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In this episode, Joel and Antonia talk with Profiler Training alumni, Gary Williams about his lived experience as an INFJ personality type.
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Click Here to Download the INFJ Handy Guide
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In this podcast you’ll find:
- Guest Host Gary, INFJ, joins.
- Download our INFJ Personality Type Handy Guide to learn about the INFJ functions.
- How did Gary discover his personality type?
- Why does Gary choose to use his Copilot Harmony (Extraverted Feeling) to show up with an energy that seems more extraverted than introverted?
- Is it important for Gary to have time alone?
- What advice would Gary give to an Introvert getting into their extraverted Copilot?
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How does Gary use Perspectives (Introverted Intuition) to make sure that he will have enough energy in social settings?
- What important purpose does Gary’s Sensation (Extraverted Sensing) 3 Year Old serve?
- Gary shares some important considerations in how he has designed his life.
- Why has Gary overidentified with his Accuracy 10 Year Old function (Introverted Thinking)in the past to the extent that he mistyped himself twice?
- How is it for Gary to be a man who has a preference for Harmony (Extraverted Feeling)?
- How does Gary use Accuracy (Introverted Thinking) and Harmony (Extraverted Feeling) to help others get to the truth?
- Can an INFJ feel like they are more harsh than they actually are?
- What is Gary’s relationship to his Sensation (Extraverted Sensing 3 Year Old )?
- Which INFJ stereotypes does Gary identify with and which does he not identify with?
- What advice would Gary give to his younger self?
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28 comments
People question that I am an INFJ, but I identify with all of what Gary was describing and it confirms my type for me. I think the thing is that when you combine enneagram type with MBTI INFJ’s especially will look different from each other. I’m an enneagram sp/sx 641. I seem very different from an acquaintance that is an INFJ sx/sp 478. People forget that MBTI is your hardware and the way make decisions and enneagram type is your software and the motivation the influences your decision.
My two cents on the INFJ experience.
I’m convinced Si and Ni work essentially the same way. They both concern themselves with the story of time.
Si is past time, Ni is universal time.
Much in the way an ISFJ first and foremost goes through their day comparing their experience against their Si scrapbook of past precedent, an INFJ goes through their day comparing their experience against their Ni scrapbook of universal (eternal) ideas.
This is how I would describe what its like being in an INFJ mind. The “aha” moments that people describe are just what happens when you are flipping through the mental scrapbook and see the essence of something match a universal idea you’ve previously identified.
This is why many NJs think in terms of archetypes (Jung), perfect forms (Plato), universal grand theories (Newton, Hawking), and finite repeating periods of time (Marcus Aurelius)
The only difference between Si and Ni is Si is temporal and therefore, unique to a particular moment in time.
Ni is always true, past present or future.
The reason Ni users have the reputation of “predicting the future” is because, once you have logged enough hours in with Ni, you realize time does have a pattern that flows through all things, in both the individual and society (Clare Graves and Strauss-Howe, for example, stumbled on this through their years of research).
The major world religions are a philosophy built on Ni universal time, which is why faith and trust in the timing of things is a key principle in many of them.
One of the reasons INFJs (and ISFJs for that matter) can become recluses is the moment now never matches past time or universal time, it never can and never will, because objective reality is an emergent phenomenon.
so the only place you can attempt to make reality fit that Si or Ni picture is in the confines of your home or your mind. The key to being happy as an INFJ (and an ISFJ for that matter) is finding joy in the beauty and novelty of each unfolding moment, and letting go of the fear of it being unfamiliar or imperfect.
Also, my #1 INFJ pet peeve and why INFJs IMO get depressed and scared to share their opinions : people denying and “destroying” the existence of universal patterns with never ending examples of things that don’t fit the pattern, and going on a trope about chaos and how nothing can be known. INFJ views get constantly discredited.
For example, people who deny the existence of MBTI 16 types because there are more than just 16 kinds of people.
But, many systems with infinite possibilities are rooted in finite principles or pieces. The periodic table, for example—a limited number of elements creates an infinite number of molecules. A limited number of notes creates infinite number of songs. A limited number of letters creates infinite number of words etc
There’s room to accept both, both perfect order and chaos.
I loved Gary’s description of how it really feels to be a INFJ. As a married mother of 2, in my fourties, my life is very different. My life decisions have also been very different and in my twenties I identified more as INFP. I was surprised when a personality test I did at 35 said I was INFJ. Hearing Gary speak I recognise so many of the same thought processes that underline my decisions. The need to plan and organise ahead of time can be both rewarding and exhausting for me. Also the balance between Fe and Ti is exactly like Gary explained for me. The Ti can sometimes sound so loud inside my own head and the Fe has to be turned on. Sometimes it feels like the Ti is the real me and the Fe is a little fake. I also often think I’ve been rude and said something out loud but it’s stayed in my head. I consider everything I say very carefully so not to hurt others feelings. This podcast has been very helpful for clarifying how I really feel and given me the language to explain it better. Thank you.