Transcript
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: What is your personality like? How would you describe your personality type? Is there a woodworker personality, Eric? Is there a unique combination of personality traits that draw people to craft or to art?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: What is the relationship with personality type and creativity and could aspect of your personality? wonderful personality be getting in the way of your craft.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: On today's show, we're gonna dig into this and a whole lot more.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Oh, hey there, ho there. Here we are again.
Mr Personalitee: Oh, what's up, foghorn leghorn?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Hey there, whore there. ah Welcome back to another episode of your favorite show, Woodworking is Bullshit. I'm your host, Paul Jasper of Copperpick Woodworking. And of course, I got my boy across the screen, across the East Coast, Eric Curtis, fine furniture maker and content creator.
Mr Personalitee: I didn't have a Spanish phrase prepped.
brad: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: freaked.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: You've been going to the bibliotech lately.
brad: had
Mr Personalitee: I know, I know. Yeah, doing a lot of reading.
brad: Boom.
Mr Personalitee: no
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: A lot of that.
Mr Personalitee: Ha ha
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Well, if one PhD isn't enough for this show, we have on not one, not even two, oh think but three PhDs in this show.
brad: Aww.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I forgot about yours.
Mr Personalitee: ha ha!
brad: boom ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: What did you say? I forgot about yours. Oh, good.
brad: all
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Three PhDs in one show. What the fuck is this? What is this show turning into? What a mess.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I'm here, of course, with Dr. Sherry Pagato. Hi. Licensed clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Connecticut. That is correct. Sherry is a writer for Psychology Today, and her work has been covered on major outlets that include the Washington Post,
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Good Morning America, New York Times, CNBC, and of course, Woodworking is Bullshit's resident psychologist. The crown jewel of my CV.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And we also have today Sherry's colleague and friend, Brad Appelhans. ah Brad is a licensed clinical psychologist and professor at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois, where we used to live.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Funny enough. That's right Sherry's known Brad for quite some time, but 18 years at least. No longer than that. Oh, even longer.
brad: 20 years. Mm-hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: 20 plus. Yeah. Oh my God. You guys are old. And Brad's work has been covered by NPR, Time Magazine, The Atlantic, The Smithsonian, and others.
brad: Ha, ha,
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Eric, what are your credentials?
brad: ha.
Mr Personalitee: Listen, my work has been covered by Instagram, so maybe get the fuck over yourselves, okay?
brad: Ha, ha,
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: He was on Netflix.
brad: ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: He was on Netflix.
Mr Personalitee: All
brad: Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I'm just messing.
Mr Personalitee: Three PhDs and a moron is the name of this episode, though.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And... But but but but what makes brad what makes Brad even more special is he's a woodworker. He's been a woodworker for eight years.
brad: Yes.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So he's got his foot in both tide pools.
brad: Most proud of that.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Brad, thank you so much for joining us today.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, thanks, brother.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: We really appreciate it.
brad: Yeah, my pleasure.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So you wonder what we're going to talk about with this many brainiacs on the show, right? Well, we decided to take on personality. And this was Sherry's idea. She said, why don't we discuss, it's called the big five, like personality traits can often be discretized into like five main traits that we talk about. Of course, there's sub traits, but let's keep it simple for the first show.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: We're going to talk about the big five personality traits.
Mr Personalitee: I'm sorry, did you say discretized?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: that Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: Okay, out listen, I know there's now three PhDs on this show, but you're gonna have to keep the fucking common man in mind.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah. like
brad: ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: ah
Mr Personalitee: Can you give me a definition of discretized?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I've never used that word, I'll be honest. It has been subdivided. I'm going to now. It has been subdivided into five major traits.
Mr Personalitee: Subdivided. Okay, thank you for speaking to us lowly folks who weren't in like advanced high school classes.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: but
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Oh my God.
brad: Orthogonal categories.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: But first, should let's ask Eric.
Mr Personalitee: ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Let's ask for Eric's opinion. Okay. of Is there a woodworker personality and how would you describe it Oh, before we even get into the personality types.
Mr Personalitee: Oh, man.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah, before we dive what personality is, how would you describe a woodworker?
Mr Personalitee: I. o Boy, howdy, I was not prepared for this question. um That I feel like depends entirely on the context. Like I could talk in stereotypes about like the the type of person who works in the medium of wood dependent on the context, right? So like there's the carpenter, there's the cabinet maker, there's the the quote unquote fine furniture maker, the studio furniture maker. And I think those are all different ah stereotypical personality types. But I think maybe if I had to to stab a guess at something that united them all, it would all kind of be slightly anal retentive, hyper independence. And maybe a little bit of like, and I don't know if this is, I don't know, I don't know how to put this clinically, but a little like a sprinkle of go fuck yourself.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: i
Mr Personalitee: And ah ah that would be my guess.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: okay I'm not sure if Go Fuck Yourself is one of the big five, but Brad and Sherry going to tell us if it is.
Mr Personalitee: But also secretly sensitive.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: All right. Oh.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
brad: This sounds like a Nick Offerman type.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Oh. Yeah. Oh.
Mr Personalitee: You know what, Nick, ah I would almost hate to admit it.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yes.
Mr Personalitee: And Nick is a ah really genuinely sweet human being in real life.
brad: Mm-hmm.
Mr Personalitee: But I would almost hate to admit that I think he is the most prototypical woodworker in the United States. Like definitely the guy who like when you see him on the streets, he wants to have that face of like, don't fuck with me.
Mr Personalitee: But then also if you talk to him, you're like, that's actually a really delightful human being.
brad: Mm-hmm.
Mr Personalitee: ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: All right, so we're gonna talk about the big five. Eric kind of prefaced with what he thought a woodworker is in terms of, and Sherry and Brad will sort of describe the big five and we'll see what eric's how Eric's description fits with that.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And then we all took personality tests. We took another test. It was so it was so compelling on the ADHD episode So many people took the test we we linked in the show notes that we found a personality test. No spam. You don't have to give them your firstborn child to take it. ah it's It's a quite good personality test and it emails you the results and it'ss it's awesome.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: We all took this personality test to talk about which of the big five, like who are we?
brad: Thank you.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And then we'll end the episode with how do those personality traits relate to art and craft? and what is the interplay? So I'm going to turn over to Sherry and Brad to start talking about what is personality and introduce us to the big five. So personality can be captured by most of human, the variability in human human personality can be captured by these five traits. Now it may not be totally exhaustive, but for the most part, We can think of our personality in these five different ways.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And so shall we walk through them? Yeah, OK. And so one thing I should mention is that personality is dimensional. So even though each of these traits has two poles of like high on something or low on something, we're all sort of.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: somewhere in between it's dimensional. and So it doesn't mean that you're either one thing or the other. I just want to preface what I'm going to say with that, because the first one you've probably all heard of and it's extraversion. And so actually the polls of this aspect of personality go from extraversion to introversion. And I bet a lot of us do have a sense of whether we're extroverts or introverts. Because it sometimes yeah like you'll ask people, to are you extroverted or introverted? So we talk about it very much like it's an all or nothing, but it's actually a dimension.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And what it refers to, if you're all the way on the extroversion side, what that means is that you lean into external experiences and spaces. You are energized by social interaction. So you're definitely a people person. That is kind of what lights up your brain is connection, social connections. On the other end of the spectrum of introversion is somebody who is more socially reserved. They tend to have a greater need for alone time and decompression time. They might have smaller group of friends and maybe much tighter connections, but are not kind of the life of the party types that you might see way over here on extroversion.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: um And then there's everything sort of in between. And so one aspect of this but particular personality type is kind of probably determine a little bit of what occupation you might end up in and maybe even what kind of woodworker you are. Depending on whether you like to bring other people into your work or you see your woodworking time as sort of decompression time, alone time, and that sort of thing, then you might lean more introverted.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Okay, so that's one of them. The next one is agreeableness.
brad: Mm-hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And so the the polls of that would include being very agreeable and then being very disagreeable. What agreeableness means is these are folks who have a tendency to kind of put the group over oneself.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So they're very much pro-social harmony. We want to get along. And on the other side of agreeableness or disagreeableness are people who are more sort of independent thinking, might be more skeptical and um might put their own interests over the group when they feel like that's necessary.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So, yes.
Mr Personalitee: Can can we label that as the the go fuck yourself group? Because I feel like that's what I was hitting on earlier.
brad: Haha.
Mr Personalitee: There's that's the sprinkle of go fuck yourself.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: ah Yeah, I would say people who are high on disagreeable on the disagreeable side would be a little bit more of the go fuck yourself group for sure.
Mr Personalitee: Sure, sure, sure.
Mr Personalitee: Okay, okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And then the agreeables are, can't we all just get along? so you got let's see And then you may be in between where sometimes there's a time and place for go fuck yourself and there's a time and place for we all get along. Okay, going to turn it over to Brad to hit on some of the other types.
brad: Yeah, well, the problem is I only prepared mortise and tenon information.
Mr Personalitee: No.
brad: That's all I've got. I didn't know we were doing personality today. good Yeah, yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Put your other hat on, the psychology hat. All right. So we have extrovert, introvert and agreeableness.
brad: So, yeah, so we could do conscientiousness.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Right. So far. Yep. That's two. Okay.
brad: So conscientiousness, c that one is about self-discipline, organized thinking. These are people who are achievement-oriented, they're reliable, they're Disciplines of someone who's high on conscientiousness is always trying to make sure they have all their ducks in a row.
brad: They tended to probably do well in school, very organized, studious. And on the other hand, you can imagine that someone low on conscientiousness might be more spontaneous, free freewheeling, and just maybe less concerned with details. So they can, on the positive side, adapt very easily and pivot when situation demands that.
brad: And they can be more relaxed about just things more easygoing. So I'd say that's a pretty good representation of consciousness conscientiousness. And you can kind of already see where that would go with with woodworking and the kinds of skills that would have to evolve.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Right?
brad: Yes.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah. All right. So that's three. we have two more. all right. What you want to do next? Emotional stability. Yeah. Brad, you want to talk about emotional stability?
brad: Yeah, I could take that one.
