Life keeps throwing personality tests at me:

• In college, I took the long-form Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in a psychology course.

• In a sales training program, I took the DISC personality test.

• In a program for which I mentor MBA students, I took a test based on Jungian personality theory that talks about "energies" in terms of colors.

As psychologists will tell you, these tests indicate tendencies, rather than hard-and-fast boundaries. Someone who scores one way may act outside this parameter in a given situation. Also, people can counteract personality tendencies once they better understand them and can better adapt to other personality types with training.

I've always been skeptical about these tests. I take them not with a grain of salt but a rock. They seem too simplistic, even with the professional caveat that they shouldn't be read as steadfast.

But here's the thing: Whatever each test calls my type, they all tend to give me the same general result:

• On the MBTI, I'm an INTJ.

• On the DISC, I'm a high "D."

• On the Jungian energies thingamajig, I'm an extreme red.

In crude summary, all this means I tend to focus on getting things accomplished, like working alone, am fiercely independent, appreciate efficiency, have low respect for authority, think creatively (no "because that's the way it's done" for me), and am pragmatic sometimes to the point of seeming cold. (So you don't think I'm a complete jerk, the full descriptions linked above will give you better nuance and, I hope, a more positive perception.)

Although I hope I'm a little softer than some of these descriptions would make me out to be, I do recognize myself in them.

And, thanks to these tests and reading about other personality types, I better understand other people. Or, rather, I better understand why I sometimes don't understand other people. And, if these personality tests are to be believed, there's no doubt they feel the same way about me.

It's extremely hard to adjust to others' personality profiles. I try—sometimes to the point of exhaustion and exasperation. When someone needs extensive detail to make what seems like a simple decision or wants to do something I feel is nonsensical just because it's tradition, I'm screaming inside.

We just have different styles of relating and processing.

What's your personality type? Do you agree with its assessment? Are you able to adjust it to better connect with others?