Born to Procrastinate: An 8-1-7-6 Kolbe A Index Result Unpacked | Private Sessions

You should procrastinate. You will work best under pressure with a real deadline.

I decide that ultimately I'm the arbiter of my own success and I don't need to do it.

Today we're talking to Ava. She's a college student majoring in national security. She's killing it on the debate team, but she does put things off until the last minute. Today, we're talking about how Ava was born to procrastinate and how she can use her Kolbe strengths in making her law school dream a reality.

I always felt like my best work happened when I put things off.

You are just the kind of person, when things go sideways, you can just jump right in.

It definitely did surprise me that I was encouraged to procrastinate because I have always been told not to.

Let's talk more about your complete Kolbe results. I would suggest to you, find a source. If it's something where you're thinking, "Oh my gosh, I love this book," online resource that you're learning from, don't limit it to an hour. Go for four. If that means for the next two or three days you don't get back to it, that's okay. I know you are a college student. Tell me a little bit more about what you're studying.

Yes. So I'm a freshman at Liberty University this year. My major is national security and intelligence. Primarily I've been taking gen ed classes, but I've also taken some really cool national security classes. I'm also a member of Liberty University's debate team, so those are the two things that I spend most of my time doing.

Sounds very cool. How are you liking it so far after a year?

I like it a lot, actually. Debate has been probably my favorite thing. I'm doing very well at it, and I enjoy my classes a lot. I enjoy my schedule, and I'm really excited for next year.

I'm not surprised. I actually noted that the debate thing sounds perfect for you, given who you are conatively, the way you take action. So one of the things we talk about is your Natural Advantage, and you are a multitasking hero. You're just the kind of person that, when things go sideways, you can just jump right in. You don't need to have a plan and a structure. Sometimes, frankly, it's easier for you to operate when there's no plan or structure, when it was there and then all of a sudden something blows it up and you just jump in. Does that ring a bell? Does that sound true to you?

When I work on group projects, I don't necessarily worry about allocating things to everybody else. I'm just like, "Let's get the project done, as it needs to be done," and then we don't need to worry about who does what and how often and what time and when to meet. We can just do the work until it's done.

You're the kind of person that when the plan breaks down, you step up.

on group projects, do you sense there

are times when other people who are more planned and structured and systematic can get frustrated, like, "Why is Ava not following my plan that I'm trying to impose on her?"

Maybe. I don't tend to follow on group projects. I tend to lead them, if that makes sense. A lot of the time when I get into groups like that, people don't care if I of the work or if I decide what we do.

Another thing that I would guess on you is you work best when it comes to crunch time. You aren't necessarily doing all the work right when the project starts. Maybe initially there's kind of a flurry, but then you wait till the deadline is fast approaching. Is that true?

Yes, that's very true.

Okay.

I had a very large assignment due this semester that I had to write a 20,000-word paper, and I did it in the last two weeks.

So was that a group project or a solo project?

No, that was solo. Yeah.

Well, I figured, because most papers are usually solo work. So I'm going to give you advice that is counterintuitive, that is not what most people tell you. You should procrastinate. It is okay. It's not just okay. You will work best under pressure with a real deadline. And I know that's not what most people have told you. "Oh, the smart thing to do is get started on it early." Now, what I will tell you, because that's kind of the attention-grabbing part, is it's okay for you to procrastinate.

Mm-hmm.

You do have to learn, like on a 20,000-word paper, you can put it off too far. If it's 20,000 words and you wait until the night before, you're toast. You can't write 20,000 intelligible words in one night. You've got to take longer. Also, with you, and we'll talk about this more in a little bit with your full Kolbe result, you're the kind of person who needs to do research and get a lot of information. So with a 20,000-word paper, the tricky part for you, I imagine, would be how do you stop the research phase and start the writing phase where you've got to say, "Okay, enough. I can't look into yet one more source or go down another rabbit hole. I've got to just be done and move forward."

Mm-hmm.

So you have to learn those things. But don't buy into other people's advice that you have to have it all planned out and systematic, like there's one way to write a paper. I don't know about you, but I was taught this: "Here's the way that you write a research paper. You do this, and you put it into the plan, and then first you do your outline, then a rough draft, then your first draft. You're going be a little all over the board." Mm- hmm. And that's okay. You'll get into trouble, and you won't do your best work when you follow somebody else's plan and system, and you don't give yourself the freedom to have a little more leeway and operating room to be open and adaptable.

