What's Your Decluttering Love Language? 3 Ways To Use A Personality Test to Organize Your Home, Even With Different Personalities with Julia Brickman #084

Unlock the secrets to harmonious living with insights from Julia Brickman, an MBTI certified master practitioner, in a compelling conversation about the influence of personality types on family dynamics. Julia, with her wealth of knowledge and personal experiences, including the successful management of a tech company with her husband, delves into how our innate traits, coupled with life's journey, shape our organizational habits and interactions. Discover the profound ways in which embracing the Myers-Briggs framework can lead to improved understanding and balance in our daily lives, making it a vital tool for anyone seeking to enhance their personal growth and professional relationships.

Ever wondered how your personality type affects the way you manage chores, deal with stress, or interact with your loved ones? This episode is a deep exploration into the myriad of ways Myers-Briggs personality components can impact our lives, from the way we arrange our closets to how we perceive time. By sharing personal stories, like contrasting dishwashing habits and our closets, we illustrate the importance of respecting differences and adapting our strategies to coexist peacefully with those around us. Get ready for an insightful journey through the challenges and triumphs that come with aligning our unique personalities with those of our family members, and leave equipped with actionable advice to create a more understanding and supportive home environment.

Concluding with a focus on personal development, this chat with Julia Brickman opens up about the potential of MBTI to not just navigate, but thrive in interpersonal conflicts and the complexities of household management. Whether you're struggling with decluttering or aspiring to understand your child's behavior better, this episode offers a pathway to using personality insights for personal and professional growth. We even provide directions to further resources that can assist in fostering deeper connections, ensuring that you will walk away with the knowledge and tools needed to transform your relationships and create a harmonious ecosystem at home.

Julia Brickman is the founder and CEO of Skipper.io, a family-friendly, social learning platform for digital course creators, learning communities, and homeschoolers. She helps parents create a harmonious, well-balanced home that nurtures their children's potential. She is a wife and a mom passionate about helping people live their best lives. Julia is a certified master practitioner in the MBTI, MMTIC, and EQ 2.0.

Links from this episode: https://skipper.io/julia-brickman-speaker

Message Caroline on Instagram Caroline Thor KonMari Consultant and Professional Organizer (@caro.thor) • Instagram photos and videos
Message Julia on Instagram Julia Brickman (@julia_brickman) • Instagram photos and videos
 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:27

Hi there, I'm Caroline Thor, professional organizer, konmari consultant, teacher and mum of three. I started off my life as a mum feeling overwhelmed, disorganized and desperately trying to carve out some time for me amongst the nappies, chaos and clutter. One day, one small book called the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying changed everything and I began to learn strategies for making everyday life easier. Today, I have the systems in place that means life can throw almost anything at me, and I want to share them with you. If you're an overwhelmed mum struggling to keep it together, then this is the podcast for you. Grab a coffee and settle in for a quick chat with someone who gets your reality. Hello, welcome back to Living Clutter Free Forever. I hope the first week of 2024 has been kind to you.

Speaker 1: 1:30

If you're listening to this, when this episode comes out, I actually recorded back in. I think it was November and I'm talking to Julia Brickman. Now Julia is an MBTI certified master practitioner I'll let her explain what that is in a bit who is passionate about helping people enhance their lives and relationships by understanding how their personality type affects their lives, including organization skills, and when I heard that this was Julia's specialty, I just knew I had to have her as a guest on this podcast and you are going to love what she has to say. It is going to help you in so many ways. So I will let Julia explain what she does and I hope you enjoy this episode. Julia welcome. Thank you for joining me today. Thanks, caroline, I'm happy to be here on your channel.

Speaker 2: 2:27

I'm happy to be here on your show. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1: 2:30

So I said a little bit about you in my introduction before we came on air, so perhaps would you like to tell everyone a little bit about yourself. Introduce yourself to us.

Speaker 2: 2:42

Yes, hi everyone. I'm Julia Brickman. I'm a wife, a mom and an entrepreneur, and I live here in Fort Worth, texas. So I've been married for over 25 years and I've raised a family. My son is now 22, so he's a full adult and he has his own tech startup company. So a little bit about my background. I have about 20 years experience working in the tech industry, where I've co-founded and managed companies with my husband. So we've worked together for over 20 years nonstop. So we have used personality type to really understand each other so we can learn how to work together and not fight all the time. It's been really important.

