From my drafts folder, part of a reply to S. Sorry, S, for the delay. S. had asked:

Do you ever hesitate to tell people where you’re going on vacation? Especially if you’re excited about it?

I feel bad, because a coworker seems to be offended that I wouldn’t share details of where I’m going for vacation. Is it unfair to expect her to not ask about personal stuff like this?

S. goes on to say that he was unable to make himself share even the name of the continent. (I think probably on principle, more than anything)

LOL. Sorry, S. I laugh because I can identify, but also, I don’t want to identify. We both know that it sucks to feel like we’re offending people by doing our normal thing. By being…our selves.

Anyway, at least you are, for better or for worse, in good hands here, among us paranoid introverts.

I’m guessing part of the annoyance was due to the special feeling of having your own special vacation plans, but part of it was also the coworker asking, right? Or because you yourself would never ask that.

It’d be interesting to know—did she want to be asked about her own plans? Or is she hoping to spark up a friendship? Or does she want to be the one in the office who can build a bridge out to you, so to speak? (Yikes, maybe it’s best not to dwell on that, the prediction stuff. Too much too early can prevent good relationships from forming…)

Anyway, back to the privacy part. Yeah, I know I can also start to hedge a bit for weird reasons. Reasons that would be hard to explain, that is. But I think the reasons do form up into a sort of firm, internal logic.

Sometimes it’s because I worry about talking about my fun / exciting stuff out loud, for fear of jinxing the whole deal. FOR ONCE IN MY GOT DAM LIFE, the thinking goes, MAYBE I COULD JUST ENJOY SOME ME TIME, AWAY FROM THE ANNOYANCES OF THE WORLD, says the thinking.

And, if nobody knows how epic it will be, nobody can spoil(s) it, (Gollum voice) or something like that.

Not much more to say, no real advice to give. Hopefully there’s some middle ground when you feel pressed to respond.

I wonder if it would make sense to aim for a > 100 km. radius of privacy around your vacation spot? Like, “I’m going to [Small Country],” and, if pressed, “Well, it’s kind of up North in [Small Country]?” and if pressed further, I think it’s fair to say you’ll be exploring the general area, or to feign forgetfulness…

…or to ask why—are they planning a surprise visit?

Joking, of course.

Filed in: People /74/ | Careers /40/

Trey writes,

Can you give some examples of ENFP guys on Youtube?

Sure! You ready to have some fun??? Haha.

Liam Thompson, Funny New Zealander (Carson family favorite)

Perifractic from Retro Recipes, Retro-computing Expert

Scooby1961, Epic Gay Engineer & Bodybuilder

Steven Lim, Worth It Guy

Dr. John Dehlin, Excommunicated Mormon, and Popular Critic of the Mormon Church

(Warning: Deep, sometimes dark, Fi stuff. John sings a very effective counter-hymnal to the ISTJ-leaning Mormon leadership)

Jesse Kimmerling, Adventurist-Traveler

Brandon Farris, Funny Things-Tryer

Phew! That should hold you for now Trey ;-)

(…OK fine, she is in a favorite band called “Men I Trust,” so here’s an ENFP female, Emmanuelle Proulx, for the heck of it.)

Filed in: ENFP /4/ | People /74/

Sarah writes,

I’m an INTJ and I have an INTJ daughter. I love her but we’ve had some disagreements lately. I hate to say it but I lectured her a bit and I know she has heard it all before. What can I do to support her?

Man, I feel like I’ve been on both sides of this kind of question being a parent myself. That’s not fun at all, feeling uncool or ineffective as a parent.

Some things I would do pretty soon:

• Stay as far away from criticism as possible while you shore things up.
  • Sometimes a parent’s best move is to throw their arms up and walk away. Parents need to recoup energy, too.
• Calmly renew your focus on, and support for, her individuality.
  • Ask yourself: What does she do, or say, that helps her feel like she’s different, or that she stands out?
  • How can you support her efforts to understand herself through those activities, even if the specific activities may bother you?
• Commit to building a positive interaction and messaging environment. Use objective activities and other objects:
  • Hey, let’s rent a movie we both want to watch.
  • Hey, let’s shop for a board game that sounds fun.
  • Hey, let’s shop for some new and interesting snacks, or a seasonal food we like.
  • These activities should help you both to talk happily about things that aren’t you guys, is the point.

