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In this episode Joel and Antonia dive deep into the needs and challenges of the INTP personality type.
In this podcast on the INTP personality type you’ll find:
INTP – Accuracy/Exploration in Genius system
INTPs have a crucial role that they play in our society. That task may seem a little thankless, which helps us understand some of the challenges they face.
Deep down inside, INTPs care more than they let on.
The Driver for INTP is Introverted Thinking (Ti), which we have nicknamed “Accuracy.”
What makes analytical sense? Decision-making process.
Driver = Flow State = the most rewarding thing you can do.
Ti works the best when it is without social obligation.
The opposite of Ti is Fe “Harmony.” Fe is about connecting and social interaction.
INTPs in the survey revealed their greatest challenge was in connecting with other people.
Copilot – Ne “Exploration” – is pattern recognition. Interaction with the environment without being attached to any outcome. A zoomed out process that allows you to explore your terrain.
Podcast Introverted Intuition vs Extraverted Intuition
When Ti and Ne are combined it is a fascinating combo of zooming in (Ti – surgical approach to data) and zoomed out (Ne – an overall view of patterns).
Together, these cognitive functions create radically new ideas.
Creating patterns and frameworks and architecting new maps and models requires them to be a bit destructive – like Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.
Ti works the best when removed from the social bias component.
Emotional connection influences info.
INTPs often show up saying things that other people don’t want to hear, which is their gift to the world.
They are the great destroyer of outdated paradigms or untruths.
INTPs will always look for the strictest vetting process in their chosen field.
We are such social creatures we don’t appreciate it when people call us on our BS/Belief Systems.
We make extraordinary technical strides when we overturn the social norm.
INTPs break things down to their fundamental nature and depersonalize them.
Sometimes frameworks only get so far, and they get stuck because they run out of new frameworks for ideas.
The copilot process for INTPs is Extraverted Intuition, which we have nicknamed “Exploration.”
Exploration gives INTPs access to bigger frameworks and increases their territory, so they have more structures to hang fresh data on.
It is imperative for INTPs to grow their Exploration process.
The alternative is to stick with what you already know. If you don’t take in more territory, your framework may be radically off because you are missing a vital piece of info that’s just outside your existing territory.
Exploration allows INTPs to go out and experience things. Travel is essential to INTPs.
Going outside their comfort zone is imperative. All growth happens outside the comfort zone.
Sometimes we graft our identity to old pieces of info and INTPs overturn the things with which we identify.
But the INTP must first go through the uncomfortable terrain of change and challenge before they can do it for others.
INTPs need to be students of experience, life, and interaction.
The Survey revealed the INTPs struggle with a lack of motivation.
The INTPs that have the greatest motivation have decided they are going to bring their gifts to the world.
The more somebody rests on their laurels and holds back the more they feel a lack of inspiration and motivation.
The 10-year-old process is Introverted Sensing, which we have nicknamed “Memory.”.
Memory often means doing the thing that is known and comfortable. Finding a familiar context and staying there perpetually.
Frameworks don’t expand with Si. So, INTPs double down on Ti and continue to clean slice concepts and data until things become absurd. Without the input from Ne, they keep dividing until there’s nothing left.
Emotion is the seat of motivation, which is an INTPs blind spot. If INTPs double down on their thinking process, they avoid the emotions that will get them motivated.
Emotion is about finding the meaning behind things.
Exploration helps expand frameworks of mind and increase the narratives with which INTPs work.
Why does the data matter?
Ne gives meaning to the data. Without meaning, there is no motivation.
To see the narratives of our lives we need to zoom out.
Get outside yourself and explore beyond your comfort zone.
INTPs can have belief systems.
INTPs love absurd humor. Monty Python. Sketch comedy.
Even falling in love is nothing but a narrative.
INTPS who do the best are the ones who connect with other people through contribution.
INTPs can appear cynical because society doesn’t always honor their gift of radical honesty.
The natural state of an INTP is to be childlike and approach life with wonder and curiosity. Then they get the message that they are unacceptable which leads to cynicism.
Nobody can sustain a feeling of brokenness indefinitely. They either become depressed or resentful.
“You are not broken.”
“You are okay.”
We are seeing more and more media acknowledging the role of geeks and people who influence our technological world.
We see their contribution, but they are harder to reconcile in our day to day life.
We love truth. It reverberates through our spinal cord.
Society is getting ready for entering into a space of radical honesty, but it still means pushing people outside their comfort zones.
Modern technology is forcing us into a state of transparency; most technology is invented by INTPs.
The more INTPs show up as doing their job of being radically honest, the more we will head toward transparency as a society.
In the past, honesty brought death.
We can’t have real harmony without radical honesty, and we can’t have radical honesty without the need to connect with others.
The 3-year-old process is Extraverted Feeling (Fe), which we have nicknamed “Harmony.”
