Podcast – Episode 0230 – Developing Thinking As A Co-Pilot (IxTJ & ExTP Types)
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In this episode, Joel and Antonia talk about developing thinking as an ISTJ, INTJ, ENTP, or ESTP.
In this podcast you’ll find:
- Car Model article
- Car Model Podcast
- Why We Resist Developing The Co-Pilot In Our Personality
- INTJs & ISTJs copilot is Extraverted Thinking (Te)
- ENTPs & ESTPs copilot is Introverted Thinking (Ti)
- Driver process is perceiving. Open framed. Learning. Gathering info.
- Copilot is for judging the info and getting into action.
- INTJ/ISTJ
- ISTJs Driver is Introverted Sensing “Memory”
- INTJs Driver is Introverted Intuition “Perspectives”
- Copilot for both types is Extraverted Thinking “Effectiveness”
- ITJs may use Te in a single-minded focused way.
- There may seem to be more ROI with such single-minded focus, but it doesn’t help you learn all the skills that come with Te.
- Gifts Te gives ITJs:
- Set up a streamlined system
- Project mgmt
- Leadership skills
- Delegations skills
- Resource mgmt,
- talent scouting,
- Challenges:
- IJs hate to feel vulnerable
- Te is designed to metricize things in the outside world
- pass/fail metrics
- Thinking = failure points
- Te = failure points in the outer world. Between systems that are running.
- “How hard can I push on this until it breaks?”
- This is helpful in the long run because it allows ITJs to find failure points in all systems, even relationships.
- Tweak the system until it runs beautifully without continuous effort
- Feedback mechanisms Te relies on is a big sticking point for ITJs
- When developing our copilot the challenge is to not use copilot in service of 10 yr old.
- 10 yr old is the same attitude as the driver.
- 10 yr old needs to serve the copilot. Not the other way around.
- ITJs 10 yr old is Introverted Feeling Fi
- Fi is very tied to the ego. To how things make you feel.
- Exposing self to feedback may bring feedback that the system failed.
- Failure is painful to Fi.
- ITJ builds worlds where they want to feel good all the time.
- The ideal is that the ITJ become Addicted to metricized feedback. Even the bad feedback.
- Take ideas the ITJ gets from their driver and make them in the outside world to move the needle and get things done, then allow the 10 yr old to tell you when something you are doing is right.
- It isn’t about you. It is about the thing you just built.
- It is easy to allow the 10 yr old to convince you of your failure before you even try because you think you can see how it will fail.
- Don’t allow authenticity to be a failure point before you get started
- Don’t Self-sabotage
- Your assumptions may not be accurate
- Use Fi to provide artistic flair to the things you construct in the outside world.
- ITJs can create synthetic self-esteem and never truly challenge themselves – which means there is self-doubt mixed in with the artificial self-esteem
- Better to build your self-esteem on actual, measurable, tangible results. Then it’s real.
- When you figure out the failure points through real-world action, you can see more sophisticated systems layered on, like people systems.
- You can scale the effectiveness process the more you exercise and master it.
- You can be the leader you want to be
- You can also become more responsive to the challenges of life
- Introverts tend to put things off until they feel ready and/or comfortable
- Effectiveness reminds you to tether yourself to timelines in the real world
- To master the self-leadership of Te, do these exercises:
- (These are extraverted exercises because it is an extraverted function)
- Identify one area of your life you want to improve, like dropping 10 pounds.
- Set a realistic metricized goal with mile markers. Like 1.5 lbs per week.
- Put it into action by getting all the necessary tools. (Jogging shoes, gym membership, calorie counting app, etc. Must be intuitive and easy to use.)
- Find somebody to keep you accountable (trainer, friend, social media post – whatever is the most uncomfortable option)
- Put mile markers in front of you with a chart or an announcement on social media
- Weigh yourself every day and record it – on social media if it will keep you accountable.
- External engagement is absolutely necessary!
- Do things based on the metrics you’re getting rather than on how you’re feeling.
- “I’ve committed to this external marker. I have to stick to it.”
- Don’t deviate to adjust your feelings. Only deviate if you need to adjust your metrics.
- Check in with your feelings after you have succeeded, or failed.
- Get all the metrics in and adjust accordingly.
- Introverted Thinking (Ti) Copilot – ENTP & ESTP
- Ti – Accuracy
- Internal metrics and failure points in your ways of thinking
- Ti needs to be able to call bullshit on their inaccurate thoughts.
- ETPs can tend to weaponize this against others
- The biggest challenge is finding the logical inconsistencies in themselves
- Cognitive dissonance can be painful but being able to recognize it keeps them from living lives of quiet desperation
- “Are the actions I am taking logical? Should I be taking them?”