Mr Personalitee: Oh boy.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: You to that
brad: Yeah. So the the term for this, I think I think i know why Sherry wanted me to have to say this word neuroticism, has a definite negative connotation about being neurotic.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yes. Hmm.
brad: So the personality trait came first, then the negative connotation sort of developed. So we tend to refer to it as emotional stability. Really, it's kind of in reverse, though. So Neuroticism is someone who's kind of low in emotional stability, so they're high in emotional instability.
brad: They tend to be emotionally sensitive, feel their emotions very intensely. They can be reactive to stress. Sometimes it can feel like their emotions are kind of driving them in different directions.
brad: And, um, The positive thing is they're able to detect other people's emotions. And on the other hand, they might be thinking deeply about mistakes. So if they have an error or a mistake, they might take that to heart and it can really affect them. On the other hand, someone low in neuroticism or higher in emotional stability is calm under pressure, um tend to be just very stable, even tempered. They can stay composed, tend to be good leaders, tend and just kind of stay self-collected at all times.
brad: So that would be a good summary of that.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: That's so good.
brad: Okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Boy, bet Brad, both you and Trey are such great speakers. You guys laid that out so beautifully.
Mr Personalitee: It's almost like you guys know what the fuck you're talking about.
brad: ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah.
brad: yeah ye
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: All right, so we have extroversion, introversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. And the fifth? Is openness to experience. So on the high side of openness to experience are people who really appreciate art, new things. They love novelty, um adventure. They're intellectually curious. So they might be the kind of person who likes to watch documentaries or have you know deep
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: conversations about philosophical things. They're very curious, sensitive to beauty, willing to try new things. So this is someone, if you were like, let's go eat such and such kind of food that they never had before, they'd be like, I'm in.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So that's the high side. The low side of openness to experience are people who are more conservative in their choices. They like their, they're you know, probably meat and potatoes type of meals. And they have more a lot of structure and like things to be more concrete and ah much less willing to try new things. They kind of have a comfort zone and like to just live in that comfort zone and that's fine. And they tend to be um more organized and sort of rule governed in that way. And maybe, um,
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: less like spacey than the open to experience people. So again, on both sides, there's kind of some strengths and weaknesses. And so I'd be curious actually on this note of what you would say for a woodworker for these different personality traits, but we can start okay with openness to experience because this is the one personality trait that actually most reflects um creative people, right?
brad: Thank you.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: i I did a little research and and what it said is that creatives, have a very strong correlation with openness. So they're open to new experiences.
Mr Personalitee: Sure, sure.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: They're open to learning. They're they're very ah curious, let's say, about the world and about art in general.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And i have this i have I cut this sentence out with as it relates. I'm actually going to read it because I thought it was amazing as it relates to woodworkers. They said research on craftsmanship has found that both conscientiousness, that Brad, you talked about all of the traits of the conscientious scale being very applicable to getting projects done, getting them done in an organized way, construction.
brad: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Like I kept thinking like making construction, you know, that kind of thing with the conscientious traits, being able to pull off a project. So researchers found that craftsmanship um found that both conscientiousness and openness to experience positively predicted entry into craft and the arts.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: However, high, really high conscientiousness was actually... associated with slower growth over time. So, you know, the more formulaic, the more regimented you are, slow, clean, perfect joinery, let's let's do it a thousand times to make sure it's perfect, actually slows your overall growth in terms of like covering more distance in the field, right?
brad: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I i totally see that, but you're going to beautiful joints.
brad: Mm-hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: um This is really the thing I want So it says, in other words, the same trait that makes you precise and reliable conscientiousness as a woodworker can eventually calcify into rigidity if openness doesn't ah balance you back out.
brad: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: That is such an interesting interplay of those two.
brad: Yeah.
brad: Great.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: So, as you were talking about that, and I just... I want to clarify the type because we're just using woodworker in general in in in a generic form.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah, let's talk about types. Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: But I want to clarify that there are different types of woodworkers and they they both or or all of them, not just two of them, but they are all of equal value depending on the circumstance.
Mr Personalitee: So folks like me who are more idea driven need folks, if I was running a proper business, a manufacturing business, a cabinet shop, need folks who can get shit done and don't necessarily care about the creative process, but can build the fuck out of anything.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Right.
Mr Personalitee: Right?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So that's high conscientiousness, I would say.
brad: Hmm. Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's one type of woodworker.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Right.
Mr Personalitee: That's that's the that's the cabinet maker.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: that's the That's the person who is in the shop eight to four, seven to three, five days a week, maybe six days a week. And you hand them the plans and they can go execute at a high level. And they care about making sure that the thing they do is correct because that's what their paycheck depends on.
Mr Personalitee: That's great. And then you have space brains like me who are like, yeah, yeah, yeah I'm going to build that door.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yep. Yep.
Mr Personalitee: But also now I have this idea for this cabinet and I want to go do that. And like, maybe that door is going to sit on the shelf for a couple of months while I go fuck around over here. So like,
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: That's high openness.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they both have their value. So I want to just specify, i think, and correct me if I'm wrong, any of you, but I think for the majority of this episode, when we use generic term woodworker, we are talking about people who are trying to create one-off objects for the most part.
Mr Personalitee: And that could be professionals who are working in the studio craft. That could be hobbyists who are working in their their shops in the evenings after their day job ends.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Well, Well, what?
Mr Personalitee: Again, push back on me.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: what Yeah, I don't think we need to one type of maybe we could consider two types of of woodworkers, like the crafters and the artists.
Mr Personalitee: Okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Like I know, like the term artist, I don't mean to polarize us all, but you know what i mean?
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: People who enjoy the search, the curiosity, the emotional pull, right, of doing art and those that enjoy the craft. I just want to make a thing. I want to be functional. want to my ass on it. I just enjoy making shit.
Mr Personalitee: Well, okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So why don't we talk about those two as kind of like, you know, like poles of the spectrum?
Mr Personalitee: Okay, because the calcification that you just mentioned is a phenomenon I've seen in the cabinet shops, in in the in the, right, exactly.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: On the one poll, yes, yes, yes.
Mr Personalitee: in in And again, those folks are so valuable to just be like, this is the way you build a fucking cabinet.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Oh, absolutely.
Mr Personalitee: It's the fastest way in 50 years of experience. It's the fastest way to get it done. i don't give a fuck about your shape or origin. i don't give a fuck about your CNC. Just get the thing done. Use biscuits and screws, get over yourself.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yes. Well, Eric, what you, go ahead.
Mr Personalitee: And then on the other end is are the folks that are more interested or more open to like, I don't know what happens if I try this new technique? Is it more valuable? Does it give me more opportunity to create new things? And those again, both of those types of people are making high quality work. They are just working from two different ends of the spectrum.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Well, I wonder if it's their personality traits are attracting them to the aspect of woodworking that is yeah really reinforcing them. hundred percent. I'm sure they're pulled to the pole.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
brad: Mm-hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Now, I'm going to set, Brad and Sherry, I want you guys to give a disclaimer.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So we're going to go to the tests and the test results. And we're to talk about, Eric, I'm going to guess your test results.
brad: OK.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Eric, you're going to guess mine. going talk about Brad and Sherry's.
brad: Wow.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: But before we do that, I know that Brad and Sherry both want to say something that This is not good. that If you're high in something or low in something, you're not good. One's not bad.
brad: Mm-hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It's just different. So and I should also say the high and low is relative to the population.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So if you're on the really high side, that means ah relative to other people, you skew high on that. If you're right in the middle, it just means you're average in the population, how much of you have that characteristic.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So, so yeah, and and like you said, neither high or low is good or bad.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And because most people are probably somewhere around the middle, just from a normal distribution.
brad: Yes, and these are definitely definitely not personality disorders. So there are 10 actual personality disorders.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yes, yes.
brad: You can have them, but that is not what's reflected in the test. Those are situations where it's an extreme personality that's also causing some impairment and distress. So this is with these tests, this is just like your how you relate to the rest of the population.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And Brad, how do you feel about this test?
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: do you feel like it's robust?
brad: Yeah, this is among the best. So well-chosen one. and And I'd say the evidence for the big five as sort of the core framework for personality is probably the strongest. So i I put a lot of stock in it. And also, as we go through, you'll probably feel like these are pretty personally relevant.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: All right. Yeah.
brad: So, yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: All right, so Eric.
Mr Personalitee: About to get nailed to the cross, huh? Okay, let's ride.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah. do do you want Do you want to start by guessing my results or you want me to guess yours first?
brad: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: um Okay, so are we guessing where you fall on each of those five categories?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I'll lead you through the topics.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yep. Each of the five. Yeah, do this. We could start with extraversion.
Mr Personalitee: Okay, okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Where do you think Paul is? Do you want to guess me first?
Mr Personalitee: All right. Yeah, I'll guess you first.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Okay.
Mr Personalitee: I also took guesses as we were going through for myself. I'm just curious to see where I place myself.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Okay.
Mr Personalitee: But for extroversion, I'm going to say if if we if we round to like the nearest 10%, I'm to say extrovert for you is like 90%.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: i give Give both. Do both.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Okay. And you, how about yourself? What do you think?
