WHAT’S YOUR TYPE? How Personality Shapes Your Life
30 August, 2022
Glennon Doyle:
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. This is Glennon and we’ve got Abby Wambach. Abby, say hi.
Abby Wambach:
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s good, babe. Meet Amanda Doyle. This is sister. Sister, say hello to the pod squad.
Amanda Doyle:
Hello, pod squad.
Glennon Doyle:
How is everybody? Could everybody give me a couple words to describe how you’re doing today on this day? Babe?
Abby Wambach:
I’m doing great. I got a workout in and I’m going to be going to do a driving experience at the Porsche track in Carson, California this afternoon, so I woke up like a little kid. Me and my friend Cara are going to do it. It’s been a dream of mine my entire life to go and have a driving… a real car experience, because we don’t really have fast, spirity, sporty cars.
Glennon Doyle:
So you’re going to race cars around in a circle?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, but it’s not just a circle. There’s tests. There’s a skid track. There’s a G force angular part of the track. There’s a speedway.
Amanda Doyle:
Do you wear helmets?
Abby Wambach:
I’m sure. Yeah, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you have to try to park on a narrow street with lots of rear view mirrors?
Abby Wambach:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
Because that’s the test that I fail each day.
Abby Wambach:
No, I’m exploring the power of a 911 Porsche-
Glennon Doyle:
Wow.
Abby Wambach:
… GT3.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s really exciting, babe.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, she just said a bunch of letters and numbers that are impressive.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
I’m extrapolating by inference. What happens if you wreck the car?
Abby Wambach:
I have insurance and I’ve gotten the extra insurance. I paid 50 extra dollars to have a deductible if I were to total the car.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. Okay, great. Thank you.
Abby Wambach:
I took care of it. Your sister’s so worried.
Amanda Doyle:
I didn’t review any waivers. So flagging that for the record.
Abby Wambach:
I did this one on my own. I think I’m going to be all right.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay, well, good job. We get nervous when you do things on your own.
Glennon Doyle:
So today is an exciting pod, I think. All three of us are psyched about this conversation, which is something that applies to every single person on the Earth, because it’s about personalities. What is a personality? How do we forge our personality? Are we born with it?
Amanda Doyle:
Is it Maybelline?
Glennon Doyle:
Maybe it’s Maybelline. How do we figure out what our personality traits are? And why do we as people feel so desperate to figure out who we are? Why are we always doing Buzzfeed quizzes about what Disney princess we are, et cetera, et cetera? And what do we do with this information?
Abby Wambach:
Yes. We don’t have answers.
Glennon Doyle:
As always, we just have lots of more questions. So if you want to know more about yourself and your people and figure out how to use that information to get along better, listen up.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. This is like an informational tool.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, hopefully, maybe.
Abby Wambach:
It’s helped me a lot.
Glennon Doyle:
It actually has helped me a lot over the past week as we’ve been studying this stuff. What about you, sissy?
Amanda Doyle:
I wouldn’t say it’s helped me, the substance of the tools, but I think it’s been interesting. I have learned a lot, I will say. I don’t know that it’s helped me a lot.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, that’s true. Me neither. Actually, it hasn’t helped me that much. Okay.
Abby Wambach:
You too.
Glennon Doyle:
Has it really helped you?
Abby Wambach:
Yes, because I’ve been doing this for years. This is not just something I’ve explored over the last couple weeks because of this specific podcast. This has been a big part of my leadership, and learning about myself and learning about other people and what motivates other people, what moves other people. This is a big deal, especially in sport.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, because you have to get along, because of team. Team building.
Abby Wambach:
People.
Glennon Doyle:
Other people. Yes. Okay. Well, what do we think? What is personality? You read to us that definition that you found, babe.
Abby Wambach:
This one?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Something about a person that impacts how they tend to think, feel, and behave on an ongoing basis.
Glennon Doyle:
Right, okay. Something about a person that impacts how they tend to think, feel, and behave on an ongoing basis.
Abby Wambach:
That’s what I just read.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. My personality is asshole, because I’m a teacher.
Amanda Doyle:
A teacher, repetition.
Glennon Doyle:
I do think this is interesting though, because we think of our personalities as something that we’re born with a lot of times, but actually wouldn’t the culture you live in and the family you live in and the way you grow up impact how you tend to think, feel, and behave? This is this nurture versus nature question. What do you think about that, sister?