Things I would never, ever avoid, that a lot of INTJ parents would try to avoid:

• Apologizing
  • (If possible I wouldn’t do this while she’s in a bad mood…usually it’ll add even more negative memories for her to process)
• Sharing regrets
  • “I have a lot of regrets as a parent. You know, a lot of days I think I’ve been just an awful parent. lmao.”
  • I know, I know, this may lead you into some conflict with your concept of self, and how great, yet unrecognized, you are. Treat it like an experiment.
  • If you’re feeling down, you can skip this one, or try it if you think a little sympathy play could help you move up and out.
  • This also requires harboring regrets, which may lead you through a learning experience
• Asking how you can be a better parent
  • (don’t expect an immediate answer, or any answer)
  • Just asking the question is good. Like, “if there’s ever a time when you think I could be a better parent, I hope you’ll share your thoughts with me.”

Things I would do long-term:

• Set up a formal area / file where you keep notes on what’s working and not working in this relationship
  • This will help you avoid making the same mistakes and regrets again. This happens to INTJs a LOT when they don’t set up a system or journal, so be careful.
  • Start writing down some fun memories here. Later on you can share them with her.
• Set aside a gift and some examples of a kindly-worded note, for when they’re having a hard day
• Support their friendships and relationships with other people in your family
• Invest in listening-without-advice. Soak up and reflect emotion like a sponge. Nothing more. No execution, no plan, no conclusion.

Finally:

• Take care of yourself as a parent. I know you are probably having a hard day yourself. Do something you enjoy today. Things will get better from here.

Filed in: Relationships /78/ | People /74/ | Parenting /5/

Systems thinking is something a lot of INTJs really like to chew on. We think in systems, so it’s simple, and our ego is all tied up in it, so we feel there’s never enough of it in the world.

Does a problem exist in our life? If so, “might as well do more systems thinking,” comes the call from within.

(And I mean, systems thinking feels really smart and powerful to us because we have a psychological stake in it, but sometimes I have to think it’s a pretty stubborn, grumpy, way-too-adult-like process, too…)

Sometimes we get caught with our system-thinker pants down though. We can end up so zoomed-out that we have one big, vague, “meta-meta-meta-system”, while what we really need is more like a “sub-system.” Something that’s simple, well-defined, and easy to work with.

A Helpful System of My Own

There are lots of different kinds of systems. This is, I think, an under-appreciated aspect of systems thinking. When you think of everything as a system, or as part of a system, it’s easy to start to blur the lines, but delineation can be really helpful in preventing us from losing leverage over the details.

One type of system I like designing is a personal daily support system. One of my favorite daily support sub-systems lately is something I call “Weeklies.” It’s a set of tips, practices, or principles that I change up or reevaluate about once a week, and make little changes to every couple of days.

The name probably sounds way too obvious, and you know I’m not here to be the guy who pats you on the head and lets you go on happily thinking you know everything already. So here are some specific principles of its design:

• I don’t add work-related tasks to this list. This is bigger-picture than work and much more subjective. Work is more of a subject-object game that benefits from a different set of systems.
• I don’t keep specific tasks on this list for longer than 1 week without changing what I’ve written about them. More, or different, details will offer a change in leverage points.
• This list is designed to be temporarily forgettable. It’s not like a calendar. I can forget about it for a couple days, and that’ll suck, but no emergencies will probably occur.
• I need to be able to insert this list anywhere inside my text editor (and hit Undo to make it go away), so I don’t have to go hunting for it.

I typically refer to the Weeklies list a few times a day. This keeps me in touch with the big picture. In my journaling text editor, I type “wk” and press TAB and this injects my list of Weeklies from a text file.

