From time to time I check in with the world of Socionics and do a bit of research there. I find Socionics very useful as it focuses on providing models for human relations based on personality type, as opposed to just modeling individual psychology based on personality type.

(By the way, I will continue to use “INTJ” in this article, but in Socionics, the INTJ type would be written as an INTp or an ILI type. In the four-letter format, the “J” and “P” are swapped for introverts and made lowercase. ILI stands for “Intuitive Logical Intratim” and indicates that our intuitive perception preference precedes our logical judging preference, and we are introverted.)

Among many great quotes I extracted from the source interview with Victor Prokofiev, this quote stood out to me (emphasis mine):

Victor Prokofiev: And there are often questions such as: “I can get money for what I really love, really?”. People often think that we are all the same, consequently, we all have to do the same things in life.

Interviewer: So you pick the type of activity that is as comfortable as possible?

Victor Prokofiev: Yes, or do we just say that if someone likes his work, he just needs to change the priorities within the job description, change daily routine. Job Description consists from the list of works. We need to try something to pay more attention to, and something – to pay less attention to. [He means making decisions of what we prioritize based on our psychological preferences, in order to bring us more comfort in our work -Marc] And you have to see what would happen to the demand for your work, whether people work with great pleasure. Here the knowledge of socionics purely helps. And in fact, it turns out great. After all, people begin to work with great pleasure. Sometimes people change their position, profession. If you have gained the rich experience, than dramatically change everything from that point is not a good choice, it does not make sense. But to change your behaviour, change priorities – this is what really useful.

I personally did this in my own career. At first I wondered if I should change jobs. I knew I was an INTJ, and I knew I wanted to be happier in my work. But looking at other “INTJ jobs” was disappointing. I could see where what we think of as a “job” is really just a discrete set of people, tasks, and goals, and those could change from job to job even if the job title stayed the same, and I lacked important background interests for many jobs. It also seemed like a huge waste to just put my current career behind me.

Then I took a job-to-personality matching test, and it suggested the job I already had! That was a funny moment.

So I reexamined my current job. There’s a lot of amazing stuff there—I own a technology business, I get to evaluate and deploy different technologies, I get to determine my hours and working style, I choose my clients—it’s really great in a lot of ways. So after thinking it through, I started altering my focus at work from long-form, detail-oriented work to higher-level planning and organization, with a focus on just the details that are important to me for the success of the project. In addition to that, I take advantage of my flexible time and make trips to the library to combine playful research with planning for work projects, and I make use of the opportunity to combine things I’m learning through playful research with my work projects.

I also—and Prokofiev doesn’t mention this but I’m sure he’d suggest it—have benefited from looking at Socionics intertype relationships and deciding on how I want to alter my communications style or work style from client to client. I even allowed myself to, for example, not take on another client of type X if I already work with other clients of that type. Or even not work with that type at all if I can’t do it well. Changing communications style or work style requires shifting into a lower gear, in a sense. The anxiety is a bit higher when trying this, but the potential gains in personal development are huge. So it’s seriously nice to be able to just say, “no, I don’t have the capacity for even more personal development right now.” The victories have been worthwhile. Learning to downplay my Ni in conversations with an ESTJ was a very fulfilling step in the end.

I’ve only really done this sort of adaptation / development with clients that are a bit more difficult than normal. In the case of the ESTJ it has worked amazingly well. In another case, it’s taken longer to figure out but I picked up some important clues today from Prokofiev’s interview, and I’m still working at it.

This alteration of the way I mold my job to fit myself has provided me a lot more peace of mind. Work has a better feel to it now. I’m open to more change and hope to tweak the parameters within my job in the future, so to speak, but I like the change that I’m experiencing so far.

Filed in: Socionics /7/ | Careers /40/

As I begin to recover some lost productivity at the end of January, I’m reflecting on the fact that the holidays were bad for my health. It feels blasphemous to say so, but it’s true.

First, I found myself struggling with illness. Right around the end of November, I caught Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease (HFMD). I caught this from my children, who caught it from their peers at school. It hits adults harder, so while my kids barely showed any abnormal signs, I could hardly use my hands, it was painful to walk, and I had to cancel several work meetings as a result.

Second, after finishing my first big weight loss cycle, losing 100 lbs. / 45 kg. to reach a “healthy” BMI, I had decided to start a “bulk” up to 190 lbs. from 175. I overestimated my free time and understanding of this process, didn’t account for illness, and ended up injuring myself early on in November, in my hurry to make muscles appear (ha) while gaining weight. Did I reach my goal of 190 lbs.? Definitely! Am I more fit and muscular as a result? No! So now I’m losing the weight again…

Third, not just my physical health, but my mental health suffered. My anxiety floor went up a bit due to my illness and injury. But it went way up due to things like:

• Having family around for holidays and the accompanying family needs
• Social outings that happen every year with friends of various kinds
• Schedules changing to accommodate this or that
• Inability to keep my normal work pace
• Cold & rainy weather making otherwise easy exercise like outdoor walking, harder
• Going to sleep later and getting up later, as a result of family activities
• Eating extra holiday food, with opportunities to eat being unscheduled and more frequent, or scheduled and less frequent.
  • Interestingly, there was LOTS of food, but sometimes we were traveling around in e.g. a state park and had “oh we didn’t plan on what to eat” moments, leading me to a sort of feast/famine mentality. (You can tell I didn’t plan the food, because “contingency” is my middle name…)

When your weaknesses are called upon to do extra duty, it almost always results in anxiety, depression, irritation, boredom, or some combination of those. So I had to “put myself in therapy” several times, in order to address these problems directly and resolve them before they got worse.

