EPISODE 013: DOES THE MYERS-BRIGGS TEST ACTUALLY WORK?

DRINK INFORMATION

Every episode we drink a different libation – so what are we drinking this episode?

Tom’s Drink – 21-year-old Highland Scotch Knockando

– A delicious, older Scotch

Ian’s Drink – Robert Burns Single Malt Scotch Whiskey

– A delightful, low-peat scotch that is an easy-drinker

*Visit our “Tasting Room“

TRANSCRIPT:

Ian Robertson: Hey Tom, do you have like, emergency underwear? Or like emergency shirts or things like that?

Tom Kubiak: Emergency underwear the like that I keep in my glove compartment?

Ian Robertson: No, no, not for not for like a disaster pants scenario, like, you know, like the shirt, or the socks or the underwear that you really don’t like to wear but you keep anyways, just in case you run out of the other stuff.

Tom Kubiak: Oh, no, I don’t.

Ian Robertson: No?

Tom Kubiak: Do you?

Ian Robertson: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like I have this underwear that just sits in the bottom of my closet and I never get down to the bottom of the stack before the stack gets refilled. So if I’m in that pair of underwear, I know, this is a situation that needs to be handled. Or like a shirt that I don’t really wear.

Tom Kubiak: You’ve reached the end.

Ian Robertson: I’ve reached the end. This is an emergency situation and it’s like always a shirt or socks or underwear that I don’t like to wear. When I get to that point, I’m like, why don’t I just have something that I want to wear for the emergency version?

Tom Kubiak: I would agree. No, I’ve never had that situation. But you also likely know my wife. Nothing against your wife because I know she does the same thing.

Ian Robertson: Oh, no, she does the same thing. Yeah. But you could perform surgery on your countertops.

Tom Kubiak: Yeah.

Ian Robertson: But that’s just a “me” thing I’ve always done in my whole life.

Tom Kubiak: You’ve always had that one pair that’s at the bottom that you’ll never wear unless there’s nothing else to wear.

Ian Robertson: Yeah.

Tom Kubiak: Okay.

Ian Robertson: And for some reason, it’s like a comfort factor and it’s also a warning,

Tom Kubiak: It’s a warning that you’ve reached the end.

Ian Robertson: Yep. And something needs to be done.

Tom Kubiak: No, I don’t have that.

Ian Robertson: All right. So maybe that’s just part of my personality type as an INTJ.

Tom Kubiak: Well, it’s funny that you mentioned that it very well could be. It’s probably why it’s not part of my personality.

Ian Robertson: Well, and that’s what we’re going to talk about tonight, we’re going to talk about Myers Briggs. Is it good science, does it work, what personality type you are, what personality type I am, and basically how to do it?

Tom Kubiak: Super interesting, super interesting. This is one of those things that likely all of us if you’ve, if you’ve been on any website, at some point, you’re going to see a little ad saying take a personality test or more than likely, you’ve already done it. The one that primarily most people use is the Myers-Briggs Personality Test, which interestingly, has been around way longer than I thought. I thought it was something that was relatively recent, but it’s actually been around for more than 100 years.

Ian Robertson: Yeah. 1917 is when they started to really work on it but before we get into that, I see a bottle of liquor behind you and I’d love to hear about what you’re drinking tonight in the spirit of drinking with Tom.

Tom Kubiak: Yes. So tonight, I think in our last podcast I switched to an IPA but I’m back to my normal. My normal go-to scotch, and I’m drinking a 21-year-old Highland Scotch Knockando is the name of the distillery. It’s a brand-new bottle. I just opened it. It’s got a really nice caramelly smell, which I love. 21 years old, so it’s going to be a little bit longer lasting on the tongue. It’s very good. Yeah, I like it. Carmelly vanilla.

Ian Robertson: Sounds like you swallowing are really great, too. So thank you for that.

Tom Kubiak: I’ll slurp as much as I can. How about you. What are you drinking?

Ian Robertson: So I went and got it’s not really it’s called a mid-range scotch. I thought it was kind of weird, but my wife got it for me. The Robert Burns single malt scotch whiskey.

Tom Kubiak: Okay.

Ian Robertson: She got it because we went

Tom Kubiak: Robert Burns.

Ian Robertson: Yeah, he was the famous poet from Scotland. He actually helped inspire, interestingly enough liberalism, socialism, and a whole bunch of other stuff throughout Europe.

Tom Kubiak: Oh, interesting.

Ian Robertson: And it’s Scott’s “claim to fame” on the world scene.

Tom Kubiak: Okay.

Ian Robertson
you know, but in reality, he was a poet. He wrote some really cool literature and poetry, but you go anywhere in Scotland and there’s Robert Burns this and Robert Burns that

Tom Kubiak: Oh, he’s like a Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson figure for the United States.

Ian Robertson: Oh, yeah. Or even bigger. He’s like, Michael Jackson meets Ben Franklin. You know, it’s like even modern people.

Tom Kubiak: Can he moonwalk?

Ian Robertson: Maybe, you never know.