Speaker 1: 3:20

So I was just going to say that's quite an ask to work with your husband, Because most people, if you said that to them, they would be like, oh no, horrendous.

Speaker 2: 3:29

Yes, I mean, when we first started out, it was, it was. It was like that. We were constantly competing with each other. We didn't know really where our own lane was, and so once I started using personality type and when I got certified in personality the MBTI it really was like an aha moment of oh my gosh, that's exactly why we argue. So it really helped us bring peace in our marriage and understanding who we were and where our strengths were and where we can lean on each other but also not get upset with somebody, because it's their value, it's how their brain is wired and what they're needing. Yeah, Okay.

Speaker 1: 4:10

Sorry to interrupt you there, but I just like anytime anyone says they work with their spouse, I'm like respect, that's very that's very cool.

Speaker 2: 4:16

Yes, thank you, especially after COVID, when everybody's working from home and we worked together 24, seven basically. So we've really had to learn how to how to work with each other, yeah, and personality type really has been that key foundation for that. But even though I've been working in tech, my whole mission in life is to help families. So even the tech products I develop is based on families and uniting families together, and I specialize in human behavior and helping families create just a really awesome dynamic within their family so they can each be who they are meant to be and work together in harmony.

Speaker 1: 4:59

And that is just. I'm sure that the goal for most families, that things are harmonious. That's the, the gold part at the end of the rainbows that everyone's striving for. So, julia, please can you explain to us what MBTI stands for? What does it all mean?

Speaker 2: 5:16

Yes, so I'm sure a lot of people probably heard that term the MBTI. It stands for the Myers Briggs type indicator. So Myers Briggs are the people who created it, catherine Briggs and Isabel Myers. They were a mother daughter team, which is amazing, so they basically created it over 100 years ago and work together on personality type. The MBTI is the most used personality psychological assessment worldwide, so over 2 million people use it every year and it is the most researched and validated personality type indicator out there. So that's one of the reasons why I chose to use it myself when I decided that I was going to get certified in in being certified in the MBTI or personality type.

Speaker 2: 6:04

So, beyond that personality type, what it really means is it's how your brain is wired. So we are all born with a personality type. Even though we may not see it initially, in our children, it's developed over time. However, that is initially how our brain is wired. So some people think that personality type changes over time and they ask is it nurture versus nature? It is nature initially, so it's our foundation. That's why it's so core to understand our own personality type and how our brain is wired, along with our partner, our spouse, our kids, so that we can understand who they are. But then nature does come into effect. So we do learn skills. We do learn how to use other sides of our personality to get through in life.

Speaker 1: 6:53

The whole thing completely fascinates me because, as everyone that listens to those, I have three children. They could not be more different if they tried, and they really try. And it is fascinating because obviously my husband and I that we started off with the first one and then we did things pretty much the same, we felt, with the second one and then we thought we were doing things pretty much the same with the third one and then it became very apparent that what we'd done for the first two just was not going to work with that one. And it's due to very extreme differences in personality and in fact as they've got older, especially with my oldest two, there has been distinct personality changes happening, I guess as we've gone into the teenage years and stuff like that, that we just never even expected. But then when you look back they were already there and yet they've come to the front now and we just haven't sort of realised them so much before.

Speaker 1: 8:00

So I'm absolutely fascinated by this topic and the reason I really want to get you on as a guest is because I know from personal experience what a difference it makes as to how you deal with each person within the family, how you speak to them what they're capable of doing, how they see their values that are perhaps different to yours, and your personality has a huge effect on how you are able to declutter and organise, in my opinion, because of the fact that I've had so many clients now and I can see that what I can suggest for one won't work for another and we have to sort of tweak things and look at how they work best. So how is this affecting people's ability to declutter and organise their home? So how does personality play a part in that?

Speaker 2: 8:53

Yeah, that's a great question. And so the Myers-Briggs personality type. It is broken down into four components. One is how you get your energy, which is through extroversion or introversion, and two is how we take in information, which is through our sensing or intuition, so either very detail-oriented or big picture. And then the next one is how we make decisions, which is thinking, which is very logical, or feeling, which is basically we make decisions based on our values, which is typically people. But the last component is how we live our life, which is the judging, or perceiving component.