My tools for dealing with this actually helped quite a bit, so I’ve got to give them credit. They were:

• Talk to spouse about any problems
• Take as much free time as you need
• Write your thoughts and feelings as much as you want
• Make meta-plans—plans that sit on top of others’ plans for the group. For example, let’s say we’re hiking through the woods in a place I’ve already been about 20 times. I’d tell myself, eat a piece of candy every 20 minutes if you’re feeling tired and irritable. Or we go to the beach—I bring my sketchbook and some watercolors. Or we go out to eat: I plan what I want beforehand.
• When feeling extra anxiety or depression, all normal social rules, etc. are off. Just take care of yourself until you feel better again. (I’ve learned that if I don’t do this, things just get worse)

I remember one day, close to Christmas, when I was struck by a deep feeling of depression. In a fog of confusion and exhaustion, I walked out to my backyard office and started to write & think about the situation. I realized I had been trying for the last while to make chit-chat with a friend for whom extraverted feeling was the inferior function. This friend wanted nothing more than to engage in some idle chit-chat as a way of relaxing, and the act had drained me of whatever was left in my battery. I ended up taking the rest of the day off for “me” time, actually avoiding this person. However, after about two hours of heavy introversion—writing, reflecting, Youtube, Netflix, etc.—I was feeling good again. He had no idea that what felt relaxing for him was really discharging my energy; luckily for me, I did.

Should I fix myself?

When I scored 100% on the “J” dichotomy of the Majors PTi (a psychometric instrument which yields a four-letter Jungian personality type code), my mentor Mark Bodnarczuk remarked, “looking at this score, I’d tend to think: Maybe here’s a guy who needs to loosen up a bit.” And of course, I’ve been deeply cognizant of that ever since. Our strengths, magnified, become a liability.

However, you can’t just turn around and “fix” a problem like that. To even begin such an attempt, it’s wise to have a lot of scaffolding from your gifted side to help you out. Otherwise you’re just asking for anxiety problems and some awful results, like awkward extravert outbursts, etc.

For now, I’ve decided to keep reflecting on realistic and unrealistic behaviors, and find areas where I can keep my sanity and loosen up a bit more than usual. This low-hanging fruit method has helped me make significant progress in other areas.

The first low-hanging fruit I identifed were my new years’ resolutions. I realized that these were adapted for a holiday schedule, rather than my normal work schedule. They were actually quite far down my priority list, and while they sounded fun, I believe that they were in fact tips from my subconscious that it would be a good idea to get back to my normal, organized schedule. I have already reduced them in scale dramatically and have started on a framework for a more fulfilling resolution-achieving process (this started with my evaluating, and then changing, the idea of SMART goals to VERY SMART goals; more on that later probably). But mostly, I see the goals in a healthier perspective, and I’m more laid back about achieving them, or not.

Going into the 2017 holiday season

I’ll probably have lots more holiday seasons to celebrate. I’m healthier than ever, I’m more in control of my life than I’ve ever been, and things are looking up overall. But I am changing my outlook on the holidays a bit. From now on, I’ll attempt to see them more as they are: A bit of a test. Some of the test questions will be:

• Am I learning to adapt to changes and uncertainty?
• Can I let myself relax and improvise when needed? What are some problem scenarios?
• Are my goals for this time period very realistic?
• What are common risks of this season, and how will I deal with them?
• My weaknesses will be tested—sociality and ability to go with the flow, etc. How will I rate myself and allow for deficiency?

That’s my scaffolding for next time around.

For the record, my favorite moments of the 2016 holiday season were:

• Keeping up with my ISTP son on a hike through the woods
• Playing board games with family
• Sketching at the beach
• New art supplies for Christmas
• Getting excited about new areas of study
• Messaging other INTJ friends
• Watching favorite Youtube channels

Well, that’s pretty introverted, and not a big change from any other holiday season. Both are fine with me.

Filed in: Anxiety /32/ | Relationships /78/ | Control /110/ | Goals /52/ | Sleep /10/

Lately I find it helpful to continually stream my thoughts onto paper or into a text editor as I work.

While at work, I always have a text editor open and a tiny notebook that I carry around.

For each new issue or problem at hand, I usually create a new document so I have a blank slate from which to work. As I write, I naturally start to move things around and organize.

Today, I thought it would be fun to title each document “The Case of…” so I have “The Case of the Bing Advertisement Trial Balloon,” “The Case of the Missing Fonts,” etc.

Something about the process of writing helps me work my way right through my problems. Here is an example of a framework that I might use:

• What is the description of the problem or task?
• Where and when can I see it? Are there files I need to look at?
  • Where are the files organized?
• Have I confirmed the problem or do-ability of the task?
• What can be done?
• What research do I need to do?
• How much time will the steps take?
• What part of this requires courage on my part?
• Is there any way to mitigate that?

I find it really helpful to work my way through, responding to each line. Then I save these files in an organized way. I have had to re-do the organization several times, but I learned a lot in the process. I usually start the filenames with YYYY-MM-DD-Client-Name.md so they’re easy to identify in a text editor, easy to sort, etc.

I’ve also found that when emails come in, it helps if I can just copy & paste the email contents into a text file. If there are attachments, I save them in a related folder and reference the folder location within the text file.

In this way, my text files and built-in file system become more important for getting work done than my email client.

Which is great, because I have much faster and more efficient access to files and folders than I do to email, especially old emails. And especially through GMail, which feels like working with oven mitts on, in comparison.

Some of my clients use Basecamp and other project management software and I’m happy to use it along with them, but I’m secretly pasting everything into my own text files as I go. If I absolutely have to refer to a web discussion, I put the link inside the text file.

One of my favorite aspects of this is using any text editor I want. Lately I use Geany quite a bit. I like the simple functionality of the snippets feature, where you type a special word and press Tab, upon which text is inserted or a command is run. Right now I have a command that inserts the date, time, and temperature when I type “tmp0” and press Tab. Just a practice run as I get ready to have more fun.

