I’m an INFJ – What about you?

When I tell people I'm an INFJ, almost everyone asks what I mean. INFJ is my Myers Briggs personality profile, and the letters stand for Introversion, iNtuitive, Feeling, Judging. While I won't go into the details of each of these "types," I'll summarize as follows.

I – Downtime, or reflection, is my energy source
N – With less interest in details, I tend to look for the “big picture”
F – I empathize when making decisions
J – My preference is for order and structure, and for things to be settled

Great news! According to Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Personality Type by Paul D. Tieger & Barbara Barron-Tieger, good "arts" careers for INFJs include Playwright, Novelist, and Poet. So at least I've confirmed writing is a good fit for my personality type!

But that's not what's prompted me to write about personality type.

At a writers' group meeting several weeks ago, we talked about our great chemistry and how each member contributes a different skill set. Gary talked about Dorlana's ability to see where the story should start, Chrissa's capacity at florid description, Theresa's skill of natural dialog, and Kelli's passion with punctuation, just to name a few. Then he mentioned my ability to see the details.

Wow. Imagine that. Me – see the details!

What a surprise that was. You see, my "N" is real strong in my INFJ. Strong to a fault. I see the forest, but rarely notice the trees. I couldn't tell you what color shirt my husband was wearing when I dropped him off at work this morning. Nor could I tell you the color or type car that most of my neighbors drive, although I do know a few. I may not even notice when a family member gets a new haircut. I just don't pay attention to those details.

Yet here I was receiving what I feel is a terrific complement. Thank you, Gary! Which got me to thinking… do I really see the details while reading the work of my colleague writers?

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses helps. Since I am so aware of my inattentiveness to detail, I think when I'm tasked to look at or read something, I pay particular attention. And while I read chapters of novels or short stories for the group, I typically have the "big picture" in mind and usually will have read through the selection more than once. So as I read, I look at those details to see if they fit with the whole picture. Anyway, that's what I'm guessing.

Now I'm curious – do you know your Myers Briggs personality profile? If you do, please share it in the comments section and I'll bet we see a truly diverse group of personality types.

Whether it's my writers' group, or any group for that matter, Gary is right. It's all our differences that make us so great; and together, we're all pretty awesome!

I Won a Book!

I won a book! Coming from someone that rarely wins anything, it was indeed exciting news to learn I had won. This was through my participation on the Society of Word of Mouth (SWOM), which is a social network for those interested in word of mouth marketing.

The brand new, signed, hardcover book I won is David Vinjamuri's Accidental Branding: How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Brands. What hooked me is his fantastic Chapter 2, which was offered as a free pdf download on SWOM. In this chapter, David presents six rules successful branders and entrepreneurs tend to utilize on a consistent basis.

Seven remaining chapters of the book each detail a success story that supports these six rules, and they are case studies of familiar/well-known brands like J. Peterman, craigslist, Burt's Bees, and more. One of the best aspects of this book is its easy readability. This book isn't a dry textbook style read, but rather reads almost biographical. David really gets in to what makes these entrepreneurs tick, and presents it in an enjoyable manner.

While I don't feel like I have come away with insight that will necessarily take my career to its next level, I do think that the information introduced is plausible and practical, and I recommend this book to anyone interested in marketing or branding.

David blogs at Accidental Branding and ThirdWay Advertising Blog.

A Citizens Responsibility and the Impeachment Survey Results

The Impeachment survey is closed, and following are the results. With just 15 people taking part in the poll, 73% voted yes, 20% voted undecided, and 7% voted no. Here's a snapshot (reduced in size to fit this page, hopefully you will be able to read it).

Of the biggest concern to me is the 20% that voted undecided. As citizens of this great country we have a responsibility to care about matters that effect our democracy. That's what a democracy is all about – government of, by, and for the people.

I recently read a fantastic article written for Livingston Weekly by Reilly Neill. He talks about our constitution and the intent of its framers. Following are some excerpts that really stood out to me.

…no commander in chief would ever be "above the law." The framers …may have failed to envision a future where the public cared little about their responsibility to contribute to a functioning democracy…

… our government has been hijacked, and someone (most likely the American people) will have to take it back with a fight.

…The founding fathers believed in us, and left us a rich and dynamic legacy in the Constitution of the United States…each citizen must fight to keep our democracy alive in Washington by holding our representatives accountable to governing with integrity.

…we must become the fail-safe the founders of this country intended us to be.

…we are our only hope…

Enough said, but read the whole article if you get a chance and as always, please feel free to share your comments.

Reservations for Two – A Short Story

Reservations for Two
by Sheryl Tuttle

Janice left for work earlier than usual. Recently promoted, today was the first day in her new job. She knew if she played her cards right, worked really hard and did everything asked of her, she would excel and get the recognition she deserved. The evening classes she took – while working full time – for her certificate in Secretarial Services were about to pay off.