Speaker 2: 9:31

And so when I say judging, I mean like, think of a court judge not being judgmental, but like a court judge, where the judge is there to make a decision.

Speaker 2: 9:40

So that's what this judging personality type is, is they're constantly they're wanting to make a decision about everything in their world and they want everything to come to a closure. So the way they approach their life, the way they organise and this gets into organisation, time management, scheduling and routines is completely opposite than the perceiving type, which they're about not scheduling their life, not coming to a closure. They're complete opposite. They want to leave their options open as long as they can. So their brain is wired completely different. They're adaptable, flexible. They don't want to schedule, they don't like routines, they want to see what happens. And so when it comes to organising and creating your schedule and decluttering, they approach it in a much different way and their values are different, even of what they think is important.

Speaker 2: 10:31

So the J personality type can get anxiety over circumstances. So, for instance, if the dishes are left in the sink overnight, they can't go to sleep at night because it's not closed. The dishes have not been put away. Or the P personality type they like to play and they can work as they play, so having it open is not a big deal to them, so they can have dishes in the sink.

Speaker 1: 10:58

I love that example because my very, very oldest best friend came to stay from the UK a few weekends ago I hope she's listening to this episode and we'd had dinner in the evening and it got really late and we hadn't cleared up the kitchen and she sort of went into the kitchen before we went to bed and she was like, oh, we need to do this. And I was like no, I'm really tired, I'm going to leave it for the morning. I'd rather just go to bed and get my rest and find to do it in the morning. Now I know she never in her house would be able to leave it. She would stay up until it was finished because that's her personality type she can't leave it open. So that's really interesting. So she's obviously the one personality type and I'm the other because I'm quite happy if bed for me is more important than cleaning the dishes.

Speaker 2: 11:50

Yeah, and that's interesting. So does it sound like you're more along that P, the perceiving Personality type, where you like things a little bit more open-ended? You're flexible If the routine changes. You're okay with that versus being scheduled.

Speaker 1: 12:06

Yeah, yeah, and and this is what I'm always saying on this podcast is really slightly Strange is that I am naturally very disorganized and I have to really work at it to Get things to happen on time. To schedule things. Everything has to be written down. My mom's been asking me to ask the kids something for like over a week now, before we go at Christmas. And she said to me today did you ask them? I was like, oh no, I hadn't written it on my list because if it's not written down, it's just gone. It's like so, so no, definitely that's that much more that personality type. So this is absolutely fascinating. Okay, I'm pleased. I understand that how different my friend and I are now, but that's good. We obviously like yin and yang.

Speaker 2: 12:54

It fits yeah and it's really great. Yeah, you're right, it is like yin yin is complete opposites, and when you can understand how each other Operates, then you can lean into each other and knowing when. Okay, if she needs to do this or it's gonna stress her, so Either I can jump in or somebody else can jump in or we can plan that way. But that's how it is with our children and our spouses too.

Speaker 2: 13:18

If we can understand what causes them the stress, then at the moment Usually the rule is whoever has the the most need at the time is what you gravitate towards. So if you're very, very tired that night and you can't do it, well, then somebody else steps in and helps clean the kitchen, or your friend has to do it by yourself and just you know, have a hard time with that, or maybe it's not a big deal for her to do that. So just understanding kind of where you are, who you are and what is stressful for you and what's gonna put stress on somebody else, is really. It's a, it's a good barometer to kind of see your Relationships and how to create that harmony and helpfulness with each other, but also taking care of yourself when you need to.

Speaker 1: 14:03

Yeah, and I think this is what I see so often when I go to work with families especially, they'll say, oh, I can't get the kids to pick up, or this child's room is really tidy, but this child's room is really messy. So how is this difference in personality Making it difficult for families to sort of work together to create a home that's Organized? Because it does really cause a huge amount of problems, I think, which people aren't aware of this.