You can see my daily template, in Markdown format, here: 2016-12 Productivity Template This daily template is copied into a text file, formatted YYYY-MM-DD.md, every morning at 3 a.m., and I work on that text file all day, save it, and move onto the next one tomorrow. I review these files on occasion.

After writing this all out, it seems like a lot, but I also think I get a huge amount of work done. And it’s fun to organize.

Working on paper, I don’t do anything fancy but I tend to take extra time to note and write about things that interest me, or that invite further research. Those things really drive my day and make me feel more energetic.

When I do work on paper, I try to be away from the computer, usually sitting on the couch in my office. This helps me get a lot of planning done before I’m tempted to dive in, which is more efficient and usually saves me hours (of either work or procrastination).

Filed in: Thinking /70/ | Te /36/ | Productivity /119/

Above: Frank Abagnale tells his fascinating story at FedTalks 2013

One of the things I love about personality type is that having an interest in a thing can tell you about who you are. An interest is never just an interest, but a result of an inner push or pull of some sort, be it conscious or unconscious.

I’ve always been interested in people like Frank Abagnale. When I came across the Passers website recently, this awakened my previous interests in the topic and I went back to re-watch Mr. Abagnale as he tells his own story.

I find the video above far more powerful than the film based on Mr. Abagnale’s life, Catch Me If You Can. In his own words, Frank Abagnale encountered a deep tragedy early in life, and lost what was most important to him at a critical point in his youth. While the film attempts to portray this and does a good job of it in parts, Abagnale’s own words seem to deeply touch me. Any glamour in his experiences was completely overshadowed by the deeper, and literal, loss of life which occurred.

As an INTJ, I am discomforted by the ease with which I can let life pass by, either my own or the lives of my loved ones. Keeping emotional issues at arms length has always been a specialty.

But perhaps this is also why I feel so affected by, drawn to, and sometimes overpowered by, human drama. While it’s nice to be fall back on the fact that I have strengths outside of the realm of feelings, and that feelings “aren’t an effective problem-solving tool” for me, the truth is that a lack of development of feelings will, over time, punish me again and again until I balance myself out and reconcile the deeper separation from my own feelings, and, especially, the feelings of others.

For this reason I find Abagnale a tremendous role model. He is one more voice of change in my inner wilderness.

Other neat videos with Frank Abagnale:

Developing the ‘SuperCheck’

Counterfeit money detection

Using a credit card to avoid fraud

Which shredder is more secure?

Protecting against fraud

“I’ve only seen crime get easier.” —Frank Abagnale

Filed in: Interests /111/ | People /74/

Above: Child-like Bob wields influence through dominant extraverted feeling

I was watching a favorite film, What About Bob, on Netflix recently. Watching the maturation of Bob’s character through the film, it struck me that Bob is an ESFJ. Or at least, that’s how he’s written into the film.

I won’t go too far into why I think so, other than to say that Bob starts out in extravert hell, isolated from all the things that would warm an ESFJ heart, and is thus condemned to this sort of “bad INTP” existence.

I do wonder if Bob’s ex-wife was an INTJ, a natural ESFJ conflictor. She likes Neil Diamond, after all. And I really enjoy listening to Neil Diamond, too. Solid proof!

Either way, I was charmed by Bob’s new character. From the moment he put on that Don’t Hassle Me, I’m Local T-shirt, I recognized his internal strength as a social chameleon ESFJ. ESFJs see their social adaptability as a prime asset and expect their surroundings to naturally begin to conform to them as they use dominant extraverted feeling (Fe) to maneuver through and influence the various social strata. It’s easier for me to appreciate that now that I work with ESFJs more often as an adult with kids in school and various roles in my community.

As Bob works to actively support and build community strength, he shows the child-like attributes for which ESFJs are really well known. Take it easy, have fun, talk to people, show them you care, and in doing so off-load the pressure of the day-to-day. We’re all in this together and we all need to be loved.

As an INTJ, I feel like I can now sail more comfortably on that ship. However, in order to do so I had to learn about type, type dynamics, and cognitive functions. I don’t think it’s wise to expect any given INTJ to quickly recognize that extraverted feeling would be an amazing attribute to develop. The INTJ/ESFJ conflict is just a thing, and it falls upon each one of us to develop ourselves out of, or into, more life conflict. It’s sad to think that conflict is really built into the way our world works but I don’t see another way to spin it.

I also came across a Reddit post by an ESFJ yesterday which is something of a gold mine if you live with, work with, or otherwise need to relate to ESFJs.

The author offers a list of the things that lead them to dislike INTJs:

• It’s the aloofness and confidence that really gets to me.
• Sensing and modesty are two very important traits to me.
• I respect confidence, but not when work ethic, knowledge, or talent are lacking.
• The “calculating” nature might throw me off to.
• All too often I feel like they’re not being honest with me and I’m just a means to an end
• Smugness
• Quiet confidence

Reading over those comments, I think it’s clear that an anxious INTJ and an anxious ESFJ are going to struggle. Introverted feeling and extraverted sensing tend to take the helm in anxious INTJs, and their eruption or emergence will generally bring with them the smugness, confidence, and aloofness that are mentioned here.

In my own work with ESFJs, I have tried to intentionally downplay my competence at times. Why? Because ESFJs do the same thing, and see it as a mark of refinement and maturity. They are sensitive to braggadocio and may magnify barely-bragging behavior into full-bragging just due to that sensitivity.

Overall I think end-of-film Bob is a good mental model of the ESFJ for an INTJ to examine. We INTJs may be able to identify and encourage the “gifts of mature Bob” in the ESFJs around us, and in doing so we can hardly avoid developing ourselves into more mature human beings.