Here are some items on this week’s list:

• Lean very heavily on Task BATL circle items from my interests list. These circle items, representing fun, self care, and personal interests, make up more than 2/3 of my Task BATL to-do list, and they add lots of color and relief to my life in the face of heavy responsibilities. That’s right—I may spend a HUGE portion of my daily schedule watching music videos on Youtube, or visiting online museums, or playing some ION Fury or some other fun thing. It’s really important that I have this emotional-values support working actively, or I know I’ll start to feel depressed.
• Rebase and Debrief in a mini-notebook frequently, or use Mousepad (a different text editor, for a from-scratch writing experience). Rebasing and Debriefing are two techniques from Task BATL. They help me to break free of the details, remove myself from a deep context temporarily, and sort out the big picture. Otherwise it’s too easy to get derailed and focus on things that aren’t contributing to a satisfying daily/weekly/monthly/life-ly outcome.
• Deepen some interests. As an introvert, it helps me to know that stuff is going deeper. If stuff is not going deeper, I’ll start to feel more scatterbrained, and less like a focused person. Since I keep a lot of logs I can usually look at a specific log to see where I’m at and what I can do next.

質問 for you

• Do you have a personal daily support system? What’s it look like? How can it be improved?
• If you don’t have one yet, what are some important design principles? What should it do for you, if it’s going to be a success?
• Think about the people around you as part of a system. Do you know how the people around you like to support you? What do they like to offer you?
  • Do you know when you need that kind of support—can you sometime identify those moments in advance (a big relationship improver)?
• What are some tools you’d like to explore, or develop, for implementing or improving your support system?

Filed in: Interests /112/ | Control /112/ | Technology /41/ | People /74/ | Energy /121/

Scooter Braun was in the news today, and I thought, “this story is giving me that vibe,” and after some research I’m adding Scooter Braun to my likely-INTJ list.

A couple of video references:

This person may not seem like you, if you’re an INTJ. Scooter does seem more like the a Se-heavy INTJ, like an INTJ-T. They are easy to confuse with ESFPs or ENTJs. Some of the items that resonated:

• Dropped out of school; economics and economic opportunity won (Te stuff seems important to him, on top of the Se, mentioned below)
• Major Se-focus. The impact-concept is maybe all-important. Power-focused perceptions, coupled with vision (Ni).
• Heavy Fi-focus: Gotta do your thing, find your own path, etc.
• Ni-focus: Respect power, build a forward-thinking plan, a channel to increase it. His vision for marketing and social media use seemed to use a lot of Ni-Te thinking. This person can make a plan, and relies heavily on vision-first, plan-first thinking. (I’m sure this gave those ESFP performer friends quite a rush.)

I have coached more than a few clients who are similar. They face, more than many INTJs, that really difficult combination of “I’m a major introvert” and “I’m also a major extrovert in these other ways.”

(I have a DJ friend, also an INTJ, who looks like Scooter. Kinda funny when that happens. There are a LOT of INTJs working in arts & entertainment)

INTJs in this position also have to be careful with community. Heck, all of us INTJs do. But this kind of person seems more likely to get tripped up on the Fi-Fe divide and unwittingly turn themselves into a villain (public POV) and scapegoat / misunderstood victim (subjective POV).

It’s really unfortunate because some planning here and there can help—but it’s the wanna factor. You have to want to connect with the community and build good will, and this has never been an easy sell to INTJs with other plans on their mind. Plus, one has to admit that being the misunderstood person in the shadows—being the villain, even—gives a lot of energy leverage. Mostly of the “I’ll show them” variety, but still, it feels kinda fundamentally great to perceive oneself as deeply misunderstood. It’s a meaty feeling, and offers some scary lows to balance out the scary highs.

I’d guess his wife, Yael Cohen Braun, is ISxJ. I see an interesting visual similarity between examples like:

• Endeavor from JEM Reactions (ISxJ) and
• Natalie Portman (ISTJ)

Filed in: Fi /35/ | Fe /20/ | People /74/

Neuropathetic writes:

Thanks for the book recommendation on your blog. I bought Dario’s book. What else have you been reading?