Tom Kubiak: That’s amazing.

Ian Robertson: He could have invented it. But we went to Edinburgh. That’s how they pronounced but it’s Edinburgh. Okay, that is how it’s written out but Edinburgh is where he traveled to, to get his poetry go in really big and where he became big time and you see all the statues of him. So my wife got it.

Tom Kubiak: What year did he live?

Ian Robertson: Oh, you know, I should have looked that up and I have?

Tom Kubiak: No, don’t worry, usually, you’re super well prepared.

Ian Robertson: No, I don’t prepare anything. I just I was literally just in Edinburgh and that’s all everything is you know, Robert Burns this and Robert Burns that. You know what’s interesting is, I thought it was going to be weird and gimmicky but it’s actually a really good scotch it’s very light.

Tom Kubiak: What’s the distillery?

Ian Robertson: It is, let’s see, distilled, manufactured, and bottled in Scotland product of Scotland. So it looks like Robert Burns is the name of the distillery.

Tom Kubiak: Oh, interesting. Okay, man, I’ve never heard of it.

Ian Robertson: But you know, what’s funny is, every time I got a Scotch there, you know, it’s kind of like you go to, you’re going to Mexico and the tequila tastes different. Or you go to

Tom Kubiak: Caribbean islands,

Ian Robertson: China and Chinese food are different. Yeah, whatever it is.

Tom Kubiak: Rum.

Ian Robertson: Yeah. Rum. It’s different than the American version, what they drink there is weightless PD than what we drink and it’s very clear and mild. It’s almost, I’m going to be killed by a Scotsman here. Almost Irishy. It’s like, Yeah.

Tom Kubiak: Oh, yeah. Yeah, be careful but thankfully, none of our listeners, probably none of our listeners are in Scotland.

Ian Robertson: I don’t know, but it’s what they drink on day-to-day is a lot like this and it’s very enjoyable. It’s PD still, but not nearly as PD as what we drink over here. It’s like they manufacture something different for the American palate is basically what it feels like, Oh, okay.

Tom Kubiak: It’s probably true. (Yeah) That’s the case with a lot of things. You know, the American palate. (Yeah) Is where the money is. So they appeal to it. You know, when they’re when they’re producing. How is it?

Ian Robertson: Well, I’m going to pull it, Tom.

Tom Kubiak: Tell me.

Ian Robertson: Okay, so it does have a very mild body, but Carmel overtones. It’s got a little zip on the end, almost like there’s some corn in it but you can tell it’s like.

Ian Robertson: Like scotch, that’s going to be the bulk of it is going to be barley, but, man, that’s good. I would buy this again because it tastes like memories over there.

Tom Kubiak: Okay,

Tom Kubiak: Oh, good. Did you bring it back? Or did you find it locally?

Ian Robertson: Oh, my wife found it locally. And it’s one well, we’ve ordered it online, I should say,

Tom Kubiak: Okay,

Ian Robertson: No, it’s good. It tastes like the Scotch or get over there that you can’t get here because all the Scotch they had over there was going to these micro-distilleries and these castles, everybody has their own Scotch is like everybody here has their own beer. Yeah. All of it was amazing. I’m like, why is everything good here? You know, you don’t I didn’t really have a bad scotch.

Tom Kubiak: Interesting. I’ll have to look it up and see if I was thinking it was one of the, you know, it would be similar to the Nick Offerman Lagavulin, where its distillery is Lagavulin, but Nick Offerman lend his name to it, but maybe he did. Maybe this poet had a distillery named after him.

Ian Robertson: I mean, everything else was named after him but all I know is I’ll be buying this one again. This is on the show. Besides Lagavulin is one of my favorites so far.

Tom Kubiak: Oh, wow. Where’d you end up getting it from? Where did you order it?

Ian Robertson: Wine.com.

Tom Kubiak: Okay, yeah, they’re pretty good. Yeah, good selection.

Ian Robertson: Well, again, this isn’t something that most people are going to carry on the shelf, because it doesn’t really go with our palates here in the States. You know,

Tom Kubiak: I started ordering from another company called Caskers too they have a pretty good selection of odd things. So it’s, you know, more than you can find locally.

Ian Robertson: Yeah. But I tell you what, speaking of the personality of Robert Burns, you liked that segue, Tom? We didn’t actually say that.

Tom Kubiak: Not a stretch at all.

Ian Robertson: Not a stretch. But a Myers Briggs. So yeah, as we were saying before 1917, though it was not invented by but coined by Katharine Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Myers. So it was a whole family affair. And if you look at old pictures of them, it kind of looks like Bates Motel, right?

Tom Kubiak: I think all the pictures from that time frame look like the Bates Motel.

Ian Robertson: We know about these personalities, we capture people in our basement and sort them by them.

Tom Kubiak: But the interesting thing to me is that they were not even the initiators of this style of looking at personalities, they modified what someone else had done, and expanded on it, which I thought was kind of a neat little wrinkle.

Ian Robertson: Yeah, so it was a Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung or Jung?

