Reading People Read online

  © 2017 by Anne Bogel

  Published by Baker Books

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.bakerbooks.com

  Ebook edition created 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-1228-0

  Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

  Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Myers-Briggs, MBTI, and MBTI Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of the MBTI® Trust, Inc., in the United States and other countries.

  The author is represented by the William K. Jensen Literary Agency.

  “After years of trusting her as our book whisperer, Anne Bogel has finally written a book for us! This is the book I didn’t even know I was waiting for. I can’t wait to share it with everyone I know.”

  —Emily P. Freeman, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Simply Tuesday

  “Anne Bogel is a smart, savvy, kindhearted woman of wisdom whose words continually have me nodding my head in agreement and saying, ‘I thought I was the only one!’ This book, and all of her future books, will have a prominent space on my shelf. The world is better because of her insight.”

  —Tsh Oxenreider, author of At Home in the World and Notes from a Blue Bike

  “As someone who loves analyzing myself, my family, and my friends and learning more about what makes each of us unique, I absolutely adored Reading People. This book hasn’t just impacted me as a parent. Understanding more about how people are wired through the research, data, and examples Anne gives is helping me in every relationship. Truly, I feel like I’m a better wife, mom, employer, friend, and person for having read this book.”

  —Crystal Paine, New York Times bestselling author of Say Goodbye to Survival Mode and founder of MoneySavingMom.com

  “You possibly picked up this book because you want to understand someone around you who might be, how should I say this, difficult. This book will most certainly help you understand them better, but what I suspect might happen along the way is that you will begin to understand yourself better. Anne lays out so many different ways to view and understand our own personalities, as well as those around us. This book will help you be a better parent, spouse, friend, boss, employee, and more. Personal relationships are core to our existence, and this book in your hands will help your relationships go deeper and last longer because of the greater understanding you will have for yourself and those around you.”

  —Jamie Ivey, author and host of The Happy Hour podcast

  “For years I’ve been seeking out Anne’s impeccable advice on what books to read, and at first glance I thought this book was all about the people who read—and it is. Surprise! Books aren’t the only thing we can read. Reading People is the perfect reminder that the most important reading assignment you’ll ever have might be sitting at the dinner table with you and staring back at you in the mirror.”

  —Myquillyn Smith, author of The Nesting Place

  “Whether you’re an Enneagram guru, a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator nerd, a StrengthsFinder coach, or a personality-test novice, you’ll find something in Reading People. In these pages, Anne examines the personality tests that measure our individuality, but more importantly, she uses those tests to highlight a beautiful truth: our personalities are what make us utterly unique, perfectly human, and ultimately beautiful.”

  —Seth Haines, author of Coming Clean

  “Reading People is a game-changing book. It empowers us to see both ourselves and others in a more gracious manner and offers useful ideas for how to build stronger and healthier relationships. The wisdom Anne Bogel packs in Reading People is insightful, easy-to-understand, and life-giving.”

  —Jessica N. Turner, author of The Fringe Hours

  “Anne Bogel delivers a fantastically useful and practical guide to personality frameworks that cuts through the hype, false promises, and personality parlor tricks. This is a concise, highly readable guide to the Enneagram, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and other personality tools that draws deeply from stories of her own growth and extensive reading.”

  —Ed Cyzewski, author of A Christian Survival Guide and Coffeehouse Theology

  For Will,

  who gets me

  Contents

  Cover 1

  Title Page 3

  Copyright Page 4

  Endorsements 5

  Dedication 7

  Introduction: A Noble Pursuit 11

  1. My Aha! Moment: Understanding My Personality Type 23

  2. Communication Breakdown: Introverts and Extroverts 35

  3. Too Hot to Handle: Highly Sensitive People 57

  4. Love and Other Acts of Blindness: The Five Love Languages 73

  5. You’re Not Crazy, You’re Just Not Me: Keirsey’s Temperaments 93

  6. Type Talk: The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator 115

  7. The Deck Is Stacked: The MBTI Cognitive Functions 139

  8. Play to Your Strengths: The Clifton StrengthsFinder 155

  9. Confront Your Junk: The Enneagram 171

  10. Your Personality Is Not Your Destiny: How Much Can People Change? 193

  Acknowledgments 205

  Recommended Resources 207

  Notes 211

  About the Author 219

  Back Ads 221

  Back Cover 223

  Introduction

  a noble pursuit

  The BuzzFeed-style quiz is taking over the internet, serving up answers to questions no one is asking. What Star Wars character are you? What restaurant trend describes your personality? Which Hogwarts house suits you best? What city should you actually live in? Which Ryan Gosling character is your soul mate? What’s your superpower? Your work style?