You’re welcome! Lately I’ve been working on:

• The Cthulu Casebooks: Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-devils by James Lovegrove
• Black Widow: Red Vengeance by Margaret Stohl
• The Conquering Sword of Conan by Robert Howard
• The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey
• Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
• Idea Man by Paul Allen

…none of which are coaching or self-coaching related, but I’m drawing heavily on metaphor so it all counts toward growth. ;-)

And they’re all good so far!

Filed in: Interests /112/ | Energy /121/

Via Laura London / Speaking of Jung:

“I always think of the #shadow as, certainly the pieces that are repressed, but also have been ignored.” ~Susan Schwartz, Ph.D., Jungian analyst, Speaking of Jung, Ep. 40

“The #shadow is not just a darkness in the sense of negative but a darkness in the sense of not used—qualities that want to be paid attention to but have gotten submerged, lost. And they need a certain strength to be able to come forward.” ~Susan Schwartz, Ph.D., Jungian analyst

This is really worth knowing, and I wanted to share one way in which this is relevant to INTJs.

In my experience this “unused-ignored shadow” effect is really common with extraverted intuition (Ne) in INTJs. It’s not that we hate(s) it. It’s not that we dislike its use. It’s just that it’s not as interesting as our favorite function, Ni. Not by a long shot!

As a result, Ne is displaced and really not developed much, creating a blind spot.

Here are the typical results of that blind spot:

• We may over-feed or over-stoke a proprietary, introverted perception system even if it’s already “full” (especially during times of distress). For example: “Things are going downhill for me. I just know I’m screwed. Things are going to get worse from here. I’m stuck.”
• Evaluating otherwise good ideas through the lens of subjectively-estimated probability (“that won’t work because…”)
• Unwanted difficulty in working with others on creative projects

Here are some less-typical, but really bad results of ignoring Ne:

• We can end up communicating with what amounts to problem-oriented thinking, pushing others to call us out, take us down a notch, or work to prove us wrong
• We may raise the stakes in communication with others, based only on a trust in our subjective perceptions, leading to potentially disastrous results
• We may waste hundreds or thousands of hours, and/or lots of money, preparing for outcomes which never come, rather than considering and preparing for multiple possible outcomes
• Thinking pretty much everything has been done or thought of before (if you squint hard enough, or zoom out far enough)

Some potentially huge opportunities from paying attention to Ne:

• More opportunities for solution-oriented thinking
• Building skills in invention & creation
• Bringing life to new technologies, systems, philosophies that don’t exist yet
• Enjoying more fun & positivity in life
• Thought leadership opportunities
• Less procrastination, more productivity

Some risks of giving way too much attention to Ne:

• Naivete
• Lack of stability (being spread too thin)
• Ignorance of probability (less-likely bets may be taken first)

I don’t think I’ve ever met an INTJ who really struggled with those issues though, because we love our introverted functions so much.

Methods that I like for stimulating the extraverted intuition:

• Supplements, for example caffeine is really good at stimulating Ne for me (YMMV)
• Dice
• Randomization software
• Change of environment
• Change of information intake

After I started working on the development of Ne in my life, I did notice some new-to-me pushback effects like these:

• A bit of stress due to the massively increased amount of new information coming in (you have to set boundaries around it and consciously decide to discard much of it, and you may find that you fill way more notebooks and create much more data than you did before)
• I had to reassure people more often—“look, you know me, I am good at planning out things that don’t exist yet. Trust me, I know this is really creative and it’s never been done before. But we have a plan, and a contingency plan, and things will work fine.”
• Other INTJs who aren’t comfortable with so much attention given to Ne started to push back in various ways. I got some more condescending emails. The new & untested idea is good fodder for the critic.
• I felt a bit of annoyance with the stock-INTJ personality type. For example, an INTJ I worked with on a financial deal ignored Ne, became problem-focused, and pronounced failure too easily rather than focusing on ways to pivot. This lead to near-disastrous results for me. His peer professionals later apologized to me and told me to find someone else to work with ASAP.
• Various other projections and displacements I hadn’t anticipated, from friends and family. In fact, some of this was just hilarious. If you give more attention to a function it is the same, to many others, as changing your personality. The relationship dynamic will change as a result. And other people will start to push back in funny ways, defending their ego from a perceived weakness, or some other fragile thing. But hold onto that new ground! Don’t give up.
• A close friend called me “grandiose” in a pronounced, diagnostic, paternalistic way. This stung a bit! (In this case they were projecting, as this was someone with a secret Ne-shadow-temptation that was pretty obvious after a while. But the projection didn’t help our friendship…)

This is just small stuff, though. the trade-off has been worth it.

