So how would you pack for a week long trip to Maui in May? Especially if you are not flying South West and don’t want to dip into your (rapidly diminishing) retirement savings? The answer is lightly.
That’s what my wife and I tried to remember, as we packed for our Memorial Day vacation earlier this year…
(My wife is behind the curve and refused to make use of the latest technological advances. She is still on the Kindle and WILL NOT upgrade to the iPad. I read books the way God meant us to read them – on paper!)
Maui was every bit as beautiful as we thought it would be! The hills, double-rainbows, beaches, ocean and sea-life were unbelievable. But the best part for me was the sunrise at Haleaakalā!
Haleaakalā is a volcano on Maui with the summit at an altitude of 10,023 feet (3055m). And the Sunrise at Haleaakalā was one of the most recommended attractions. There were only two problems –
Turns out that there was a third problem –
T-shirt and shorts would not cut it. Clearly, we had not packed for these conditions. So we did the next best thing – we improvised. We bought gardening gloves from the grocery store, borrowed blankets from the hotel room and used the jackets we were smart enough to pack. It was not ideal, but good enough for us to enjoy watching the sun rise up through a carpet of white clouds.
So what’s the moral of this convoluted tale?
“When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.”
-Susan Heller
Perhaps, this applies to life, as well…
In every crisis that I have ever faced, the difference was not so much how many resources I had at my disposal, but how well I understood myself to
But how does one accumulate the currency of self-awareness? Introspection helps, but one can easily get lost in the wilderness of one’s thoughts. I needed a guide who would help me, and was blessed enough to find one – my Life Coach, Joy Perkins. Joy used her training, expertise, intuition and core values to guide my enquiry with thought provoking questions, books and tools.
She began my journey by introducing me to the world of Archetypes through Carol Pearson’s book – ‘Awakening the Heroes Within’. It helped me understand how I could harness the positive power of archetypes and avoid the dangers of the shadow (negative) forms of Archetypes. The biggest insight was that the shadow form of the Warrior Archetype was active in my life. What this means in plain English is that I was often getting in trouble with management about the choices they were making. Joy challenged me to understand why this was happening and find a better way to harness my passion without being a Warrior.
This led me to two questions-
To help me answer the first question, Joy introduced me to the MBTI, or the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. The MBTI is a personality type assessment based on the work of Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Jung. Developed by Katherine Briggs and her daughter – Isabel Briggs Myers, the MBTI helps us understand and appreciate the differences between normal, reasonable, healthy individuals. It liberates us from getting frustrated with those who are different by teaching us how to use those very differences to reach our goals.
The MBTI generates a personality type report based on a series of multiple choice questions. This report suggests the kinds of activities in which we are most relaxed and comfortable, where we are most likely to ‘be in the zone’. The report proposes a four letter code to get us started on the journey of self awareness. This four letter personality type does not imprison us in a pre-defined box of characteristics. We are way too complicated to be reduced to a simple four letter code! All individuals who share the same four letter MBTI personality type are unique, special and evolving. However, this four letter code does suggest some questions we can ask ourselves and provide a high level map to navigate the journey of life and inter-personal relationships.
My MBTI assessment helped validate some things I already knew about myself, and taught me some things that I did not know. In particular I learned that…
“How can we make the best possible decision to meet the needs of the business without sacrificing the needs of the team?”
In MBTI lingo, my four letter personality type was INFP, which expanded to-
My preference for taking care of people caused me to switch into the Warrior mode whenever I felt that management hadn’t tried hard enough to meet business needs without sacrificing the needs of the team. Although my intention was to find the best possible way for the long term success of the organization and employees, the way in which I reacted was counter productive.
I really love this quote…“You cannot control what you do not understand.” The MBTI personality type assessment, coupled with the PMAI archetype assessment helped me understand my core values, preferences and goals, so I could better control my response in situations where my default auto- response would be counter-productive. This insight was also invaluable in selecting and customizing an entrepreneurial venture that aligned my professional life with my deeply held personal vision, mission and values.
As usual, some questions for you to noodle on, until the next blog…
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