Tom Kubiak: Yeah, I’m not sure

Ian Robertson: J U N. G., he came up with basically a psychological parameter to put people in. Say, okay, you know, some people like to hang out with other people, and they seem to fit into a certain category, and they do this and they do that. But his theories were very complex, and very much for a psychiatric mind to kind of take apart. (Yeah) So in essence, all Myers and Briggs did was dumb it down for everybody. (Yeah), That’s really what they did.

Tom Kubiak: I think it’s interesting too, how they took in, it’s comparable to left-hand right hand. So they said there are opposites in personality style. So as an example, you might have somebody who is defiant or they’re compliant. In that range, you don’t generally have a person who is both defiant and compliant. As a result, if you can find those characteristics that have opposites, then you can put people in categories based upon which one of those qualities they more often display and that’s how you narrow their personality down.

Ian Robertson: Yeah, it’s funny though, basically psychiatrists and science, they call it pseudoscience or like, this isn’t real, (Yeah) but I got to say, Man, you take the test and you watch other people do it. It’s like “That kind of nailed you dude” “That’s pretty spot on”.

Tom Kubiak: That was the case with you right after you took the test and it gives you back your results. And I guess we should say the way the way the test works is they ask you a series of questions. And they ask you to base upon the question to rate whether you completely agree with it, or whether you completely disagree with it or arrange. Yeah. And so you have maybe, you know, maybe 1010, or nine probably choices. So your choice number one is “completely agree”. Choice number nine is “completely disagree”. Choice number five is “I’m neutral on it”. Depending upon where you are, and based upon the answers to those questions, and they ask through the course of the test variants of the same question, and that allows them to be able to narrow down which categories you’d typically fall into based upon, you know, how strongly you feel about certain things.

Ian Robertson: Yeah, and the one that I tend to see the most, and I’ve taken a lot of these just goof around and stuff like that. But 16 personalities.com, we’re not affiliated with them in any way. It just seems to be the most thorough out of the online test. I mean, I imagine you could probably go take these somewhere and have like a professional, look it over or whatever. But it’s really very basic. So I took it, and I came up as an INTJ, and everything described to me as, hits the nail on the head. A lot of people are like, Oh, well, you’re not introverted. I’m like, I can pull the levers and make things move, nut at the end of the day, I like to sit quietly in the corner of my basement with all the lights off drinking a glass of scotch, thinking about how to take over the universe.

Tom Kubiak: You need to have a map of the world behind you and a hairless cat to stroke.

Ian Robertson: Exactly. Have a map of Yeah, let’s do that. Actually. I’m going to work on and that’s going to be our next TikTok, me stroking the cat,

Tom Kubiak: Stroking the hairless cat and saying “What are we going to do today, Pinky?”

Ian Robertson: Exactly. Yeah, exactly, but man, it really, like I always had trouble, like, interacting with kids when I was younger, because I’m just like, this is stupid. Why are you running around in circles? Why don’t we play a game with clearly defined rules? I’m going to show you how to more effectively catch that person. And they’re all like, oh, I don’t want to play with you anymore.

Tom Kubiak: Well, I think it goes back to the eye is introverted, right, Yeah, that’s the designation for it and I think if we go back to our “What type of vacation Do you like?”, like that. Introverted for you is written all over that episode, because you would prefer to just stay home and do nothing,

Ian Robertson: Or be in the woods,

Tom Kubiak: Or be in the woods by yourself.

Ian Robertson: Either way, it’s just, and you know, let’s just sit back because I want to talk about what you got for your results. But it’s 16 personalities as the name of their website because that’s ultimately what it comes down to and they have variants of it. So let’s just, first of all, say you can’t categorize everybody into 16 personality types. There are literally 10s of millions of variants of it, and you’re going to have two people with the same quote unquote, the personality type that is going to be very, very different from each other, which we’ll actually touch on a little bit later. But basically, you get four parameters to your personality. So like INTJ is I as introverted? I forget what the n means.

Tom Kubiak: I don’t know, actually. Sadly, I should know because I had an N also.

Ian Robertson: Okay. introverted, intuitive thinking and judging. Okay. Yes, that’s right. So that’s what that’s what always throws me off as the end is actually intuitive. I don’t know who came up with

Tom Kubiak: Did you have a letter at the end? Like INTJ dash?

Ian Robertson: Yeah, so they have different variants of that too. Okay. So mine is the architect. Okay. So I think that’s a dash “A” or something like that.

Tom Kubiak: Or assertive

Ian Robertson: Or assertive? Yeah,

Tom Kubiak: Assertive? I think it is. Yeah. So I ended up on ENTJ-A so exactly the same as you except for the fact that I’m extroverted rather than introverted. Yep.

Ian Robertson: So yours is called “The Commander”.

Tom Kubiak: the commander. Exactly. What was yours called?

Ian Robertson: The architect. Yeah,

Tom Kubiak: The architect. Okay.

