Carl Jung

How to Build Emotional Awareness from Scratch

Start by recognizing that emotions are like an invisible inner influencer affecting your thoughts and actions. Create a list of core emotions, practice naming them as they occur, and learn to experience them fully rather than suppressing them. Strong emotions, whether positive or negative, prevent logical decision-making.

Why Homogeneous Teams Dysfunction

Homogeneous teams dysfunction. A group of all judgers immediately starts making lists without questioning if they're doing the right thing. A group of all perceivers ends up playing video games and drinking beer instead of completing tasks. Mixed teams with opposites create 'a mind bigger than everyone in the room.'

Judgers Plan for Closure; Perceivers Keep All Options Open

Judgers like to plan, structure, and control by making lists and bringing closure to decisions. Perceivers prefer spontaneity, keeping options open, and delaying decisions to adapt and improvise. Perceivers are typically late while judgers are early, and they drive each other nuts with their opposite approaches.

Stop Arguing With Reality — Accept First Then Change

Stop arguing with reality. When something happens you don't like, accept that it happened because no amount of resistance will change what occurred. Then ask yourself how you can utilize this circumstance for growth. As Carl Jung and Carl Rogers noted, you must first accept something before you can change it.

Feelers Trust Emotions; Thinkers Dismiss Them as Irrational

Feelers make decisions based on emotions, staying associated into their bodies and trusting feelings as 'the sum total of all thoughts summed up in an emotion.' Thinkers make decisions rationally, dissociated from emotions, focusing on logic and what 'makes sense' while dismissing emotions as irrational.

Naming Your Emotions — A Practical Starting Method

Begin by writing down core emotions like happiness, sadness, jealousy, envy, excitement, disgust, and fear. For each emotion, recall a specific time you experienced it. Then practice naming emotions as they happen in real-time, even though this is challenging and some emotions may remain unidentifiable.

Stay Present With an Emotion 30-60 Seconds Until It Passes

Close your eyes and notice where you feel the emotion physically in your body. Notice its pressure, color, temperature, and movement direction. Stay present with these sensations and the emotion will move through your body and dissipate in 30-60 seconds, leaving you with a cleansing, renewed feeling.

Introvert or Extrovert — A Simple Self-Test for Business

Ask yourself: if you had a weekend off, would you prefer to spend it alone reading and thinking, or with a group of people you don't know? Introverts recharge by spending time alone and need to consider topics before speaking, while extroverts recharge by being around others and think out loud.

Sensors vs Intuitives — Myers-Briggs Cognitive Split

Sensors (75% of population) focus on concrete details, facts, and present-moment reality through their five senses. Intuitives focus on meaning, theories, future possibilities, and the big picture. Using the forest analogy, sensors inspect individual trees while intuitives see the whole forest.

Myers-Briggs Work Style Matching by Type

Introverts should work independently or in small groups with reflection time. Extroverts need interaction and group energy. Sensors work with specifics step-by-step. Intuitives work with ideas and strategy. Thinkers analyze complex problems. Feelers focus on pleasing and supporting others. Judgers plan and structure. Perceivers brainstorm and adapt.

Suppression Forfeits Emotional Learning and Life Experience

Suppressed emotions go into what Carl Jung called the 'shadow' and return later to cause more complex problems that require much more challenging work to resolve. You also miss out on great aspects of life and lose the ability to learn from emotional experiences.

Yin Yang Method for Holding Opposing Business Truths

Visualize conflicting elements as the yin-yang symbol with opposing forces swirling together, each containing a spot of the other, providing a model for how opposites can work harmoniously.

First-Rate Minds Function Without Choosing Between Opposing Thoughts

The ability to hold two seemingly opposing thoughts simultaneously and continue functioning effectively, rather than shutting down or choosing favorites when encountering conflict.

Pushed-Away Emotions Come Back Through the Shadow

if we just continually dissociate and push our emotions further and further from us, they go into what Carl Jung would have called the shadow and they come back later to bite us

Major Innovations Begin as Seemingly Disconnected Random Elements

Major innovations that led to success for individuals and for the world often start out as a collection of seemingly random disconnected elements

One Judger Plus One Perceiver Creates a Mind Bigger Than the Room

You put them together, one judger, one perceiver... you get a mind that's bigger than everyone in the room and that gets a lot done

Your Inner Influencer — Highly Intelligent, Invisible, Persuasive

we have a highly intelligent, highly persuasive person. We'll call this person your inner influencer and they're invisible

The Test of a First-Rate Mind

the test of a first-rate mind is being able to hold two seemingly opposing thoughts and to continue to function

Emotions Have Pressure, Color, Temperature, and Direction

you'll notice that it has a pressure, a color, a temperature. It's usually moving in some direction

All Personality Types Are Needed and Equally Valuable

Neither is right or wrong or good or bad... they're all needed and they're all valuable

Anything Can Be Connected in the Mind

anything can be connected in the mind