Filed in: Fe /20/ | Relationships /78/ | ESFJ /1/ | Feeling /64/

“Behavior is the most outward and most pliable aspect of personality.” —Dario Nardi

I recently explained my personality type to someone who is very interested in personality and who has created her own personality tests. She read what I wrote and responded, “I see you are very much a [different personality type]”.

I was pretty surprised to read that. During my own certification process, it was emphasized again and again that no matter what a test says, type is a self-discovery process. Telling people “what they are” is completely against the grain of the type-as-journey process.

It was also emphasized again and again that even the best test will not be 100% accurate. The Majors PTi hits around 92% accuracy, but even at that point, around 1 in 10 people will probably experience some uncertainty.

And yet, I think it’s OK and normal to tell people what you think they might be. I’ve casually typed people before. I’ve had others casually type me before. My personal rules for doing so would look like this:

• Pay attention to what people say about themselves. They’ll tell you what they are. Otherwise it’s extremely easy to be fooled by the contextual self and build up a lot of confidence in a completely incorrect type.
• When someone disagrees with you, it’s a good idea to be graceful and allowing. Pushing the issue further can not only harm your reputation, but it could potentially cause the person psychological harm. If you tell an ISTJ she’s an ENFP, and recommend that she stick to a bunch of practices that bring out her inferior function, the resulting anxiety levels would be your own fault.
• Build your own estimation of the person’s acceptance of the concept of type, beforehand. Understand that type is grounded in preference for a reason. Some people absolutely cannot stand the idea of only 16 types giving any kind of explanation of the unique nature of every individual. For example, I once explained how type worked to an INFJ who said, “wow, that’s neat, amazing” and gave me lots of smiles and laughs as we discussed the similarities between people. Weeks later, as I spoke with her over the phone, she tearfully admitted that she hated the idea of type, felt that everyone was special, and felt it a harmful subject. I learned something new: Not everyone can appreciate type. And if I had really pressed the issue, it would have been even worse.
• Pay attention to responses and use them as a cue for further research. Try to take a negative experience as a challenge for self-growth.

In casually typing people, we typically focus on their behavior. Behavior is, as Dario Nardi said, “the most pliable aspect of personality.” While some people may absolutely telegraph their own type, other perfectly healthy people have gone through a process of growth that leads them to downplay, at times, their most basic preferences. This can be a huge benefit for them and we are putting ourselves in a questionable position by refuting their self-discovered type.

From the other side, it’s amusing when you know you are an INTJ and someone thinks you are an INFJ, or an INTP, or an ESFJ, just based on a simple sentence or a preference for a type of music. And it’s even better if you’ve been practicing at those attributes intentionally. It reminds me of a bodybuilder saying: “You know you have arrived when people can’t be convinced that you don’t use steroids.”

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The idea of “being attracted to attributes we need to develop” has been really blowing my mind lately.

Carol Pearson, Ph.D., author of The Hero Within, encourages readers to look at their spouse, partner, or close friend and ask themselves what positive attributes they see in that person. Pearson writes that we are attracted to those attributes because our subconscious sees them as attributes we ourselves need to develop.

Pearson then tells us: Start working on those attributes, in order to become your best self.

This has been absolutely captivating to me. It’s like a little analysis game that anybody can play. And at the end, you win an opportunity for growth. Possibly challenging, but one with some real depth to it.

I’m married to an ISFJ, an amazingly adept day-to-day achiever. And an empathetic one, at that. She lives to help people, which is something that I’ve always admired.

I’ve made this attitude central in my life for the past few weeks. Who needs help, right now? Can I just sit down, give them my attention, and put things in order?

It has worked amazingly well, for me. At the end of the day I feel like I accomplished real things, not just head-in-the-clouds things like strategy or learning a new language. Those are still good, but feeling more balanced in this way is great.

Filed in: ISFJ /6/

Here are a couple of INTJs worth knowing about: Kuba and Noah Anglin, brothers who, as high school students, built a fusion reactor inside of their home.

• Here’s the Youtube video
• Here’s the Reddit INTJ post and Reddit AMA
• Fusor Forums writeup

Pretty impressive.

Filed in:

One of the most powerful aspects of personality type study is the revelation of the “healthy personality model,” or the idea that type gives you insights into the completed, individuated self. Research into the development of your own personality type can give you powerful glimpses of a potential future you. Research into all types can help you isolate additional areas for personal growth.

This is all part of becoming your best self—attacking day-to-day pitfalls like depression and boredom by discovering and exploring who you are.

By studying the INTJ and comparing myself with the “typical” INTJ preference set, I found areas where I was not using powerful gifts. Bringing those gifts into play allowed me to lose 35% of my bodyweight and accomplish other huge life & work goals.

Look over the following list: Who do you know, of the various types? What can you learn from them? Who do you want to get closer to, and observe more closely?

These are in rough order, from what I consider most powerful models, to perhaps least-but-still-useful.

Please note that not everyone’s the same, and your experiences in comparing your strengths and weaknesses to others should be weighed and judged just like in any other decision-making process.

The Models

1. Being More Like A “Typical” INTJ

It might seem unnecessary, but lots of INTJs could use improvement in this area. Before looking to other personality types, it’s a good idea to make sure you’re really in control of your natural gifts.

In what ways are you personally different from the “typical” INTJ? Can you open your mind to that difference, and explore INTJ-ier ways of doing things, even if you feel you’ve already experienced them in the past? Read up on the cognitive functions. Dario Nardi, an expert in the field of type, suggests that INTJs develop, after Ni and Te, Fi, Se, and Ti.