Ian Robertson: So when I read it, I’m like, this is literally Tom to a tee, but there’s quite a bit of difference. So the E stands for extrovert, right? So we were just talking before the show. Yep. You love having people over you love hospitality. You love this and you love that? And I’m just like, man, there’s going to be somebody in my house. Like, what do I do with them here? Like, where’s my where’s my meditation in the morning if they’re coming out and talking to me?

Tom Kubiak: Yeah, that is exactly true. Like, like, I’m the person, who wants the big group, and I organize the big group. I mean, I don’t mind being alone and not having anybody you know, around. But at the same point, I’m like, that’s my element is to have people around me.

Ian Robertson: Yeah. And it works for you. But that’s also why the big difference in personality between INTJ and ENTJ, is because you’re going to, that’s why they call you the commander because you can do all the INTJs are actually just the most common personality type of villains. Did you know that?

Tom Kubiak: You do have a lair.

Ian Robertson: Yeah, I do have a lair. Technically I do. Yep, but when they form personalities of characters when they do a villain, I read something. I mean, the estimates are way off the chart. So I’m probably not even going to quote them. But a ridiculously high number are INTJs because they tend to be emotionally aloof, and to look at things distantly and emotionally, okay, ENTJs does the exact opposite. They judge plans and have all this stuff out but they think about people in their emotions. And they take that into consideration. So I’m usually the antagonist in your personality usually the protagonist.

Tom Kubiak: Yep, very true.

Ian Robertson: That’s almost invariably how a story is written with our personality types

Tom Kubiak: With your results and that’s one thing about the 16 personalities website and like we said, you can find these personality types in many places on the internet. So it’s, it’s not if you just searched you know, Myers Briggs test you’ll come up with a couple of different options are meant probably more than one more than a couple. But one nice thing about these 16 personalities is they give you percentages. So it kind of shows you where you fall in each one of those categories. So you know, you have the extroverted introverted, where’d you end up falling in that? Did you get the results?

Ian Robertson: I was basically very introverted,

Tom Kubiak: Okay.

Ian Robertson: That’s why I got the architect because basically, I don’t work well with others.

Tom Kubiak: Okay. So I ended up about 60% extroverted and 40% introverted but I thought the rest of mine were actually pretty close except for the judging. So I ended up very judging. 65% judging,

Ian Robertson: But it’s not judging the in the case of judging others.

Tom Kubiak: Yeah, it’s judging as an ability. I think at least the way I’m assuming it’s the ability to make a decision.

Ian Robertson: Yes. So yeah. So you’re, that means typically, you’re very decisive. Yeah. What you are, you’re like, Okay, here’s all the information. Here’s what we have. I’m going to make a decision.

Tom Kubiak: Yeah. And I think interestingly, some of the questions were related to Do you second guess yourself? Do you obsess or make a wrong decision? You know, do you think about a decision afterward? Like should I have made that decision? And for me, those were often definitive no’s, like, if once I’ve made a decision, I don’t second guess the decision. I don’t go back; I do take time to make the decision. I think it out but I don’t, you know, I don’t obsess afterwards. Like, once I’ve made a decision. I feel like I’ve done my job.

Ian Robertson: Yeah, I’m pretty much the same way. (Yeah)I have a rule of decisions made at least it was made because most personality types, interestingly enough, are one of the reasons why they use our personality, I think this is hysterical because yours is actually the rarest personality type.

Tom Kubiak: Oh, really, I didn’t know that.

Ian Robertson: Mine is the third or fourth rarest by a thin margin. So the reason that they use our personality types is because imagine reading a book and nobody does anything. Like everybody just sits around thinking about what they’re going to do. So instead, they build characters off of intuitively ENTJs and INTJs.

Tom Kubiak: Oh, I didn’t know that. That’s interesting.

Ian Robertson: So I mean, there’s a lot of assumption in it but think about a lot of the books, you know, comic books and stuff like that. The protagonist is almost always an EN TJ or a variant and my personality is the villain, because they can make decisions and they have plots.

Tom Kubiak: Okay

Ian Robertson: So you plan things out very likely, like, Okay, I’m going to go here, then I’m going to do this and then by the end of the week, this will probably have Yeah, I have discovered throughout my lifetime, that almost nobody does that. No, it’s true. Most people just like, I’m going to start driving and see what happens. (Yeah) Like people go places without checking. I’m like, did you check the metrics of how many people are going to be there? What are you going to do if you stand in line for more than 35 minutes? Do you have a backup plan? They’re like, Dude, we’re just going to dinner. I’m like, I know, you’re doing this flippantly.

Tom Kubiak: You do the same thing, you go, if I’m going to a vacation spot. I’ve already picked the restaurants I’m going to eat that yeah; I’ve already picked where I’m going to go for you know midday that I want to go to an event or something like that. I already have that all booked. I very rarely show up someplace and have no idea what I’m going to do. I will let other people make decisions. So like I don’t need to be the one to force a decision but I have a list already.

Ian Robertson: Yeah, well, and again, that’s the E part of your ENTJ is that you are like you’re taking other people into consideration, and that’s why you’re called the commander and you do tend to take the lead in a lot of things. I mean, that’s your thing. (Yeah) In some ways, you know, not in a bad way. I mean that as a compliment. You know.

