CircleThrice

I hunted down this old post today because it said something I needed to hear. Interesting how we can need reminders of even the things we already believe?

There have been some significant changes in the way magicians view magic in recent decades. Chaos magic in particular has moved away from a spirit-driven model, or a will-driven one, to a probability-driven view of magic. That is, magic's effects are on the probability field around various results. This view accounts for a lot of the actual limitations we see with magic (the core example is why your spell didn't win you the lottery).

The chief complaint about this model seems to be that labeling all magic as 'probability shift' makes the results of magic very small. That is limits magicians to only those changes that already have good odds. If you can't affect major changes, then what's the point?

I think there are two answers to this objection:

First, who gets to say what the odds really are? The lottery, fo…

Recently I mentioned that I took the Clifton Strengths Assessment at a PM conference. I really liked the assessment because a) it has a ton of data to back it up b) it's useful for a host of purposes and c) it's relentlessly positive. I used it to look at my future career goals and to overcome challenges in my current position.



Of course, this isn't the first assessment I've ever had as part of my career. I've done the DISC Assessment and the Keirsey Temperament Sorter as well. I've also done ones for more specific purposes (like measuring Intercultural Aptitude). The only one I've never done as part of a career activity is the Meyers-Briggs. This is good news as of all these squishy psychological tests, Meyers-Briggs is the most based in pure, unresearched BS (sorry Facebook!).

Why do I take them? Well, sometimes it's because I'm in a room full of colleagues and HR is there. But mostly it's because I've learned interesting things about, not…