Understanding Te and setting up a “life improvement journal” & personal goal-tracking spreadsheet for the first time helped me lose a huge amount of weight. Understanding Ti helped me learn to procrastinate less and accomplish more with my time by creating helpful mental models and frameworks.

Let’s also break down the INTJ’s four-letter personality type code:

• I is for Introversion. Is there a way to make my environment more introverted to support my needs? Do I need more quiet time to think? Am I under too much pressure to act now?
• N is for iNtuition. How can I consult my intuition more often? If I imagine the solution to my current problem, what comes to mind first?
• T is for Thinking. How could I measure my progress in solving this problem? What checklist items would get me to where I need to be?
• J is for Judgement. Am I sitting back and “imagining” too often? What is an executive action measure I could take right now that would instantly get me going?

By behaving more like an INTJ, you tune into your natural gifts. See if learning to act “more on type” in this way gives you more leverage over your problems.

2. Being More Like A Spouse, Partner, Friend, or Close Family Member

In Awakening the Hero Within, Carol Pearson writes that our closest relationships give us hints to the ways our subconscious wants us to develop. The important differences between your personality type and your partner’s, for example, may account for your inner drive to spend time with them.

Ask yourself what impresses you or draws you to that person. Do you need to be doing more of that in your own life, personally? Start practicing it, and keep notes on your progress.

Emulating others’ best qualities is a great way to become a more mentally and emotionally independent person.

3. Being More Like the ENTP Personality Type

This is pretty fun for INTJs. ENTPs usually have a lot of fun with the sorts of subjective thinking that can really help INTJs. By “subjective,” I mean “my ideas”—what are your personal theories or observations on things? Can you gradually build and refine those theories as a way of gaining great leverage? As you observe a problem unfolding at work, what are the factors that are always present?

Or, if you had to invent an acronym to model a solution for a common problem you confront, what would the acronym be? As you gain more experience, keep an open mind to changing the acronym as needed.

Here’s another thing you can try: Take a journey, just on the surface of a fun or interesting topic, without diving in too deep. Last weekend I had a “Star Trek” weekend and caught up on some things I like about the Star Trek franchise. Then I designed a planet to which I’d like to travel. When I got bored, I moved along rather than forcing further development of the planet’s characteristics.

Conlangs are another area where you find lots of ENTPs. Ever tried to invent your own language? What’s a simple way you could start, without googling an “approved process” for doing so? Subjective thinking means finding your own way through a process, without letting others do too much of your thinking for you.

4. Being More Like Older INTJs, or INTJs who are more mature or further along than you

This is one of the key mentoring pairs for INTJs. Older INTJs are basically further along the same general path that your life will take. This is part of archetype theory, which Carl Jung developed heavily.

INTJs are typically similar to the “sage” or “magician” archetype. Some research here may save you trouble later on in your life.

Personality development is like working on a mandala, in that some themes may repeat again and again. For this reason it’s crucial to keep your mind wide open when studying under another INTJ. Try everything and don’t just say “I already know that” or “I’ve done that before.” Remember that themes will repeat but the outcomes usually differ.

5. Being More Like the ESFP Personality Type

INTJs tend to under-emphasize or even hide a relaxed, playful, lives-in-the-moment, upbeat personality. But it’s a very nice fallback for extremely stressful times.

We also, and maybe especially, hide a lazy side. People who constantly push themselves toward self-improvement aren’t generally happy with how productive they are in the first place. So sometimes we need to understand that part of our life-system just has to include laziness, and not so much “doing stuff”.

If we don’t give ourselves permission to recuperate and be lazy, sometimes the extreme stress can be observable in e.g. binging behaviors, sensory overstimulation, partying all the time, acts of child-like immaturity, etc.

Try asking yourself every day: “What do I want to do today? What sounds fun and interesting?” You might even find that it helps you to consider those things before you consider the things you have to do.

Seek other methods of interacting with and impacting the world. For example, would it feel good right now to have an office dance party? Or to give a child a high-five? Or to dive into a swimming pool? “Make it happen,” one of my ESFP friends would say.

6. Being More Like the ISFP Personality Type

The ISFP holds an important key in their ability to wield both the strong values system of introverted feeling (Fi) and the life-in-the-moment attitude of extraverted sensing (Se) in what becomes a very laid back, easygoing persona.

INTJs who can learn to develop Fi are more likely to feel that they know who they really are. They feel comfortable in their own shoes, and don’t need to be someone they’re not. They do things they really want to do, rather than getting sucked into a focus on things like material wealth.

INTJs who develop Se are immersed in and active in the present context. They are open to taking risks and understand what it means to sometimes let things flow without planning.

7. Being More Like the ENFP Personality Type

ENFPs have an amazing ability to take in only the most necessary, surface-level information while keeping their minds open to many different types and sources of information. Conversely, INTJs sometimes dive too deep and can’t make out the forest from the trees.

Have you ever worked on a project, only to emerge from it and realize it’s not necessary anymore? ENFPs also have a strong sense of “what I wanna do” and “what I don’t wanna do.” They take life by the horns and deal with problems as they come up by referring to an internal values compass. Sometimes INTJs need this compass badly, but only use it in a black & white manner. Remain on the job or quit; spend the money or save it; be best friends or be no friend at all.

ENFPs also harness a powerful idealism that directs them to change the future and move toward a more harmonious, creative, engaging, exciting world. When INTJs learn to see life through this lens, it empowers them to bring about great change and be larger than life in ways that benefit others.

8. Being More Like the INFJ Personality Type

INFJs are deeply intuitive people who are highly attuned to the feelings of the people around them. The INFJ usually knows intuitively that they need to seek group permission in order to make progress with a group, and group permission is not always established by “expertise.” “Expertise is all it takes” is a common INTJ stumbling block, so we INTJs can really learn from INFJs here.