Tom Kubiak: It’s super funny. It shows how interesting these personality tests are and I think one of the things that I thought was informative is learning about what you have a tendency to do and seeing it validated and how you make decisions and it does kind of help you to be able to see why you do something a particular way if your personality type is geared a certain way it you’re inclined to do that. However, I found it interesting that in reading through the biographies of Myers and Briggs, these personality types are not locked in. So you can change your personality type if you want to be more decisive, you can change it. and an example they gave was even though you have left-handed and right-handed people, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn to write with your non-dominant hand, you can, you just have to train yourself to do it. Knowing your personality type and knowing the way you make decisions. If you want to say I you know, I’m an I and I want to be more of an E, or if I’m, you know, if I tend to be a prospecting person, which means I delay making decisions. I’m not, you know, I’m not as firm on making decisions you can change to be more judging, by giving yourself a set of criteria and working towards it.

Ian Robertson: It’s interesting too because a lot of the personalities that, like I think you just referenced the P at the end of a personality type like an INTP, or an ENTP. The holding back from making decisions is one of the more common ones that people overcome, they learn to be more decisive, and it gets ingrained in our personality. Obviously, the younger we are, the easier it is but I used to be a lot more of an I years ago, and it’s a little less now but we can change and again, these are just basic parameters. You can have two into is in a room, and they’re going to be completely different people, you know, but they’re going to share certain traits, traits. Yes. It’s interesting that the way I found out about Myers Briggs I always ignore those online quizzes and stuff. Yeah, there’s a guy that I work with, and we just hit it right off, and I don’t know why I’m like, I don’t work well with people. I told him, I work well with you. And he goes, I have no idea why but this is going smashingly. So a few months in his wife messages me through his phone or something. And she goes, take this test, and she sent me 16 personalities. And I’m like, this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen, why are you having me do this, and I took it, and I sent it. She goes, I need you to take that, so I took it a bunch of different ways and a bunch of different times, and it came up with the same results. Then she sent me a link from 16 personalities, showing how her husband’s personality type and my personality type often are one of the best combos of any personality for work.

Tom Kubiak: Oh, really interesting.

Ian Robertson: Yeah. They’re like, for work goals and for getting things accomplished. His personality is with mine. She goes, it’s right there. I’m like, that was eerie,

Tom Kubiak: That’s pretty cool.

Ian Robertson: It even describes how we interact. I’m like,

Tom Kubiak: Because your personality types fit together. Like, you know, they mesh.

Ian Robertson: Yeah, like, our personality types I looked it up, do really well together because you tend to be more empathetic. We actually work well as a team. Like I’ll just secretly maneuver things in the background. Then you’ll take the lead and just take that into consideration. You know, that kind of thing. But like other personality types, my wife is the protector.

Tom Kubiak: Okay, I can see that.

Ian Robertson: Yeah. So she’s quiet. She doesn’t like a large group of friends and almost seems a little aloof, but is actually one of the most heartfelt people you’ll ever meet. Yeah, and they keep about five people super close and you unleash the lion if you mess with those five people they care about. Yeah.

Tom Kubiak: I can see that with your wife.

Ian Robertson: Well, I showed my wife she goes” That’s not… okay, fine.”

Tom Kubiak: She put up weak resistance.

Ian Robertson: Yeah, she’s like, all right, whatever. That’s accurate.

Tom Kubiak: Did you have your daughter take it?

Ian Robertson: No, not yet. No, she’s too young. She’s too young. And I don’t want her to

Tom Kubiak: Okay. Yeah, she’s still young.

Ian Robertson: You know, sometimes as older people we can kind of rationalize, okay, this doesn’t mean this is who I am but younger people might stick with them. So

Tom Kubiak: yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah, that’s a very good point. I got to have my wife do it. I don’t think she’s ever done it before.

Ian Robertson: I would love to see what she comes out as. (Yeah) You know, I bet she’d almost be the protector, but she’d be more outgoing. So I wonder where that would fall.

Tom Kubiak: Yeah, that’s very true. I’ll have her take it and tell me how well it comes up.

Ian Robertson: But you know, realistically, it has some benefits. So if it’s pseudoscience or not, you know, what else is pseudoscience that people talk about pseudoscience, but anecdotally we recognize it as being basically real life like they talk about, oh, it’s pseudoscience, that birth order matters. I was listening to a podcast on that.

Tom Kubiak: Oh, yeah. I Listen to the same one.

Ian Robertson: It’s like, at the end of the day, you kind of like, Yeah, but if you see a pattern, it came from somewhere.