Speaker 2: 14:36

That judging and perceiving personality type or the J and the P, really causes probably the most conflict in relationships than anything else, because it does involve picking up, being organized, being on time and having an understanding of time and and structuring your day. So it can cause a lot of friction when you're completely opposite. So it also when you look at with children. If you don't understand who they are and what their needs are and your type is completely opposite of them especially if both parents are you're gonna start seeing meltdowns and stress because they're going to be very stressed Because they're going to have to be spending all their energy doing something that's outside of their natural Behavior. So if you can think of a writing with your right hand or your left hand, your dominant hand versus your non-dominant, it's like personality type. So if you're constantly writing with your non-dominant hand, at some point it's gonna be really hard and it's gonna really tire you out and you might melt down. A kid a child definitely is Is going to have a meltdown. So understanding their type and how to motivate them and how to Set your environment in a way that you can meet your needs and theirs at the same time is really the ultimate goal and With all relationships there is compromise. So a Child, who is this judging, this judging type of child? They need order in their life and and then then they're just gonna naturally pick up their clothes if you look at their closet. It's closets are a really great Way to view who a personality type is. So if you go into a judging person's closet, or even a child, you'll see and it's be interesting because you've worked with so many people, I'd love to hear your, your insight on this.

Speaker 2: 16:35

Typically, a judging child will have all their clothes put away. Sometimes, or I'm especially an adult Sometimes you'll even see it color-coded or seasonal. Or pants here, dress, dress items here, workout, play clothes here, where the perceiving child, if you look at their closet, it's going to be well, you're lucky if things are on a hanger most the time, pushed in, pushed in right, shoved into the drawers. There's probably not necessarily a soft drawer and short straw is probably kind of mixed together Because because for them to organize their external world, they're in there, organized internally inside their mind, which parents don't see. So sometimes they get real stressed and scared that their kids will never be able to be organized. But what it is is they're externally not organized, so it's very hard for them to externally organize their world.

Speaker 2: 17:26

And so if you have a judging parent in a perceiving child, it can cause that judging parent a lot of stress, because one Looking at a mess is hard for them and they're. They're really seeking closure. And then, plus, they worry that their child is never Going to be able to organize their life as they grow up. So and then you have the opposite of a Judging child with a perceiving parent, and the judging child can have meltdowns because there's not a schedule in place and they need a little bit of control over their world. And if things are a mess around them, then they can have meltdowns too, because they're really needing a Structured routine in their day. So there can be lots of conflicts in these two areas, yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:13

I can actually I can use our family as an example. We have one child who really struggles to keep their room tidy. They will try really hard but they, they just can't pick anything up. And a few years ago now and it really is quite some years ago we had tried to sort of say, come on, once a week we're gonna tidy up and would go in in their room and try and support them with it. And we got to the point where I actually said to my husband one evening I think we are really stressing them out, I think we're making them miserable, and I think we're making them miserable and I think we need to back off, because we actually didn't have very high expectations at all, but even those were clearly making them unhappy. And so we went and spoke to them and said, okay, this is your space, as long as it's not Infringing on everyone else, let's say we, we just leave it. If this is how it's easier for you to live at the moment, that's fine, but we do need to be able to get in and vacuum once a week and we need to be able to clean the bathroom in there once a week and and that sort of stuff. And it was like someone had just like just let all the pressure off, and there was such a changing behavior at that point as well, because they clearly suddenly felt more relaxed about everything. And so that was a huge learning curve for me and for my husband, and I'm so grateful that we realized that We'd actually done an online parenting course around that time and I'd had a bit of an aha moment and thought, oh, perhaps we should just try not asking them to do anything and see what happens, and it really worked. But it's really helped me with working with families because I'm able to say to them just because that's okay for child number one, it really perhaps isn't gonna work for child number two or child number three, and you need to talk to them and ask them what makes you feel comfortable?

Speaker 1: 20:15

What that, I ask you, is difficult. How would you actually like your things organized and that sort of stuff, and it makes a huge difference to then the family dynamic and the relationship. So it is super important. And you asked about closets and I can actually use mine and my husband's closet as an example, and this is where I very definitely am. Is it perceiving? Did you say yes, perceiving? My husband clearly judge.

