ENTP

You Are an Extraverted Intuitive

Invention, innovation, instigation, imagination, individualism, initiative, ingenuity, inspiration, insight, and intellect. Who could be the subject but someone like you?

You live continually in the realm of the possible, and when you're absorbed in your latest project you can think of little else. Your energy level is sometimes exhausting to behold. You are virtually tireless in the pursuit of your latest goal—as long as your interest in the project holds, anyway.

You are an enthusiastic explorer of a world where the horizon is the only focus of interest. In your search for new experiences, new ideas, and new projects, you discover over and over again that your goal loses its attractiveness just as soon as it falls within your grasp—or as soon as its pursuit degenerates to hum-drum routine.

When the end's in sight, and your interest wanes, it's a real struggle for you to muster enough self-discipline to see the task through to its completion. You're a great starter, but you have a hard time finishing!

More than once, you've reached that point of lost love for a project and have artfully handed it to a colleague or associate to be completed. You rarely are at a loss for devoted followers. That commitment and self-confidence you radiate is infectious, and you have the ability to be a guru for many others who lack your talent and perseverance and personal drive.

Your combination of extraversion, intuition and perception arms you well to be a leader. You have a natural ability to understand others, to figure out what motivates them, and to appreciate their unique qualities without judging or criticizing. That kind of open acceptance is seductive, and it wins you many friends.

You tackle an amazing variety of problems with ease, and the diversity of your interests is mirrored by the diversity of your friends. You are a collector of people.

You may be accused of shallowness in your relationships, from time to time. On the one hand, you meet people quite easily, and you are much more selfdisclosing than most at the early stage of a relationship. On the other hand, you know people almost instantly as deeply as you'll ever know them.

You don't mean to be fickle, but you may spread your friendship broadly and thinly across the throng of people who admire you, and you have a tendency to move from one person to another, or from one group to another, with the same ease that moves you from one grand cause to the next. You tire of people as easily as you tire of projects.

Diversity is the universal key to happiness in your life.

Unless you make a concerted effort to develop your less-favored psychological processes: insight that comes with the reflection of the introvert, the attention to detail of the sensing type, and the ability to make decisions and complete unpleasant tasks that characterizes the judging personality, you may find yourself frittering away your brilliance and impulsive energy on poorly thought-out projects or ones which never manage to reach successful completion. Your Auxiliary Process As a perceptive individual, your intuition is your dominant process. Your judgment follows behind, guided by thinking, your non-dominant or auxiliary process.

The intuitive-thinking combination is the cornerstone of a very intellectual, creative personality: the ANALYST temperament!

As a thinker, you are an independent character, relatively unconcerned about the approval of others to feel good about yourself. Many individuals with your personality constellation are anti-authoritarian, resisting even guidance, and you may enjoy the role of the renegade.

Your inner world—the tapes that play in your mind when your extraverted side takes a rest—is one of thought, analysis, concentration.

In love with learning, fascinated by the very concept of intelligence, you intuitive-thinking types all seem to share an inner drive toward performance and a highly self-critical nature which continually drives you toward selfimprovement. You are able to develop considerable detachment from your own work and to subject it to the same scrutiny you apply to all intellectual matters.

While it is true that you probably are your own best critic, still, it may be worthwhile to remind yourself to listen, at least, to the opinions of others you respect before galloping off on one of your all-consuming endeavors. There is useful information out there in the world, even if you sometimes have a hard time finding others who can keep up with your "mile-a-minute" mind.

As a perceptive individual, you typically try to avoid foisting your attitudes on others as more judging types may do, but you may still find yourself in trouble periodically because of your preferred judging process: thinking.

You let feelings affect your own attitudes and behavior so little that it is virtually impossible for you to appreciate how much others value sentiment. For all the feeling-types in the world can see, you just don't exhibit a depth of caring.

When you're not actively recruiting followers to work on your latest cause, and you're almost consumed by your current interest, your impersonal attitude toward people (your thinker at work) and your short attention span in human relationships (your intuitive component) can combine lethally into a nearly unconscious style of conducting your personal life.