- Consequences come with actions but behaving in congruence with personal integrity you won’t trap yourself in painful situations.
- Dishonoring your truth = pain and cognitive dissonance
- Acting in alignment with integrity = you make decisions that lead to your happiness
- Ti gives you focus and mastery
- Hyperfocused
- People of this type become the world’s greatest athletes because they are hyperfocused on mastery
- ETPs like connecting with other people and can be tempted to get into trolling behavior
- Putting out a precision idea to get people riled
- Can also be used to attack other people’s flawed thinking
- Get clear with yourself first then add compassion to your truths, so they are easier to accept
- We tend to have our copilot serve our 10-year-old function
- ETPs can be so desperate for connection they may make fun of other people, become people pleasers, or drama creators.
- Ti can do mental aikido by out-arguing everyone else.
- People welcome complete truths
- Partial truths aren’t helpful
- Partial truths are only true part of the time. So they are limited.
- The complete truth is that some things are contradictory
- Complete truths are restful to people
- Remove the partial truths and share the complete truth with kindness by using Extraverted Feeling.
- Lots of comedians use humor to share their truths.
- Exercises for Ti:
- This is an Introverted exercise
- Go into your mind and look for thoughts and beliefs you haven’t been scrutinizing carefully
- Could be religious, political, familial, or thoughts about yourself
- If I look at this thought critically will it survive an honest analysis?
- Ask relevant questions:
- How do I know this to be true?
- Where did I pick this info up?
- What would happen if I stopped believing it?
- What else would I have to look at critically if I let this one go?
- You may not have to change your belief, but you need to get good at surgically looking at these beliefs.
- Then ask why it makes sense to you to hold on to such a thought.
- Is it attached to your ego?
- Or do you think it will damage relationships?
- Write down the results.
- Regardless of how others feel, what is your truth?
- Abandoning someone else’s beliefs isn’t betrayal.
- Redesign your life to be more ergonomic to your type. Most of us have not done this.
- Mastering your copilot will make changes to your life.
- Expose your deficiencies to the outside world and see if you are on the right track.
- These aren’t small changes which is why we avoid addressing them, but the rewards are real.
- Build real competency through your copilot and the self-doubt will go away.
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Yup, as an ENTP, I came for the Ti, but what gave me chills was the description of Te, as a mom of a ENTJ son. His childhood was one long journey of watching and reacting to his tendency of ‘Constantly figuring out failure points (and doing so directly) with self, people, and things.’
That was quite an experience.
For me, I love using my Ne to discover and explore adopting Te routines, from Flylady to David Allen’s GTD.
Hey guys,
Nice podcast yet again. The thing I wanted to comment on was the part where you talked about the example about losing weight and I fully understand that you were using that example to illustrate what I should be doing as an INTJ or maybe an ISTJ to develop Te if I were to start the project of losing weight.
But my strategizing self noticed how the approach you mentioned was one of the approaches I tried but didn’t actually work in the long-run. As soon as that project ended I’d go back to old eating and living habits and I’d gain the weight right back.
So seeing how this was a chronic problem having to do with my lifestyle I had to make permanent changes to my lifestyle which was even more discouraging but this is where I did pay attention to the process and my feelings more than taking a projectwork approach.
But there was still a systematic approach to how I changed my life. I understood about myself that I hate working out and that I’d rather stay inside sitting all day while always eating only stuff that I really like as opposed to viewing food as nutrition that is turned into energy to keep my body operating.
So what I did was introduce work-out modules into my life little by little and then phasing out eating modules that were integrated into my eating habits.
The first work-out module was taking long walks, not only was that good cardio if the walks were long enough, I loved the process of walking and I loved the feeling afterwards -> because I had been productive that day.
I phased out the easiest of my bad eating habits and that was reducing my sugar-intake: no sodas, no extra sugar in tea, learning how to eat yoghurt plain, no milk or sugar in coffee etc. Of course not all at the same time, but as soon as I noticed that drinking water was going wel and I wasn’t craving sodas I’d move on to not putting sugar in my tea, if that went well I’d move on to the next. Even if I went back to drinking tea with sugar one time I’d sometimes not even like it or if I did like it I’d go: yeah this is a one time, let’s not put sugar into the tea next time. I’d be more accepting of my fall backs.
Next thing I introduced from my work-out module was doing simple ab workouts. I put a lot of conditions on this: I only work out on days I don’t work, I won’t push myself too hard if I don’t feel I can do it, tomorrow I’ll get another shot at it, and I won’t do this when I am menstruating. So this is the step I am at.