Amanda Doyle:
Well, of course it does. I think there’s a preliminary question that just, is there any such thing as a personality? There’s this Harvard Law School grad and feminist thinker that I like called Kara Loewentheil and she talks about how we don’t have personalities, we have a collection of thoughts. And personality tests are basically taking a survey of our unconscious, unmanaged mind. So she’s saying when you’re taking a personality test, it’s not revealing the kind of person you are, it’s the kind of thoughts you’re having.
Amanda Doyle:
And the very idea that we’re over-identifying with those identities because we believe they’re inherent instead of having this idea that that’s just a collection of thoughts, and as you do any kind of work on yourself or even think about your thoughts as not just automatic, that then that becomes a different collection of thoughts.
Glennon Doyle:
Interesting. So tell me if this is what you’re saying. So I am a person who’s worried or hyper aware of money. I have a scarcity about money, I watch it carefully. I try not to overspend. I feel nervous that there’s not going to be enough. That is a personality trait I would say, except for if I have started to go to therapy and they started retraining my brain to think there will be enough, you will be whatever then I might over time… and if I found out where that came from in childhood, I might be able to retrain my brain which would change my thoughts to there is enough, I’ll always be able to have enough, whatever.
Abby Wambach:
So does that change your personality?
Glennon Doyle:
And then that would change, if I took a personality test a couple years later, I might not have that trait because it’s actually just a thought pattern.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, that is true. Yes, it’s not like you’re going to take this test and necessarily, 10 years when you take the test, you’ll have the same result. People can be static throughout their lives or they can change a lot. And yeah, I think whether or not you believe there’s such thing as a personality, even entertaining the idea that the way that you answer these questions has to do with the collection of thoughts in your brain, and then it seems less axiomatic. It’s like, “Oh, these are based on thoughts.” And then I think-
Glennon Doyle:
Malleable.
Amanda Doyle:
… the second step… Yes, malleable.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s malleable.
Amanda Doyle:
If it’s not working for you and you wish to have different thoughts, then that’s a second step. But I even think it’s just recognizing these are thoughts.
Abby Wambach:
I think personalities like the definition we read, it’s something about a person that impacts how they tend to think, feel, and behave. So the idea of your personality, the way that this Harvard professor said is you are a bunch of thoughts. That is what your personality is. I think that feelings and the way that you behave are also part of that. So do you think a thought and then that creates a feeling and then that creates behavior?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Is that the basis of this theory?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Good point. Yes. That everything starts in our thoughts. I think there’s not going to be enough money, and then I feel scared and then I act controlling. Thought, feeling, action.
Abby Wambach:
I tend to feel and then think.
Glennon Doyle:
Whoa, that’s so interesting.
Abby Wambach:
I’m sure that there’s some sort of science that’s going to disprove me and sister’s going to come with it any second.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, I mean, that’s based on-
Abby Wambach:
My personality?
Amanda Doyle:
I mean, that’s one of the… In the test we’re talking about, that’s what thinking and feeling, or one of the two dichotomies that they classify people based on. When I think about these personality tests, I think it’s just interesting because basically what they’re doing is telling us what is your natural predisposition, your comfort zone, what you go to naturally. It doesn’t mean you can’t do the other thing, but there’s a bunch of different reasons why you might naturally go to something.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. If you were raised in a volatile house, you might naturally feel more… I don’t know, introverted or whatever that is, but that doesn’t mean you were born that way.
Amanda Doyle:
Exactly. If you think of one of the iconic tests that people are always pointing to which is this Stanford marshmallow experiment, where they brought kids in and they said, “Okay, here’s one marshmallow. You can either eat this or if you don’t eat it in 15 minutes, I’m going to come back and bring you another marshmallow. And then you’ll have two marshmallows.” So based on this test, they extrapolated all of this very wide-ranging data. These kids who were able to restrain themselves from having the first marshmallow had better life outcomes, had higher SAT scores. All the life measures were higher. So they were basically like, “This is a key factor for the future.”
Glennon Doyle:
Delayed gratification, right.