The ironic addition of extraversion to this mixture may create the illusion of using people to accomplish your personal goals and of regarding others' feelings as a simple nuisance to contend with in getting the job done.

You have the interpersonal skills necessary to connect with people. You know the value of eye contact, body language, the pat on the back, the affectionate personal address ("Hi, Henry. How're Marie and the kids?"). You use them all the time when you're on. The trick for you is simply remembering not to turn off that charm so often.

When you're in your tuned-out phase, up to your cerebral cortex in your latest project, paying no attention to the people around you, most feeling-type people may feel somewhat betrayed by what they see as your inconsistency.

Remember that people are attracted to you, and they develop an unrealistic expectation that you can be counted on to be attuned to their needs for sympathy, support, affection, and appreciation. People expect a lot from you because you unconsciously set them up to expect it.

When people feel as though you've seduced and abandoned them, they may kindle a resentment so powerful they may never express it in so many words. But they'll show it somehow, leaving you bewildered and asking: "What's wrong with them?" Chances are good that they see the fault as yours.

If you've been aware of this problem, you've probably never faced it head on. It's part of your "shadow," and you may have denied it or explained it away. It's OK. It's a natural part of being the unique person you are.

In their personal relationships, most intuitive-thinkers have a tendency to relate almost unconsciously to others at times. Since your feeling side is less developed than your logical ability, it's a real effort to stay in touch with others at the "people-level," rather than at the "idea-level."

As an extravert, another wrinkle may be added to this potential interpersonal snare. If you're like most extraverts, you do not tend to form the kind of intense, devoted, self-sacrificing friendships which characterize the long-term affiliations of introverts. Frankly speaking, you do not understand an introvert's concept of friendship—or of love—and that is one of the major differences which decrees that introverts and extraverts are doomed, always, to speak separate languages borrowing each other's terms without understanding or appreciating what each other means.

Thinking back over the major relationships of your life, you probably can recall times when you've heard or sensed the judgment coming from an introvert (a hurt one, probably) that you are a fickle or superficial friend. You need not look upon this as a fault of yours, but rather a logical expression of your personality as an extraverted intuitive-thinker.

With awareness of this natural tendency, you can probably exercise more control in this important area of interpersonal relations. At the very least, you can look at your own behavior with a more objective and accepting eye.

Although your perceptive and intuitive characteristics give you the facade of one supremely self-confident, and your intellectual ability provides the substance you need to accomplish virtually anything you wish in life, still, you may be plagued by the recurring thought that you're somehow on the brink of failure—that you won't achieve your personal goal this time.

That's a natural characteristic of the intuitive-thinking personality.

Since you tend to measure your own value by a yardstick of accomplishment—and since there will always be more to know, more to do, you folks often feel twinges of inadequacy. You set your personal standards impossibly high and program yourself for feeling incompetent.

Your judging side is almost entirely turned inward, and while you rarely feel inclined to judge or control others' behavior, you're a tough taskmaster and critic of yourself. You're always reciting a mental list of things you ought to learn, accomplish, master. You view life as a sack you're always filling with new skills and abilities. When you compare the wealth of your accomplishment with the comparative poverty of others, still you don't give yourself a break. Sure, you know a lot. Sure, you excel at a broad assortment of skills. Just because the rest of the world can't keep up with you doesn't mean that you're OK, it just shows you that others are less OK, and that doesn't make you feel better. You don't really expect too much of other people, anyway.

In many ways, you don't expect the majority of the world to understand you. And you don't often go out of your way to be understandable. Scratch an intuitive/thinking person and you'll find more than a bit of arrogance beneath the veneer.

Scratch a little harder, and a full-fledged workaholic may appear! Many people who share your intuitive and thinking approach to life have a hard time ever really relaxing. For one thing, work is your life, and your life is work. Whether you're working at the job that pays your bills or working at learning some new avocational activity, you tend to work a lot.

You may realize that you even work at play. You may relate to recreation most comfortably as exercise (It's good for you, you know!) or as time reserved to perfect one or another athletic skill. Learning to relax and do nothing will be good for you. You might consider taking a quick course in selfhypnosis or learning yoga and setting aside some time every day to really unwind.