Mr Personalitee: I guess like a strong 50. Like i' I think I'm right in the middle.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Okay. How about agreeableness?
Mr Personalitee: Okay. Agreeableness, I think maybe, i think I put us both at 75%.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: and Okay. And conch.
Mr Personalitee: Like more agreeable than not.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Okay. Conscientiousness.
Mr Personalitee: put at 75% put myself 50%.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Okay.
Mr Personalitee: and i put myself at fifty percent
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: All right.
Mr Personalitee: yeah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And emotional stability.
Mr Personalitee: All right. So this one, I put myself at 25% only because, not because i don't i don't think I'm emotionally stable, but Brad, listening to your differentiation, or maybe i don't maybe that's not the right way to phrase it, but the way you described...
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Discretization.
Mr Personalitee: ah
brad: Yeah, i was waiting for that.
Mr Personalitee: The discretization,
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: That's what it's. ah Dick.
brad: fair
Mr Personalitee: you son of a bitch, um between emotional stability and neuroticism, because you described them in different ways.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Nobody says that.
Mr Personalitee: um And I don't know if that was intentional, but but for me, listening to you describe emotional stability, I was like, I feel fairly emotionally stable. And then I heard you describe neuroticism, and I thought, oh, no, I might be neurotic.
Mr Personalitee: Uh, so, so I put myself at 25%.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: the Okay, and what and what was I on that one?
Mr Personalitee: Um, for you, I put it 50%.
brad: okay
Mr Personalitee: I'm really openess.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: All right, and last, openness.
Mr Personalitee: I feel like we're both pretty high. I put us both at 90%.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: All right. Nice. well let what so no let's see Let's hear the the real answers.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Inquiring minds want to know now What's this?
Mr Personalitee: Wait, wait, wait. Paul, did you, you've already seen my results though. Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yes. I did, but I kind of forgot them. There they go. Yes.
Mr Personalitee: Classic narcissist.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: where Where's the results? We had them written down. they ah here oh Here they are. Okay. So I'm going to tell you the actual results.
Mr Personalitee: Okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Because Eric, you guessed for both of us. All right. So for extraversion, I was high and you were high, Eric. We're both very high. Both of us.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah. I think Eric was a little higher.
Mr Personalitee: Really?
brad: Wow.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah. Well, i took I took two different tests. On one, I came out high. On the other, I came out extremely high. 92%.
Mr Personalitee: Interesting.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: it kind of depends on... that of them
Mr Personalitee: yeah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: the so
brad: ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I am.
brad: Didn't like the first answer.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: We're both, like Eric, we're both extroverts, right? Okay, in terms of agreeableness, I came out average, and Eric, you came out average.
Mr Personalitee: So does average mean like 50%?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah, you're in yeah in the middle relative to other people.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So so pretty agreeableness, I think the reason, ah like I consider myself a fairly agreeable person in in some ways, but I am skeptical and I will hold the line easily if your argument's not backed up.
Mr Personalitee: Really? Hmm.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Mr Personalitee: That's true. You will do that.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So that that lowers my agreeableness score because I don't just go along with whatever anyone says.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Like I'm interpersonally agreeable, but I'm not agreeable in terms of
Mr Personalitee: Interesting.
Mr Personalitee: OK.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: You know, I think that's why I'm kind of in the middle.
Mr Personalitee: Maybe. Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It's a good point because all the way on the side of very agreeable, you might start agreeing to things you'd actually don't agree with. Whereas someone who's very disagreeable is going to one to say, na na no, no, no.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: They're going to speak up. So as you can see, like, it it sounds like it's bad to be disagreeable, but there's this other side where it there's an assertiveness aspect to it, too.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, I think it's highly valuable, but I suppose that's why I put us both at more agreeable than not.
brad: Yeah. Mm
Mr Personalitee: My thought was you absolutely have no problem disagreeing with somebody, but you always tend to do it in a way that is is kind and conscientious of their humanity.
Mr Personalitee: You can disagree
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: in in a humane way. So I suppose I wasn't considering the disagreeing part as like being a dick.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: yeah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I learned that with age.
brad: I think what you're picking up on. Yeah, I think what you're picking up on is that each of these factors do have some facets to them. So yes, there's the agreeableness part.
Mr Personalitee: So disparatized or whatever the fuck the word was?
brad: This Yeah, discouraging.
Mr Personalitee: Okay. Okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Step away from the word, Eric.
brad: Yeah.
brad: Yeah, so there are there are different facets. So you can be agreeable in a kind of general sense. And then there's, you know, your willingness to hold to a point, things like that. So each of these factors you could break down.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: yeah and but I would also say like intersections too, like the disagreeable person who's super high neurotic is the one who probably doesn't, may not, and slightly introverted, may not deliver their disagreeableness in a way that's like socially palatable.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Oh yeah. So, so yeah, you want to think about intersections. Yeah. how they think again All right.
brad: No.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Conscientiousness, Eric, I was average and you were low.
Mr Personalitee: They're like, i don't give a fuck what happens.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Well, well, no, it's like you're freewheeling. Brad described it as freewheeling, a you know, thinking on their feet, spontaneous. you're You're the agent of chaos and I'm the order.
Mr Personalitee: That's true. That is true.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So like that's us average and low, right?
Mr Personalitee: Yeah. Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: like And that would make sense actually like doing a call back to the ADHD episode. I would i would think that people a lot of times with ADHD might be a little lower on conscientiousness because of that like high conscientiousness is someone who's very organized and they've got all their T's crossed and that sort of thing. yeah So with ADHD, there's more of a freewheeling mind. Yeah. The the frontal lobe is not moderating it as much.
Mr Personalitee: That's fair. Paul always has an end to the point before he starts. And if you've ever listened to the show before, you know, half of my rabbit trails, I get down to the bottom of that lane and I'm like, oh, there's no, there's no exit.
Mr Personalitee: I'm just, I'm just,
brad: hmm
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And I reach my arm into the rabbit hole and pull Eric out.
Mr Personalitee: I will I will say my favorite line from the the last episode we put out, Paul, at some point you referenced the what I was going to call a point in your exact wording was your previous continuation of sentences.
Mr Personalitee: And I was like, yeah that feels right.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: All
brad: ah
Mr Personalitee: It's just ah just a flurry of words.
brad: from
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: all right, emotional stability. Eric, you were average and I was high.
Mr Personalitee: OK.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It's interesting that he's average because with the way you talked about that scale really kind of felt average because you said you sort of identified with a little bit of each.
Mr Personalitee: OK.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah, like a little bit neurotic, but also, but Eric, you're not really neurotic in the sense like you're you're not unstable.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm. Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: You are stable to me.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, I so so I had i had a lot of i was, I found myself considering where I am now versus where I have been in past moments of my life when I was taking the the test. And it was hard to decide,
Mr Personalitee: do i answer this question based on where I am right now on Thursday, May 28th versus where I have been for the majority of of my time on this planet.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: So I suppose maybe that's why I put the neuroticism lower than I ended up ranking because I'm thinking of myself as a whole versus how I answered it ended up being much more like this is who I am now and who I think I am now.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: yeah ye
brad: You know that's really interesting because generally we think about personality as being really stable over time across your life with just a few, you know, things in your life that might change the trajectory of your personality.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
brad: So maybe you've had some of those experiences, but it's kind of interesting to see that you have the ability to kind of separate out in time, you know, different ways that you have been.
Mr Personalitee: I mean, I can judge myself with the best of them, Brad, you know?
brad: Yeah. ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Well, I mean, the quote colloquialism is people don't change, but apparently they can. not entirely true because you we can change.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: yeah we can't These things can change. In fact, with age, we become more agreeable. We become less neurotic. So like those of you who are a little on the neurotic side, don't worry, it's going to calm down.
Mr Personalitee: Just give it time.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: um And then when we're younger, we tend to be more disagreeable, which if you have, if you're any parents of teenagers out there, that's not going to be super hard to believe. um But then as they, you know, become adults, they become slightly more agreeable, which is, I'm hoping for that.
brad: Mm-hmm.
Mr Personalitee: so
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah, I'm hoping for that.
Mr Personalitee: Okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: um Last but not least, Eric, sorry, are we talking about our daughter again?
Mr Personalitee: No, no, no, no, no.
brad: Wow.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Okay. um Last but not least, openness, Eric, we were both at the top of the scale.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, I figured as much.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: High openness. i forgot Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not surprising.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So but Eric, that tracks because both of us are very into like art and feelings and exploring and curiosity. That's our type of woodworking. And we know that that may not be everyone's cup of tea.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah. Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: In fact, I think we're probably more, more, a much a minority in that.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So that makes a lot of sense to me. So i was i was I was an extrovert, super high, I'm emotionally stable, and I'm very open. And I'm average on the other two. And Eric, you're high you're an extrovert, you're very open, average on agreeableness and emotional stability and low on conscientiousness because you're agent of chaos.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Like, just...
brad: Sounds fun.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: No, really. this sounds All of this totally tracks with the two of us. All right. How about Sherry? Well, do let's do Brad. I'm not a woodworker. right, Brad, we'll do you
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I'm going the flow.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Brad, do you know your results already?
brad: yeah. Okay. I do. Yeah, I took the full version.
Mr Personalitee: Okay. Hmm.
brad: I took another version at one point.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Okay.
brad: so I am emotionally stable. That's probably the most pronounced traits of mine. And then I'm kind of average on most of the other stuff and a little high on conscientiousness.
brad: So kind of moderate extroversion, moderate openness, high, moderate, unagreeable, and then the highest on conscientiousness.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
brad: so
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Now, go ahead, Eric, go ahead.
brad: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: Well, I was going to ask. So, Brad, I feel like you are probably more in the core demographic of our listenership than than Paul and I would be if we were listeners. um Can you talk about your work just for a couple of minutes?
