I love the Myers Briggs test. We have a little bit of an obsession with it here at Brazen Careerist. We often ask potential hires for their Myers Briggs score even before we ask for a resume. So it was only appropriate that we had Rob Toomey of Speed Reading People come to Madison last week for an all-day course on the art of reading personality types.

Rob teaches you how to differentiate between personality types by simply observing or talking with people. You also learn how best to interact with each different type of personality.

The course was amazing. I learned a ton about my particular personality type, my co-workers’ personalities and people in general. But the most interesting thing I learned is that I am definitely an introvert. And that’s OK.

We live in a culture that encourages and admires extroverted people. My family is no exception; both of my parents are clearly outgoing extroverts. Because of this, since childhood I’ve felt pressured to be chirpy, social and generally outgoing. Over time I’ve learned to be all of these things. In college I was the social director for my fraternity, and I’ve now built a career around communicating with people both through speaking and writing.

But the truth is, no matter how many times I speak in front of a group or go to a networking event, I’m always anxious beforehand, and I’m always completely zapped of energy when it’s over. I never understood it, you would think at some point it would just be second nature and the nerves would go away. Now I understand that these feelings probably aren’t going to go away because I am an introvert at heart.

The book “The Art of Speed Reading People,” says that despite what people may think when they hear extrovert or introvert, the only difference lies in where people get their energy and where they direct their energy.

“Extraverts both get energy from and focus energy toward people and things outside of themselves….Introverts tune their radar to an internal frequency because they are more interested in applying their own perceptions and experience to a situation rather than looking outside of themselves for the answer.”

This makes so much sense, and it really explains why an introverted person like me can be social and outgoing. The only difference between me and an extrovert is that I become energized when I spend time alone doing something like jogging, while an extrovert becomes energized when he is with a group of people having a discussion.

This was just a tiny portion of the course, and being an introvert is only ¼ of my entire personality type (if you’re curious, I’m an INTJ). But now when I tell someone I’m an introvert and they respond, “no way, you’re definitely an extrovert,” I can intelligently explain the difference and be proud of the fact that I’m an introvert at heart who happens to enjoy spending time with people.

Go take the test. And whatever you test as, it’s probably not going to change. So no matter personality type you are, embrace it and learn how to use it to your advantage so you can effectively interact with anyone.