“Let’s get better at being a disaster.” I can’t claim those words, but I sure can endorse them. What would it mean if instead of fearing our flaws and shamefully hiding them, we embraced them?
I went to my local Creative Mornings meetup this month. It was with the Poetry Fox! I was delighted to hear that he was going to speak—I remembered seeing his exhibit at Art Prize in 2017 and being mesmerized by the sheer amount of poetry surrounding him. At the event, he mentioned that he no longer measures his poetry output by the number of poems written, but by the amount of reams of paper used. REAMS! That’s wild!
He opened up his talk saying, “I don’t really think people can change—let’s get better at being a disaster.” As a deeply flawed and imperfect human, this really resonated with me. Especially this week when we were tasked with taking this corporate personality test at work.
It explained to me that I am an “Influencer Dominant.” I had to do three different Google searches before I really understood what that meant. I used to be a massive fan of all these personality tests. I lived and died by the Enneagram—but then I heard someone call it the Christian horoscope, and that quickly took the wind out of my sails. I began to notice how some of these tests can sometimes aid in internalizing identity in an unhealthy way, revealing a deep desire in me to be seen and known. Same with horoscopes, I started to approach these with a “take what resonates, leave what doesn’t” mentality.
But quickly after skimming this profile it built out about me, and hypocritically, I got annoyed. I began to realize how much more I am than just this segmented view—we’re all multifaceted humans, and all that. It went on to explain that I have a tendency to charge forward with my ideas and rally people to get on board, which I acknowledge is a guilty habit. But it makes me sound like a freight train. I’d like to think my influence is more nuanced than that; I also don’t feel like a freight train.
However, my test also revealed that I disagree with roughly ten statements that my DiSC type tends to agree with. Which I guess means ~I’m Different~
I’m happy to play a supportive role. I can read a room. I value accuracy and thoughtfulness. Yes, I like to get things done, but I am adaptable, flexible, confident, and also grounded. I am self-aware and look for things about myself to work on. Maybe I’m not a freight train. Perhaps I’m more like a sightseeing bus, you know, hop on and hop off when you’d like, you might get to see some cool stuff.
My mom tells this one story with such pride––when I was about three, my mom was watching me play at our local park playground. During this time, I had just finished watching her lead her local opera company in their production of The Magic Flute. At the park, I had gathered a group of random kids and forced them to put on our own production of The Magic Flute with me. Even when they said, “We don’t want to play that, we don’t know what that is,” Like the little playground dictator I was, I responded, “Yes, you do. Here is your role.”
Ahhh, there may be a little bit of freight train in me. Funnily enough, they played my game with me and liked it. I’d say it was the best youth production that the Chicago Public Parks near the lake shore has ever seen.
When I think about this personality test and what I remember from the Poetry Fox, I think about how success is not just embracing your flaws but harnessing them. Embrace your freight train tendencies and use them for evi—I mean good. So maybe the trick isn’t to stop being a disaster, but to become the kind of disaster worth following.
Izzy Nunez graduated from Calvin in 2022 after studying graphic design and sociology. Today she lives in Durham, North Carolina where she is a graphic designer for Duke University. She is growing to love Durham and all its southern charm even if she complains that its breakfast choices aren’t as good as they are in the Grand Rapids.