As Janice entered the building, she passed by the mailroom door, barely taking notice of the new girl inside sorting mail. This promotion had moved Janice out of that dead-end job where she was stuck working in a room not much bigger than an eight-by-eight box. She remembered how the other girls walked by each morning and never acknowledged her, as though she wasn’t there. That wasn’t the case anymore, now she would be one of them.

Passing the interior office doors and the conference room on the left, she headed for the suite of Executive Offices. This was her new work home, and she eagerly flipped on the light switches and settled into her desk outside the office of the Senior Vice-President of Marketing and Public Relations, Mr. Michael Masters.

Opening her newly purchased Gucci bag, she pulled out a framed picture of her dog and a pencil holder that her niece had made her for Christmas and arranged them on her desktop. She explored her desk drawers, discovering a half empty prescription vial of Lithium for Mr. Masters. Wonder if he still takes these, she thought, while tossing the vial to the side. She started thumbing through files.

Click here to read the full story

Impeach the President, An Informal Survey

Three times a charm, and I promised in my last blog post that it would be my final "impeachment" series post. Here is the survey - please vote your opinion.

Impeach the President, Part III

This may not be the wisest subject matter for me to blog about since I reside in the midst of “Bush country,” but what the heck, and here goes more. There has been a lot of talk for some time now on impeaching President George W. Bush. But what exactly does it mean to “impeach” a President, and what would be the reasons for doing it?

According to dictionary.com, impeach is a verb that means
1. to accuse (a public official) before an appropriate tribunal of misconduct in office.
2. Chiefly Law. to challenge the credibility of: to impeach a witness.
3. to bring an accusation against.
4. to call in question; cast an imputation upon: to impeach a person's motives.
5. to call to account.

Grounds for impeachment are treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. A trial and conviction must follow the formal impeachment for a President’s removal from office.

To date, there have been two Presidents impeached, but neither were convicted. They are Andrew Johnson, 17^th President of the United States, and Bill Clinton, our 42^nd President. In summary, Andrew Johnson (Democrat) was impeached for attempting to oust the Secretary of War without Senate approval, which was a violation of the Tenure of Office Act. Bill Clinton (Democrat) was impeached on grounds of perjury and obstruction to justice relating to his testimony of conduct with intern Monica Lewinsky.

Richard Nixon (Republican), our 37^th President, resigned office while impeachment voting was in process for charges surrounding the Watergate scandal and break-in of the Democratic National Committee offices.

There’s the history, now for the future. Are there grounds for impeaching President George W. Bush?

I have no doubt that every President has made mistakes. For the most part though, Presidents tend to have the American public at heart. After all, they want to get re-elected or at least keep their party in office. But some of the charges against Bush seem rather… well, large. Bush seems to make BIG mistakes that have a very negative impact on us Americans.

Some of the reasons cited for impeachment are:

• illegal spying in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Fourth Amendment
• illegal detentions and conspiring to commit torture of prisoners violating the Bill of Rights, the Federal Torture Act, the UN Torture Convention, and the Geneva Convention
• illegal war that was launched based on misleading Congress and the American public and in violation of the False Statements Accountability Act and the federal anti-conspiracy statue; potential violations also of the US Constitution, which says Congress must declare war

I’ll list a few resource links as follows. Blogs and websites abound on the subject. This will be my final (I think) post on Impeaching President Bush, but I’ll be following up in a few days with a survey. As always, I appreciate your thoughts and comments.

Web Sites and blogs:
Wikipedia - contains information about some of the background and reasons for the movement to impeach Bush, as well as criticism to the movement - information resources are cited for further research
ImpeachBush - this site is a movement or campaign to impeach President Bush
ImpeachBush.tv - editorials and information on how to impeach Bush & Cheney
Let's Try Democracy - be sure to look at the right side-bar for a listing of books on the topic
National Impeachment Resource Center
Impeachforpeace -grassroots nonpartisan efforts to impeach Bush & Cheney
Impeachpac.com - supports Democratic candidates for Congress who support the immediate and simultaneous impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney for their Iraq War lies

Articles containing current impeachment effort status:
CNNPolitics.com- Kucinich effort to impeach Bush kicked into limbo
Boston.com article - Democrats scuttle proposal to impeach Bush
Chicago Tribune - Kucinich: Impeach Bush

Impeach the President, Part II

I've found yet another video I really like, and this one too is about impeaching our fearless leader, President George W. Bush. I promise not to make this too much a recurring theme, but these are good. Turn up the volume and enjoy!



I like the "flip," "flop" part of the video - what about you? Thank goodness we live in a country with free speech where I can post these videos without worrying about repercussions.

knock knock knock
What's that? A knock at the door? A matter of national security?