Speaker 1: 20:43

You open his closet everything super, organized, folded very carefully, very, very, very, very orderly. My closet is also organized because I've commaried it and then I'm lucky I don't have a huge amount of stuff anymore, so it's easy to keep organized. But I'm not great at putting things away when I know I probably should do. I'm not necessarily always good at putting things back straight away when I should, and if you open my closet it doesn't look necessarily always like the closet of a commari consultant, because it's difficult for me. I have to work at it and if I'm having a difficult week then things do slip a little bit. I can quickly reset it and I much prefer how it looks when it is all how it should be, but it is hard for me. So I think our two closets are probably a good example for me, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 21:46

And mine in my husband's closets are exactly the same as yours and your husband's. So there's a couple of things with that. One is for our relationship. When we first got married we did have a lot of conflict with this area because he wanted a very picked up home and I'm naturally not I'm not dirty, I'm not super messy, but I do leave my shoes out in the living room, which he doesn't want. He wants everything put away. So I've learned to keep our living areas picked up. But I have my closet where I can kind of keep that, my space where if I just need to throw something in there it's okay and it's not going to bother anybody because he can shut the door and not see it. But I have to have a space where I can just kind of put things until I'm ready to put them away.

Speaker 2: 22:37

Because the main difference between the judging and perceiving one of them is the judging person wants to make a decision all the time. Where can I make a decision? But for perceivers, making decisions is very difficult. We want to keep our options open as long as possible. So if you think about organizing, it's constant decision making when does this shirt go? Where does this go? How do I put this away? And that's what's really difficult in tiring for a perceiving person. So, especially when you're really tired or your child's really tired, asking them to put things away in a way that's very tedious will be very hard for them. So having structures that are even like buckets for a perceiving child, where they can kind of throw things in, makes it so much easier for them. And not expecting, like what you did with your child which is brilliant but having the expectations on them for what each child can handle and what they need is really helpful for them.

Speaker 2: 23:37

I mean, ultimately we want our children to learn how to function in this world that suits them best, and one of the issues with the judging parent and the perceiving child is the judging person. They can organize their world really well and it works really well for them. And they organize their world by controlling it and what's going on around them. And because it works well for them, they always want to put this type of organization, scheduling and how to live your life on that perceiving person Well, because that perceiving person is completely different. It's very stressful for them.

Speaker 2: 24:12

So the perceiving child needs to really figure out a way that works best for them, which is what you were doing with your own child, is okay. Let's figure out what we need. Number one we need to be able to clean the bathroom and get into your room. That's first step, and as they grow up and mature, they are going to learn what works for them, because we don't want to always have a mess around us. We like it when it looks nice. It's just keeping up with that routine of putting things away all the time is very difficult for us.

Speaker 1: 24:44

Yeah, absolutely, and it's fascinating that you're making the point about if you're a perceiving adult and you're living in a house with an adult with the judge personality how this causes conflict.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Basically because one of you wants it done a certain way and it works for you, but the other person's resistance to that and this is the theme that comes up the most in my online course.

Speaker 1: 25:16

The people in the course are always asking how do I get the significant other that lives with me to do this, how I would like it to be done? And I always say and I'm gonna be telling them to listen to this episode because it's come up so much, especially in this last run of the course I'm always saying to them you have to accept that personalities are different and just because it works for you, it's not necessarily going to fit for them and you somehow have to find this middle ground where both of you compromise a bit in order to find a way that is acceptable for both of you. So maybe it's not going to be as amazingly perfectly organized as the judge personality would like it to be, but it's gonna be more organized than the perceiving person would have chosen for it to be, and then somewhere you sort of meet in that middle ground. What advice can you give to couples who have this situation, because it is so common? It is so common.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Yes, that is definitely common and I love your advice. One of the other tips I would add is separate the process from the end goal and distinguish between is the goal, let's say, we're putting yard dishes in the dishwasher? Is the goal to have clean dishes, or is the goal to fill the dishwasher exactly the way you want it? Because we hear stories of people having fights over just how to load the dishwasher, which I understand. There is an efficiency and sometimes things may be washed better.

Speaker 2: 27:03

But separate the end goal from the process, especially when you are working with a judging parent and a perceiving child, because the perceiving child likes to play while they do their chores, and so if a judging parent is watching their perceiving child do the chore, it's gonna drive them insane, they're gonna get upset, they're gonna start micromanaging. So when the child is old enough, the tip is give them their chores, leave the room, tell them what the end result is and what you expect to see when they are done, but leave the room, do not watch them. Actually do the process, because that's what we're really getting towards. Is the end goal, not the process, and that process is what causes a lot of the friction of getting there.

