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In this episode, Joel and Antonia talk about developing intuition as an INFP, INTP, ENFJ, or ENTJ.
In this podcast you’ll find:
- Car Model article
- Car Model Podcast
- Why We Resist Developing The Co-Pilot In Our Personality
- We gravitate toward our driver and marginalize our copilot
- If we are introverts, our copilot is extraverted
- If we are extraverts, our copilot is introverted
- INPs copilot is Extraverted Intuition (Ne) – “Exploration”
- ENJs copilot is Introverted Intuition (Ni) – “Perspectives”
- Intuition is a perceiving process, which means you use this function to take in info
- What could be happening behind the curtain?
- What is the pattern of the things I am observing?
- Ni vs. Ne podcast
- These types lead with a judging function, so they are going to have a proclivity to be more decisive or understand how they feel or think about things
- Perceiving processes force us to open up our perception and take in more info
- INPs and ENJs should use their intuitive processes to round out the decision-making functions they lead with
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INTP & INFP
- INPs struggle with their copilot because it forces them to take in more territory.
- If you are leading with Introverted Feeling (INFP), it can take a long time to determine the right decision.
- It relates to identity
- For INTPs, it also takes a long time to determine the good data vs. the bad data, because the bad data may be related to info that we absorbed from childhood.
- INPs can use Extraverted Intuition (Ne) when they are having to problem solve.
- The real gifts of Ne come from exploring.
- Getting outside your comfort zone.
- Always looking for the new experience.
- This type of exploration takes a metric ton of energy and can seem intimidating to the INP.
- INPs know how they think or feel about things, but they have to generate a lot of energy to use Exploration.
- Exploration burns the most resource.
- It takes awhile to get into it, but once you are using it you consume energy because you are breaking new ground.
- Ne is not a rational function.
- Sometimes it doesn’t make sense.
- And it has lots of false starts.
- Exploration does not allow you to manage your image as much as you may want.
- The things you do may look unstable to others.
- Your credibility may even take a hit or two.
- Extraverted Intuition is probably the most optimistic function of all eight cognitive functions.
- Joie de vivre
- You will burn out the self-consciousness and discover extraordinary freedom.
- INTX Unleashed – INTP gained “Bouncy” energy.
- INTPs who crave connection can find it through their Copilot.
- Online research can give you a tiny hit of Ne, but it is only a snack – not a meal.
- Online research allows you censor the info that comes in, but if you are in a real situation with info coming in that you can’t deny it is much harder to ignore the data.
- Resonance vs calibration
- Because INPs lead with a judging function, they tend to pre-calibrate the info they absorb.
- Extraverted Intuition post calibrates though.
- INPs need to speed up to keep pace with Ne.
- Turn off the calibration and act rapidly.
- Real-time adjustment & absorption of data.
- This will require immense amounts of energy, but it prevents you from pre-calibrating and keeps you open to new data.
- Post-calibration can happen in tertiary – Introverted Sensing (Si) “Memory”
- When you are doing online research, you are collecting data in your Si process and doing enough post-processing with the info to involve Intuition more passively.
- This is the opposite frame you want to come from because it uses Memory as the data gathering mechanism and lets Exploration help out.
- Lead with Exploration and get real-world experiences, then use Memory as a tool to support Ne.
- Ne is an extraverted process, so you have to get out in the real world.
- What is uncomfortable to one INP may be easy for another.
- Every INP is going to be different.
- They need to head towards discomfort.
- Discomfort should be your guiding light.
- Then the discomfort becomes comfortable.
- Being out of your comfort zone becomes your new comfort zone.
- Throw yourself in and post calibrate.
- Sometimes you may overdo it. Other times you may under do it.
- Calibrate after – always.
- Image management is your enemy as you develop your Copilot.
- Is the life you built providing you the opportunity to grow?
- You may need to go somewhere else to exercise your Intuitive Copilot.
- One of the things you need when practicing Exploration is Joy. It is a big piece for providing the stamina you need to exercise Ne.
- Exercise:
- Set an alarm for one minute.
- Lay down in bed like you are going to sleep.
- When the one minute alarm sounds, jump out of bed with enthusiasm and put a big beaming smile on your face.
- Throw your shoulders back. Open your arms and take a big prayer of gratitude out to the universe (or your divinity of choice).
- Repeat this exercise again and again (7-10x), until you create the muscle memory that ritualizes how you get out of bed every morning.
- This will help you generate energy to make getting into your copilot easier.
- Work on strategies to ritualize your morning routine: drink a glass of water, journal, meditate, exercise, etc.
