“Once you understand yourself, you can stop fighting your natural tendencies and plan for them instead.”
I am fascinated by personality studies and birth order. Reading People is all about that. While most books just focus on one type of personality test or one idea of birth order traits, Anne Bogel explores many different personality tests in Reading People. If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about why you are how you are and why you do what you do, it would help to find out what kind of personality you have. Rather than pick one set idea of personalities, I would recommend a person start with this book and get an overview of several different tests and then delve deeper into specific tests.
A friend of mine was reading this book and when I looked up more about it, I put it on my to-read list. It was available from the library as an ebook from Overdrive in just a few weeks after I requested it. It was a easy and quick read and I actually would recommend reading the hard copy instead of the ebook as I found myself flipping back and forth comparing different sections and talking to different people about different personality aspects brought up in Reading People.
The author starts out with talking about introverts and extroverts. It’s not about shy vs. outgoing, but about how a person gets energized. She then reviews high sensitive people, the five love languages, Myers-Briggs, cognitive function, StrengthsFinder and Enneagram. In addition to reviewing what the personality types are in each style, she explores how it affects marriage, friendship and parenting. I found the parenting aspects most interesting. She also ends the book saying that your personality type is not your destiny, but by knowing what your innate tendencies are, you can focus on sharpening your strengths and working on your weaknesses.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone high school age or older. Parents can gain a unique perspective, as each child is a different person than his or her parents. I learned about more about my highly sensitive child and my child who is very grounded and needs to know what is going to happen. I may end up buying this book for my bookshelf because I think it will help us all work together better as a family if we understand each other’s personalities.
Do you know a lot about your personality type? Tell me about it on the blog!