Creative You: Using Your Personality Type to Thrive

Disclaimer: I received an eARC of this book from netgalley.com.

I find the idea of personality types intriguing. Part-science and part-divination, these 16 types can give us insight into how we think and navigate our daily lives. As a writer, being on top of my creative game is important. Enter, Creative You by Otto Kroeger and David B. Goldstein. This book helps creatives understand aspects of their personalities and creatives focus their energy, gain information, make decisions, and implement projects.

Creative You has 3 parts: Part one introduces the building blocks for the MBTI personalities. There's even a quiz to quickly walk readers through uncovering their own personality. Part two delves deeply into each of the 16 personalities from strengths to weaknesses. This section also gives valuable information on boosting creativity. Finally, Part three contains various essays on how to further enhance your use of personality types in a working world. There are chapters on collaboration, how to match your creative outlet, and even some sections on helping to uncover children's creativity types.

What I liked: This book is jam packed with information. It's well organized and easy to dive right into how the MBTI can help creative people attain their goals and work with others. I never thought about breaking apart the 4-part codes into a two part sub-section that can can further teach me about how I operate. Part 3 pulled the personality types into the working world and shares tips and tricks on navigating various issues. The glossary of terms in the back was very helpful in distilling everything down to manageable chunks.

What I didn't like: With so much information, I felt like I had to keep a chart open at all times to refer back to. There's so many acronyms that one can get lost in them. Yes, the authors added names for each type, but I found they didn't refer to those much when discussing the interaction between each type. As I read through the book, I also got lost in learning about each personality types. I feel like I needed a few more subsections to help guide me along. I also wish they'd have given all the 2-type pairings a little bit more airtime, rather than the 4 stronger creative bits.

Bottom Line: Curious about that intersection between psychology and creativity? Want to know how the MBTI influences you on a creative level? Then this is the book for you. It's a great read and has lots of useful information.