- The ritual will set you on the right trajectory for the day
- This exercise will calm down your 10 yr old Memory process and open you to opportunities for using your Exploration process.
- Take a different route to work
- Eat a different kind of food
- Pick a new part of your city or country and get lost
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ENJs – ENTJ & ENFJ
- Copilot is Introverted Intuition (Ni) – “Perspectives”
- Perspectives has spent so much time watching its mind form patterns that it sees the patterns in its own mind and the patterns in other people’s minds.
- We call it Perspectives because it is excellent for understanding other people’s perspective.
- ENJs rely on this for problem-solving, but not as much as they should.
- Ni encroaches on ENJs by forcing them to slow down.
- This can be uncomfortable for action-oriented ENJs.
- ENJs love to impose order on a chaotic world. Ni is very free and chaotic. We cannot impose order on the inner world of Ni.
- ENJs love to close loops.
- Ni gets in the way of closing loops because it injects a massive amount of data which complicates things.
- Introverted Intuition helps the ENJ to close better loops.
- Otherwise, how do you know you are closing loops in the right way?
- ENJs driver function looks for weaknesses in systems – organic and inorganic.
- Stress points
- Needs going unmet
- Ni forces the ENJ to go inside their mind and determine stress points and unmet needs within the ENJ.
- Sit with yourself and look at how your mind is set up.
- Extraverted Thinking (ENTJ Driver) – once it makes a decision it creates a neurological superhighway. Set it and forget it.
- Ni adds long game data.
- Extraverted Feeling (ENFJ Driver) believes their agenda is the best agenda. If they question themselves, they may find that they don’t have everyone’s best interest at heart.
- If you have ideas that are deemed dangerous, Perspectives does its own censoring.
- Our minds may want to go to places we have blocked out.
- The conclusions that your mind may reach when you explore the scary bits may turn your life upside down.
- ENJs will have more energy than INPs.
- ENJs are good at getting things done and getting into action.
- ENJs may struggle with monkey mind in an attempt to get everything accomplished.
- Harness that energy. Keep it centered instead of dispersed.
- Exercising Introverted Intuition requires you to sit still, get quiet, and go inside your mind.
- Perspectives gives the ENJ the ability to see the eventuality, or long term results, for the things they are doing.
- Longer timelines.
- Ask questions like “To what end?”
- Broaden categories you apply to people.
- Some of the ENJs perspectiving may be serving their own agendas or end games.
- You may have specific definitions of what an A player is.
- Or what makes up a healthy man or woman.
- You may have narrow definitions you have culled from jumping into other people’s perspective for a short time then coming back to your mind with assumptions based on limited data.
- When you can the thoughts in and see others in 3D, you will improve your compassion and skill level for talent scouting.
- Exercise:
- Take an hour a day and choose a quote you can explore profoundly, like Carl Sagan’s, “We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
- Go to a quiet place. Maybe even dark. Close your eyes, reduce sensory input.
- Ruminate on that quote for an hour.
- When your to-do list pops up, bring your mind back to the quote.
- After an hour, take out a piece of paper and write down some of the insights you had.
- This exercise will start training your mind to develop that Ni process.
- Wander the garden of your mind.
- Let go of self-censorship.
- Stop yourself from censoring your mind and let it go where it wants to go.
- It will likely be uncomfortable.
- You may have outsourced a part of your life to others.
- You may not be in control like you think you are.
- Once you can explore the parts of your mind you keep hidden you take real control of your life.
- Stop making big leaps/assumptions with limited info.
- ENJs tertiary Extraverted Sensing (Se) needs to be a servant to Introverted Intuition (Ni).
- If you make Ni a servant to Se, you will shorten the timelines of your speculations.
- Exercising Ni on a daily basis will make it more available to you throughout the day, so your observations are more profound.
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INTP & INFP:
- Copilot Ne
- Generate lots of energy
- Speed up
- Seek out Freedom of experience
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ENTJ & ENFJ
- Copilot Ni
- Slow down
- Harness energy
- Sit with it.
- Wander the garden of your mind and sit with uncomfortable thoughts
- INPs might like what ENJs have to do and vice versa
- But it won’t be developing their Copilot
- Developing the Copilot in the right way changes your life – and it may be painful to make the changes that are necessary.
- The way out is through
- When you get to the other side, the changes you make are more authentically you.
- The fruit at the end of all of this is well worth it.
- The application of these principles is unique and individualized.
- How are you using some of these principles to move the needle in your life?