Tom Kubiak: Yeah, and I think that’s a super valid point. This is the thing about tests like this is like so. So maybe it’s not, you know, firm and, you know, conclusive evidence that a person will act in a certain way but if you run a couple of these tests, and every one of them based upon your answers is coming back with a trait that maybe you want to try changing a little bit, well, then you can work on ways to become more decisive or be, you know, ways to be more feeling toward other people’s opinions and as a result of that, you may end up modifying your personality a little bit to make it more in line with what you’re trying to accomplish. The end goal of that is, and I think this is, for me, this is an important point, we don’t have to settle with the personality that we have, and put no work into making our personality better. We can change the person that we are, I’ve heard people say, Well, this is the way I am, this is the way I was born and as a result, you have to take me luck. I am the I don’t believe that’s true. I believe we’re we are dealt a certain hand maybe in certain life experiences, that bend us in a certain direction but that’s not the end of our growth. I think there’s an interesting quote, and I actually have it on my, my desktop here. Marcus Aurelius is a Roman had published a book of, you know, wisdom pieces and little simple quotes. One of his quotes was, “Don’t assume it’s impossible, because you find it to be hard to recognize that if someone else did it, you can do it too. If it’s possible for one man, it’s possible likely for you.” Now, granted, some people have abilities that are going to be beyond what you know, you were I can do just naturally, they’re gifted with things, although Malcolm Gladwell says that that’s not true. I agree, I think that it is, like I think some people have inherent traits and abilities but that doesn’t mean you can’t get better at something. So like, I might not be able to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix, but I could, if I wanted to learn guitar, and I could get really good at it if I was willing to devote the time into it, you know, and I think that’s the same thing is true with personalities, we might have a personality trait or aspect that is not desirable but that doesn’t mean we just put up our hands and say, Well, I can’t change, we can change. I feel strongly about that.

Ian Robertson: Yeah, this is off-topic. Yeah, I guess so, Man, a little bit to unbox there, Tom. But you’re not just talking about the whole I can’t change a thing. There’s a measure of you can change and as a measure of your given what you’re dealt with, I mean, so like, even look at the physical aspect of things. You have a guy like Eddie Hall, who is the world’s strongest man,

Tom Kubiak: Yeah, crazy. Yep. Do you ever watch that documentary on Netflix about him? No, I didn’t have really, really good. Yeah, I’m not recommending it but um, it’s amazing what he was able to accomplish.

Ian Robertson: Okay. See, I didn’t watch that. I just follow him online, because I think he’s hysterical.

Tom Kubiak: Watch it.

Ian Robertson: But you know, you had to be born a certain size because mass moves mass.

Tom Kubiak: Yeah, no matter what, I’m never going to lift.

Ian Robertson: Yeah, and so you have to Eddie Hall naturally is barrel-shaped, which is the perfect shape for powerlifting because then you basically take your abdominal muscles and push off when you’re lifting with your legs. He has enough mass to pull. He has incredible shoulder strength and he has a lot of you think about like a long-distance runner versus a sprinter. a sprinter is typically born with more fast-twitch muscle fibers. So that means those and they are usually the ones that get bigger, faster, but more importantly, they’re fast twitch, it’s for quick bursts of speed. So short-distance runners, man, they can blast out some speed, but you take a long-distance runner, they don’t have a whole lot of speed but they just never stopped. They have a lot of slow twitch muscle. You know, you get a guy like Eddie Hall, out there lifting all day long in the strongman competition and he and he can survive it. I think I was reading an article that eats over 10,000 calories a day when he’s training.

Tom Kubiak: Yeah, they show that of the documentary, some of the like, what his breakfast is, it’s crazy.

Ian Robertson: I’m not going to be able to do that. So mentally there’s a measure of genetics in our brains too

Tom Kubiak: Yes, yeah. And so that makes a valid point. This is one of the things that Malcolm Gladwell in one of his books, his book is called Outliers. I think it’s a very interesting book, super interesting guy and does tons of research behind is there is. His position is, is that you can train yourself out of any circumstance into something else. He uses as an example, The Beatles and he says one of the reasons the Beatles were as good as they were is because they just played so much together like 10,000 sets or something like that. I understand that but at the same point, there are some things that coalesce at a certain time to make a certain thing happen. As a result of that exactly what you’re saying, if you have a long-distance runner who’s born with a body type that allows for long-distance running, they’re going to run, they’re going to be able to train better than I would I’m not a long-distance runner but my point in connection with what Marcus earlier says, if it’s possible for someone else, it’s possible for you is I could be a decent long-distance runner, even though I wouldn’t be like the best. If I wanted to devote my time to improving my ability as a long-distance runner, I could do that. I could get good. You know, and that’s the decision that all of us have to make and it’s the same is true with personality. So if I say, I want to be a more feeling person, but I’m, you know, 100% thinking, well, if I start to take into consideration other people’s feelings when I’m making decisions, it will push me toward that feeling person rather than just being genetically or because of my, you know, my background thinking person.