Watching an INFJ in action, INTJs can learn how to successfully deal with input from others while doing what’s necessary to maintain good feelings.

INTJs can also learn from INFJs how to trust the intuition and listen to its sometimes-irrational suggestions. Trusting intuition, even if it can’t be easily explained, can be crucial in a decisionmaking process. Learning to be guided by metaphor is another important practice in this realm: What do you need to be right now? A rock? A river? A cloud? A battle tank? Ask your intuition what it suggests, and be that thing.

9. Being More Like the ISFJ Personality Type

ISFJs are the epitome of the “helper.” This can be helpful for INTJs to observe, because INTJs sometimes tune out of a situation right when their help is needed most. INTJs sometimes believe they’ve “explained everything,” but often what people need is an activity partner, someone to walk through a process with them and be a little bit more patient. This is not a “skilled or unskilled” question, but a true psychological need. By paying attention to this need, INTJs can be more effective friends, parents, and workmates.

ISFJs stay in the current context and make sure all the details are taken care of before they move on. They take delight in knowing they helped fulfill others’ needs. If INTJs can learn to do this AND be sensitive to others’ feelings and input, they can gain a lot of respect from those around them.

ISFJs are also sensitive to what’s fair. When something’s not fair, they often complain rather than just absorbing the injury the way an over-introverted INTJ might. Where an INTJ might say, “well I signed the contract, so I’m screwed,” the ISFJ says, “that’s what’s in the contract, but what’s fair?” They can often renegotiate in a very powerful way, based on simple details that simply need to be straightened out and communicated.

Finally, watch how your ISFJ friends exercise and preserve their health. While lots of INTJs are into hard-hitting martial arts, or fast dancing, or heavy weightlifting, or even acrobatics, an ISFJ will naturally understand how to maintain their health in a simpler, gentler manner. Sometimes a brief walk is just the thing to put you back into control over your day. At other times, maybe you need to take a long bike ride, canoe down a river, or enjoy a peaceful picnic next to a favorite lake or river.

10. Being More Like the INFP Personality Type

INFPs are often more outwardly patient than the INTJ. The INFP may have a less rushed point of view regarding things like business decisions.

INFPs take objective, measurement- or evidence-based thinking to the max, often showing INTJs exactly how much additional information can be gleaned and brought to bear in a project.

INFPs also like to work toward the best result, rather than the satisfactory result that INTJs often aim for. For this reason it’s a good idea to watch the way INFPs deeply care about process and making or changing decisions as things unfold.

11. Being More Like the ISTJ Personality Type

ISTJs don’t like to let things slip or coast for too long without bringing them back into line. They are typically amazing at not procrastinating, even if they can be pretty harsh on themselves in this area. They’d rather take a moment and prepare for an event a few months down the road, than put it off for another couple months.

INTJs can learn from ISTJs that by taking action now, it’s easier to support an organized lifestyle. INTJs can also learn that it’s OK to have fun little side hobbies that don’t “mean” anything in particular. It’s also OK to learn to keep and display a nice collection of one’s favorite little objects or possessions. INTJs sometimes cycle between “I have a messy space with lots of little objects scattered around” and “I threw it all away, I’m a minimalist!” Learning to build and care for a collection of things can be a powerful, joy-giving skill that transfers knowledge and facility into other areas of life.

12. Being More Like the ENFJ Personality Type

The ENFJ can open doors that may be shut to the INTJ, by combining their subjective framework-creation skills with their ability to harmonize and empathize with others. While ENFJs are often quick to try to teach INTJs their ways, this can put too much pressure on an INTJ, too fast. For this reason I recommend that INTJs study ENFJs from afar, model their behavior when it seems appropriate, and occasionally try to read books written by ENFJs. Survival Games Personalities Play is an excellent personality type book by ENFJ Eve Delunas.

13. Being More Like the ENTJ Personality Type

ENTJs are excellent early adopters. They usually have the newest gadget, or book, or whatever. Conversely, the INTJ often derides or complains about the latest gadget and may favor the old way, which they contend never went obsolete. As we watch ENTJs we can find a healthy way to respect the views and needs of others where things like technology are concerned.

ENTJs see negotiation as part of life. Anything can be negotiated! And, most crucially, anything can be negotiated without getting upset. ENTJs are often known as extremely kind, giving people, despite their reputation for mental toughness.

14. Being More Like the ESTJ Personality Type

ESTJs are constantly seeking to organize and get on top of things. They are usually conservative with resources (like time and money) and judge success by efficiency.

A healthy ESTJ can show an INTJ many ways to be conservative and effective at the same time. This often starts with a status question: “Where am I on that project? What do I need to do next?”

15. Being More Like the ESTP Personality Type

ESTPs are great at diving in to work on the key leverage points right now. Other details may not matter at all!

ESTPs are also great at paying attention to competitive differences that count right now. In a competition, ESTPs often ask themselves: “What would be totally awesome?” and they do it.

Throwing your weight around when needed, but with “all due respect” to cultural or contextual roles—the healthy, culturally necessary aspect of paying lip service, is another ESTP specialty. Sometimes INTJs think they’re too good for respectful or honorary language. It’s true that we’re all just humans, but respect for cultural or contextual roles is a crucial part of the human success framework.

15. Being More Like the ISTP Personality Type

ISTPs are fantastic at mentally taking things apart and puzzling their way through logic, new concepts, or physical things like computers or machinery. INTJs can learn to propose frameworks (e.g. “widget X probably operates by the mechanism of…”) and refine those frameworks as new information comes in. Monitoring the way the model changes in their mind can give an INTJ deep insights into the way things work.

ISTPs are usually good negotiators who can use sweet language to see if they can work out a special deal for themselves. For an INTJ, this kind of negotiation is great practice. Perhaps no one owes you anything, but you never know if they’ll just give it to you when asked!