Amanda Doyle:
Delayed gratification. So that study is cited a bazillion-tine times. That was based on 32 kids who are from the nursery school of Stanford University. So these are necessarily affluent, educated peoples’ kids. It never could be duplicated with a diverse population. So if you’re a kid who grows up with food scarcity, if you’re a kid who grows up with adults who are consistently lying to you, it is actually the smartest to-
Glennon Doyle:
To take both damn marshmallows.
Amanda Doyle:
To take the first marshmallow.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah! Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
Because you could never rely on anyone to give you the second one, even if they said they would. So what I’m saying is I think that all of this is adaptive. It’s adaptive to our environments. It’s adaptive to our trauma. Our thoughts are adaptive. Even our feelings, Abby, if you’re basing your stuff on your feelings, what I’m saying is your feelings are adaptive based on your life.
Abby Wambach:
Right. I also was the one that ate the marshmallow.
Glennon Doyle:
So regardless of whether it’s immutable, personality is not, we’re still obsessed with figuring it out. I mean the Buzzfeed quizzes, what character would you be? What Harry Potter house would you be? We had a bunch of kids over the other day and they’re making tea and they’re like, “Okay, everybody say what kind of tea would each person be in this?” And one person was chamomile, and one person was chai. And what Disney princess? The article about our podcast was like, “Are you an Abby? Are you a Glennon? Or are you a sister?” We are so into figuring out what types of people-
Abby Wambach:
What is that about?
Glennon Doyle:
I think for me, it’s a couple things. Number one, I love when I read something that tells me that the way I am and all of my weird things are just because that’s the type of person I am. Not because of a bunch of inner flaws that I have to figure out that are totally personal to me and my fault. It makes me feel comforted, because I feel like, “Oh, this is a way of being, this is not my personal shit.”
Abby Wambach:
It’s like you only read or go after those things when you’re feeling uber confident or uber sad, to confirm your best-ness, and to confirm your worst-ness.
Glennon Doyle:
Maybe. Yeah. What do you guys think? Why do you think that we are obsessed with these things?
Amanda Doyle:
I don’t know that we’ll ever know why, but we have been for only ever obsessed with it. I mean, all of these-
Glennon Doyle:
Hippocrates, like-
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. Plato. It’s ancient times. I mean, the early Greeks had their four temperaments.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. One of them was melancholia, right?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s mine.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. But then they’ve done studies in the 90s that are like what are the motivations? Why do people take these? And there are three. And one was self-assessment, it’s the pursuit of self-knowledge. The second one was self-enhancement. This is significant, it’s the pursuit of favorable self-knowledge. We latch onto the parts of the personality that are strongest or we view as most favorable, and the third is self-verification.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s becoming certain about things within ourselves. But for me, I didn’t realize I had any of this, but then I keep going back to the brainstorming list of podcast topics that we’re all throwing around. And the one that everyone laughed at that I wanted to do is why do I do what I don’t want to do?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
Why? Why do I continuously do what I don’t want to do? In the sense of why am I the way I am?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
I think it’s because despite all of our advances, we remain a mystery to ourselves.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. It’s part of the pursuit of solving the mystery of ourself, which we will never do.
Abby Wambach:
Never do. Oh, that’s so annoying. And I just think I mean, I have always been a seeker, trying to figure out more about not just the world, but myself. If I can understand myself, maybe I’ll understand the world better. And I think there’s something about safety in all of these testings. I mean, in Untamed, you talked about how we need to strip away from all of the labels and the conditions that we were met with. But I do think that there is a safety in labels, and putting ourselves into categories that makes us understand the world better or ourselves better. I think safety is a big mechanism for me, as to why I’ve wanted to do it.
Amanda Doyle:
And honestly, it makes sense because it’s not just how to see ourselves. There is an insatiable craving to be seen and understood by others. And we necessarily cannot translate who we are. We don’t have language for the fullness of who we are. So when we can actually say, “Oh, look, this one thing, this is me,” and other people say, “Oh, I get that.” It satisfies this just very existential need that we have to be seen, even if it very inartfully describes us. There’s some nugget in there that we can say, “This is me.” And that’s a need too, I think.
Glennon Doyle:
And we need the and/both, I think yay to that. And also not just that, because for me, I think about somebody who labeled herself or allowed herself to get labeled so early as a straight person. So when you have an idea of who you are and you think that’s immutable, you miss out on so many things. I feel like I probably missed out on a million relationships or whatever, all of these things that I would’ve had, had I not allowed myself to be labeled in that immutable way.
