Apparently Barack Obama and yours truly have something in common, and no, I haven’t been on Ancestory.com and discovered that he is a cousin twenty times removed! What we do have in common though is we share the same personality type. We are both ENFJ types which means that we are perfectly suited to being political leaders! Theresa May, you had better watch out, I could well be after your job!

Number two son is very into psychology and is particularly interested in how individuals are classified by their personality types. Apparently personality typologies can reveal and increase knowledge and understanding of individuals. I always thought that people were generally introvert or extrovert, altruistic or self-centred, uptight or laid back, creative or analytical and so on and so on. To be honest I hadn’t really given it much thought. People are what people are!

I suppose that we all have an inkling of what our own personalities are. I would say that I’m more extrovert than introvert, but definitely not very extrovert. I’m sort of vaguely creative, but rubbish at the analytical stuff. I like organising but only when I’m not procrastinating and I like to think that I’m quite nice. Nice is such a rubbish adjective but according to the dictionary it means likeable and agreeable. I certainly hope people think that I’m  at least agreeable and at most likeable!

Son number two thought it would be interesting if I took a personality test and to keep him happy (and secretly I was intrigued to find out for myself ) I agreed to give it a shot. If it was going to be anything like the quizzes I occasionally do on Facebook then the result will be wildly inaccurate and nothing like me at all.

Twenty minutes and around a hundred in-depth questions later I pressed the result button and discovered that my personality type is a rare one. There are 16 personality types apparently and I’m of the ENFJ type which represents only 2% of the population. ENFJ stands for extraversion, intuition, feeling and judgement. What this means is that I’m a giver.ENFJ’s are primarily people focused individuals with excellent people skills who understand and care about people and are good at bringing out the best in others and giving love and wanting people to have a good time.They are focused on supporting and encouraging others. Friendship is very important to them and they make good friends to others (phew, that’s good to know!) They have a tendency to put other people’s needs before their own. They are unafraid to stand up and speak when they feel something needs to be said, which doesn’t really apply to me at all. They want to lead the way to a better future. No wonder that several of the best world leaders have been ENFJ’s. When it comes to careers they often choose those that help other people. Ha, so guess which career paths I chose. Yep, nursing and education!

Boy, the results of this test is scarcely close to the mark. I am very much a people’s person. I value friendship highly and like to think that I’m caring and understanding. I love meeting and making new friends. I do worry though that I might come across as too friendly or trying too hard. The best thing that I have done in ages is join Instagram and make friends with fabulous people. My non social media friends find it weird that I have friends that I’ve never met. All I can say is that they may well be missing out!

I wasn’t really that surprised by the result and haven’t really learnt anything new about myself.If I don’t know me by now then I imagine that I never will. Mr R took the test though and it was wildly inaccurate, so it just goes to show that you need to either be very truthful when answering the questions or take the result with a big pinch of salt!

I meanwhile am more than happy to share my personality type with President Obama. I wonder though what type the president-elect is. Somehow I don’t think it’s the same as mine!

If you fancy finding out what your personality type is then go over to 16 Personalities