Speaker 1: 27:55

That's interesting because I'll just keep using my family, because I don't like using clients as examples. But my end goal is always just to get the stuff off the counter in the kitchen and into the dishwasher, like as fast as possible. Let's just get it out of here so it looks tidy, whereas my husband wants the dishwasher stacked in a certain way so that he can fit the most possible stuff in there. If I'm left with a few things piled up on the side that then end up going in in the morning because they didn't fit in, that doesn't bother me at all. But my husband has to have everything in there, so it turns into some sort of Tetris game and he'll start moving stuff that I've put in there and it used to really annoy me and I've actually learned.

Speaker 1: 28:40

Now he'll disagree. He'll say I still say something, but I've tried to learn to just go. Okay, fine, if it makes him happy, then I'll just leave him to it. That's his problem. If he wants to spend hours trying to load the dishwasher, I've got other things, so I can just walk off and go and do something else and leave him to get on with it. So Right.

Speaker 2: 29:02

Yeah, and also, and part of the personality type too, is helping you, which you have done a great job of just letting it go, but helping understand not to get offended by that, because my husband cannot rest when there's dishes on the sink. I as a pee will be okay with that, but that really bothers him because he wants a very tidy, picked up, clean sink. So knowing okay that is the motivation behind why he is doing that helps you as a spouse say okay, that's important to him. So if he wants to finish the final 10% and do all this rearranging, then that's on him right, and then you don't have to be offended because the motivation is really his personality. In a way he's wired versus something that you're doing wrong.

Speaker 1: 29:52

Yeah, yeah, definitely so I think everyone will be listening, will be finding this absolutely fascinating. I'm going yes, that's us and I'm a P or I'm a judge, and it's just brilliant. So can you give us some practical tips on decluttering and organizing when you have got family members who are different types? Why is it important to use different approaches?

Speaker 2: 30:21

Yeah, that's a great question. So there's a lot of different things that you can do. I mean one of them is, I would say first try and pay attention and experiment with what works with your family and what works with you, and paying attention to why you're stress number one and what causes you to be a little upset. It helps you understand your emotional intelligence and understand your own personality type. So understanding yourself first is a starting point, because if you understand what causes you to be upset or wanting something a certain way and finding the motivation behind that, then it helps you back off if you need to, so you can compromise. And then understanding your child. So if you are different than your spouse or your child, one is experiment. Two is to just to have a better understanding of their type, which I will provide some resources that you can provide to your audience of understanding types with tips.

Speaker 2: 31:18

So one would be if you have, for instance, a perceiving child and you have your nightly routine of picking up for 10 minutes every night, right so your perceiving child, they do not want to do the same thing every single night. They're not going to want to have the same routine. They're not going to want to do the same thing every single day. So if you can add some kind of variety and some kind of fun into their, into that nightly pickup time, it could be pulling cards out of a hat of who does what what task that night, so there's an element of surprise that is helpful. A perceiving child does not want to have a tour chart that they have to check off. So that might help the parent, yeah, but that's not necessarily going to help the perceiving child. That's just really going to stress them out. However, the judging child really likes to have that tour chart and they like to check off what they've done, so the judging person gets like a satisfaction of checking things off.

Speaker 1: 32:17

Yeah, it's so fascinating because when my kids were little, I tried doing, you know, these motivation charts and charts for different things and it was quite clear that for a couple of them this was a great motivator and for one of them, definitely not, like it stressed them. It stressed them so much so I think a lot of parents see these sort of reward charts and chore charts and let's tick it off and as a thing we should all be doing with all children and it's just not the case at all. And the sooner people realize that, the better for these poor kids, because it's really stressing them out.

Speaker 2: 32:57

Exactly, and the less they're stressed, the less we're stressed and we can do things more fun together than we're all going to be happier. Another tip I would have for a perceiving parent with a judging child is to do things that you can keep up with. So the perceiving person has a hard time with routine, with keeping scheduled, planning ahead and keeping things on time when they say they're going to do something. Because we view time kind of more as general, the judging person views it literal, like five o'clock is five o'clock yeah. So I would say with a perceiving parent and a judging child, put some things and parameters in place where the judging child has more control over their environment so they have that. Anything that they need at their hands that they can, they can put away and even access, like when they're doing homework. Let them have access to the pens and the pencils and the staplers and put them in charge of even organizing it. That makes them feel really great when they have control and can do something to help the family.