Mr Personalitee: Tell the folks like what it is you build, why you enjoy that type of building, what your sit your your your setup is so that we can get a sense of who you are as a woodworker.
brad: Yeah.
brad: Yeah, sounds good. I'm a total hobbyist. I've got a cart full of power tools in the garage and I have to wheel it out into the driveway to do anything. And I really like, I think Paul used the word craft oriented.
brad: So very functional. I kind of came into woodworking from home improvement stuff and, um, So I find myself making things that are just very functional. I'm not super interested in the artistic aspects of it.
brad: I like the problem solving and the the like having to think through what you need to do to accomplish an object. And in fact, if I had to, for example, follow plans to build something that would take all of the fun out of it, all of the having to make and strategize about how to do it, I actually just finished up a pretty hideous um raised garden bed.
brad: I mean, it's like construction two by fours and those like super strips from Home Depot. It's just like the ugliest thing but i did it so that i could use tusk tenons in order to kind of keep it together so um i just really like that part of it like thinking through the um strategy
Mr Personalitee: Okay.
Mr Personalitee: So you you see a piece on the Internet, in a book, whatever it is, and you mimic it You try to recreate it.
brad: um I will kind of like with the with the garden the raised garden bed, I'm like, okay, i need a garden bed. About how big do I want it? what can I just kind of think of it as I go.
Mr Personalitee: Okay, so so you're designing the piece yourself. you're not You're not recreating other pieces.
brad: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: And you're less, correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, but what it sounds like you're saying is you have a problem to solve.
brad: Mm-hmm.
Mr Personalitee: You set out to solve said problem. And then your worry is not necessarily, is it as beautiful as it possibly could be? But the fun in the process for you is figuring out just the simple question of like, can I fucking do it?
Mr Personalitee: Can I pull it off and how?
brad: Yeah, totally.
Mr Personalitee: um Okay.
brad: That's what I like.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Brad, bred do you feel like...
brad: Conscientiousness.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah, Brad. That so tracks with his personality.
Mr Personalitee: yeah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I was just going to ask you that. So tracks.
Mr Personalitee: ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Brad, can you reflect upon your results as it relates to how you see yourself doing woodworking? Do they make sense to you? Do the two cross correlate? Your personality results, right?
brad: Yeah, very much they do. So actually on this one, I was kind of in the middle on openness, but on a prior version, I was low on it. So I kind of like staying in a particular lane.
brad: And so to me, this this does track pretty closely.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And high conscientiousness.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: that That seems to be like your vibe.
brad: Right. Especially organize like the organizing of how you're going to go about doing something, like the order in which to make your cuts or whatever. So that's what I like.
Mr Personalitee: Okay, so
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: That's the researcher in him too.
Mr Personalitee: So my question then is, if you are high in consciousness, which means that like it's got to be right, right?
brad: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: You got to do the thing correctly, organized, et cetera, and emotional stability, low on neuroticism.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Organized. yup
Mr Personalitee: What do you do?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Right.
Mr Personalitee: How do you process it, Brad, internally when you when you make a thing and it isn't quite right?
brad: Oh,
Mr Personalitee: Or you make a mistake?
brad: yeah.
Mr Personalitee: Like, what's that?
brad: Yes.
Mr Personalitee: What's that emotional process?
brad: It is rough. And kind of like Paul alluded to earlier, that is maybe one thing that's kind of held me back a little bit.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
brad: um
Mr Personalitee: Mmm. Mmm.
brad: Because yeah, I get pretty hung up. In fact, I was just making an engagement ring box.
Mr Personalitee: Mmm.
brad: And the hinges, cylinder hinges were just a little off, a little bit. And that thing's in the trash right now.
Mr Personalitee: ah
brad: And I couldn't salvage it. But yeah, it does it does affect me. I was interested in how you guys kind of, with your personality, is how you handle mistakes. Are you able to just kind of roll with it? Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: Paul, you go first.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Eric? right, how do I roll with mistakes? um Let's see. I'm not super high on conscientiousness. I'm actually average.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I'm kind of in the middle. So I am organized because look, I'm a scientist.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So I have to like have a plan and a framework and some organization in place, but I'm not beholden to it. So when shit goes sideways, I i can kind of fairly easily pivot.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And it wasn't always that way. I think in the early days I had analysis paralysis and I would be like, fuck. what do I do?
brad: yeah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And I was so upset for days. But think experience teaches you, hey, little boy, it's going be okay. It's going be okay, Paul. And you know after doing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of projects, you'll realize it's okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So I think there's there's an experience component to these these personality traits.
brad: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: yeah know Eric?
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, 100%.
brad: and
Mr Personalitee: I agree with that. Early on, I would like just melt into a ball if if something like that really went wrong. and i was like we I wasted hours. I wasted money.
Mr Personalitee: i don't have i don't have the same budget to go buy the same materials. you know So how am I going to salvage this at this point? At the risk of sounding flippant, I could not give a fuck.
Mr Personalitee: like It does not bother me at all if I make a mistake.
brad: anything
Mr Personalitee: It's just like, ah, you know I'll figure out how to feather it in. you know man Nobody's going to know. and if it If it is a thing that is so blatant that it needs to be rebuilt, then my mindset is, well, that's that's the risk of taking risks.
Mr Personalitee: you know That's the price you pay.
brad: Mm.
Mr Personalitee: and and Then you go and you rebuild it and... Start from the beginning and call it a day. But you know what never needs to be rebuilt?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Hmm, what's that?
Mr Personalitee: Something made with Gorilla Glue. ah Because that is a sturdy. It is low ah moisture content. Gorilla Glue, wood glue is, I believe, and I think this is their their company line, um buy gorillas for gorillas.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Not made with gorillas. Not made from gorillas.
Mr Personalitee: by gorillas for gorillas with gorillas, I think is how they describe their glue.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: That...
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: ah
Mr Personalitee: Paul, tell me about gorilla wood glue.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Well, Eric, it has lower moisture, which I like because as we know, and as Brad knows from building his horrific planter boxes, a lot of moisture tends to make things warp, right?
brad: Oh yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Because wood causes expansion. So I'm down with their wood glue. It works great and it has lower moisture. So I'm in.
Mr Personalitee: OK, you know what I'm in on is the wood filler, because ah like Brad's terrible planter box that he built, just fucking awful.
brad: Awful. Awful.
Mr Personalitee: Just so so, so much wood filler needed to be used in that.
brad: It's the worst.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Ha ha ha ha!
brad: It is the worst. Throw it out. if anything
Mr Personalitee: And you know what? That's that's why the good people at Gorilla invented the Gorilla wood filler so that folks like us can look like professionals. And if you want to pick up either the Gorilla wood glue so or the wood filler, you can visit GorillaTough.com slash woodworking is BS.
Mr Personalitee: That's GorillaTough.com slash woodworking is BS. And thanks to Gorilla Glue for sponsoring this week's episode. But you know, you know what doesn't ever need to be repaired?
Mr Personalitee: I i i have no transition to the next one. is our relationship with our Lord and savior, William Teresa Burkle of WTV woodworking in.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Do we know his middle name yet?
Mr Personalitee: ah ah you would think that after like two fucking years of sponsoring this podcast, I i would ask him what T stands for.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Of calling him Teresa?
Mr Personalitee: And I probably haven't have forgotten.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: it's it's It's Teresa. Okay.
Mr Personalitee: It's Teresa at this point, we know.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Move on. Moving on.
Mr Personalitee: So let me tell you about WTV woodworking. Um, Well, no, no, no, no. You know what? I don't want to tell you about WTB woodworking.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: Teresa, Sherry, I just called you Teresa.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Teresa.
Mr Personalitee: Sherry, what's what's your favorite flavor of ice cream?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I would say let's go with Moostrax.
Mr Personalitee: Moose track. You know what? This is a one hundred percent true story. I just bought Moose tracks two days ago because it's fucking delicious.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Nice.
Mr Personalitee: But, but I believe the first time that you were on this podcast, you did talk about your desire for LaMelo flavored ice cream.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Right?
brad: Wow. High on openness.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: LaMelo. That's right. Yeah, that's that's more of a sorbet.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah. Would not to be confused with limoncello, which is yes.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: No, LaMelo flavored.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It's a sorbet.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: It's a sorbet. That's fair. Brad, uh, what do you know about the shaper origin? My man.
brad: Hmm. Very little about the origin.
Mr Personalitee: Very little.
brad: but I'd love to hear more.
Mr Personalitee: did you Did you know that you can get 15% off select accessories through May 29th at WTB Woodworking?
brad: yeah Through May 29th?
Mr Personalitee: through May 29th, which is tomorrow. And this episode is coming out in two weeks.
brad: Tomorrow.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Tomorrow.
brad: All right.
Mr Personalitee: So that is not helpful information to our listening base, but you know what it is.
brad: Perfect.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Wait.
brad: so
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: well
Mr Personalitee: It's helpful to you, Brad. And, and from June 8th to June 21st, you can get $20 off select 20 volt ionic drive products from Craig.
brad: I'm going online. Okay.
Mr Personalitee: So go check those out. And as always, if you walk into the store at three 90 Pike road in Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania, just walk right up to Bill and ask him for a soft and gentle caress because he will oblige contractually. He's obligated.
Mr Personalitee: So thanks.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Oh my God.
Mr Personalitee: Thanks to WTV Woodworking for sponsoring this week's episode.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Why do you keep saying that?
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Someone's going to do it, Eric.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, I hope so, but I hope multiple people do it.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Somebody. Someone high on openness is going to go be like, hey, how about a caress?