Okay.

Again, within reason. We live in the real world. Like deadlines, for example. You're not a consistent everyday kind of person, so my suggestion is, with that, you're multitasking. It's what we call a 1 in Follow Thru, or a Counteracting Follow Thru, where your talent is being open-ended, adaptable. You don't have to finish everything you start. The downside of it is, at least if you're in a situation where you need to be consistent and do the same thing every day, that's going to be more It's not as natural. So it's not that you can't do it, and if you're in a situation where that's really important, absolutely buckle down and get it done. But when you're setting yourself up for success, don't pick a system or an idea that you have to do the same thing every single day. Let's say you want to do that.

00 every day, and I'm going to work

out." Set yourself a challenge. "I'm going to do it every day for a week," or whatever length of time is a challenge, but not so much that it's going to become horribly painful for you. And then you do it for a week, and then you give yourself a break. "Great, I did it.

00 a.m. every day for

the next month or something." So let's talk more about your complete Kolbe results. So the one we've been talking about is Follow Thru. And on all of them, everybody has a strength in each of these four Action Modes. So in Follow Thru, your strength is being open-ended and adaptable. Someone else who's at the other end of the spectrum in this Action Mode would be what we might call an initiating Follow Thru, and their strength be coming up with a system and a plan and sticking with it and making sure that all of the steps get followed. Everything that needs to get checked off the list gets checked off the list. That's just not you. You don't have to finish everything you start. A lot of well-meaning people give the advice, "Oh, if you start it, you should finish it. Don't leave things unfinished." It's okay for you. You're going to have lots of ideas. You're going to have stuff that's going to interest you. You'll get into it, and then after you've done it for a little while, you'll realize, "Oh, you know what? This isn't so interesting. Maybe it isn't that important." Feel free to dabble. Try things out, have ideas, get into them, and then just let them go. A lot of people have trouble with that letting go part, especially if it came from parents basically communicating, "No, once you start something, I expect to see it all the way through and finish it." So your Implementor. Implementor is how we deal with the physical, tangible, tactile world. The name Implementor isn't about how you implement things, as in carry them out, but it's really about how you use tools and That's where the name comes from. So for you, you're a 6 in Implementor, so you have a fairly high touch, feel, and physically construct things. So this is why, when I was talking about the way you study, I would really suggest that you get out of the library. Don't let yourself be stuck at a desk all the time. So whether that's the library or your apartment, you need to get out. If you're just on a screen, whether that's in a meeting, a Zoom meeting or something, or just researching online, you're going to hit a ceiling, and you're going to need to go out and do So even if it's just little breaks, walk around, touch stuff. Go outside. Study outside with your computer. Even if it's on your computer, find a different place than just your desk or the library to do it. Is that stuff that you're already doing?

Yes. I actually don't spend a lot of time holed up in my room or in the library if I can help it. I prefer to go for a walk while I listen to a lecture, or have something in my hands while I'm listening in class. That is usually how I focus better.

All right. The next one we'll talk about, you're a Fact Finder. In Fact Finder, you're an 8. And Fact Finder is how we deal with gathering and sharing information. So at an 8, you really initiate problem-solving by getting information, becoming an expert, delving into things. You also share a lot of information. When people ask you a question, you give them details. You don't just say... If somebody says, "Oh, how was your night last night?" You don't just say, "Oh, it was really fun. Had a great time." You say, "Oh, it was great. I went out with so-and-so, and here's where we went, and this is how our night started, and then..." You give the details. And that will carry through in your schoolwork. It'll carry through in jobs. And you really need to be able to find out that information. So, for example, with debate, generally speaking, I would say you're going to be better with the more planned debates rather than the extemporaneous stuff. If it's extemporaneous, it needs to be something where you can do a ton of research, even if it's, "Oh, I have to be ready for six different topics, because I don't know which one they're going to ask You're going to do the research and have all kinds of information at your fingertips, because you may not know exactly what it's going to be. You really need to be prepared. That's part of who you are. You operate best in that environment. So don't guess if you can avoid it. Sometimes you'll guess, but you'll frame it like a calculated estimation. "Well, I don't know exactly, but it's kind of between this and that." And that'll be your guess. But it's more calculation than guessing. Then the last one we'll talk about is your Quick Start. Quick Start is how we deal with risk and the unknown. You are a 7 in Quick Start, so you take chances. You experiment. You will innovate with things. So even if it's, let's go back to debate, it's something where you've done the research, you have all the information. You will try out a new argument sometime. You will throw curve balls. Do you debate with a partner, or is it just you?