Anyway! All this from reading a quote this morning…I love that effect. The shadow is a fascinating topic.

Filed in: Therapeutic Practice /148/ | Randomness /26/ | Openness /49/ | ENTP /9/ | Ne /17/ | Ni /42/ | Control /112/ | Productivity /120/

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

— Joseph Campbell

That’s scary stuff.

Caves, the underground.

I remember a time when I got stuck in a cave. Not for very long, but it was damn scary. I was trapped tight, pressed between two huge, clammy, dusty, gritty slabs of rock.

Others had to come along and describe to me how I might move my body, joint by joint, so that I could maneuver out.

That particular cave is permanently closed now, due to another awful entrapment, which makes the memory of my own experience even more creepy.

And when I go into that memory as a metaphor, and imagine the metaphorical cave I fear to enter? The one where I’m that stuck, the one where people far better equipped than myself are now tragically entombed?

Damn scary.

Still, I can’t deny it—those metaphorical caves of my past appear to have been something else. More like the outer levels of a vast treasure network…

Filed in: Anxiety /32/ | Feeling /64/ | Depression /13/ | Relationships /78/

I stumbled across this article today:

A therapist shares the biggest mistake people with low emotional intelligence make

When I ask people what comes to mind when they think about “emotional intelligence,” their answers are often centered around themselves. I hear things things like “knowing my personal competencies,” “being self-aware” or “managing my emotions.”

Funny. A good reminder for real. This is important for the introverted side of just about anybody, introvert or extrovert, because our introverted functions are so subjective. They have this incredible way of taking a thing and making it “about me”.

• Ni: Don’t you think my foresight and perspective on this issue is really powerful and helpful though?
• Ti: Don’t you think my proprietary system is basically the best thing ever?
• Fi: Don’t you think my deep feelings and values are important, too?
• Si: Don’t you know my preferred way of doing things? It’s better this way…

This is a good note for the INTJ squad too, because someone could say “feelings” and we might even immediately think, “oh yeah! I love feelings!” but really it’s a mismatch because we’re often thinking, “oh yeah! I love (my) feelings.”

In this way our Fi can sometimes help us appear as if we don’t care about others, even though we’re sharing “emotions and feelings,” and even though we’re trying to be helpful and put ourselves in our place, maybe because we read a didactic intent into the exercise (see below on that one).

It’s not about us. That’s hard to really grasp sometimes, because we want to help using our set of known tools, and even just thinking about helping moves us back into the “me” zone, where we start to collect energy from our favorite intervention or creativity tools.

But it’s also more like we are naturally good at giving attention to Fi, not Fe so much. It’s not that we are morally wrong, as we may assume people think. It’s that we can get stuck “we-ing” and “me-ing,” and not “they-ing”.

The most emotionally intelligent people know that in addition to understanding their own emotions, it’s important to perceive the emotions of others, and the way that their environment impacts those emotions.

Personality type can really help here, by giving us questions to ask, curiosities to indulge,

(…and experiments to run?? Never!)

Welcome to Soviet Prison

There is also another important thing here: We INTJs sometimes fear that others are putting us into our place when they talk about EQ at work. Or when they seem to be headed to the preachy zone, maybe it drives us crazy. We go into 1984 mode and start to feel like some dictator is about to enthrone themselves and make our lives hell.

However, part of this perception comes down to who we are. Our own INTJ Fi can be really, really judgy. It tends to write covert contracts on demand, within seconds. And it’s easy to project our own embarrassing, subjective moral-judgment tendencies onto others, even if they are on a completely different track. For this reason it’s important to be objective, ask questions, and give these interactions time to settle.