Mr Personalitee: And I hope and I hope somebody says that to Bill in front of his wife without any explanation whatsoever.
brad: Oh,
brad: yeah.
Mr Personalitee: i just want to see what that interaction is like.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: All right. Well, on that note, we're going to switch to Sherry and Brad's question section that'll get us thinking more about personality traits as it relates to craft and art. Who wants to go first, y'all? Yeah. and Brad, you want to fire it off? Okay.
brad: Yeah, sure. I mean, I was i was wondering of you guys, what about your personalities now that you've got your results? Do you think aligns with woodworking? you know how How do you think maybe your personality led you to be attracted to something like woodworking, which is kind of a sort of solitary activity, requires both artistic stuff, organizational stuff.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Oh, good point. Good point.
brad: So very curious what appeals to you.
Mr Personalitee: That's a great question. um Can I ask, Paul, I want you to answer first, but Sherry, could you text me my results so that i I have them to look at and I don't speak out of both sides of my mouth while we're having this conversation?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Absolutely. Okay, so when I first got into woodworking, it was about my conscientiousness. I was trying to figure out how to do the craft, organization, projects, joints, all the technical side. And I spent I spent about 10 years on that side with like no art, no creativity, no openness at all.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And eventually, By year by year 10, I had proven to myself that I can build almost anything I want to build. And I had, as I've mentioned before, an truly existential crisis.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: When I realized I don't know who I am. i don't know what I want to make. And where do I go from here? I had spent a decade learning the conscientiousness-based skill of doing craft. That's all I saw for 10 years. And then I had ah an awakening. I had like what I would describe as an artistic awakening.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: for the last 10 years and it has been art all the time, openness off the charts. So I had like ah almost like a ah switch point in the middle of my career where I pivoted between the two.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And the last trait as it relates to me is the extroversion. As anyone who listens to this podcast knows, I have talked multiple times about what a struggle it is for me to be alone in the shop all the time and how lonely i get, especially in the winter.
brad: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I suffer mightily. Um, so those, uh, yeah, extroversion, I suffer being alone all the time. The conscientiousness came from my scientific background and that's what I leaned into with woodworking for 10 years.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And then the openness came in my later life, my, the, the decade 40 to 50, and it just blossomed out of nowhere. And so that's, that's how I see my path as it relates to my personality traits.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Maybe you needed that foundation from conscientiousness to kind of get you skillset to where you could bloom creatively. Yes, exactly. I didn't feel ready to even think about creative endeavors until I knew how to do the thing.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It seemed like you learned to walk before you imagine running somewhere crazy.
Mr Personalitee: Okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah.
brad: Do you feel now like woodworking is like your artistic outlet? I mean, you you feel use it that way?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: A hundred percent.
brad: Okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah.
brad: Okay. Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah. yeah
brad: Your stuff's gorgeous.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Thank you.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Eric.
Mr Personalitee: So I came up with so i came up as a person who struggled in school because I couldn't sit still.
Mr Personalitee: We talked about this in the ADHD episode, right? I needed my body to move and my hands remember things better than my mind does. I knew that from an early age and I think that's part of what drew me into the trades. I grew up in the trades. I started my first roofing job. I think I was like 14 and just stayed in it.
Mr Personalitee: I always wanted to know and I still have this desire to know when there is a thing that I have not been taught how it is built, how is constructed, how it exists in the world. I want to tear it apart, find out how it works and put it back together.
Mr Personalitee: So I think that was the baseline of learning ah craft. And as we've seen, i have very high openness. So over time, and I'm an extrovert, so I really enjoyed working on crews. I enjoy working on teams. I enjoy team activities. But over time, i became unsatisfied with the repetition of being a framer, with the repetition of plumbing, and eventually with the repetition of being in a cabinet shop.
Mr Personalitee: And I think that led me to continue to ask questions about my work and what I was capable of doing, which is how I ended up um kind of in the studio art genre of of asking a question, having a philosophical idea, wanting to discover design, and then trying to articulate that idea or that thought in a three dimensional form. um So i I think those are the two main drivers. The downside to being a furniture maker to me is but i am I am an extrovert, which is why I have a shopmate. So i I got out of school. I graduated college in 2012. I went back to school for furniture. i got out of that in 2013. And I started a business and I was working by myself in my garage shop trying to just figure out how to how to do this for a living. And I was miserable.
Mr Personalitee: I like borderline nonfunctional because I was isolated for eight, 10 hours a day. And I could not handle that. And my wife at the time was a school teacher and she would come home from work after talking all day long to students.
Mr Personalitee: And I'd be like, let's have a fucking conversation. Let's do something together.
brad: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: She was like, I'm wiped. um So I couldn't function in that environment. And when I went back to ah full-time woodworking, I was very reticent to do it. But when I went back to it, i I knew without any shadow of a doubt that the one thing I could not do was have my own shop. And especially if that shop was connected to my house. Like if it was a garage on my house,
Mr Personalitee: and I don't leave the house for days or weeks at a time, fucking murder me now. I'm out. I'm done.
brad: Oh.
Mr Personalitee: But having doing something as simple as having a shopmate and having that in a location with other people in the building that is not attached to the house and having to go out into the world to get to work and come home from work, all of that helps to offset the the isolation of being a woodworker. And also, like I work in social media. So so part of that is the inherent social interaction with ah people who follow my work on the Internet, people who come to classes and and take a class from me for a week and in know my work and know this podcast. And then we have conversations about this podcast, about shit I've made in the past. um
Mr Personalitee: And i I think without all of that, I don't think I could do this for a living.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It definitely tracks that for both of you, the extroversion is what drove you to produce a social experience around this through social media. Whereas I'm sure the kind of more introverted people don't have that same discomfort around, oh my gosh, I've been ah alone for eight to 10 hours.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So it it also seemed like in some ways extroversion has made it a little bit more difficult to do what you do. So it's a more of a barrier than a facilitator.
Mr Personalitee: For sure. For sure.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It's probably why we have a podcast though. If Eric and i weren't introverts, we probably wouldn't know each other or sorry, extroverts.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: We probably wouldn't know each other and we probably wouldn't have decided to have a podcast.
brad: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: Well, to the point of being extroverts, literally the way we became friends is you were posting good photos on Instagram back in like 2017. And I was like, what's up, boy? Like tight photos.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: What's up player?
Mr Personalitee: and And you were like, this guy seems cool.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: was sub player
Mr Personalitee: but This guy seems cool. Why don't you come to my house and help me redo my fucking kitchen? Like that's how we became friends.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Let's go. Let's go.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: right. So for Brad and Sherry, i feel like, so I'd like you to answer the same sort of question. What about your personality? So Brad, we'll start with yeah What about your personality drew you to woodworking, but also what drew you to being ah a PhD psychologist?
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And Sherry, you're not off the hook here.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm. Hmm.
brad: Oh, yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: What about your personality traits drew you to be a psychologist? We'll let Brad go first.
brad: Okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Brad?
brad: Yeah. Well, I, um though I scored kind of in the middle on extraversion, I love the fact that woodworking is my activity I do alone. I couldn't imagine...
brad: um Anyone else being around while I'm screwing up and trying to like make a plan and throwing shit out in the garbage. but you know, I can easily go out there with an idea and, you know five hours passes.
brad: And maybe all I did is cut a single piece. But that's how I kind of ended up spending more time woodworking. That was like my little escape. And then it was really only after that that I started to kind of realize I really liked the strategy and organization and the conscientiousness kind of thing. So.
Mr Personalitee: Well, so Brad, you're you're a clinical psychologist, yeah?
brad: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: So you're interacting with people all day long, for the most part? Like more more hours than not?
brad: Well. Actually, probably less. So, yeah, as a as a psychologist, I mostly do research.
Mr Personalitee: Really?
brad: I have just about two days a week of clinical activity.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
brad: So meeting with with. um clients or or patients. And so what drew me into that was actually the scientific stuff.
Mr Personalitee: Okay.
brad: So like, I love crunching numbers and just, ah you know, analyzing data and, you know, Sharon, I've worked together a lot.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm. Hmm.
brad: And so I find, and I'm sure she'll agree. I like to work on the methods and the analysis and Sherry's much more about the story.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: High conscientiousness.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
brad: Yeah. So maybe that's, yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: Interesting.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: So I was assuming it would be balanced out by your day job, but it sounds like even in your day job, you're you're more isolated than you are ah working with other folks.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: There's parallels.
brad: A little bit.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Well, you strike that balance of being able to have the solitary activities, but then there's still, and where were you on extroversion, introversion?
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
brad: yeah
brad: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Were you in the middle?
brad: was kind of in the middle, but I will say it feels like more effortful to do the social stuff.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah. has that middle vibes.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: right, Cher, you're not off the hook now. Come on. what drew me to psychology? Yeah, like what, talk about your personality traits a little bit and explain why you're, how it relates to your, okay what you do. So I'll start with what drew me to psychology. And it was definitely I'm high on openness to experience because I was always fascinated by like these big questions of why do we do the things that we do?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Like, know, philosophical questions about life and behavior and fascinated by people's experience and the variability, people different brains and personalities and mental disorders, like fascinating.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So, but I'm also high on conscientiousness. And I believe that dragged me towards research as well, because I love to kind of turn the creativity into stories that become studies that I can then do and have findings.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: But the so I think that's what drew me to psychology. Now, I'm right in the middle of introversion and extroversion, which surprised me because I thought I would lean introvert.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah. um But I didn't. I was in the middle. But I would say that, and and this is something I going to ask everyone about, is what I noticed with that particular characteristic is that I do think over my adult life, I pushed towards the middle, but started out more introverted. And a lot of my life experiences were uncomfortably pushed me towards being comfortable, doing more extroverted things, leadership, being involved in groups and collaborations and conferences with lots of people and that sort of thing.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So I wondered from you all too, Is there any one of these traits that you found the most movement through your adult life, not just from childhood, because we know childhood can be different, but as an adult, did you see movement in any characteristic and what life experience may have facilitated that movement?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Oh, that's such a good question.