I do.

So, you debate with a partner. Your partner needs to understand, and you need to figure out, because there may need to be a balance. If you surprise them too much, depending on how they operate, that might not be their sweet spot. They may not operate best in that. But it's something that you're going to do. Sure, you'll prepare the topic, but you'll be in the debate, and you will think of something all of a sudden, and you will just try it out. And sometimes it's not going to work, and don't be discouraged those times it doesn't work, because you're also the kind of person who'll just learn from You'll be like, "Okay, fine. That's a new data point. That didn't work, so I'm going to avoid it next time," or, "This part of it really well, but I need to do a little more research so that I can counter argument that somebody brings up on the other side." But you do have to be when you're working with a partner, they may not operate the same way as you. And you bringing up this new thing that you hadn't planned for and talked ahead of time might throw them off. So just have those discussions. Do you think your partner is more similar to you, or do you more complement each other in your styles?

This past year, I was very similar to my partner. She was fantastic at thinking on her feet and just coming up with stuff, and that ended up playing to our strengths really, really well, because she was okay with me doing that as well.

That's fantastic. If you get a different partner next year, like if she graduated.

I don't know.

Mm-hmm. Did she?

She did.

Oh, she did.

I will have a new one.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Either combination can work. If you get somebody who's very naturally just like you, it'll be very comfortable. The only downside to that is then you might have gaps. Like, we talked about your strength in Follow Thru, where you're very open-ended and adaptable, and then when you pair that with your need to experiment and take chances and kind of do things differently, you aren't naturally the kind of person who's going to follow the system all the way So if you find yourself in a type of debate where that's really important, that's going to be more difficult for you. And if you had a partner who was more like that, then you could kind of it back and forth to each other, where they follow the plan or the system, then you're the one who takes more of the chances and does the experimenting. So either one can work. The key is understanding who each of you are and then communicating it. So what questions do you have now that we've gone a little more in depth about your full result?

I want to spend more time studying the actual practice of debate and the behind it, and I'm wondering how you would recommend I go about doing that. My plan was to study for an hour every single day at the same time, but now I'm hearing that I shouldn't be doing that. So I'm curious what you would recommend.

I mean, I'd binge. I would suggest finding a source, and if it's something that you're thinking, "Oh my gosh, I love this book," or some online resource that you're learning from, don't limit it to an hour. Go for four. You know? Stay up late doing it if you're into it. And then if that means you didn't do other stuff that you need to get around to for the next two or three days, you don't get back to it, that's okay. Or maybe you're binging for two or three or four days, doing lots of hours, and then you let it go for three or four days. That's fine. Generally speaking, I would think that's going to be better for you. It's going to be a little more motivating because it just suits who you are, to go deep for a while. And sometimes that means don't get distracted, or have a schedule where, even if you're only intending — even if you kind of have this, "Hey, I only have an hour," it's great if you can leave that schedule flexible where, "I'm only planning to do this studying for an hour, this research for an hour, but it's okay if I go longer. That thing that's at the end of the hour, I don't really actually have to do." And if you're into it, just keep going. So Ava, I know in the prep that we've done with you, you mentioned that sometimes motivation's a challenge for you. How do you get motivated? Where do you see that being an issue?

Yeah. So I think when I have large projects or large tasks that require a lot of time to put into them, it can be very difficult for me to feel motivated to do them, and I can have sporadic bursts of it, and then it goes away. And usually that's not enough to get all of the work done. So I'm curious if you have any suggestions for how to generate that motivation in other ways.