Speaker 2: 33:59

If you're going to have a cleanup time and you're a perceiving parent, if you are very scheduled throughout the day, then having that every single day is going to be hard for you to stay up with. If you have more of a relaxed day, you can schedule that every night at a certain time. But just make sure that whatever you decide to do, that you can stay with, because the judging child will have a hard time If you say you're going to do something and then you don't, because they expect routine, they expect schedules and when things don't go as planned, that's when you might see a meltdown, because they've planned for that and they've scheduled that and they want to see that come to pass.

Speaker 1: 34:36

I think everyone listening is going to be like oh, how can I find out more about this? Because it is key to, as you said at the very start, to having a harmonious home. It is absolutely key, and I think lots of people because we're so busy and we're trying to get the kids from A to B and the after school clubs into school and cook the dinner we forget that the way that we're working is not necessarily going to be working for the people that we're living with and it might actually be a contributing factor to the behaviors that are happening. So, for example, I would imagine correct me if I'm wrong here but if you have a perceiving child and they're permanently being taken from school to after school clubs and everything's scheduled and structured, what they probably need is to come home and just play and have some free time, and all this one thing after another, is quite anxiety inducing for them. Am I right with that?

Speaker 2: 35:45

Absolutely, absolutely. So I've been brought in to help parents who their children are having some behavioral issues and they were going to take them to behavioralists. But I said let me just do their personality type first, just so we can have a foundation of who they are. And what we found was their environment was for a perceiving child. It was very structured and they had no time to just relax, play, have fun, and so they would have meltdowns when they were asked to do one more task. And what parents don't necessarily always understand is that the perceiving child actually does better work when they play, so they need that outlet to just relax and let off steam.

Speaker 1: 36:29

Yeah, and just have some downtime and let their brain be free for a bit rather than always thinking what's the next thing that's coming. It's interesting you say that because our child who struggles with keeping their room tidy. They're also the one that doesn't want to make play dates and have lots of things scheduled and we'll be going come on, do you not want to see a friend this weekend? No, I just want some time to chill. That's exactly what they say. I just want some time on my own to do the things I want to do. So they clearly understand themselves very well and luckily we've been tuned in enough to that to we ask because we think socially they should be meeting up with somebody, perhaps. But we also have to respect the fact that that's not what they want to do. It doesn't make them happy doing that. So it's a difficult balance sometimes.

Speaker 2: 37:25

Yes, what you were just hitting on was the extraversion and introversion, as well as the J and the P. When you mix them together, you compound them. An extrovert typically likes to get out and have lots of noise and music. What you'd see with a P extrovert is they might want to have free time, but it's going to be very lively and fun and maybe with lots of people where an introvert person is going to be more quiet, chill. I don't want any pressure, I just want to be able to do whatever I want. With the introvert, though, they typically just have a few good friends and that's all they need. It's helpful when a parent knows that. That's okay. They just need a few good friends. That's all that they need in their life and they're good.

Speaker 2: 38:12

It's great that your children have you as a parent that can really be in tune with them and help them understand themselves. That's ultimately what we're here for is to help our kids understand themselves, because when their children and growing up into teenage years and even college age, they're really trying out what works for them and what doesn't, we need to give them space to fail forward really to really see what works for them and what doesn't, because when they're young. There really is no such thing as failure If we as parents, we're so worried about our kids being successful in life and achieving so much that we don't want them to what society might call failure. But if we change that perspective, it's not failing, it's just learning what works for us and what doesn't. The earlier that we learn that, the better. Then we can give our children the freedom that they need to experience and experiment in life for who they are and what works for them.

Speaker 1: 39:03

Yeah, gold, I love it. Fantastic. It's so interesting just to talk it all through because I think we've intuitively been doing it without actually knowing what it is. I'd never heard of a lot of MBTI before you and I actually connected. It was all totally new for me and I'm going to be reading up on this because I think it is absolutely fascinating and I know that it will help me serve my clients better and the people on my course better, because I can help them better understand why these conflicts are arising when they're having decluttering and organizing problems. Where can people find out more about you? Because I know they will want to Well thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 39:53

You can go to my website, which is skipperio, and just backslash Julia Brickman, my name. You can find more information. I'll have resources and handouts and more information on the MBTI. We are getting ready to do some videos and different types of things that could be helpful to people wanting to understand how to really interact with their children and health Buy their children.