Written by Design

At some point during my time in university, as part of my leadership courses, we were asked to take the Myers Briggs (MBTI) test, which asks some questions to determine a little about your personality type, how you communicate, and how you see the world.

This is not a test meant to put people into boxes. It is meant to shed a some light on how we might better communicate with one another after understanding them and ourselves a little better. It's not a road map to our lives; it's a mirror to ourselves and a window to others, allowing for better understanding between people.

There are a few places to take this test online, the official MBTI test is here, which is what I took while in school, or also this one that is a little more engaging and fun!  What you'll surmise quickly is that there are 16 different types and it comes down to four letters.  My type: ISTP (introverted-sensing-thinking-perceiving).


This image helps a bit understanding the different components of how t…

It's pretty much common sense to agree people shouldn't drink and drive. Yet, people do and if you pull up your county bookings online (public record) you can find people are getting charged with this everyday.

My family has been wrought with the pain and consequences of this. My mom has buried more than one family member due to someone else on the road driving while intoxicated. And last week, it could have been me she had to bury.
It was Friday evening, it was around 8:30pm and the sun was inching closer to the horizon. I was listening to my music while out for my workout. I was on my normal circuit for five miles, enjoying the evening.
Unexpectedly, a driver coming toward me ran off the road, popped his tire and didn't stop, hit the curb again, popped another tire, and slammed full blast into a light pole, taking the light pole down. The only thing that prevented the pole from crashing into the roof of his vehicle was it got snagged on a power line, which was now dangli…

The past few weeks I have been engaged in some training initiatives for my new role at work. This training has involved a lot of new material and experiences and has required me to interact with tons of people I don't know and from business segments to which I am still pretty unfamiliar. When I got home from work last night, after a long week or learning, interacting and so much socialization, I told my sister that it is hard to imagine myself ten or fifteen years ago having the confidence to do this.
It led into an interesting discussion about confidence increasing with years. I have always been a confident person, even when I have been the underdog, even when I have been openly disparaged for my beliefs or opinions (I think back to a project in my high school economics class were I proposed privatization of health care and education - I was ridiculed). However, I have always been very comfortable in these situations and therefore I was confident.
And that led me to the realizati…

In my youth and early adulthood, I gave very little concern to the environment. I didn't trouble myself over people who littered, or my excessive consumption of single use plastic. I didn't worry about what pesticides did to the ecosystem. I didn't care. 
Even in high school and on college campuses, when the young people were such staunch advocates of a pro-environmentally friendly agenda, I wasn't swayed. These people also had very liberal economic ideas that I disagreed with, and truthfully, I worried that by aligning myself with their environmental views I'd be perceived as being another young liberal college student, when in fact in my early adulthood I was staunchly conservative.
Perhaps I should be ashamed of my slow progress toward a more enlightened view on the environment, but there is no shame in telling the truthful story about progress. I was ignorant about where I stood as a young person, due in some part to the manipulative messaging by the media and …

I was having an amusing recollection the other night, discussing with my mom how sensitive I am to my house being untidy.  I know precisely what needs to be done, and I truly have trouble sleeping if I know there are dishes piled up in the sink!

My husband does not share this problem. He is very content, very comfortable whether the house is spotless or a little untidy. However, if we have a cupboard door in need of repair or something wrong with an appliance, it bothers him tremendously. A duct-tape solution does not appease him, he wants a true fix. And it is funny to me that I am not troubled by those things.

I remember the house I grew up in very well. It was less than 1000 square feet, one functional bathroom, 6 people in the house. Cramped quarters is an understatement. The house was built in the 1930s and had all the beautiful charms of a pre-WWII home, with stucco and archways and high windows. It also, however, wasn't built for modern inventions such as dishwashers or hig…

I'm about to make a career change at work that is unlike anything I have tried before.  I am leaving the side of the business where I have established myself for ten years, where I have made connections and learned functions and developed different skills, and I am moving into a sales role.

Ten years ago, it would have been mind boggling to me to even consider such a change. I have always felt that I was far too wired for internal business, learning and working inside of operations. However, in the last few years I have worked more and more closely with our sales team, built relationships with them and seen how they work, and I began to speculate if this was something I could enjoy. Where hard work could result in personal reward, where I could be, in a small way, the master of my own fate.  I see my sister do this and excel and I became curious and very open to the idea.

I have recently had some change within the function I have been working within in my current role and it had f…