Appreciating Differences - Jack Falt - Ottawa area, Ontario, Canada

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Book Review by Jack Falt

Davis, Sandra & Handschin, Bill, Reinventing Yourself: Life Planning After 50 Using the Strong and the MBTI® CPP Books, Palo Alto, CA, ISBN: 0-89106-118-5, 1998, 169 pp

This short book review was written for the Ontario Association for the Application of Personality Type newsletter Tell~A~Type, Spring 1999.

What happens when you turn 50 and you want a change? Or even worse, after years of loyal service you get downsized with or without the golden parachute.

Reinventing Yourself looks at two mainline psychological instruments -- The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® and the Strong Interest Inventory® -- to help you assess yourself and move on. The book has mini versions of both instruments that you can take, although having someone administer the real tests would be better. This book can be used as a self-help book or would be an excellent continuing education class resource. It has a number of exercises and worksheets. There are also numerous tables to present the information in addition to its readable text.

An interesting concept these authors have come up with is to add another box to Bolles's Three Boxes of Life (work, learning and play) -- relationships. Whenever we see anything divided into four groups, we look to see if they relate to the temperaments; and they do! We all have to develop all of these four boxes in our lifetimes, but each temperament has an affinity for one of them: work - SJs, play - SPs, learning - NT, and relationships - NF.

The book has a lot of useful information even if you are not 50. If you are not qualified in either instrument, it gives a good introduction to both the Strong Interest Inventory and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. A worthwhile book to add to your professional library.

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