  These addictive quizzes make it easy to put ourselves in (very weird) boxes. And if my Facebook feed is any indication, people can’t resist taking these quizzes and sharing their results—no matter how inane the topic or how small the insight offered. Underpinning these quizzes is the core assumption that we won’t have the same answers. We are all different—in matters both serious and silly—and discovering those differences is strangely enjoyable. Cynics argue that we’re drawn to these simple check-the-box quizzes because we’re ill-equipped to deal with the complexity of real life, but I believe this trend points to something more substantial.

  We’re not just looking for a way to kill five minutes online. Our methods may be questionable, but our motives are pure: we truly want to know more about ourselves and the people we interact with every day. We suspect our lives would be better if we actually understood ourselves and the people we love. We want to know why we do what we do, think what we think, act how we act—and why they do too.

  But what we’re finding is this: actually knowing ourselves isn’t as easy as taking a few check-the-box quizzes on the internet. We’re surprised to discover that it’s difficult to perceive ourselves for who we really are. That information would be infinitely more useful, but it’s also harder to come by. Since we don’t know where to start to find the good stuff—the genuinely helpful information about ourselves and the people we love
—we settle for discovering which defunct ’90s soda we are or which Jane Austen leading man we’re meant to marry. But if we instead knew the right questions to ask ourselves—the ones that would give us true insight into our inner selves—and approached those questions with the same playful spirit (and perhaps just a smidge more seriousness and self-reflection), we could emerge with life-changing information. We could learn to read people better—ourselves and others.

  What Makes You You

  This struggle to define ourselves isn’t some narcissistic fad driven by social media. Our collective fascination with understanding ourselves—and, specifically, understanding our personalities—goes back much further than that, to way before the days of the internet. We’ve known for a long time that we don’t begin our lives as identical blank slates. For thousands of years, writers, philosophers, and even biblical heroes have teased out the differences in human nature. We can find personality references in the writings of Socrates and Shakespeare, as well as in the writings of the desert fathers and America’s founding fathers. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them” (1 Corinthians 12:4), I imagine he was speaking not only of spiritual gifts but also of personality traits. (Paul himself was certainly known for his fiery personality and was under no illusions few were quite like him.)

  When we talk about someone’s personality, we’re referring to those characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make that person unique. We’re all inclined to think, feel, and act in particular ways. Our personalities capture what we’re likely to find relaxing or exciting or pleasurable or tough. This core set of qualities is a huge part of what makes you you.

  Current research indicates that personality traits are hardwired; they’re largely hereditary and remain relatively constant throughout our lives.1 If we’re outgoing or reserved, energetic or subdued, we deserve neither credit nor blame for those traits. We just came that way, out of the box, and we can’t trade ourselves in for a different model.

  While personality is a key part of who you are, it’s just one of many things that make you you. Many important traits don’t fall under the personality umbrella. Kindness, generosity, honesty, patience—these are all examples of character traits that interact with but are distinct from personality. It’s easy to conflate character with personality; it’s a common mistake. We’ve all met someone charming but dastardly, if not in the neighborhood then in a favorite novel.

  And we all act “out of character” sometimes. Our behaviors fluctuate with our moods and our circumstances. People behave differently when they can see themselves in a mirror, for instance. But our behavior fluctuates in predictable ways. Everyone does certain things at certain times (such as wanting to be alone), but some people want to be alone a heck of a lot more than others.

  Compared to our personality traits, character traits are more malleable. Our personalities can only be managed (or tamed, some might say). Our characters can be shaped, although this isn’t easy and happens slowly, with effort. Much of what we call character arises out of our core beliefs, and it’s surprisingly difficult to change our beliefs.

  In addition to our character traits, we all have unique skills, abilities, and passions. We have personal experiences, histories, and hang-ups that shape us. These also interact with our personalities, and the way they impact us may even depend on our personalities, but they are not the same thing as our personalities.

  We are complex and fascinating beings. These various aspects of ourselves—our personalities, our characters, our skills, the essence that truly makes us who we are—combine in an infinite variety of ways to make each of us who we are.

  Like Holding a Good Map

  Changing our core personality traits is difficult, if not impossible. To a large extent, personality is something we must learn to live with—whether that means accepting our own personalities or that of a spouse, parent, child, boss, friend, or neighbor. A big part of learning about personality is learning to make peace with who we are. But if we use personality insights well, we wouldn’t dream of stopping there.

  The more I’ve learned about personality, the more I’ve discovered how powerful this knowledge can be. The various personality frameworks presented in this book are incredible tools for understanding why we do the things we do, why some things come easy while others are difficult, why particular things about our dearest friends drive us crazy, or why we absolutely cannot stand to watch network news or listen to rap music or make small talk without sounding like a blubbering idiot. And personality insights allow us to understand why other people do the things they do, even when (especially when) their thoughts, feelings, and actions in a given situation are profoundly different from our own.

