinity symbol is “Attunement.” We float between the tow sides, and “Attunement” is truly being attuned with others in our life

So, this is all about understanding ourselves and understanding the others in our life.

Unchanging
It is important to see how personality types work and to realize that for each person, their type is innate. It does not change. It doesn’t mean that we don’t evolve or go through periods of our lives when we aren’t ourselves. However, we are born with our type…all of us.

Which is why when people try to change us, or we try to change ourselves, or we try to be “well-rounded” it is just futile. It is why it is so exhausting when we spend time and energy trying to “push a boulder up a hill”…aka doing things we suck at!

And, alternatively, why it just flows like a beach ball on the sand or in the wind when we are doing the things we are good at.

Life circumstances can influence us and can cause us to show up “in our back seat” doing things we suck at, pushing that boulder up a hill, and not being who we are.

Life in the Front Seat
With this podcast, I want you to be able to show up who you are at least 80% of the time. When we can show up authentically who we are, surround ourselves with people who accept it, and we can accept the people around us as who they are…life changes.

There are things you are innately good at and things you are bad at, I encourage you to stop doing the things you suck at. It is such an immense waste of energy to do the things you are no good at. When we are in our flow state, or in our “Front Seat,” life is exponentially easier, happier, and better… There are so many benefits, I promise.

The Four Dichotomies of Meyers-Briggs
The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator is an introspective way of indicating differing psychological preferences in how we perceive the world around us and how we make decisions.

These notes are a brief description of the podcast which is a more robust explanation. But I am just getting started and will dedicate future episode to going deeper, because it is my obsession and I am super passionate about it!

1. Introversion / Extroversion
   This is all about where we give our best selves and where we get and give our energy. This is not about shyness or being outgoing, it’s about energy and how we process information.
2. Sensing / Intuition
   This is about how we take in information, but there is soooo much more to it than just that. Most people are Sensors (75%) who rely on their five senses, the rest tend to go with their “gut feelings.”
3. Thinking / Feeling
   Thinkers make decisions with their heads (logic and facts), Feelers make decisions with their hearts (emotions). Roughly speaking, 75% of men are Thinkers and 75% of women are Feelers.
4. Judging / Perceiving
   It’s about how we like to be organized in the world. J’s want and need to know the plan and P’s want to live five minutes in front of their faces, they just want the world to unfold as it happens. We must learn how to be both Judging and Perceiving… and… J’s and P’s NEED each other. This is the one dichotomy where we must learn how to balance.

More to Come, I Promise
Please, please listen to this episode for more insight into Meyers-Briggs and how it impacts your world. And I promise you I will have many, many episodes going even deeper into each dichotomy with stories and more.

I hope this is eye-opening and educational because I want families to have these conversations, to be able to talk about these differences. And instead of being irritated by it, to be able to accept it and love it.

My deepest hope is that you can use this to have better relationships with everyone in your life, everyone, including yourself.

Let’s start an epidemic of understanding ourselves, of being unapologetically who we are in this world!

To find out more about Jessica visit https://jessicabutts.com/.

Follow her on Instagram @frontseatlife for daily motivation.

Not sure what your Myers Briggs personality type is? Take a free personality assessment at https://jessicabutts.com/front-seat-life-personality-assessment/.

Looking for a tribe of growth-oriented people and want to stay closely connected to Jessica’s coaching? Join the Front Seat Life Community for a small monthly subscription at https://jessicabutts.com/front-seat-life-membership-group/.

Feel like treating yourself to major healing and growth? Want to get a year’s worth of therapy done in 5 days? Join Jessica’s Maui Retreat on March 13-17, 2019. Learn more here: https://tinyurl.com/fsl-maui-retreat.