“Sweet language” is often a huge stumbling block for INTJs, who may stop at “polite” and never really begin to build simple forms of rapport.

16. Being More Like the ESFJ Personality Type

ESFJs often have a pleasant, child-like appreciation of new things; novelties, the little joys of the day-to-day. When an INTJ begins to appreciate these things, it adds deeper color and a new dimension of enjoyment to their life.

ESFJs are also great at obtaining permission from the group / group leadership. They enjoy listening deeply without interjecting. They understand that if you give your best to the group, the group will usually take care of you in turn. They also enjoy being a part of multiple groups, from which they derive layers of back-up benefit.

ESFJs rarely do anything like showing off, focusing more on rapport than personal excellence. They appreciate those who develop a skill deeply, and use it in a humble way while contributing to the success of a group. For an INTJ to even recognize that a group of which they’re a part has needs apart from their own can be a crucial developmental step.

17. Being More Like the INTP Personality Type

Rather than googling the answers to things, INTPs often say, “don’t tell me! I want to figure it out on my own!” INTPs tend to think of situations and concepts as “puzzles,” and find unique, interesting ways to approach those puzzles.

This is in stark contrast to the way INTJs see many of these puzzles as “solved problems,” and go looking for already-established solutions. Googling is an INTJ specialty!

As INTJs learn to solve their own problems in creative ways, they reach a new level of motivation and skill in life.

INTPs are also typically earlier-adopters than INTJs, due to their powerful extraverted intuition. They want to know about the various ideas and technologies that are available, and will put them to work while figuring out the supporting principles and concepts.

By respecting and understanding the way extraverted intuition (Ne) works, INTJs can learn to recognize patterns and play with patterns or even multiple patterns in ways that don’t tax their mental capacity so much.

18. Last but Not Least: Being More Like Total Strangers

Even if you don’t know their type, observe people as you encounter them. Are they benefiting in the current context? By what mechanism do they benefit? If their success could be described by a model, how would that model work?

Are they part of a group? How does the group respond to them? What actions seem to benefit them? What actions seem to hurt their standing in the group?

“When in Rome, do what the Romans do!” If this person is benefiting, see if you can narrow down the beneficial behaviors and find your own way of modeling them.

Summary and Caution

Overall, if you can remain open to the concept of personality type as an evolving journey of self-discovery and growth, I believe you can achieve the very best things that life has in store for every INTJ.

As a caution, some INTJs are perpetually seeking growth at the cost of their own peace of mind. Rather than embarking upon their journey, they are walking someone else’s journey to success, without taking their own comfort into account. As you learn to monitor how you feel about things—no matter how irrational the result—you’ll naturally settle on a more self-accepting path toward personal improvement. Good luck!

Filed in: ISFJ /6/ | Relationships /78/ | Therapeutic Practice /144/ | Productivity /119/

Last weekend I was driving home from a wedding, a 3-hour car trip. At the beginning of the drive, something felt off, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I felt vaguely uncomfortable and nothing seemed to help—water, more heat, more cold, nothing.

After an hour and a half of uncomfortable driving, I started to feel nauseated. Something wasn’t right in my abdomen. I asked my wife if she could find something that I could throw up in, if I needed to.

“Umm,” she replied, “if you feel like you need to throw up, shouldn’t I be driving?”

We both laughed.

I pulled over to let her drive and use the bathroom. Almost as soon as I emerged from the bathroom, a supernova of pain began to erupt from my insides. We got back on the freeway, an hour and a half from home. I began to moan and shift in my seat.

I could stand only twenty minutes of that and looked up the nearest emergency room.

By the time I checked in, my pain was at an 8 out of 10. I shifted in my waiting room seat and moaned some more. Fortunately I only had to wait about ten minutes.

The intake nurse took my vital statistics—blood pressure, temperature, pulse. At that point, she looked surprised.

“Do you exercise a lot?” she asked.

“Yeah. Is my heart rate pretty low?”

“Yeah, it’s at 40,” she said.

“That’s normal,” I said. I tried to hold back a smile. I had worked hard for moments like this by losing 35% of my body weight, or 100 lbs. (see before photo and after photo), and despite the pain, it felt like I had just been handed another little trophy.

The uplift didn’t last long, as I was soon left alone in a room, at which point my pain went to a 10 out of 10 on the pain scale. I have never yelled and moaned like that before. I was crying, my legs were moving around constantly, my hand gripped the hospital bed handrail like I was attempting to crush its metal frame.

“Ah, we call that the ‘kidney stone dance,’” said my new nurse, as she walked in and introduced herself.

So I had kidney stones

This episode lasted almost a week. I hit 10 out of 10 on the pain scale on multiple occasions. Different locations, same pain level.

Here are my INTJ notes on the topic.

