ENFP Personality Type Interview (with Kyle Friesen) | Podcast 0424

26 comments

• 

  • Liz
  • April 20, 2023 at 2:32 pm

  I am likely an ENFP – and I found this episode a bit challenging to listen to. Some of the stories had a lot of details that seemed to try to give context for the ‘how’ and ‘why’, explaining the self retroactively, but I got a bit lost in the details. The hosts did give a disclaimer that there was a lot of reference to a more advanced knowledge of the MBTI, so I probably should’ve prepared myself for that. But telling a story – and then having a throwaway comment ‘oh but really that was just my introverted feeling interacting with the extroverted thinking etc.’ and then to move to a different part of the story, was hard to follow. It felt like the speaker needed to explain exactly the context and external conditions that gave context for the emotional experience, but it seemed like over explaining in order to not feel misunderstood.

  I did really enjoy the part on showing how him and his wife brainstorm together – and him finding value in getting out in the garden and actually showing what it would look like. And how he was able to appreciate his wife’s perspectives, rather than getting discouraged by thinking she was shutting him down – when really they just needed to communicate in different ways to each other.

  Anyway, the structure was more free form than the ‘Advice for ENFPs’ episode, and in my opinion the lack of structure made it so that the insights were delivered less powerfully.

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  • Lisette
  • June 1, 2022 at 1:12 pm

  Yes, that’s so true! Do you also have the feeling that your long term memory is stronger than your short term memory? I mean, sometimes I can recall scenes from my childhood better then what I was doing last week for instance. It is like it takes some time to process all my experiences and they disappear for a while, but once the process is done it will stay hidden somewhere forever until reactivated, and the bits that come back do so with even more colour of feelings and thoughts associated with them than they do for most other people. Which is probably the influence of Ne and Fi in the processing.

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  • Lisette Woltjer
  • May 5, 2022 at 8:25 am

  I resonated so, so much with this. At some points my mind was literally going in the same direction – and usually people do not follow the jumps my mind makes at all, so this was really refreshing and also comforting in a way, thank you guys for making this podcast!

  The things that struck me most were the paint bucket metaphor and how it relates to the question of “do you care?”, that’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. Even though I’ve known theoretically that it would point me in the right direction for several years now, but it never really did. I feel like it’s just starting to sink in and the way you talked about it Kyle, the question of where am I irreplaceable, I think that was spot on, such a crucial point.

  When I started listening to your podcast back in 2015 I had just discovered type and tested as an ENFP. Around the same time I was reading a lot of self-help books. I particularly liked Mark Manson’s theories in the subtle art of not giving a f*ck. Long story short: the key is to carefully choose what to care about (and specifically, to choose the problems you like to solve). And I think that for ENFP’s the way to do that is by using that paint bucket method: try, feel, adjust, repeat. Like a dance between Exploration and Authenticity: Changing the point of view, stretching the boundaries, but not for the sake of productivity – keep checking in with what feels right and follow the trail to see why it does. Because, in my experience, just asking yourself why you care doesn’t always work: for one, there is too many reasons you can think of and then you just give Ne too much power to find a way to sell you on it (don’t buy your own bullshit, right?). But also because, honestly, half the time I don’t even know why I care or why something feels right, but when I just go with the flow for a while it usually turns out better than when I try to control everything or try to make a sensible decision. That all comes back to that highway ramp too: I had the exact same throwback to that episode where Joel gets to decide where he wants to go and then chooses the opposite of what he wants, because he thinks that is what will make everybody else happy*. You only know what’s right once you’ve actually made a move. It all falls into place.

  *side-track: We think we can feel for everybody else and so we take their point of view into account, without realising that we don’t know what other people want. So we think we’ve made the right decision, because we care about other people’s experiences as much as our own, but then we forget to check not only our own needs, but theirs as well, because we have just imagined them, instead of actually asking them. And for me, I think it’s also the feeling of that I should know what they want, so I should not have to ask them and I’m kind of projecting that out, so I don’t dare to ask, because I’m afraid I would offend them somehow, by showing that I don’t know, without realising that I actually cannot even know, you know?

  PS. I also have this journal blockage, I cannot sit myself down and do it. What works for me though is having a really small pocket notebook I carry around with me everywhere so that when inspiration hits me I can write it down in the moment. When I think of it, this is something I’ve been doing my entire life, but mostly in the form of drawing and designing. Also this is where Si shows up for me as well: I always carry way too much stuff with me, just so that I don’t have to think about what I will actually need, because most of the time I don’t know in advance. So because I know that I am bad at predicting and preparing for specific events, I just make sure that I’m prepared for everything at all times, just in case. With the added bonus that I can usually help out other people a lot haha.

  PPS. For me, anger is so much more internal than external: if I appear angry or upset, it’s usually because I’m angry at myself. Also that body relationship is so recognisable! The part of oh I have hips, I can actually move them haha, but also that moving through feeling, that’s so true. If I don’t feel it emotionally, I probably can’t move it physically. Only in the flow, without thinking getting in the way.

  Lots of love,
  Lisette

  (PPPS. Little disclaimer: I wrote this entire reaction 2 months ago directly after listening to the podcast and then I forgot to send it, just listened to the reflection episode and blasted it on here straight after. So excuse me for not reacting to any of the other comments in the text above, didn’t have time to read any of them yet, but I will probably forget about it again if I don’t drop my comment).

• 

  • Julia
  • March 20, 2022 at 1:35 am

  Hi Kyle,

  I really enjoyed your interview and learned a lot listening to it. Thank you for being so open about your journey.

  I am hoping to tap into some of your insight regarding Fi that you have learned working on it as your co-pilot and the great connections/possibilities your Ne seems to come up with so abundantly. I also hope you all don’t mind me hijacking the ENFP discussion group a bit to ask an ISTP question but it given what you mentioned about your wife being an ISTP, I thought there was a chance you would have some good insight in that direction and perhaps understand the angle I was coming from with the question better than most.

  What I am hoping you might be able to share are some tips for developing (or at least living with) Fi for someone (me as an ISTP) that has Fi down at the bottom of their cognitive stack (8th function). And Antonia and Joel I am also eagerly awaiting you all going further down the path of developing/working with shadow functions in future podcasts like you were hinting at a few months back.

  I do get and for the most part agree with the idea that the top 4 functions and especially your copilot are the highest leverage for growth but am having trouble with just accepting that I am going to have to shrug my shoulders and accept that 7 & 8 are just going to be blind spots that the best I can do is to know they are there and come to peace with them. There might be some cognitive functions that works for, but Fi seems like one that everyone is going to have to figure out regardless of its place in our stack as we can’t just ditch/ignore emotions as much as I would like to be able to…nor wait until we are 80 to figure out.

  So anyway that is a long winded explanation looking developing Fi tips for someone really bad at Fi and a not so subtle request for a what to do if you have trauma lurking in your shadow functions (or trauma there that you know you are going to need to use your shadow functions to be able to fix) podcast someday.

  Thanks,

  Julia

• 

  • Kyle Friesen
  • March 13, 2022 at 2:17 pm

  Oh, man – so true! It’s one of those parts of myself that I’m so insecure about, but it’s encouraging when I connect with others who experience “losing their Si vault keys,” too! (And it’s nice that the memories are still hiding there somewhere, just waiting for the right pattern to emerge.)