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Podcast - Episode 0226 - Why We Resist Developing The Co-Pilot In Our Personality
Podcast - Episode 0228 - Developing Sensing As A Co-Pilot (ISxP & ESxJ Types)
39 comments
I’m a 23 year old ENTJ male, and I’ve found that developing Ni is huge for my day to day life. When I neglect it, I end up in a rut of doing the same types of things, but feeling disconnected as to why I’m striving so hard toward them. As you’ve said, the best way to the 4th function is through the 2nd, so when I neglect my Ni, I ignore my Fi, which is why a failure to engage in Ni leaves me feeling disconnected from myself, my values, and the passion that got me steamrolling (Te) in my particular direction anyway. On the other hand, when I focus on Ni, I feel like my actions and lists and plans matter; they aren’t mere continued existence; I’m playing the big game, as you like to put it. I’m striving for something that matters. If I don’t take the time to connect the dots (Ni) between what I’m doing (Te) and what I want (Fi), then I often begin to feel that I’m working toward something only potential, only future, only at the end of the goal.
As far as developing it, having times of quiet, stillness, and allowing my mind to think are absolutely key. Especially as a Christian, this means I absolutely need to take time to commune with God through prayer and reading of Scripture. In fact, I’ve often told other Christians that I feel like I need this more than they do — like I forget my purpose and what the whole point of this crazy world is if I don’t spend ample amounts of time with him. I think finding our meaning in connection with God is imperative for everyone — I think it’s a universal thing — but I don’t think that the silence and meditation bit are AS crucial to everyone.
Some other things: I’ve often found that music can help my mind. I like to lie on my bed with headphones and listen to music, and just let my mind wander with the music. I don’t know how to explain it, but it sometimes feels like I’m allowing the music to push my inner eye around to imagine entirely new things.
Also, reading is huge. ENTJs don’t often don’t have the same ability to self-generate new ideas. We do our best thinking when interacting with other people’s thoughts. So I found it helpful that you recommended meditating on a quote. But I’d expand on that: take a good book that’s on the more philosophical/theological/abstract side, and read it slowly, and just read until you feel that “aha” moment in your mind. And then put the bloody book down and THINK. There is a world of a difference between Te and Ni reading; Te reading just wants to finish the book and figure out “what was the argument.” Ni reading uses the book as a launching pad to whole new thoughts. Obviously, the two can go together. But don’t fool yourself into thinking that you’re developing your Ni just because you’re reading. I did that for a long time; I was reading ten chapters from the Bible each day and jotting down super quick thoughts and observations on them. I’m trying to scale back, read less, but meditate more.
Hopefully this helps!
Hi,
I am an INTP and I have to say that I was super excited for this podcast to come out because I have been looking for guidance and tips on how to develop my co-pilot. I loved the podcast, and then you got to the practical suggestion. When you said it, I literally cringed. A few moments later I laughed out loud because I realized that my reaction means that doing that exercise is going to be really good for me, even though, I am embarrassed to say, it sounds really hard.
And you are definitely right about being more comfortable with the suggestion for ENxJ. I already do something like that everyday, and it is one of my favorite activities.
Thanks Joel and Antonia! I love what I’m learning through Perosnality Hacker.
As a 41 yr old ENFJ I’ve been trying to develop my IN function over the past year. I’ve really found the advice to ‘slow down’ and allow myself to think particularly helpful when parenting my children. I often find helping them with their conflict with one another confusing and overwhelming. I just want to make a quick decision to make it better! I’ve been giving myself permission to delay making decisions and to go away and think about how to address the situation. I’ll say to the kids ‘go and sit in your rooms while I go and think about this’. When I allow myself this space it has helped me gain better perspective. Firstly it helps me gather my emotions. I can become calm and more level headed. Secondly, I often realise that I need to gather more information from the kids before I take action. So the process is often longer (as you said, it is slow!) but I am much more confident that I making better decisions and parenting them in a more compassionate and fair way.
I also tried your advice to use my sensation function while I do the deep diving. I find going for a walk or having a bath calms down my need for sensation seeking and allows me to wander te garden of my mind.
Thanks!
Joel and Antonia: You always use online research as an example of exploration that doesn’t count. Would you say that also applies to all forms of study, where you are alone with your books? What about writing? I just wonder how an INFP who wants to hone the craft of writing will find time to do so if they need to be out interacting with people and new situations on a regular basis?
I am an INFP working as a hospital chaplain. My job regularly exercises my extroverted intuition as I interact with others in a broad variety of environments and situations. I soak up a lot of input as I gather details and form big picture impressions. It can be overwhelming and draining, but I find that the emotional content of my work really feeds my core of introverted feeling once I am able to process my experiences.
I also use the other functions to set and execute plans in order to fulfill institutional expectations. This often puts me on well worn paths that can be both comforting and limiting at the same time.