Things that helped

• Coping with Pain
  • The instinctive methods that I just did without thinking
    • Gripping something and trying to squeeze it very hard
    • Laying down
    • Moaning
    • Slapping myself on the head (??? This one was weird but helped a couple of times)
  • In extreme pain, the following non-instinctive methods helped, ranked most-effective to least:
    • Distracting myself by asking questions, asking for information
      • It was annoying when people didn’t cooperate. One nurse said, “I know why you’re asking me, this is great. It’s gonna be OK.” Then she went back to her work. Give me the information then!!! Let’s have a discussion!!! I need this! LOL
    • Slow, calm breathing and visualization
      • One nurse said, “I see you’re doing Lamaze breathing! Great idea.” “Let’s call it Kung Fu breathing,” I said. She laughed but I learned it from the Chinese martial arts, not from a Lamaze class! Geez.
      • Important: Breathe out longer than you breathe in! Otherwise you will hyperventilate. I started to hyperventilate and remembered this advice from Sifu Richard Hone, my martial arts instructor of long ago. (R.I.P. Sifu Hone! Amazing guy)
      • I visualized the sun inside my chest, slowly growing larger and larger with warmth extending to my extremities, and warm sun hitting and warming large, round, flat river rocks. This worked pretty well overall and helped distract me.
      • I exhaled loudly by pursing my lips and blowing hard through them. Again, something I was taught in Kung Fu, and it worked well.
      • After doing this for a minute or two, I’d attempt to go completely silent and motionless. Exhaling very slowly through my nose, not making a move. Just to see how long I could do it before I had to move again.
    • Reciting things I had memorized
      • I started to recite inspirational lines from a Japanese film.
      • Probably sounded weird to the nurse but I was desperate. And it did help a bit.
      • Side effect: I started weeping. Gah.
    • Asking technical questions
      • Why that medication? What makes it different from morphine?
      • What’s that number on the screen for?
      • Do you like your job? What do you like about it?
    • Saying, “YES, NICE, MORE, COME ON!!!!” Like James Bond being tortured in Casino Royale
      • This was a temporary distraction but didn’t help as much as I had hoped.
      • Interestingly the thought of “more” was extremely depressing at this time.
      • I have never wanted to die less than when I was in such extreme pain, which fascinates me. A 10 made every last consideration of death completely flee. Is there some continuum—the better we have it, the more likely we consider death an option? Or something like that? Is that why we go to the movies to see James Bond tortured while we relax?
  • All of the above were surprisingly ineffective against level-10 pain. I thought they would help a bit, but they were simply coping mechanisms and hardly did a thing except provide some distraction.
• Coping with absence from work
  • People I work with were really understanding
    • “Why are you even emailing us?” they said.
    • “Get some rest!” they said.
    • Still, I was out for four business days and I knew there were things we couldn’t ignore.
  • It helped to work when I could.
    • At first I wanted to avoid work, and that was OK. I didn’t think I could handle it at the time, and I was probably right.
    • But the thought of work just piling up got really annoying.
    • I did some work and felt better about it.
    • So I did more work, when I could. I’m still glad I did.
• Coping with the threat of another kidney stone in the future
  • I did a ton of research here. It all helped.
    • I even researched and pondered my research methods.
      • Google is almost worthless now. Plus, you have no idea who’s gathering information on your health profile as you use the search tools. I tried my normal DDG for this reason and it was even worse, as I suspected, but it was worth a try.
      • Asking a friend who’s a rheumatologist was very helpful. He sent me medical journal articles.
      • I thought about the different medical materials to which I have access through my library; I’ll probably look deeper into those.
      • It was pretty easy to conclude what caused my problems: Tons of oxalates. Just one look at my recent eating habits and how many nuts I’ve been eating, how much spinach, etc. made it very easy to guess.
      • However, it seems smarter to cut back a bit on those and start e.g. drinking more lemonade and taking magnesium citrate to help dissolve any stones, than to just cut out all or most oxalate-rich foods.
  • As I did research, I took notes.
    • Notes are huge and really help me take my discoveries further.
    • Without my notes, I tend to think in circles sometimes, continually going back to the same conclusions.
  • As I went through this ordeal, I kept a paper spreadsheet.
    • Things I tracked: Inflow, outflow (ahem), pain levels, medications, food intake, date, weight, calories consumed, any other notes or activities
    • This helped most at the beginning, when it felt good just to be doing something and to keep myself on the best track possible.
    • This also helped when my wife was away from the home and I couldn’t remember when I was supposed to take medication X or Y.
    • I let it fade out toward the end of the ordeal, when it seemed less necessary.

Takeaways for next time

These notes should help, for one.

Here are the general principles:

• I was very glad I was in good shape overall. I can’t overstate this. Going through an illness when you know you are in good health in general is much better and releases you from a lot of doubts.
  • Accordingly, I plan to get in even better shape.
• I was very glad I knew my INTJ gifts:
  • Spreadsheeting / monitoring / recording things
  • Writing
  • Opining
  • Asking technical questions
  • Hyperbolic attention to the physical—good knowledge of breathing techniques due to an interest in Kung Fu, movement economy when in pain, stretching, etc.
  • Analysis
  • Acting on plans
  • Contingency planning
  • Developing strategy for the future
  • Allowance of reversion toward the sensory and ephemeral: I watched movies, TV shows, etc.
    • I could hardly bear really active movies, like old musicals.
    • Slow, espionage or mystery movies were great
    • Casual TV shows without too much action were great
    • Social media like Twitter and Instagram were amazing
      • Even social media start to get really boring after 3-4 days, no matter how full your feed is
    • Youtube was incredible
      • Great War series
      • Niche topics of interest; retro computing
      • I watched so many “Irish people eat _____” videos…extremely comforting humor, not sure why.
      • Pretty sure my Youtube feed is going to be really weird for a while.
    • Anything enjoyable was done in a not-so-deep way.
      • This is important for me. I keep it at a very shallow level—once I start to feel any boredom, I move on immediately.
      • I believe this is related to extraverted intuition (Ne) and I think it can really help an INTJ in pain or when trying to relax. If used properly—i.e. not so many deep dives into single topics.
  • I basically took a bath in all these gifts while I worked through the illness, because I knew they were my gifts and I knew they’d probably help me. It really did help.
• People were understanding but I’m glad I did work when I could. Staying as organized as possible was very helpful.

So, if it hits again, I’d like to think I’ve learned some important lessons.

For now though, I am going to work really hard to make sure there is no next time.

[Note: This post is mostly information-oriented and is not big on e.g. thanking people who helped me or noting their own coping methods. But I did get a lot of really helpful assistance from others and am thankful for it.]

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