Glennon Doyle:
Also I think about thinking I was a freaking Pisces my whole life, and then I find out that I’m an Aries. I think half my problems is probably because I was following the wrong horoscope, every single day.
Amanda Doyle:
Sure.
Glennon Doyle:
Tuesday morning-
Amanda Doyle:
That’s the main thing. If we were to go back and audit, it’s definitely you were following the wrong horoscope.
Glennon Doyle:
I was opening Cosmo Tuesday morning, “Today’s the day, go get them.” And maybe Aries said, “Today’s not the day.” And that is why everything kept going wrong.
Amanda Doyle:
Absolutely, do not go get them.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
Absolutely.
Glennon Doyle:
But you know what I’m saying?
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
We have to be careful. Well in Untamed, we have to be careful about the stories we tell ourselves. We have to hold these things very loosely.
Abby Wambach:
Yes. And because I think that based on all the stuff we’re going to talk about today, even type A or type B, in the culture that we live in, there are certain personality types that are seen as “stronger” and others as “weaker.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
So we have to be really careful about putting ourselves in these boxes because sometimes it takes you out of what the culture sees as somebody who is successful or whatnot.
Glennon Doyle:
Like type As and type Bs.
Abby Wambach:
Like type As and type Bs or extroverted and introverted.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, speaking of being careful, I mean, you also have to very carefully consider the source because in type As and type Bs, the entire concept of type A personality arose from tens of millions of dollars of tobacco industry funding dating from the 1950s through 1997. So it’s ongoing. And the whole purpose of those studies was to popularize the lie that personality, i.e. stressed-out type As was the reason that folks were getting cancer and heart disease.
Abby Wambach:
No way.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, all of that.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s so good.
Amanda Doyle:
So basically, all of the money went into the studies to try to create this causal connection between personality, so that cigarettes and cancer were just basically a symptom of the stress that type As had.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So you’re saying that the study said, because what they needed it to say was that type A people are just uptight, and so they have to smoke, but it’s just the type A-ness that’s causing it?
Amanda Doyle:
Type A people are predisposed, because they’re so stressed out, are predisposed to getting cancer and getting coronary heart disease. Incidentally, because they’re so stressed out, they are also smoking cigarettes.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. It’s not because of smoking.
Amanda Doyle:
There is no causal link between the cigarettes and the cancer.
Abby Wambach:
Oh my God.
Amanda Doyle:
So I mean, tens of millions of dollars.
Glennon Doyle:
Those bastards.
Amanda Doyle:
And now how many people have identified themselves or others including myself with absolute certainty about type As? But that all came out of a very clear intention to-
Glennon Doyle:
Nefarious motives.
Amanda Doyle:
… shield, yeah, to shield the tobacco industry.
Glennon Doyle:
Nefarious motives.
Abby Wambach:
Jesus Christ.
Glennon Doyle:
I think about that all the time with drinking, it’s like, oh, there’s those people who are broken as opposed to the actual concept of alcohol being fucked up. Okay. All right. So while we are going to hold all of this loosely, because we are going to be very careful about the stories we tell about ourselves, it’s still fun and cool to do these tests, figure out some stuff, figure out a little bit of why we are the way we are, and also learn about our people. Because what I find is when we did this test, we were talking about the Myers-Briggs test today.
Glennon Doyle:
And when you did your test and I read all of your stuff, this thing happens where I’m like, “Oh, I can stop taking that thing she does personally.” That’s something that I think is really interesting. It helps you take what other people do less personally, which takes the charge out of… Well, that’s what understanding does, I guess, when we understand each other a little better.
Abby Wambach:
But it’s interesting because I think we talked a little bit about this, that when you look at your own personal results, it’s harder to take that less personally, the criticisms that we have on ourself, when I read your results, I’m like, “Wow, this is so informative.” And I’m going to use this in the next time we have an argument or in my daily life with you,” but when I look at my results, I’m like, “Oh.”
Glennon Doyle:
Did you not see yourself in them?
Abby Wambach:
No, I did. I guess when I see my results, I only look at the things that annoy me the most about myself. And I’m like, “Ugh, it’s so annoying.”