Mr Personalitee: That is, that's a fucking banger of a question.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Anyone can start.
Mr Personalitee: Okay. I don't know. don't know what category this would fall under. But, and I think we've talked about this before when you've been on the pod.
Mr Personalitee: When I was younger, had like, debilitating stage fright. I would be terrified when people were watching because my aim was to simply not fuck up.
Mr Personalitee: And when your goal is to not fuck up, you can't do good work. And in that context, it was, it was often a performance based. So, you know, ah sports, um, like I remember thinking I, before the snap, uh, when I was playing high school football, thinking about the people watching rather than the play at hand, I was more focused on them than I was on what was in front of me.
Mr Personalitee: And, um, I can tell you exactly the moment that that really changed was the Netflix show. So, um The way that I ended up getting that show was because I had a full time job. I didn't need to worry about it. need it.
Mr Personalitee: And I also thought I wasn't going to get it. So during that table read where we were trying out for it, I was loose as a goose, man. I didn't give a fuck. I was like, there's no way that this is going to happen, right?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: yeah
Mr Personalitee: This is a this is a fucking Netflix show.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: which is exactly why you got it.
Mr Personalitee: There's
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Wow.
Mr Personalitee: And so I realized after that happened, that that was the only that's when I produce my best work is when I stopped caring, and I just let it happen. And I had to learn over over the last whatever, it's been six years or so, seven years that you for me letting go of the potential of failure often leads to better results but there is still a potential of failure and you just have to accept that that is the the risk reward pathway um
brad: Wow, that...
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So Brad, just to like psychoanalyze Eric for a second.
Mr Personalitee: oh let's fucking do it
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Let's go.
brad: Yes!
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Let's go. That's what you get when you have fucking two PhD psychologists.
brad: Tag team!
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: If we could sidebar. So because he's so high on extroversion, I'm thinking that the social anxiety may have been sort of neuroticism fueled.
brad: Oh, for sure, you know,
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And and this pushed him towards emotional stability. The Netflix experience it probably is what nudged him. I'm curious of your thoughts.
brad: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, he was mentioning earlier that he had to really think about his earlier and later life when answering those neuroticism questions. And I just have to wonder.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yep.
brad: Yeah, so could tell us about your dreams.
Mr Personalitee: I fucking hate you both.
brad: and Yeah. Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Oh my God. I love this so much.
brad: ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Please keep doing the sidebars.
Mr Personalitee: ah All right, let's sidebar on Paul now.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: That's amazing. We'll talk later, Brad.
Mr Personalitee: Let's go.
brad: yeah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I have other thoughts.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
brad: yeah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Okay. So I had two things that have moved in my life. One I told you about, which was my openness. I don't know if it was always there and I just didn't really tap into it, but I've seen a huge, massive shift in the last 10 years.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: um you know, maybe it was just underdeveloped or I didn't put much time into it. i will say, having known you for a very long time, I think your openness was always there. It just wasn't there for woodworking yet because you didn't have the skill set.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: But it was clearly your case in other aspects of your you have a creativity that's been displayed in other areas. Nothing like an ex-wife sidebar to give the truth.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah, another sidebar. Because we've known each other for like, don't know.
brad: oof ha yeah Well, that's how you started every meeting.
Mr Personalitee: share Sherry, let's sidebar.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: about time
Mr Personalitee: Let's.
Mr Personalitee: Man.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: How long have we known each other? Since, I think 1999 or 2000, so 26 years. All right, so 26 years. Feel free to DM me with questions about Paul. i only tell the truth. anyway Okay, so...
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: right, so that's one.
brad: a
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: But the other that has moved for me is when I had a child and became a father. I had a very, very strong feeling in my belly that I wanted to be more emotionally stable for her sake.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I didn't want to be reactive. I wanted to think about my responses and be cool under pressure to be able to give her the comfort that, you know, I'm a safe spot and I'll, you know what I'm saying?
Mr Personalitee: Mm-hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I just knew in my gut that that is who I wanted to be as a father. So I think in the years, the 18 years, our daughter's been alive. I have increased my emotional stability. Wouldn't you say that's true?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Like, I feel like I used to be hot of a bit of a hot, like more of a hothead when I was younger.
brad: ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Like more excitable.
Mr Personalitee: That was a potent pause.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I think you were... No, actually, I would say I've never thought of you as emotionally unstable or neurotic. So that's interesting that you say that, although you've told stories about being younger and having some emotional instability as a child, because he had kind of a chaotic home situation that led to emotional instability.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: But I don't feel like a lot of that manifests in adulthood. Like even getting mad, like when when she's being unreasonable, like instead of losing my cool or yelling, I wanted to be the dad who's like, okay, we'll take this as it comes. And I have, here's the line, you violated that you violated the rules. yeah And here's going to be, you know, I i held very strict lines. So emotional stability was important to me.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And I feel like I've moved on that some through effort. How about you guys? Brad, how about you? I kind of shared my introversion, extroversion.
brad: Ooh. Yeah. Hmm. Analyzing myself is harder.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: yeah
brad: right.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Eric, Eric, would you like to have a sidebar?
brad: a judgmental.
Mr Personalitee: do Yeah, you on a sidebar? so far
brad: Um...
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So Eric, what I'm seeing is the intellectuals in the ivory tower are so often looking outside themselves that maybe they don't spend enough time looking inside themselves.
brad: and
Mr Personalitee: yeah
brad: yes yes alright <unk> judgmental
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Eric, is that, is that your take, Eric?
Mr Personalitee: That feels diasporic or whatever the fuck you said earlier. That feels right.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: That word evolving.
brad: it
Mr Personalitee: ah ah
brad: Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, yeah, I don't know.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: We bought you some time, Brad.
brad: I guess I would say um, have been learning to be actually less agreeable. So, um, temperamentally pretty agreeable.
brad: Don't really want to deal with a lot of conflict, but I do see like, particularly through parenting that sometimes, uh, you really do have to be a little bit more direct.
brad: And so, I guess i'm I'm not saying my personality is evolving as much as I'm just trying to compensate in some situations for my personality.
Mr Personalitee: Okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Brett has two teenage girls, right?
brad: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: I was gonna say how how many and how old?
brad: Yes, I do. Yeah, one is, one turned 20 yesterday and the other one is 17.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
brad: So in the thick of it.
Mr Personalitee: Okay. I feel like you're coming out of the tail as the only person here without children.
brad: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: I feel like you're coming coming out of the the real rough patch.
brad: ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: okay
brad: Yeah. Right.
Mr Personalitee: Okay.
brad: They're doing great.
Mr Personalitee: All right.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: um Well, my example was how I've become more extroverted over time. But let's move to a different question. c Sidebar.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, let's sidebar.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: eric and i asked Eric, I'm calling for a sidebar.
Mr Personalitee: Let's s sidebar this shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, please.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So as part of Sherry learning to break out of her comfort zone, which she desperately wants to change and move the topic on, oh ah she actually did an improv comedy class.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Oh, did. And I mean, she's got stage fright.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah?
brad: Oh my God.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: the the I will say, yes, I was... horrified by public speaking to where the first time I did a scientific presentation, like I cried the night before because I did not want to do it.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I was so anxious.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I did not like doing those things at all. And then I got come more comfortable with it. But what I started to notice was even as I was comfortable doing presentations, I wasn't bringing my personality to it.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I was just doing it without sweating and being super anxious. So I could do it articulately, but not like where was Sherry in that? I felt like a little robotic. And so I decided to take improv classes because I thought that might help me in the moment be bring out kind of the emotional and the personality side of myself.
Mr Personalitee: That's wild logic, but I love it.
brad: yeah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Freaking terrifying.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I did it for a year. And at the end of every a semester, they have you actually do a live show that and people literally will pay and come see.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: ah Although there's some of the people who take these classes who are amazing. So so we did have to perform. And I remember going on stage for the first time. They're playing the music and we're supposed to run out there.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And I just had a moment of what the hell am I doing here? And where is the nearest door? But actually there was also a ah feeling of exhilaration.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So, and then over time, yeah, like the exhilaration sort of took over the anxiety and I don't have anxiety anymore. I still feel like I do want to bring more of myself to my presentation. So, so that's always a work in progress.
brad: Sherry, was this before you were the president of our professional society?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yes. Actually, yes.
brad: So, yeah, many of you don't know this, but Sherry was the president of one of our largest professional societies, gave a massive, flawless keynote session, and has made an initiative out of communicating science, behavioral science, to the public.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It was... Wait.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Aw.
brad: So she is very public-facing at this point.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: That did happen.