In any case, even if there was some dictator-enthroning going on, it would still be important to get out of the “me” box ASAP and start building outward-facing relationships.

But why save that until disaster strikes?

Oh, and a Funny Thing About Others’ Stuff

Unlike your stuff, it’s pretty common that relatively shallow attention needs to be paid to others’ stuff. That is—it can take a lot of attention, but in a broad, low-touch way. A frequent way. Listening, empathizing, helping things move along, but at the other person’s speed.

People like owning their stuff. Quite often they want to do the deep part themselves. So it’s not like everyone out there is looking for an analyst, and your Fe-based approach has to be as deep as your personal, Fi-based approach. That could in fact be a real energy trap.

And one cool part of this: When other people are looking for help, even if (or especially if) there are conflicting values in play within a group, Ti can really come in handy. And it can be really awesome for INTJs to get exposure to this perspective. It opens up the “designer” role even more, to an already creative mind.

Filed in: Feeling /64/ | Relationships /78/ | People /74/

Hey everybody, I wanted to say a quick Thank You for your kind emails and donations lately. It really helps to read them all and I look forward to getting to know more of you.

Lately I’ve been starting a few different projects:

• A new, long-term, life-values project based around charitable giving
• A new variant of chess involving dice, wizards, and dragons
• Building new models to support resilience in difficult interpersonal situations

It’s been fun, but on top of other work stuff, it’s been slow going, so sorry if I haven’t written back to you yet.

Another Thing

Sometimes, when I blog about a well-known person who is an INTJ, I get emails from their supporters. A lot of these emailers make the assumption that I’m on their side. (Like, who wouldn’t be, if they were smart, is their attitude.)

This morning I got an email from a fan of one of those INTJs that was frankly a bit disturbing. It made me feel bad for the well-known INTJ in question—they are in trouble, whether they think so or not, and it’s hard to watch.

Unfortunately, sometimes we INTJs, whether unknown or famous around the world, can get caught up in positions and perspectives that I would say are worth questioning:

• Fear-based perspectives, fear-based politics (local, national, or international)
• Paranoia (subjective Ni over-extension, especially when exhausted / worn out)
• Attempting to bring the whole past forward (as opposed to its best parts, leaving out the worst parts)
• Mapping patterns of history / the past wholly onto the future (as opposed to doing so in a nuanced manner and allowing for dynamism, evolution, and change over time)
• Mapping subjectively-fascinating metaphor onto shared-objective situations (“my violent hobby is definitely the answer to your group’s political problem”)
• Raising the stakes, when the stakes should probably be questioned or massaged down in some ways
• Perceiving win-lose outcomes and quickly making enemies, as opposed to working to create win-win outcomes
• Massive, troubling goof-ups of the Fe blind spot variety

This stuff can just happen. I mean, I personally remember all of this happening to some degree in my own past. So I’m probably not above any of it, but I try to be aware of it.

Anyway, just a reminder to self, and to those who may be interested, that the opposites are always worth the pursuit:

• Identifying a new hope and building the structure to support it (INTJs are usually closet idealists—and this is a phenomenal complement to our structural gifts)
• Brainstorming new, positive, transcendent solutions to difficult problems
• Starting new projects that create a win-win situation for the parties involved
• Thinking inclusively, reaching out to others, and building on their strengths
• Looking beyond the limits of the critical voice to find an even better communications approach

This kind of work usually requires inventing models and systems that never existed before. But that’s what INTJs and other intuitive-minded folks are really good at. We can grapple with a thing that can’t be seen, heard, felt, tasted, and has no smell to speak of. We can take an idea and help turn it into a really awesome reality.

I hope we can all do, or keep doing, more of that.

Anyway—I don’t mean this post in a harsh way, just tossing some seeds into the winds and hoping more of it takes root. Take care everybody —Marc

Filed in: Sensation /40/ | People /74/ | Therapeutic Practice /148/ | Intuition /63/ | Relationships /78/