My initial statement is that “we” had a miscommunication; it doesn’t matter where it originated, we are now together and can proceed.

When I proceed with coaching, and become “curious” and ask her why she has spent 10 minutes talking about this, she comes on strong – proud of what she’s done.

I’m very punctual,” she says, “and a stickler for details. A perfectionist. I believe in doing things right. If we were supposed to call at … we need to know where problem is … you need to … I didn’t … you should’ve … I was right…” she goes on and on, typically proud, even arrogant about very trait that’s causing her so much trouble.

I listen until she’s through talking and then ask coaching question: “And how has this been working for you?”

I’ve never asked this question and found client to lack insight at that point. It’s a matter of tact and timing.

Emotional Intelligence starts with self-awareness, and we need to know how we’re coming across to others. So how do you improve your Emotional Intelligence? The good news is it can be learned. Take an EQ assessment ( http:/ inyurl.com/z94t ), take The EQ Foundation Course©, and work with a certified EQ coach.

These are social and emotional skills, so you can’t JUST read about them. You need to put them into practice, and work with someone who can give you good feedback. Group work is also good. I have interactive group teleclasses for this purpose.

The benefits to developing your EQ are immediate, and also long-term. They’re well worth time to learn. EQ matters more to your success and happiness in career and relationships than IQ. It’s especially effective if a project team, partnership, or entire office, all participate. Then there’s a common vocabulary and a common culture.

In today’s multicultural work environment, where there can be people from many different nationalities, ethnic backgrounds and ages, parts of country or parts of world in one office – and same for clients and customers. One person’s culture may be affiliative and chatty; another’s competitive and brusque. One may be strong in work ethic, another relaxed about deadlines. One hierarchical, another lateral.

Where’s common culture? How on earth can we tell where we’re coming from? In training EQ coaches from around world (and there is global excitement about this), I would say it’s Emotional Intelligence. It makes immediate sense to everyone who studies it. There’s a lot of “Oh that,” which happens when something is well-explained. It becomes obvious. After all, emotions are common language we share with everyone else on this planet.

In this case, it may well have been “my” fault, or “her” fault, but whose fault is it when someone becomes offended or shocked when they’re kissed on both cheeks rather than greeted with a handshake? When one person considers a contract end of discussion, and other person considers it beginning of a very LONG discussion? When in culture of country you’re dealing with, head person never talks, his assistant does, and you blow it completely? It takes a lot of understanding these days. EQ increases our ability to understand one another, and therefore to get along, and therefore to work together well and to accomplish great things.

Certainly group leans to discussing "unseen". But here age-old misunderstanding surfaces - there are those who think we prefer an "ideal" world because it is "unseen" and that we shrink with distaste from "messy, familiar world" of blood, sweat, tears, mucus and semen. They think we would prefer to worship our beloved at a distance and without "inconvenience" of a physical body as in Platonic love. Ha!

One of most fascinating and influential infps in my opinion is Hans Christian Andersen. His fairy tales, far from watered down Disney are real thing, for those who have eyes to see and this may be only those with subtle qualities on inf's. "Fairy tales are not real, or even realistic," says Amanda Craig in The Uses of Enchantment at her BLOG, "[but they are not] as many people still believe, an escape from reality. They are another way of getting you to think about real difficulties. If you have ever doubted this, read "The Ugly Duckling" to your introverted kid.

Indeed. Craig reveals by her statement that she's no "inf" but Andrea Jurik is.

Jurik, a Slovakian currently living in Germany, learned to read just so she could feast for her self -- to her heart's content -- on Andersen's "Rose Elf", which her mother felt was too dark to read to her. Somehow Jurik knew this "fairy tale" would map her territory accurately. Idealist introvert personality types are uniquely concerned with problems of good and evil and "Rose Elf" is, indeed, very dark.

Another client, Rosemarie, says, "I was utterly fascinated by "The Red Shoes" from moment I first saw movie (based reliably on Andersen's fairy tale of same name). "I was four years old when movie came out. I can't imagine how I found it a few years later but I begged to watch it many times. I was actually embarrassed to reveal to my parents how much I wanted to see movie again. It must have been my first experience of obsession.

"Today at 60 story is still unfolding for me as it explains me to myself again and again through years. It is a timeless story of truth of my existence. I'm an infp and we are very intense people, easily obsessed. We have our dark passions and so forth. This is also one of our greatest strengths."

John, a 24 year old graduate student, chats up Platonic ideals this way in his BLOG called "Discursive Parallax" (I'm not sure you're ready for this -- I don't believe John is a Communications major): "Plato screwed pooch when he came up with his essentialist philosophy.... [He] gave us ... Platonic illusion.

"Personally, I'm convinced that most debilitating of all Platonic illusions," John contnues, "can be described with three words - Perfect Girl Syndrome."

In simple English, Plato describes a world of "essentials", by which is really meant "essences" as in "I get essence of what John is trying to say."

I think John is trying to say is that his real pool of possible dates may differ significantly from Helen of Troy. The kind of essentials we feel Plato was referring to are self evident to idealist but let me try to put it into words for those of us who are groping for a concept of ourselves as idealists and how really different we are.

To temperament type idealist, Plato's ideals are not "perfect" so much as they are blueprints and prototypes. They are interested in potential, their own and someone else's.

Idealists value personal growth, authenticity and integrity. They yearn to develop themselves fully as individuals and facilitate growth in others. In this regard they refer to a not visible "pattern" of what they think a human being can and should be. They believe human beings can evolve into something "better than", "more than" but there is no end to this possiblity of evolution.

In this sense, people will never be "perfect" because their potential, if realized, will promote further evolution. I believe that Carl Jung discusses this phenomenon in relation to God Him/Herself in his book "Answer to Job".

Let's take a more concrete example. Let's take example of a house. I want a house. I go looking. I don't find anything I like. Well, not in my price range. I'm realistic about this. So I think, maybe I'll build one myself. I go down to Home Depot or get on internet and look for some house plans. Hmmm. Nothing there. Go looking for an architect. Find one with templates. That won't do. Wait. Listen to my intuition. Follow its clues. Mostly dead ends. Relax. Wait. Believe I can find what I want. It's out there somewhere. Someone tells me about an architect who specializes in small, unique, affordable housing. She's an independently wealthy visionary who adores doing these kinds of houses because they are her forté, something she believes in, and she gets international awards for them. This woman comes up with a plan that suits me to a "T", including price. She gets so excited about it, she gives me a bridge loan to cover some of costs until I can get financing I want. This is a true story by way. It happened to one of my idealist introvert clients and it could not happen to a realist, who would have stopped or compromised when s/he couldn't find an existing home that met specs.

Idealists seek higher and higher ground, more abstract sources for things they want to manifest in their lives and if necessary, are not above changing blueprint or seeking a "higher authority", even, as Jung implies, creating a better blueprint for a god. Thus, following new pattern, as real must manifest from ideal, Jahweh yields to a merciful Christ.

Perfection and escape are not goal. Imagination and evolution are goal.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it so succinctly, "What lies behind us and what lies before us are only small matters compared to what lies within us."

Nelson Mandela describes it this way. "A leader … is like a shepherd. He stays behind flock letting most nimble go out ahead, whereupon others follow, not realizing all along they are being directed from behind." Or from jail. Or in a chance encounter at grocery store that changes way they think forever after. This is why your name also does not get out of house.

This is magic of idealist. Is it any surprise there has never been an idealist president? Such work is better left to Guardians and Artisans. Our names never get out of house.

The influence of idealists is more profound than ever a Guardian or Artisan could possibly imagine or hope for, for to change blueprint is to change future.