Author Archives: dshen

Taking Myers-Briggs Test

Ah yes…the famous Myers Briggs test. Sitting here at 6am filling out this form.
Last time I did a questionaire like this was with the StrengthsFinder from Gallup. The book was definitely good – Now Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham – highly recommend reading that and the earlier book for managers, First Break All the Rules by the same author.
It’s interesting to see this technique of surveying whereby they use two choice polarized questions and you need to figure out how to answer when you flirt in the worlds of either answer.
For example, one question was “Are you inclined to A) value sentiment mor than logic, or B) value logic more than sentiment?” In my work, I’ve have jumped between both logic and sentiment so many times and do it so fluidly because it was necessary that it’s hard to choose! But being the creative guy, I chose A)….
As I go through the questions, I find there are areas in the questions in which I am trying to change about myself. For instance, there was a question about “Would most people say you are A) a private person, or B) a very open person.” This brings up the age-old question of whether people can change, and especially after 30+ years of reinforcement of behaviors and attitudes. I certainly am a believer that if you put your mind to it, you can change anything about yourself, but I also find that one has to have an adaptability trait of some sort in order to enable this further.
I wonder what Myers-Briggs letters I’ll be when it’s finished. Also, this particular test creates results which have more depth than just generating the high level categories. I am interested to see what the depth reveals versus just getting the letters.
My coach also had an interesting suggestion and that was to take the Myers-Briggs test and use it as a tool for understanding your spouse or partner. This may be something I will try in the future.

Ripping magazines and newspapers on the plane…

OK so this girl with a Stanford sweatshirt sitting next to me is looking at me funny. Every few seconds I emit a loud “RRRRRIIIIPPPPP” as I tear another picture from a magazine or the New York Times I bought.
Very frustrating. Who can rip a straight line anyways?
Very interesting to do this exercise. I start by finding some pictures that appeal to me, and it quickly evolves to pictures I don’t like too. After all, I think it’s just as valuable talking about stuff I hate as well as stuff I like…. Next, I start tearing out whole articles too. More stuff to talk about.
When I get home, I must figure out how to bring copies of all the B/W photos I bought for my LA apartment. Asking an amateur photographer to bring pictures and images could devolve into a deluge of images from all over. We’ll see how it turns out….

Starting coaching…

Welcome to my coaching blog – for those of you who wonder about my coaching experience, this is the place to hear my thoughts near real-time posted here!
On friday I started my first career/executive/life coaching session with Barbara Baill. I had been looking forward to this session for months now as I have been out of work for 6 months and getting antsy to figure out what’s next for me.
I picked Barbara because of her extensive executive experience and also the fact that we clicked at our lunch get-to-know meeting. I felt it was important to find someone who had been part of high level executive meetings, versus those who only knew theory. The others I interviewed certainly were good enough to coach but I wanted someone who had experienced these things in person.
So on Friday we spent an hour getting to know one another.
I felt pretty random. My head is filled with so much stuff – I even asked her if we could use a process which would brain dump everything and then organize it later. I hope she didn’t think I was scattered!
For homework, I need to do:
1. get images that appeal to me.
2. fill out a Myers-Briggs form
3. find a log book of some sort, maybe electronic, maybe paper.
4. list questions pertinent to my life
I now jump deeply into the coaching process….