Amanda Doyle:
I mean, it reminds me of… I was reading Jessica Kantorowitz’s new poem yesterday. And the first line was, “Just because I am overwhelmed doesn’t mean you’re too much.” And that to me is a great example of what these tests do. It’s like and/both. I can be overwhelmed and this could not be good for me, and you are not too much. You are just right for you, but the interaction of our personalities at this moment means a new thing.
Abby Wambach:
I love that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. There’s a chemical reaction, like an energetic chemical reaction that happens between two people that is not necessarily my fault, not necessarily your fault. It’s just that moment. Well, the Myers-Briggs. Okay, most popular personality test in the world. Two million people take it a year, made by two people, two women.
Amanda Doyle:
A mother and a daughter.
Glennon Doyle:
A mother and a daughter. And the New Yorker article I read, one of them, they said that they did it to make people less unhappy. I was like, “Okay, that’s good. That’s right in line with what we’re trying to do with this podcast.”
Abby Wambach:
It won’t fix you. It just will make you less unhappy.
Amanda Doyle:
They basically took Carl Jung’s theories of personalities. He’s the one who came up with introvert and extrovert, and a bunch of other stuff. He also is very problematic for a lot of reasons, but they basically wanted to take his research and find an easier way for people to be using it in their everyday lives, so they spent years on this.
Glennon Doyle:
And some people think it’s nonsense and some people live by it, and that’s great.
Amanda Doyle:
I think it’s important to talk about it’s used all over the place. I mean, 88% of companies use this in their hiring and their trainings, and it’s used in universities and churches and the military, and all of that. We should say, any value of this test in understanding each other is great, but it also should in my opinion, absolutely not be used in hiring decisions, in university acceptance decisions.
Amanda Doyle:
There was a recent lawsuit by an Asian American group against Harvard because they used this very specific personality test in their admissions process where Asian Americans were routinely rated lower on things like positive personality and courage and likability and being widely respected. So there’s inherently all kinds of class-based, gender-based, race-based biases in the interpretation of this data. So-
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, that makes sense.
Amanda Doyle:
Not for that purpose please, world!
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, great. And other things, it’s self-reporting, so you’re answering your own questions about yourself. So self-deception is always a factor-
Abby Wambach:
How honest are you?
Glennon Doyle:
… in reporting your own self, and also the Myers-Briggs is largely based on binaries. It’s like, “Are you this or that? Are you this or that?” And that’s the challenge that I have with the test.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, God.
Glennon Doyle:
You two know I’m personally-
Abby Wambach:
Sitting next to Glennon and taking this test, she’s like, “What do you think I am?”
Glennon Doyle:
Well, nobody’s one thing or the other thing. I feel like we’re all things before 10:00 AM on Tuesday. So anyway, the binary of it, this or that is challenging, but it’s based on four and five now, five areas that are… They call them traits, and they could be seen as habits or ways we lean one way or another. The first one is are you introverted or extroverted? Now, we know that most people are ambiverted or both. But-
Abby Wambach:
Is that a word?
Amanda Doyle:
Ambiverted-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s true.
Amanda Doyle:
Is that a word, or did you make that up?
Glennon Doyle:
No, no, that’s a real word. Actually, now you’re making me doubt it. I don’t know. Maybe I made it up. I feel like it’s a word.
Abby Wambach:
I love this.
Amanda Doyle:
I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time.
Glennon Doyle:
If it’s not, it should be. But-
Abby Wambach:
We’re making it.
Glennon Doyle:
So introverted or extroverted. Pod squad, we’re going to tell you what all of these categories are, so you can figure out where you land in this. The test gives you a bunch of questions to decide whether on any given day, you lean more towards introverted or extroverted. Our definition of that is do you feel more energized and comfortable turning towards your inner world or your outer world? Okay?
Abby Wambach:
I like that.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you feel more energized or comfortable? Because people usually just say energized, but actually I don’t always want to be energized. Sometimes I’m just going to my comfortable, safe, cozy place.
Amanda Doyle:
The other ways that it’s described is what feels like the real world to you? Does the real world feel like the outside world or your inside world? And where do you make sense of the world? Do you make sense of it on the outside, or do you make sense of it on the inside?
Abby Wambach:
Oh, I love that.