The next thing I am trying to change about my eating habits is trying to introduce slightly more protein and fruits because I tend to have easier access to carbonhydrates. So I eat apples more often, because that’s relatively easy or oranges. I like these fruits. The only reason I mind eating them is because my hands get sticky, but you know what I need to learn to stop being lazy and get up to wash my hands more often.
Getting more proteins by thinking ahead of time before cooking so thinking of taking out the meat like chicken or beef to let it thaw out or getting more meat-based stuff for on my sandwich during lunch at work.
So that’s how I have been losing fat (not weight, I’ll get to that in a second). Using the right metrics here is crucial. Usually when you just lose weight you lose a lot of liquid first but that’s not actual fat you’re losing which is ultimately your goal when you say weight loss for health purposes.
After that for me there was little progress in terms of losing weight. But after doing this for 6 months my clothes started to feel baggy and I actually wear clothes that are two sizes smaller than I used to wear. In terms of weight I haven’t changed a bit and that is because the amount of fat I lost is being replaced by muscle which is much heavier. So I am probably getting slimmer and smaller but my weight is exactly the same as 6 months ago. It is super frustrating if you weigh yourself every day.
But if you put the effort in with the realization that every little thing you invest into this is going to get you even better results down the road you’ll eventually notice change.
It’s really funny I weighed myself recently and got really bummed out that I’d be weighing the same as 6 months ago yet I am definitely wearing 2 sizes smaller than I used to. It’s like my body is going: I really like this weight, let’s keep it exactly as it is. Oh snap where’s all the fat going? Here let me add just enough muscle to maintain the same weight. Can’t have you lose too much! LOL.
Of course I realize that this is entirely because of my method and that I could be quicker but legitimately I cannot get any quicker if I do that next to my work and studies I start hyperventilating and developing anxiety and going back to burning myself out again. And realistically I think most people couldn’t maintain all this especially if they have a life next to all this.
And we have to take into consideration where everyone’s coming from. I was never athletic and early on in gym class I was always the slowest and the worst, so early on I was confronted at how bad I was at working out, of course I wouldn’t want to do it as an adult. That’s why I am still indulging my Fi where I am trying to be kind to myself in these terms: it’s fine, you’re bad at this, let’s learn this step by step.
Now I am finally at a stage where I can’t go without taking that long 8 km walk.
Hi Alexis and other folks out here, re “developing Te in relation to your family or friends”, you may want to try reading the books of Arbinger Institute: Leadership and Self-deception and Anatomy of Peace.
‘Course can be used to develop Ti too and other stuff. Sorry too quick on typing.
Hi again folks. Sorry for the late followup. I intend to follow this up but stuff busy and ordeals to do. First of all, thanks a whole lot to you folks of personalityhacker.com for making my life a blast! Been reading often times your articles and listening to your podcasts on INTJs. I’m an INTJ! Fraid I am out of context in posting, helping out Alexis here, I don’t know. I intend to help but perhaps it’s inappropriate, don’t know. Anyway, I felt that I need to clarify stuff here, if I may. I’ve experienced the GTD of David Allen. Just that, my decisions, behaviors, actions out of the system of Te would get resisted by others if my “way of being” isn’t right – the essence of the teachings of the books of Arbinger. Just said my unsolicited advice. Peace. And thanks a lot personalityhacker for a Super great job for helping me!!!
This was the single best PH podcast I have ever listened to (and I’ve listened to a lot of your podcasts). I loved the concreteness of it (conceptually speaking). Thank you for this!
Desi INTJ
Excellent podcast although I can’t help but skip over the sections that don’t directly pertain to my personality. I’m an ENTP. I wanted to speak to this idea of being willing to use your Introverted intuition to make changes in your life. I feel like I’ve become known as being inconsistent. I evaluate things and make radical changes frequently and it drives people crazy. I know that we must be true to what we believe but if we are constantly evaluating and changing, at what point do we stop?
INTP here. As a Ti dominant, the answer to your question is an unequivocal ‘never.’ Why set yourself up for short term or even lifelong harm? The difference between you and I is that I will evaluate before I jump. It doesn’t drive anyone crazy because the gear changes happen in my mind before I act. My weakness is not exploring/taking risks as often as you do and yours is to evaluate when it could potentially be too late. I need to speed up. You need to slow down. Now where can I get myself an ENTP around these parts? 🙂
Hi there,
I’m an INTJ, and PH has really helped me develop a system that works for me; I’ve stopped just thinking of ideas, and I’m actually accomplishing them.