Mr Personalitee: Hey, Brad, Brad, let's let's sidebar real quick. What was she like as a president?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Ha ha ha ha
brad: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha,
Mr Personalitee: I want the breakdown of what she was like as a president. Oh, yeah,
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Oh, I can't wait to.
brad: yeah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Eric, for the rest of the podcast, you will refer to her as Madam President. Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: yeah, obviously.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: But yeah, and that even doing that was a way to sort of extend myself and ah also like push myself out of that comfort zone. And the reason is why I did those different experiences was because looking back at when that fear. Was.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: was overcoming me or kind of flooding me in those moments and it just made me feel like I missed out on opportunities. I could have done more. I could have done better.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: just felt very constraining to have that anxiety. And Eric, your story kind of reminds me that a little bit. You look back you're like, it's so constraining and I wish I could have been freer in more situations. And so I have to keep pushing. But that's why, again, it's kind of back to this, like our personality can change. We can be more open. We can be more extroverted if we wanted to be. We can be more of any of these things.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: But to change is probably going to involve a level of discomfort because it's not going to be our comfort zone. But I think it's worth having those experiences. Are there any experiences that you guys can think of? The Netflix one obviously is like a doozy that you dove into that pushed yourself out of your comfort zone.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Does anyone have any other? Voluntarily now. Yeah, that you said, I have to do this. I'm not going to love it, but it's good for my growth. There's two things I can think of immediately. One just happened fortuitously.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I went to the, and Eric, you've heard the story before, but I went to the MFA in Boston and I saw this unbelievable special exhibit by Takashi Murakami. I didn't know what ah i didn't know who the hell he was, some modern artist, whatever.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: i was just there to see furniture. like stuffy ass 200 year old furniture. That's what I'm about. And I walked into this contemporary, I walked into this contempt, this contemporary art exhibit, special exhibit by Takashi Murakani.
Mr Personalitee: Can confirm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: If you've seen his art, boy, it's mind bending. I mean, I don't care if you like it or don't like it, but it's going to fuck you up a little bit. It's so wildly imaginative.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And I had never seen maybe it was right at that transition between like all right I did 10 years of the of the conscientious like how to do it and I was open to like who am what to do and this fucking exhibit hit me like an anvil out of the sky and I walked through this exhibit almost I mean dumbfounded by this human's unbridled creativity and i i walked out of that after an hour or two and i said it's done it's done no more copying of the pat like we're gonna do something fucking new and whether that's reimagining the old or whatever this stops today it was a it was an inflection point in my life wow
brad: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And I think i it just hit at the right time.
brad: Cheese.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: i was open at that point. So that for me, that was like ah almost like a, like I said, an inflection point where my life changed course radically. And that's when I started Copper Pig Woodworking.
Mr Personalitee: Hell yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Wow.
Mr Personalitee: I don't know if I have any examples of moments where i I have decided that I was going to do a thing that I was uncomfortable with for the sake of growth.
Mr Personalitee: I don't think that's how my mind works, but I, as we have discussed, am high, very high in openness. And when I discover a something that I feel I need to emulate, to learn, to to chase, the not knowing is not intimidating.
Mr Personalitee: So it can be a thing of like even just falling in love with woodworking. right I remember very distinctly the moment that I decided I was going to be a woodworker. I saw somebody cutting edge bandings and inlaying them in by hand.
Mr Personalitee: And I was I was completely smitten with it. And I immediately was like, oh, that's the thing I'm going to do with the rest of my life. Now, granted, in this moment, it was whatever, 20 years. maybe maybe 2008, something like that 2007.
brad: you
Mr Personalitee: I knew nothing. I didn't even know that that making furniture was a thing one could do for a living. I simply knew that what I saw was like black magic, like it was it was alchemy.
Mr Personalitee: And I was going to chase that thing. I grew up in in construction. I grew up in a blue collar family. And and I didn't know how I was going to get to Z, but I was going to set out on that path, all unknowns aside.
Mr Personalitee: And that's how I ended up. That stubbornness is how I ended up where I am now. So maybe that answers your question.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I have another piece that I want to mention, which is, you know our buddy Keith? We all love Keith.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: We we all love some Keith Johnson.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah. KJ. Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So Keith and I have collaborated on many projects now, and we couldn't be more different as woodworkers.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: like i'm a more I'm a much more hand tool centric, freewheeling woodworker. Keith is a much more exacting, precise machine woodworker.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And by working together, i knew that we would see the world two very different ways.
brad: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And I knew going into it that I'd be challenged. And I wanted to be open minded to Keith's way of doing things, just like he wants to be open minded to mine. And Keith has actually convinced me to do things a different way in many in many examples.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: um he He is a lover of routers.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, he's a lover. Goddamn right he is.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: he's ah Oh, he's a lover.
Mr Personalitee: ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: But he's a lover of of routers and I hate routers. Routers like so you know typically have scared me.
brad: Terrifying.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah, terrifying, right? But Keith has shown me the light. And by working together, because we we love we love working together, we love each other, and we want to do work together, even though we're so different and we knew going into it, there'd be some tension because of how different we were.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: um Oh, my God, that dog is so cute, Brad.
Mr Personalitee: He's so goddamn beautiful.
brad: yeah Yeah, that's peach. Come on. yeah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: um we knew I knew going into it, I would be challenged and learn and and and hopefully open enough to learn from it. So how about y'all, Brad, Sherry?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Brad, how about you?
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: What do you think?
brad: um You know, pre-woodworking, I think it was when I first started trying to do home improvement projects. So like growing up, my dad was, you know, he's a little bit handy, but generally was the kind of guy that would hire somebody to do stuff around the house.
brad: And I think my first condo needed a lot of work. And the first thing it needed was a bathroom. We would walk in the bathroom and the tile would stick to our feet. as we were walking.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Oh.
brad: So I was like, time to do it. And I just kind of said, and you this was before YouTube, I'm just like, I'm just going to try it. And that was a time where i I knew that I'm definitely going to make some mistakes. And my high conscientiousness brain was going to have to cope with that.
brad: But I did it. And really, that was kind of what gave me the just enough confidence to keep pursuing those kinds of things. So yeah.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm. Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: That's awesome. Do you have an answer? Well, I was going to ask, because you mentioned about ah your partner or keith working with Keith. yeah And I know that Eric has a shopmate.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So Eric, I wonder in terms of your shopmate's personality, it's because sounded like with Paul and Keith, there's this complementarity. and I would guess that Keith has different personality traits.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: How about your shopmate? Are you finding that there's a blend?
Mr Personalitee: You guys in these fucking multisyllabic words, complementarity.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Discretized complementarity. Complementarity. Put them together, Eric, and you're twice as cool.
Mr Personalitee: Sorry, i got I got distracted.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: ah
brad: Mm-hmm.
Mr Personalitee: My brain was trying to process the the word itself. Can you ask the question again, Sherry? Mm-hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Okay, is your shopmate, because I know you work with a shopmate, what is that person's personality and does it complement yours or are you guys very similar?
Mr Personalitee: Mm-hmm. Man, that's a good question. So Larissa and I are in some ways basically the same person and in other ways very much the opposite.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: wow
Mr Personalitee: So I would say and this is I'm going armchair psychoanalyze with like a middle school education right now. But but if I had to guess She would be super high on agreeableness, super high on conscientiousness.
Mr Personalitee: And again, I don't know where this category fits, but the fear of the judgment of getting it wrong or looking like she doesn't know what she's doing is also very high for her.
Mr Personalitee: So high on neuroticism, is that correct?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah, that's anxiety.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, okay.
brad: Fit.
Mr Personalitee: so So in some ways we... we we work really well together because we can kind of we understand what the other person is working through at any given moment. And in other ways, like part of the ah part of the reason I really love teaching with Larissa is because she is the type of person who will prepare for a week long class for a full week before that class.
Mr Personalitee: And I am the type of person that's like, they're only paying you for one fucking week. So I'm going to think about it.
brad: Hmm.
Mr Personalitee: Sunday evening before the Monday class starts. And then I will teach for five days and I will figure it the fuck out.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Sherry, can we have a sidebar, please? Yeah, let's sidebar.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: That sounds remotely similar to how our podcast goes. if you It really does.
brad: but
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: there There is kind of a yin-yang situation.
Mr Personalitee: yeah yeah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah, it's very interesting.
Mr Personalitee: yeah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: The conscientiousness. But this is like also circling back to the ADHD episode. I think that, like we said, people with ADHD will tend to pair well with people who are high in conscientiousness because they they bring that order to the chaos.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And so there's...
Mr Personalitee: yeah paul paul and larissa are just the the male female version of one another for 100 at least in their roles in my life yeah paul is like our our podcast has to be good and i'm like i'm sorry we're doing a podcast right now what's happening
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Love you, boo.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: ah All right. I got a question.
brad: if
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Eric, agent of cast.
Mr Personalitee: but
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I have a question and Brad, you're going to go first. Oh, I've got it.
brad: Okay, all right.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It's getting fucking real now. Oh boy. All right. You ready?
brad: shit, okay.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Let's fucking strap in kids. Which of your personality traits has held you back the most and you want to work on?
brad: shit okay
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It has. It's great.
brad: Well, yeah, um I would probably have to choose conscientiousness. Now, on one hand, it's gotten me pretty far.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: it has
brad: Having an organized brain, great as a scientist.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: it's great
brad: ah Absolutely. um On the other hand, you do sometimes enjoy things less. You may prioritize the organizational parts of things.
brad: over others. So for example, maybe I'm missing out on a lot of the artistic expression I could have through the woodworking because I'm so focused on the damn problem solving aspects. So I feel like as I age and get closer to the point where, you know, I'm going to retiring, it may be useful to cultivate the, uh, the, the other parts.
brad: That's my opinion.
Mr Personalitee: Okay, that is a good answer.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Great answer.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Great answer.
brad: Thank you.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: We have some great inspo here.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Sherry, what has held you back?
brad: fish
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Well, I talked about the introversion, extroversion. So I feel like my history introversion has held me back. And would also say the other one that I've had movement on would be the neuroticism one.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And I think that has held me back. Paul is much better at not being reactive. And like from a parenting perspective, I can, I can, I I can be triggered eventually.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Whereas Paul is almost, it's very hard to trigger him. um So I would say.