Glennon Doyle:
So introverts would turn towards their inner world more, emotionally they’d value their own thoughts and decisions more. They tend to enjoy deep and meaningful social interaction and their recharge comes from spending time alone, where extroverts enjoy focusing on the world around them. They tend to be action-oriented, feel energized by social interactions, and this outward-facing view does tend to make them more collaborative.
Glennon Doyle:
So we all tested, you will be stunned to know, I tested 80% introvert. I couldn’t believe there was 20% extrovert in me. I always love the introvert/extrovert thing because I think a lot of introverts end up feeling like there’s something wrong with them because our world is so built for extroversion.
Abby Wambach:
It’s celebrated in our culture.
Glennon Doyle:
Right, and I think what introverts end up feeling or the line on us is that we don’t like people. So introverts are curmudgeony, mean, cold.
Abby Wambach:
Or you’re shy.
Glennon Doyle:
Shy.
Abby Wambach:
Weak.
Glennon Doyle:
Right, unapproachable. Yeah. Weak, unable to handle the-
Abby Wambach:
These are words that are incorrect.
Glennon Doyle:
They’re just so incorrect.
Abby Wambach:
They’re incorrect.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I mean, to all my introverts out there, I think about when I was little and I remember when mom grounded me outside, I would get grounded like, “You have to go outside. You’re grounded for three days and that means you have to go outside after school every day and do God knows what with all those people,” or we’d go to a babysitter and I would just want to sit inside and read after school day. And we’d have to go outside and play? Play? What the hell is that?
Glennon Doyle:
I think about people who take a lot of baths and we think, “Oh, we just love water.” I’m like, “No, the bath is the only socially acceptable place in a home where people will give you alone time.” You can be like, “I’m taking a bath.” And that means it’s your only excuse to be alone or I think of a party, you want to go to a party, babe, to me a party, if I go to a party, I am doing my own exposure therapy. That is what a party is to me. It’s an attempt to be less agitated by an outer world situation. What did you all get for yours? You got-
Abby Wambach:
I’m 60% extroverted, ironically.
Glennon Doyle:
Isn’t that so interesting? Only 60.
Abby Wambach:
I’ve gotten less and less extroverted as I’ve gotten older, and I think that our lifestyle now, I think COVID really helped me settle in to learn more about my internal world and spend more time alone. I think that the older I get, the more to the middle I become on all of these tests.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. That was with my issue with it too, Abby, is the binary idea because I got extroverted, but I got 51% extroverted.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, wow.
Amanda Doyle:
On any given day, it’ll be like 49/51 the other way. And that’s the part that I’m just like, “That is very imprecise,” because it’s like saying there’s tall people and there’s short people, so if you are 5’7″ and a half, you’re tall, and if you’re below that, you’re short. So the 5’7″ and a half people are tall, and so are the 6’5″ people. It’s saying that the 5’7″ and a half and 6’5″ are the same, and they’re not. Just like if you’re 51% or you’re 90%, you’re the same.
Amanda Doyle:
So for me, that is just one of the very imprecise parts about it and I think people who know me not well might be surprised that I have that much of an introvert in me. And this goes with the over-identification with an identity, if you’re just assumed to be a certain personality, you think something’s wrong with you when you’re not complying or not feeling healthful with that identity. So I do need time with people and I also need a lot of time without people. And unless I knew that I was so closely matched on both sides, I might think, “What’s wrong with you that you need to be alone during this time?”
Abby Wambach:
Especially because so many people would label you as an extrovert. I mean, I used to think that I was 100% extroverted, and I think it’s just because I was so scared and maybe afraid of myself, I think I was so scared to be alone, be by myself. Any ex of mine would be like, “Yes, 100% extrovert, scared to be alone.” And I think ever since I met you, I have not just watched you and your introversion and self-awareness, and I don’t know, you’ve given me the confidence to be by myself.
Glennon Doyle:
I think it’s your sobriety that’s given you the confidence to be by yourself.
Abby Wambach:
Yes. That’s obviously-
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t think it’s me.
Abby Wambach:
Well, I think both.
Glennon Doyle:
I think it’s when your inner world is at peace because it’s not full of shame and all of those uncomfortable things, it becomes much more comfortable to be with yourself and be at peace.