  Prior to us understanding more about personality, their behavior may have baffled us. We can’t fathom why a loved one hides when the doorbell rings or a coworker must understand the origin of every single Hamilton lyric or a friend genuinely enjoys chatting with the customer service representative on the other end of the phone line. They’re not crazy; they’re just not us. They are hardwired differently than we are, and personality insights explain why and how.

  I’ve come to think understanding personality is like holding a good map. That map can’t take you anywhere. It doesn’t change your location; you’re still right where you were before. But the map’s purpose isn’t to move you; it’s to show you the lay of the land. It’s the tool that makes it possible for you to get where you want to go.

  Practical and Actionable

  In recent years, I’ve learned to accept and adapt my behavior for my personality type—and for the types of those around me—in ways that never would have occurred to me ten, or even two, years ago. I’ve leaned heavily on personality insights to help me

  structure my days in a way that helps me not only survive but also thrive;

  recognize when I’m feeling out of sorts and how to best deal with those feelings;

  not lose my cool (or my mojo) over the marathon week of family Christmas gatherings;

  understand why action movies and horror novels are too much for me;

  realize I wasn’t necessarily a terrible Christian, just an introverted Christian in an extroverted church;

  plan my day so I don’t hit a wall at 4:00 p.m. every afternoon; and

  identify what my dream job might look like and stay away from jobs that would be soul-sucking for me.

  Additionally, I’ve gained meaningful insights into other people from studying personality. These takeaways have changed the way I interact with them and have helped me figure out

  why some of my girlfriends prefer margarita night for ten, while others prefer coffee for two or three;

  how to stop the terrible conflict cycle my husband and I were locked in;

  how not to lose my mind (well, most days) during the pre-dinner hour at my house with my loud and crazy family of six;

  how to choose the right church for my family; and

  how to tell the difference between when my kid is being quirky and when I have a real problem that needs outside help.

  These are just a few of the concrete, practical changes I’ve made in my life thanks to understanding the personality frameworks I highlight in this book. This knowledge didn’t require a great deal of study or a huge time investment. To understand the frameworks and what they told me about my personality, as well as the personalities of the people I interact with every day, I needed to ask the right questions of myself and pay attention to some specific moments in life.

  The Insight that Changes Everything

  Have you ever seen the movie The Sixth Sense? Okay, I’ve actually seen only a few clips, not the whole movie, because I’m a highly sensitive person (HSP) and M. Night Shyamalan freaks me out. (We’ll talk about HSPs in chapter 3.) But the movie has so permeated popular culture that even people who haven’t seen it know about the twist ending.

  This super
natural thriller is about the relationship between a little boy named Cole Sear (played by Haley Joel Osment) and Dr. Malcolm Crowe (played by Bruce Willis), the psychiatrist enlisted to help him. Cole has a secret ability to communicate with dead people. As Dr. Crowe teaches Cole to release the ghosts that scare him by offering them help, he learns that maybe he wasn’t summoned to help Cole. Perhaps it’s the other way around.

  In a surprise ending, we discover that Crowe has been dead from the beginning. It explains why his wife won’t talk to him, why she doesn’t even acknowledge his existence. For two hours, viewers are led to believe that she is ignoring him because their marriage is awful, but it turns out she can’t even see him. With the big reveal, our minds reel as we mentally flip back through the movie to incorporate this key piece of information into our understanding, which casts the film’s events in a whole new light. Once we know Crowe is dead, the narrative shifts and everything makes perfect sense. We think, Oh, of course, even though while we were watching the movie the first time, we never perceived anything was amiss.

  Try this for a more relatable example. Have you ever had a really bad day? A day when nothing seemed to be going your way and you were tired and moody and agitated and nobody liked you and you didn’t like them either and you couldn’t put your finger on what was going so terribly wrong? Then you ate a sandwich (or, better yet, took a nap) and felt like a brand-new person, and you realized that nothing was horribly amiss, you were just hangry. Or maybe slangry. (You can figure out what that means, right?)2

  That little insight completely reframed the way you felt about the previous few hours.

  If you’re a parent, you’re acquainted with the phenomenon when your two-year-old is having a really terrible afternoon and won’t eat their snack and won’t keep their clothes on and won’t say anything but no and screams for no reason and you fear that you’re a terrible parent who has ruined everything, until your child finally wears themselves out and collapses on the sofa, snoring, three hours before bedtime, and you realize, My child isn’t possessed; they were just exhausted.