The best advice I’ve gleaned from PH and experience are:
– Read Getting Things Done and other productivity books, but actually do something besides read productivity books. (If I listen to a podcast or read an article I like, I create a mini project with action items for myself to do).
– Create a place to keep ideas that pop into your mind. I use Evernote, and any time I get an idea (a gift for my husband, a random item to pack, a classroom idea) I leave myself a note to reference when the date arrives. Then when the event comes, I’ve had a year of ruminating and I feel prepared. I don’t need to rely on Sensation to think of a great gift off the cuff.
-If a task takes 2 minutes or less, just do it now.
– Set meet-ups with people regularly, about 2 times a week or more. Older people especially are a great resource, don’t let their expertise go to waste.
– Decision fatigue is a true problem for me by the end of the day. Make every decision the night before if possible (especially the boring monotonous ones). What to wear, what to eat, what time to leave. That leaves more energy for creative decisions.
– I hate doing chores and cleaning. But putting on a podcast while I do chores makes it much more bearable.
– Nothing sucks me into a loop faster than failing. When I do something and I fail, I suddenly start saying I’m a failure. It becomes about me and not about the project. The best way to get out is to bring metrics back into the equation. As soon as I bring numbers back in, then I’m out of the loop.
Those are some ways I’ve developed Te. It’s still a bit of a one-trick-pony for me (notice these are mostly introverted activities). But developing Effectiveness has certainly moved the needle.
I’m still struggling a little when it comes to family and friends. I haven’t gotten to the point where I can lead them or implement a system without them getting offended 50% of the time.
-Any suggestions for developing Te in relation to your family or friends?
May I comment on the food/weight/exercise example above? As an INTJ, I did successfully make an eating and exercise plan that got me to, and helped me maintain, a healthy weight. I was very pleased to hear that it turns out I used my Te Effectiveness to achieve this. As far as going overboard on binge eating and calorie counting, etc., would that not be letting your Se 3-year-old take over, and drive the car, not filtering it through your co-pilot of Effectiveness? I did have to watch that myself, and it turns out I used Effectiveness and caught myself sometimes going down an extreme road. Te helped me get back to a healthier path.
I would imagine that falling into that particular struggle would far more likely be a manifestation of 3 Year Old Se, not Co-Pilot Te.
-A-
Pretty good! Been waiting like a year to hear more of Antonia talking about developing Ti copilot so I admit I am sad it’s not like, 45 minutes of that. But I felt Joel had some incredibly good insights on Ti in this episode that were also very helpful so while this was short and sweet and I want more Entp development advice it was really well done.
Is it really as bad for every type as it is for Ti aux? I heard Antonia say “think about the thought and then think, is this going to hold up to scrutiny?” And I was like, fuck. I don’t even have to THINK about the idea? Yeah I don’t, she is right. I just have to CONSIDER is it GOING to hold up to scrutiny and I immediately know it won’t. It’s like my ideas have extracellular markers on them showing my brain they are terrible ideas but but … but!
All I gotta do is look for half a second and it’s like, great. There goes THAT relationship.
Ugh.
I think this is why really gorgeously crafted questions become more intriguing than answers for Ti.
-A-
p.s. Someone else commented that we spent more time on Te, which I didn’t realize until they said it. My apologies it was ‘short but sweet’.
Hi Antonia and Joel,
Big fan of the podcast and first time commenting on one of the episodes, so hi! I wanted to reach out to to the two of you on this episode in regard to how ExTPs can develop their auxiliary function. I am an ENTP woman who is pretty early in her career and about 6 years into learning about MBTI and type development.
As I feel like ENTP women often are prone to do earlier in their life than men of our type, I have spent a lot of time learning and reflecting on developing my Fe function, due to external/societal pressures and other factors. I have more than once found myself in one of those awful Ne-Fe loops and have never really looked to developing my auxiliary, Ti, as a solution until I heard this most recent podcast. I want to make sure my take-away as how to develop it best from what you said was interpreted on my end correctly:
The best way to develop Ti is to dwell on our opinions, values and beliefs and really suss out if we truly hold those thoughts independent of external ideologies/people/etc.in our life that may be altering them? A daunting task to take on but I think I understand how to do it, if that is correct.
I would love any suggestions as to possibly where best to start this practice in our daily lives. It seems difficult to suss out where to begin.
I truly sympathize. For me, I went back to beliefs I had never questioned and took for granted. Some I kept (they were honest for me), and others I grappled with and eventually replaced.
What is something you’ve truly never questioned? Identify one of those, and open Pandora’s Box.
Also – the book Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson (particularly the first half) was a very helpful for me.