Mr Personalitee: paul Paul, do we need to sidebar right now?
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Sidebar, Eric. Let's go.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: We are not sidebarring.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
brad: very
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: That's the t-shirt for this episode. It just says sidebar.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So I would say those things circling back that would hold me back is, is yeah. Those two characteristics. I think the other ones. Yeah. Okay. Who hasn't answered this yet?
Mr Personalitee: Paul?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I got, I got. So emotional stability is great, but emotional stability sometimes mean you don't feel the feels at the extremes because you're so stable and even keel.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And sometimes want to feel like, almost where it's so extreme, I'm nauseated by it. Like I wanna feel out of control sometimes my brain doesn't really work that way.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So I don't, it's very rare, but when I feel the intensity
Mr Personalitee: Hmm. Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It's ah like so welcome in my life because I'm so even Steven all the time that when those like a tsunami comes my way, which is just once in a long while.
brad: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I'm like, fuck that felt good. i Like, oh, yeah.
brad: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Well, I wonder also when it comes to this is for the neurotics in the group is. that having anxiety and depression, and we talked about depression in a previous episode, can be a creative drive.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It absolutely can be creative drive.
Mr Personalitee: Mm.
brad: Hmm.
Mr Personalitee: Mm-hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: So emotional expression. So the people who are very high on neurotics, they have more empathy. Yeah. So they're expressing, I bet they're more emotionally tuned It has emotional significance more.
Mr Personalitee: Mm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Totally. Yeah. And the second is extrovert. So I want to be with people so bad. And maybe that cuts into my being alone and being creative and doing stuff in the shop because I want to talk on the phone to Keith.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I want to hang out with Eric.
Mr Personalitee: Mm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Eric, call me, Eric. Eric's a big texter. He's Mr. Millennial. He wants to just text forever. I'm like, can you fucking give me a call on the phone so we can be humans?
Mr Personalitee: All the time. All the time.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Brad sidebar. I got a sidebar.
Mr Personalitee: Oh.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Do you think it's possible that Paul's extroversion or his you know attraction to these social experiences is related to the fact that he's not feeling his emotions very big?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Perhaps it's a distraction from emotional experiences he's suppressing.
Mr Personalitee: agree.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Just throwing it out there.
brad: oh my god
Mr Personalitee: I would agree. i would agree
brad: ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: You just connected my two answers.
Mr Personalitee: ah
brad: wow look at that wow
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: You little. That's what I'm hearing. You sly fox. You just connected my two answers.
Mr Personalitee: ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Very good. So those tensions, that that's you might you might practice tolerating the aloneness to see what comes up. Girl, I've been tolerating that for 20 years.
Mr Personalitee: I like this game.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Fuck it.
Mr Personalitee: This is fun.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I supported that sidebar. Eric, ah please.
Mr Personalitee: ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: had no choice.
Mr Personalitee: All right. um I think without a question, conscientiousness holds me back. I know that without a doubt.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Ha ha ha ha.
Mr Personalitee: I am. And I've said this jokingly on the podcast, but I've also said it very genuinely. I'm a bad businessman. And it's it's it's because I have zero interest in the the doldrum, the monotony. the day-to-day executing the thing that needs to be executed that's in front of me.
Mr Personalitee: And I so desperately want to get to the thing that is... um creatively fulfilling, that is enticing and in not and not necessarily like the thing that's exciting, but the thing that is interesting.
Mr Personalitee: And and business doesn't interest me.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: good.
Mr Personalitee: Like making money is not interesting to me. It's a thing that I have to do because I have to survive in 2026. Yeah. But it's not the thing that feeds me. And if if I could set that aside and be better about recognizing doing the tasks that are necessary, then i could run a more successful business. ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: very good All right, so in terms of wrapping up, this is what I like to do. We've we we've done this for ah here and there across our episodes. I was like, what's that sound?
Mr Personalitee: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Brad, that's your dog drinking feverishly.
brad: No, that's my dog drinking water.
Mr Personalitee: yeah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Yeah, yeah. Like, what is that sound?
brad: Yes. Peach.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It's making me thirsty.
brad: Good audio.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: What I'd like to do is each of you give a short summary of what you've learned or about yourself or about this topic through our discussion today.
brad: good audio
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Where are you at the end of today's discussion that maybe you didn't see so clearly or a new view of yourself or your own traits? I'd like a short summary from each of you and Brad, you're going to go first.
brad: Yeah, I'm ready. i was really i was really impressed and learned that personality is more malleable. When you guys were talking about the experiences you've had in your life and how that's really shaped your personalities, that was really intriguing to me. you know Because we do tend to learn about personality as a stable, unchangeable trait that if you measure at different points in your life, it's kind of always correlated. But We have a couple of really good examples we heard today where that's not true.
brad: that's what I learned.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Great. That's great. Who's next? i I'm happy to go We started by asking the question, is there a woodworker personality? And i I feel like through this conversation, we discovered that there's actually many of them.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And what drew each of you to woodworking was something completely different.
brad: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Tapping into a different personality aspect, which I thought was really interesting. That's great. Yeah. so So there is not one where woodworker personality. And what you bring to it is probably something very unique that probably determines the functionality, the creativity aspect, and all these other features of the work that you do so that there's not just a one size fits all. So if you're feeling like, oh, you know, maybe I'm not a real woodworker because I'm not like so-and-so.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Well, that's BS. Yeah, that would be totally BS. How about you, Paul? I always love conceptual frameworks for things.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: The Big Five is a conceptual framework about how to discretize Eric, our personality, how to How to characterize our personality into these five units.
Mr Personalitee: You son of a bitch!
brad: ah yeah
Mr Personalitee: but
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And while while while you anytime you take something continuous, personality is obviously continuous variable. There's no like... you know There's no divisions in in real life, but we we we divide them into these five categories and then we sift them.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: that is an approximation of who we are, I find these conceptual frameworks very, very helpful to think about myself, my life,
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: how I've moved, who I am, why I do the things I do. So conceptual frameworks to me are awesome for me cogitating about all this. And this big five, I didn't know this coming into the episode.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: This is all new.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Dude, guys, this is why we do this podcast.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I love this fucking podcast. I learned so much every episode about myself, about life. It just, it illuminates the reasoning behind my actions.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I fucking love it. And we'll have a link to the big five oh inventory in the show notes. Go ahead, Eric.
Mr Personalitee: Paul, please just one one quick note in the future, if you could be more excited about the work.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I'll talk about that. Okay.
Mr Personalitee: You seem a little like not super into it.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It's very low key.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, he's very, very stable. You guys remember the show My Strange Addiction?
brad: Yeah, I do.
Mr Personalitee: No?
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: No.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right.
brad: I do.
Mr Personalitee: So so there was a show for Sherry and Paul.
brad: Yes.
Mr Personalitee: There was a show. Was it MTV? I think maybe something like that.
brad: Oh man.
Mr Personalitee: Anyway, regardless, it was a show about, yeah, about people who would eat really weird things, dirt, ah rocks, ah foam, things like that.
brad: It might've been TLC or something. Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Oh, I did see that. Oh, okay.
Mr Personalitee: and And one theory, from what I remember in pop psychology, was that their their systems had this... ah a lack of something that they were trying to get into their biome by eating dirt or eating sand whatever it was and what i've learned is ah i have one weird lack one weird void that i consistently feel by the same type of person whether it's larissa or paul or any of my other closest friends.
Mr Personalitee: They're all the exact same fucking personality type. And I just keep surrounding myself with those people. So thank you for being a stabilizing force in my life, buddy boy.
brad: Fingernails.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: I am the foam in your life that you will eat.
Mr Personalitee: you are the you You are the rocks in my dirt.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: ah
Mr Personalitee: but
brad: fingernails yeah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Well, on that note, I do want to say the personality test of the big five, I will be linked in the liner notes. Again, no spam, no like science. It's nothing crooked or anything.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Just if you're curious about your own personality traits, take it. I know a lot of you took the ADHD test.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm. Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: We had so many.
Mr Personalitee: Hmm.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Remember, I was sending this We had so many messages from people who said, I didn't even know I had ADHD, but this makes perfect sense to my whole childhood. like And some people sought out more formal diagnoses after the show.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: It was so compelling that we're like, you know what? Another test would be a really fun thing to do. So there's a personality test linked below. Yeah. And I want to thank again, don't know how we're so lucky, Eric, to have two PhD psychologists break this down.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Dude, you don't understand like the rarefied fucking air to get this level of scientists, Madam President and Brad, PhD researcher, faculty.
brad: since
Mr Personalitee: Yeah. yeah
brad: yeah
Mr Personalitee: Madam President and Brad.
brad: And Brad, dang.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: And woodworker.
Mr Personalitee: Yes.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: No, no, no, no.
Mr Personalitee: Yes. Thank you.
brad: Old. Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: miss Mr. President. No, I mean, Brad's big shot at rush in in Chicago faculty. Like the fact that we get two faculty members with PhDs and not early in their career.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: These guys are like serious shit to to talk about these topics and guide us through that.
brad: old
Mr Personalitee: ah
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Like so with such charisma and excitement, we're so lucky. So thank you both. Thanks. That was fun. You guys are amazing. After show? Well, we're going to figure it out.
Mr Personalitee: don't know what the fuck. Let's figure it out. We'll figure it out on the fly.
brad: Yeah.
Mr Personalitee: Yeah, let's be open to whatever the after show brings.
brad: Yeah.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Openness. All right. On that, we'll see all in the after show.
brad: Yes. All
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: All right?
Mr Personalitee: Okay, bye.
brad: right. Later.
Woodworking is Bullsh*t: Bye, everyone.