So one is a little bit of a mindset shift: give yourself credit for those sporadic bursts being really productive for you. And we've talked also about using those and that being okay. It's really a good strategy for you to binge and be sporadic and have those bursts. Maybe you need to try to extend them a little bit longer even. So rather than being really consistent with a little chunk of time every day, you do those bursts. But the mindset shift is also to use those to feed you and be proud of

As far as working with other people, what sort of people do you recommend I should seek out to do things with consistently, and what would be some strengths of working with others, and some maybe weaknesses that I might have?

Let's talk group project kind of work. And hearing also that you like to lead the project and set the tone. I do think it'd be great if you can find somebody who complements you, and by that I mean is a little different in the Follow Thru, with a little planning and systematic stuff. As long as it's clear, kind of divide and conquer. You don't naturally do the planning, and you don't naturally follow it all the time even once it's there. So the other person can do that and kind of make sure that the group is on track, and you can kind of deputize them. As long as there's the open discussion and they don't feel like you over them and telling them what to do. That's not a good group project dynamic. People need to know that they've got a voice in the situation too. But if that's who they are, if that really is how they thrive, they'll actually love it. "Oh my gosh, Ava, are you kidding? I would love to be the person who does the plan for all this and make sure that we're..." So here's one thing. In a group project, you have to make sure that all the stuff that's a gets dealt with, and you're the kind of person who might miss one of those You're smart and diligent enough that you're going to try to avoid it, but there are just some times, and I'm the same way. You get so focused on the things that you're more into and all that research, and then you get to the end and you're like, "Oh my gosh, they said we were supposed to do X. We totally blew that off because we were doing all this other really interesting stuff." Other people will help you avoid that kind of situation.

How do you think I should prepare for tests and exams given this information?

Getting back to what I said before, it's okay for you to procrastinate and put things off. Just have hard deadlines. I think one of the risks, because I'm an 8 in Fact Finder too, I think I said I was on that end of the spectrum, but we're both 8s. Sometimes we can focus so much on all the information that it can get a little bit overwhelming. So part of what you need to do is almost treat it like a game. You're going to research stuff, but what does this class or this professor or this test demand in terms of the answers and information? Research that, figure that out, and do those parts really deep, but you can't necessarily do everything really deep. You can get yourself into a little bit of trouble when you keep doing keep getting more and more information and detail when it's no longer to what's going to be on the exam or what the professor's asking you to know What kinds of jobs are you interested in?

Well, this summer I'm going to be an RA at a debate camp in Michigan. And then as other career options, I'm probably going to continue to work for my parents. I'm always looking for jobs where I'm not getting up early and I'm not doing a lot of customer-based stuff. I appreciate having my own work to do and getting it done and not having to interact with a bunch of people along the way, if you have recommendations for anything like that.

Well, one thing I would say is with your 6 in Implementor and your need for touching and feeling and doing physically, think of some kind of non-conventional jobs for you. Especially if they're not career- oriented things. But if you know they're going to be shorter term, maybe to use a silly example, well, there's customer service, so you might not like but working in a sandwich shop. It's not great money, so if you can make more money doing other things, do that. But even the debate stuff, I like that it's at a camp where you're more likely to be also physically doing things, moving around. Not that it's necessarily outdoorsy just because it says "camp" in it, but at least you will not be just in one classroom all day long, I wouldn't think. And at the debate camp, try to make sure that happens for you, that you're moving around. Also, with your Quick Start, you need to try out different things and be able to change things up. You mentioned working with your parents. What jobs are involved with that?

Well, I produce a podcast for my parents, and then they shoot television shows. So I'm usually on set for those a lot of the time.

That's great. That uses your hands, so that's more stuff like that. So other opportunities, yeah, and for you with television, it's not just in front of the camera. It's also behind the camera setting stuff up. That's a very natural thing for you to do as kind of the producer. Not just — I mean, it could be physically setting up the lights and where the cameras go, but it's also having a sense of the physical space around a TV shoot, if it's live or even if it's recorded. Same thing with the podcast. I imagine you are more about the lighting than a lot of people would be, because you're physically getting it just right, and it's going to look the way it needs to look, not just slapped together. So let's talk about law school and being a lawyer. I'm not practicing anymore. Technically I'm still a lawyer, still a member of the bar, but we have very similar MOs. So a couple things that I think about with law