Ian Robertson: Well, and I think that speaks to the actual benefit of some of these personality tests, more specifically, Myers Briggs. So one of the things they go over is things that you do, and you wonder why people get mad at you, you know, and it talks about the weaknesses of the personality. So like mine, was, I tend not to wait for people, I have a plan, I can quickly assess the situation, and I just go for it. People can feel left behind or pushed aside. I noticed I was even doing that with my daughter, it’s actually helped me improve as a father, I’d stop and I purposely take apart my plans and say, What do you want to do? It’s cool to see the stuff that she comes up with, is it the way that I would do it? No, but it’s helped us bond and grow and I was able, to say, Okay, I actually understand that I have a weakness there now. So yeah, we can change. People say play to your strengths, I say, play to your weaknesses. If you have a weakness, improve, that don’t just keep getting, like, if you’re a great bench-press, don’t keep bench pressing, work the legs and become a better overall athlete, mentally and emotionally, We can do that too. Don’t play to our strengths play to our weaknesses.

Tom Kubiak: That’s a challenge in personalities because we have a tendency to play to our strength. So you know, and if we have an area that we shine in, we’re going to be we’re going to gravitate toward that, the natural course of action is not to spend time on the things that we’re weak on. It’s the same in, you know, the, in my personality type, one of the suggestions it gave was, you know, recognize that your ability to get things done depends upon a team. And so focus on the abilities of your team, and that will make you more empathetic to them and also recognize that you know, you can’t be intolerant of other people not, you know, moving at the same pace that you’re moving. So if you know, and what I took out of that is, hey, if I incorporate those things, it makes me I can still keep that the strong points that come with this commander, you know, personality type, but that leads you to be more empathetic and more feeling and people like that more like they don’t like the commander. You can, maybe he or she can get things done. But that’s not always the thing that makes people happy.

Ian Robertson: Well, and then there’s the variance of two people really like you, and I’m not just saying that people like you a lot. So it’s not like

Tom Kubiak: Because I have candy,

Ian Robertson: You have candy and booze. You know, but hey, there’s a large variance. It’s not always going to be a perfect fit for everyone. But overall as an indicator, I actually think it’s pretty good. I liked the whole process.

Tom Kubiak: Yeah, I think it’s pretty, it was cool. It was a cool exercise. Yeah,

Ian Robertson: Yeah. It was a cool exercise. So I actually have something here for you, Tom.

Tom Kubiak: Okay, Tell me.

Ian Robertson
So I went and did a bunch of research and I found out famous ENTJ, so your personality type so you’re the rarest personality type. You are also the most common personality type for leaders in general, obviously, as a commander, so like presidents and stuff like that. Military commanders are great. But anyway, famous people, superheroes, and supervillains. That’s what we’re going to do. Okay.

Tom Kubiak: Oh, boy. Okay.

Ian Robertson: So if anyone listening is an ENTJ, listen up to famous ENTJs. Steve Jobs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Julius Caesar. I don’t know how they did that. So I think there are some people out there who are basically just trying to figure out their personality type of what they would do and applying it to it.

Tom Kubiak: Didn’t Julius Caesar fill one out just before Brutus stabbed him in the back?

Ian Robertson: Yep, Julius Caesar filled out 16 personalities in you know, there’s a famous quote that says Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. It was by Abraham Lincoln.

Tom Kubiak: Yes, exactly I’ve read that.

Ian Robertson: Winston Churchill, which I can see I remember, just recently, I was watching a documentary about how he split up Europe and everything, and how it bothered him but he was very, very much the commander. He had it planned out long before the end of the war. So to the point where the Polish people that were fighting in Italy, when they came home, they were ousted from their own homes they went to fight for countries that they came back and then they had no place to live. He didn’t really like that, it’s just how it happened but anyway, I digress. Okay, superheroes that are ENTJs, Superman, Captain America, and Professor X, but think about it, right? They’re altruistic. They’re commanding. They usually lead teams and people look to them as symbols, it’s the commander personality type. So goes back to our point, whether subconsciously or not, when people are writing a protagonist, they are almost invariably an ENTJ.

Tom Kubiak: I can guess did you do yours too? For superheroes?

Ian Robertson: Yeah, but I want to tell you who your villains are though.

Tom Kubiak: Okay. Okay. Yeah, I want to. I know who you’re going to say,

Ian Robertson: Yeah, okay, we’ll see. These made so much sense to you too. If you’re a villain, General Zod it’s the same thing just with a bad agenda. Brainiac, Brainiac at any given point was, he was an anti-villain, you know, Two-face

Tom Kubiak: Well, you could almost look at Zod that way too.

Ian Robertson: Oh, that’s true.

Tom Kubiak: He wasn’t the classic villain that’s only interested in destruction and you know, like, like, Thanos.

Ian Robertson: Yeah, he thought he was doing he thought he was doing good things.

Tom Kubiak: Yeah, well Thanos did. I guess.

Ian Robertson: Well, yeah, and Thanos was an INTJ.

Tom Kubiak: Oh, was he really?

Ian Robertson: Yeah, that’s on my list.

Tom Kubiak: It’s interesting.

Ian Robertson
They actually say he’s the quintessential INTJ but Two-face was your other one. (Okay) So again, he was a leader of an organization. He was on a righteous crusade too of you know, corruption and all that stuff. He wasn’t just career grim.

Tom Kubiak: Yeah, because he was a DA. Yeah.