Healthy INTPs can become almost worshiped. They show up with so much credibility. They haven’t rejected Fe, they made it part of their aspiration and decided to use it to make others happy. Their intent is positive.
Podcast How To Love Yourself
Agape – Principled love. We are all in this together.
INTP men/women at the top of their game have many admirers.
Sometimes by solving problems for themselves, an INTP can find a way to solve for a larger demographic.
Female INTPs feel isolated because most women are Fe dominant, and men are usually looking for women to behave a certain way.
Spend more time in your copilot and understand why you struggle to fit in. Then go and find the context that will appreciate you for your gifts.
INTP women are polarizing. Birds of paradise. Not everyone’s going to love you, but some will and they are looking for you.
Pay for the privilege of finding your tribe. Conventions, Seminars, Cons, etc.
Online communities. Reddit.
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98 comments
As an INTP female I have no problem talking to people when the approach me but I find it difficult when I have to approach them. I understand and can engage with them easily but I struggle to connect with them. Also I feel extremely drained when talking to people because no one ever listens to me. I also love psychology, I want to learn the cognitive functions and use this to help kids understand themselves and parents understand their kids. I believe if people understand themselves and how they think then it brings them one step closer to reaching their full potential without much of the struggle.
Erin,
I feel that I am going through similar situation with my mother at this time. She has, over the past 5 years, been systematically sabotaging her own health and mental state to the point where she was completely dependent on others to survive. In doing so she has forced me, and all of those who care about her, to essentially abandon any prospect of a life independent of her influence. But that feeling cannot be sustained indefinitely and after literally a lifetime of abuse and neglect by her and others, I finally broke down and allowed myself to feel all the trauma and insecurities I’ve suppressed since I was a child. I think that act of emotional release is what gave her motivation to address her own trauma, but I would not say that I am ready to forgive her for what she has done to me. So I wouldn’t recommend following anyone’s advice on how to approach your parent.
As for advice,
I have been getting weekly, medically based, therapeutic massages for myself and it is quite literally the best thing I have ever done. I think the process of developing a channel of communication with a stranger who wants to help you based on your needs is essential to building trust in ourselves and others. Also, for me the process of massage is like a guided meditation. Bringing total awareness of my body: how it responds to motion and touch, how constricted my breathing normally is, and little time I spend completely in it. That combined with taking long walks in nature by myself has allowed me to isolate all the negative influences around me (including and especially my own mind!) and feel connected to something so much larger than myself. I finally have moments where I feel connected to life and feel joy in the uncertainty of it all. The universe now feels so much more complex and beautiful than I had ever previously imagined and I hope you get to experience this as well.
If you’d like more material. The article at this site is what crystallized things for me.
https://www.massagetherapy.com/articles/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder
As an aside, this is the first internet post I’ve made in 27 years on this planet! So hooray for progress. :)
INTP female with ESFJ mom here. There is emotional history with our mothers that is probably best left unpacked with a neutral third party present, not alone. My mom and I ended up going to therapy since we tended to resort to habitual defensive reactions. If counseling is not an option, even for you alone, limit the frequency of interactions with her and learn to restrict conversations to topics where your personalities will not clash. My mother and I connect on subjects we both care about.
We need relationships where we are loved and respected. It’s wonderful when our mothers are among them, but sometimes, for reasons outside our control, that cannot be the case.
Given their context and personality, everyone’s behavior makes sense, including your mom’s. This also means that you make sense and the people who say otherwise, who claim you’re broken, do not have the curiosity or taken the time to understand your context and your personality. Find the people who want to. Long distance relationships are not quite as effective in resolving your fears and satisfying your needs as friends in close proximity, but years ago I found some solace in the INTP forum on facebook. You might find it in similar forums, too, if offline venues are out of reach.
My INTP female experience is wildly different because I was Fe-trained by an ESFJ mother and an ENFJ sister with a heavy Fe Latin, Catholic culture. I learned tact pretty darn early. Fe friendships also resulted in understanding that we’re all fundamentally similar. Yes, I am the Shiva of the personality types, but I do not come across as one because I genuinely appreciate people’s thoughts and feelings, coming to them with that childlike sense of wonder mentioned in the pod. At its core, it’s just a cheerful Ne approach with a quietly kind Fe manner, but it takes a long time to develop without the right influencers or motivation. By the way, do not believe all INTP ladies want admirers lining up to be with them. This inveterate introvert would certainly rather have a lined up set of books!
Hi! I’m a fellow INTP that struggles (at times, and at this time) immensely with Self-Discipline and/or Motivation, or the lack thereof.
Can somebody who has already found a solution to the issue push me into the right direction? I feel like I’m at the end of my wits and stuck in Ti from all the thinking I did to pull me out of the slump.
Appreciated!