Good luck. 🙂
-A-
I have LOVED this series on developing your co-pilot… all FOUR of the last episodes! I have listened, rapt and intent, at your descriptions of how to WORK ON these functions. It struck me though that this also describes some of the people in my network with a particular function as a DRIVER, but UNHEALTHY. Is that possible? It’s not a given that what you have as a driver is automatically HEALTHY, right?
Something about your descriptions of the cognitive functions in terms of development/improvement resonated with me in a way it hadn’t before… THANKS!
Hey!
I am bilingual and when I take the personality test in english iam a INFT-P and in spanish I am a ENFT-P. Does this mean I am 2 people? How do i work with the two results?
Hi guys,
Thank you for this podcast. As an INTJ it makes sense to me to break down a goal into achievable tasks and mark your success.
However, I feel let down by the fact that you use weight loss as a goal. I actually fell in the trap of “yeah, it would be nice to lose a few pounds and track my nutrients… for my health”. I ended up with binge eating disorder, totally obsessed with calories and exercise and losing my period. Whereas I do agree that health is a legitimate goal, weight (or body shape) is not the way to measure it. If I learnt something about this experience is that diets are not something I should mess around with. I now have more of a “taking care of myself” approach rather than a “punish and restrict”.
Why not recommend another goal like learning a language? Because we are so much more than just what we look like.
Peace and love <3
Fleur
It was an example, not a directive. If that very specific way of doing something didn’t work for you then you already have test-iterated it for effectiveness. In pass/fail criteria was a ‘fail’ for you. That doesn’t mean all Te users will experience it the same way. The important thing is the principle of how Te works.
-A-
I had the same reaction! A food/weight exercise for a type that has a Sensation 3yo. Ugh.
While I’m not insisting it was the best example (quite honestly, it was off the cuff as many of our examples are), the first question that comes up for me when I see this feedback is: was this a truly bad example, or was it an uncomfortable example for some in the audience. It’s easy to conflate them, but they aren’t the same thing. That said, it’s a bit of a black swan. Anyone not uncomfortable isn’t going to leave feedback.
-A-
I was not uncomfortable when I listened to this example (I am an INTJ) but I agree that it was a poor, ineffective example purely because weight loss is far more likely to elicit strong emotional responses rather than weak or neutral emotional responses. After all, the purpose of the example is to show *how* to put Te into use as a copilot rather than to talk about health outcomes which, frankly, is territory filled with landmines given the fact that is very difficult for people, in general, to control health outcomes.
I used to teach university level technology design courses and I made a point of never using examples for app development that risked triggering strong negative responses that got in the way of learning. This isn’t to say that I would never include examples of, for instance, weight loss or health outcome app dev in the classroom but, instead, I wouldn’t tie those examples to learning a new concept and I would give adequate warning (e.g., on the syllabus) when that topic would be the central topic of the day’s lecture/activities. Obviously, this meant disciplining myself to have good neutral examples in mind and to be aware of emotional landmine examples such that I could lead discussion away from them when those landmines were not going to aid learning.
Just a heads up.
Otherwise, I’ve been loving this series of podcasts in a huge way and found the info in this particular podcast A++.
All the best and keep up the great work!
Thank you – I appreciate the positive feedback about the series. As off-the-cuff ENxPs we frequently (unintentionally and otherwise) touch on things that are triggering. I’m actually leaning into it. As long as it’s honest and accurate (Ti), my growth path is to keep going. Of course, that does mean we’ll get feedback that people don’t always like it which I have to accept as a consequence.
Thanks for being part of our community. 🙂
-A-
ENTJ here – and while I enjoyed the episode for my type (developing Ni), I have to applaud you even more for the Te-as-copilot episode. I’ve NEVER heard anyone talk about Te as you have, but it beautifully aligns with what I feel Te is to me:
– Interface people and systems (systems and processes to get results in the world).
– Constantly figuring out failure points (and doing so directly) with self, people, and things.
– …so addicted to feedback [on metrics] that whatever personal hit you may take is inconsequential.
– The idea of “pre-failing,” resonates with my logic. There’s no way I can expect to be good at something in the beginning. To expect otherwise would defy logic. I expect to be bad at THE THING.
– Using the above to NOT create a synthetic self esteem, knowing that I will be bad at things, and that doesn’t reflect my worth as a person.
– Lack of self-doubt because self esteem is not built on failed ventures.
– Leading with how things get built, and making things in the outside world and saying “yeah, that’s how you move the needle.”
– Use Fi to determine if the thing your building is in alignment with your values.
– Focus on feedback about the thing you built, not feedback on your person, so there’s no ego hit.
– “Time as a resource.”
– “An orchestra with resources.”