your Fact Finder plays right into it because there's so much,

"Oh, you need to learn all this stuff." When you're preparing for class, you've got to read the case. You've got to pay attention to the detailed parts of it. What are the facts that a court used to build something? When you're analyzing a legal situation, you're taught to understand the facts, learn the rules that you're going to apply to facts, then apply them. But with your combination of that Fact Finder, and then also with your Quick Start, you're going to need to be able to do things where you are coming up with novel ideas, and sometimes in the law, that's not rewarded. It's like, "No, no, no, you aren't supposed to come up with something new. You're supposed to learn what's been done for the last 100 years and apply that over and over again." But with your debate background also, that's the kind of opportunity that you should seek out in law school too, so mock trial kind of things, where you do have to think on your feet, and not just do written briefs. Same thing then if you think about law careers, if you go to law school and think about that later. You should find something with maybe some courtroom-driven stuff. I would say really less of the corporate, especially less of the transactional, coming up with contracts, reviewing them all the time. If it is corporate, it would be more negotiation stuff for you. So, was there anything that surprised you?

It definitely did surprise me that I was encouraged to procrastinate, because I have always been told not to. But I'm actually glad to sort of be vindicated in that, because I always felt like my best work happened when I put things off, and now glad to know that that's the case.

One thing you can do with that is, look, there are times when you need to reassure other people that you've got it under control. If they just see you not doing anything, you're procrastinating, and they think of it as you blowing it off, they can get worried. So before they bring it up to you and ask you questions or show you that they're doubting it, just say, "Oh, yeah, that thing that's due next week, I'm totally on top of it. I know we've got this research that needs to get done." Even if you haven't it yet, when they just hear you being proactive and telling them that you haven't forgotten about it and it's going to happen, they will rest a lot more So we talked about group projects. That's one of those situations where you can tell the group, "I'm on top of What's something that you heard from me that you think, "Great, I'm going to do that. I'm going to put that into practice"?

I think a big one is being encouraged to sort of binge the research that I'm doing rather than having to allocate certain times each day, knowing that I can do four hours of research on day one and then do four days of nothing, and then maybe do a little bit more on day I find that to be very good to hear.

So Ava, we've talked mostly about school, a little bit about work stuff, But you don't just bring your conative strengths to bear there. It applies in your personal life, too. So with your Fact Finder, your 8 in Fact Finder, do you ever annoy, whether it's your parents or other people, with just giving too much detail and information and not stopping talking about it?

I used to. I'm autistic, so when I was a kid and I really enjoyed things, I would kind of tell everybody about them all the time. But I kind of got that under control over time, and now the only people who really listen to it are my parents, and they seem to be okay with it.

I love that they've figured that out. Because you do need to do it, and it's not... your Fact Finder isn't, it's not like, oh, you're autistic because you're a Fact Finder, or... they're separate.

Right.

Now, there's an interplay, so the way it might present for you is because you're that initiating Fact Finder and you need to get the information, that can then be combined with the way your autism presents itself in doing that. But yeah, you've learned.

Yeah.

You've changed it. There are times when you can understand, and this is something I say to all initiating Fact Finders: you need to gather and share information. That doesn't mean everybody else needs to hear it.

Mm-hmm.

But you still need an outlet. So if there are times when you want to tell somebody, whether it's your parents or other people who don't have the same patience for you that your parents do, stop, but then remind yourself, "Oh, I'm going to be able to get to the rest of this, and I'm going to be able to present all these other facts." And sometimes it's just writing it down for yourself, or saying it, because writing it down can be tedious. "Oh, here are the things." And just saying it to yourself out loud, even if nobody's there. "Oh, here are the seven things that I didn't get to talk about that I really wish I could have." That'll give you that sense that you shared all the stuff you needed to share. So Ava, now that we've talked about your conative strengths, is there something you wish you knew earlier that would have made life or school

Yes. Definitely permission, I guess, to wait on things, to wait on gathering research, but then to allow myself to do that to a certain degree. I think it will definitely benefit me in test-taking in the future, because I thought I had to do a ton of work for hours on the days leading up to the test, when in reality, when I've just kind of winged a lot of exams after just a little bit of preparation shortly before, I often get scores because I retain more information. So now that I know that that system works better for me, I'm very happy to implement it in the future. I hope it works.