Abby Wambach:
You also like to be alone, so I have to get good at it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, that’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
I feel that. It’s adaptive. I’ve been telling y’all.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. That’s good. Yeah, and I think to all of my introverted friends, it affects family life. How often is the whole family inside being together and I will be outside on the deck reading, and I’ll always feel guilty. I’ll look in and be like, “Aren’t I supposed to be…”
Abby Wambach:
You do?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, I do.
Abby Wambach:
I didn’t know that.
Glennon Doyle:
A lot of times I look in and I’m like, “I should want to go in there, and those are the people I love the most.” And I also think the introverted/extroverted thing shows up in the way we are in the world in practical ways. For example, sometimes what would be perceived as spaciness, getting lost all the time in the car or just wandering into rooms and not knowing why I’m there or leaving my coffee mug in the dryer or finding my phone in the refrigerator, all of these things, I actually think that’s completely tied to introversion/extroversion.
Abby Wambach:
Sure.
Glennon Doyle:
In terms of where I’m turning is my internal world. I might be walking around the place, but I’m like sleepwalking, because I’m inside myself. It’s because we actually, we’re more present on our inside than our outside world, so in the outside world, we’re running into walls more.
Abby Wambach:
It makes me feel a little sad that you feel guilty because if you were to come inside and be with the family, you would probably not feel an inner peace and you would do or say or be a way in that family environment that actually made you feel bad, because you would be… So it’s like, will you ever feel that peace about being this introvert, because you’re always on the outside in some ways?
Glennon Doyle:
I should be being a different way.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. I hate that for you.
Glennon Doyle:
I think about the story Brene told where she actually told her little boy that she couldn’t go to his school event because she was too tired and she just needed some alone time. She’s an introvert, and she felt so guilty, because she’s violating the mom rules. And then later her little boy came and said, “I didn’t know we could do that. I sometimes don’t want to go to the things. I sometimes need time alone,” but he had never seen introversion positively modeled as okay, even when-
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
… it butts up against cultural expectations, so in saying what she needed, she freed him. And I think about this weekend, we had a friend who wanted to come over and I love this friend, but I was tapped out. And the second she called and said she wanted to stop over, I started to feel truly… It’s so weird, clenchy and angry. Close to angry. An introvert can feel like somebody else is taking the time we need. It’s almost like you only have enough food and somebody’s taking that food from you and you know you need that food to be nourished and to feel peaceful and to carry on, and somebody’s going to take it from you.
Glennon Doyle:
But then I remember I only feel angry when I’ve given away my power. So I said, “I really want to see you, but I can only see you for half an hour. I’m just tired and I need this time and please allow me to just say what I need.” And she was like, “Yes!” She was so wonderful about it, came over for half an hour. For introverts, we really need that structure.
Abby Wambach:
Boundaries, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
We do want to have friends just as much as everybody else. That’s the thing. I cut out people from my life for a very long time, not because I didn’t want people, but because there was no structure, so it felt all or nothing to me.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. That has been my experience and I think that is a really varsity level understanding because it is much easier just to sulk away and hide than it is to say, “I want and need you in my life, and also I have this other set of needs, that means that it only works for me under these parameters.” So disappearing, which I’ve done a lot, is easier than having the courage to acknowledge that you are going to ask to both have that person and have that person under the conditions that work for you.
Amanda Doyle:
So I think that’s great that you were able to do that and I do think that it would probably work a lot better for a lot of people if they were able to.
Glennon Doyle:
Because when you invite someone into your house, shouldn’t you be able to decide how and when and for how long?
Amanda Doyle:
If that’s what you need during that time. I mean, sometimes you might want it open-ended. The second criteria that they base on is either sensory or intuitive. So sensing people tend to take in information through their senses, that’s how they got that. And they focus on here and now, they trust in the certain and the concrete, they value realism and common sense. They present information in a step-by-step fashion, work well with details. Intuitive people are future-focused, trust inspiration and inference, value imagination and innovation. They are bored easily after getting really good at tasks. They present information through leaps in a roundabout manner, and they tend to be general and figurative. So that’s the dichotomy we’re working with there.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. I want to tell a story to get to what Abby and I have decided this category is about. Okay?
Amanda Doyle:
Can you guess which category she is? Because in describing this category, she’d like to tell a story.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. Okay. Yeah. Your whole list thing felt like Charlie Brown listing to me, that wah-wah. Here’s a story. So Abby and I are on a little vacation in the desert. We’re walking, we approach this cactus. This cactus is so gorgeous, so I stand in front of the cactus and stare at it for a little while. Abby comes and humors me by standing next to me and staring at the cactus.