Ian Robertson: Yeah. He was a DA. Do you want to hear mine?

Tom Kubiak: Yeah, I definitely want to hear yours

Ian Robertson: INTJs, they’re basically almost obsessive with blinders on. So they tend to be very specialized in their fields like Arnold Schwarzenegger. INTJ.

Tom Kubiak: Interesting.

Ian Robertson: Basically, he sacrificed all personal relationships, to go work out at the gym two times a day and that was his whole life. Then he was obsessed. So it tends to have an obsessive personality, kind of like my 900-some-odd bottles of wine in my basement.

Tom Kubiak: That’s true

Ian Robertson: You know, or instead of making one table, let’s make 15. You know, it’s just, it makes sense. Lance Armstrong, Elon Musk.

Tom Kubiak: That’s not what I would want to be in the same category. Although genius level. I mean, unquestioning.

Ian Robertson: Yeah, I know but again, I’m not saying that. It has anything to do with intelligence. It’s just an obsessive personality, because you’re introverted, but you have all this stuff from the commander. So basically, you go into your own head, and you just go at the expense of others. Isaac Newton, I don’t again, I don’t know how to do that.

Tom Kubiak: Oh, that’s interesting. I wonder. Yeah. I wonder how they got that.

Ian Robertson: I’m not sure, but who were you going to say for my hero for INTJ?

Tom Kubiak: Batman?

Ian Robertson: That’s exactly. That’s the only one I wrote down. Definitely, there were other ones, but I’m just like, I’m going to, but think about it. Batman and Superman. Were frenemies.

Tom Kubiak: Yep.

Ian Robertson
Well, ultimately, they were friends because they both had the same goals. They just went about it differently. Yeah. They worked really well together and they were good protagonists. But that’s why people relate really well, to that duo because you take the bad guy and the good guy and put them together. So he’s a bad guy with good intentions. But yeah, the list of heroes that are INTJ is basically Batman and two other people, and one of them I had never heard of, so I just wrote down Batman. Oh, yeah, because there’s not many. INTJs are reserved for the villain. So again, if you’re an INTJ, listen up. Here are your supervillains: Lex Luthor, the Joker, Thanos, and Doc Octopus.

Tom Kubiak: Oh Okay, yeah,

Ian Robertson: Those were the top four that people would recognize. But basically, evil intent without any kind of thought for others and obsession just get your thing done and not think about others.

Tom Kubiak: Interesting, to others.

Ian Robertson: I mean, no, you think about the consequences to others but you don’t think about the emotional aspect. An INTJ would be like, Okay, I’m not saying I would do this. an INTJ would be like, I’m going to sacrifice this battleship of, you know, 100 people to save these three battleships and I save three battleships. Whereas another personality type might have all four fight to the last minute because they won’t sacrifice one that

Tom Kubiak: Couldn’t decide that they could sacrifice they couldn’t reconcile you know, sacrificing a ship of people. Yeah. Okay. Interesting.

Ian Robertson: It was the I would the J mix together. It makes an evil combination but like some of the worst people in human history were INTJs so I didn’t want to write them down, because, oh boy, but this was an interesting podcast on you know,

Tom Kubiak: That was super interesting. Yeah, super interesting.

Ian Robertson: But do you have a joke to take us out?

Tom Kubiak: I do have a joke. I got a bad joke.

Ian Robertson: Okay. Yeah,

Tom Kubiak: I tried to find a good joke about personalities, but I couldn’t find one. So I ended up settling on an animal joke. So Ian, what’s the best part about a llama doing improv?

Ian Robertson: I don’t know.

Tom Kubiak: The spit takes.

Ian Robertson: Buddum tsss.

Tom Kubiak: That’s not as good as some of the other ones. I’ll be good all week.

Ian Robertson: That’s okay.

Tom Kubiak: Do you have a joke?

Ian Robertson: Yeah, I went to the psychiatrist and he told me that I was a pathological narcissist. I have no idea what he was talking about as the smartest person in the world I think he’s completely wrong.

Tom Kubiak: Well for going to a doctor joke Have you ever heard of Norm Macdonald giving the joke about the moth?

Ian Robertson: No.

Tom Kubiak: For our listeners go to YouTube and Google Norm Macdonald the moth. It is the best joke I’ve ever heard. It’s too long to give and I can’t do it justice but if you find Norm Macdonald doing it, he just delivers it so perfectly.

Ian Robertson: All right, I have to remember that. So everybody looks up the moth.

Tom Kubiak: Look up the moth.

Ian Robertson: Thank you for listening. Whatever Myers Briggs Personality you are. Thank you for listening in and you INTPs. You don’t need to listen anymore.

Tom Kubiak: Send us a message. Send us a message on one of our social media platforms and let us know what personality test you came up with.

Ian Robertson: Oh, yeah, we’d love to hear, tell us.

Tom Kubiak: Yeah.

Ian Robertson: Thanks, Tom. We’ll talk soon.

Tom Kubiak: Great see you, Ian.

Ian Robertson: Bye!