Abby Wambach:
We’re on a couple’s retreat.
Glennon Doyle:
Abby says to me, “Okay, what are you thinking?” After five minutes I turn to her and I say, “I am looking at this cactus and thinking about how much this is exactly people, people who do not have enough water and food in the soil of their lives, they end up having to grow prickly. And then everyone thinks they’re prickly and mean, but really they had to grow these spikes in order to defend themselves against not having enough nutrients in their soil. Prickly people are that way because of their environment.” And I said, “What are you thinking when you look at this cactus?”
Glennon Doyle:
And Abby said, “I’m thinking, “Look, a cactus.”” So to me, that is one example of the difference between an intuitive thinker and an observant thinker, and one would think that the intuitive thinker is deeper and whatever, but actually most spiritual guides try to get us to the observant place because when Abby’s looking at something, she’s actually seeing what it is. She is seeing it for what it is, a person, a place, a moment. She’s seeing all the actual beauty and cactus-ness of the cactus. I am looking at it thinking, “I can make this shit better.”
Abby Wambach:
And just-
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, that’s true. That’s real. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Like, “What’s the truest, most beautiful cactus I can imagine? It’s not this one. I’ll tell you what this means.” There’s beautiful parts of both, writers, poets, we’re probably intuitive, but I think looking at something and seeing it for what it could be can make for a beautiful activist, can make for a beautiful… but also probably makes for a pretty hard partner.
Abby Wambach:
No, because-
Glennon Doyle:
… because I’m always trying to change people.
Abby Wambach:
No, you make it interesting. Are you kidding me? Sitting there, looking at that cactus, I was bored out of my mind. And when you went into your story, I was less bored. So standing there next to you, wondering when is this going to end, that’s why I asked you what you’re thinking, because I knew you’d make it better.
Abby Wambach:
And I think that’s probably why we work so well together. You might want to see things maybe in some ways just for how they are and what they are giving you in that moment, not for what you can make it give you.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Yeah. What do you think about this category, sissy? It’s the practical doer versus the imaginative dreamer, which we need all maybe.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. I think we need all. I think this is where it probably works well in teams to be able to identify the values because I think you could easily see how the practical person on even a work or a family team could begin to resent the imaginative person and vice versa, saying, “I’m building this thing,” but really, you need the person who’s at the 10,000 feet and you need the person in the weeds. Without either one, you’re not building much. So I think it’s great.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, do you know what? I was hiking with Chase recently, and I’m walking-
Amanda Doyle:
You’ve used this story like 10 times. I think you just really want to convince everyone you’re going hiking a lot.
Glennon Doyle:
This is a different-
Abby Wambach:
Just once, folks.
Glennon Doyle:
This is a different noticing on the hike. I had a lot of spiritual discoveries on that short hike. I was hiking and I was like, I couldn’t figure out whether to look right in front of me so that I didn’t trip, or look way ahead of me so I could see everything beautiful.
Abby Wambach:
Interesting.
Glennon Doyle:
But I couldn’t freaking figure it out. Do I keep looking down, and miss all of the beautiful things, or do I look up and fall on my ass? And that-
Amanda Doyle:
And never get to the beautiful things because I’ve broken my ankle falling down.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Abby Wambach:
What did you fall on? What did you land on?
Glennon Doyle:
Well, no. I mean, I just kept looking up and down and honestly, that makes you a little bit dizzy. So I thought, anyway, let’s move on.
Abby Wambach:
I’m so retroactively nervous that you’ve fallen down this mountain.
Glennon Doyle:
I know.
Abby Wambach:
You’re here. You’re alive. It’s all good.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s something and both. It’s something and both. Y’all, we have loved this conversation so much that we are going to continue it into the next episode. So let’s stop there. Maybe your next right thing could be to go take one of these tests.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
So that when you come back to the next episode, it will mean more to you. So find it somewhere on the web. We used 16Personalities.com. We have no connection with them. We’re not vouching for them. 16Personalities.com. Take it, come back, be with us next time, and we will continue to try to figure out the mystery of who the hell we are. See you then.
Glennon Doyle:
We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn’t, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.