The Extraverted Intuitive in the World of Work

In the world of work, you'll find that your extraversion will arm you well to deal with both variety and action.

All other things being equal, you'll tend to work faster than your introverted co-workers. Depending on the job circumstances, that's a mixed blessing.

In tasks that require quick decisions and quick action, you're supreme, but you must constantly be on guard not to act too quickly, particularly without thinking things through completely before you move. If the nature of the work itself is slow, or if it involves long-term projects, you may need to devise a few tricks to ward off boredom; otherwise, your efficiency may suffer.

You are interested in the results of your job, in getting it finished, and in comparing how other people tackle the same chore.

While few people enjoy being a "small cog in the great wheel," passively performing some minor function that is swallowed up by a large complex operation, your personality type is especially distressed by losing touch with the over-all impact of your work.

Your outgoing personality prefers working with human companionship, so you may wish to think long and hard before accepting a job or work assignment which forces you to work in isolation.

Communication comes more easily to you than to your introverted associates. You're comfortable with words, and you communicate well. You may wish to consider ways to capitalize on this asset to further your career.

You are an intuitive person, always scanning the horizon for the possibilities in any situation, rather than keeping your eyes on the road ahead. This characteristic arms you well to be a discoverer, a visionary. Your interest is in new ideas, new theories, and you muster a great deal of patience and energy when it comes to tackling new problems in life.

But, watch out when life forces you to work at a job that makes no demand on your intuition! Worse yet is one which forces you to make use of your relatively undeveloped sensing side—making observations, keeping track of facts and figures! You'll do better to target yourself toward work that involves the big picture, not details, on bold concepts, not precise facts.

You'll be wise always to surround yourself with a couple of practical sorts: people who look at things with their sensory capacity. While you may find this difficult—since intuitive people usually prefer the company of other like-minded souls—you will probably find their counsel valuable.

An intuitive person with a sensory-type sidekick may achieve more than the intuitive alone, since facts and details will not be overlooked along the way. Intuitive workers, such as yourself, are in their glory when the work is challenging and novel. When you're inspired, you fire up your furnaces and work with a level of energy and exuberance that staggers the imagination of your sensory-type co-workers. A new task at hand? A new technique or skill to master? No problem for you. You will find the time to tackle the most difficult problem and unravel the most complicated situation.

Then things settle down. You stifle a yawn, while your frazzled co-workers sigh with relief. While you yearn for the next crisis, they make no effort to disguise their earnest hope that routine (blessed routine) is reestablished as soon as possible.

Then, one morning, sure as death, you wake up, staring blankly at the ceiling, and you know you've been stricken, once again, by the insidious dark side of the intuitive enthusiasm: boredom.

You try to fight it, and you deny it to your friends and enemies alike, but the fact is: you know you don't want to go to work. Your energy's gone, your spirit's flat, and, once again, you realize you've fallen into one of your slack periods.

That's part of your style, and you may as well accept it without embarrassment. You run hot and cold, up and down, just as a matter of personality.

If you acknowledge that cyclic nature, accept it, and analyze it, you may be able to enlist your thinking/judging personality component to help you temper those down-swings and pull out of them with a bit more style, grace and professionalism.

And if you can't modify your behavior, once you understand it as the natural "flip-side" of the part of you you love best, then maybe you can find an employer who understands your cyclic nature and enough stable, well-grounded co-workers to cover those other segments of your personality that haunt you in the work place.

You know the parts I mean: your tendency to hop from hunch to hunch, your habit of not paying enough attention to precision, or your inclination to worry too little about completing projects or checking your work to be free from errors of fact. If and when you find that job, or that employer, or those co-workers, you'll be valued for the glittering bundle of intuition you provide as a spark to the humdrum of everyday work life.

In a work field or an organization dominated by sensing types—especially by sensing, thinking, and/or judging personalities—those with your traits often are regarded as less stable, even flighty.

Don't let that judgment get you down. You know, just because you're enlightened enough to understand both the "bright" and "dark" sides of your personality, that doesn't necessarily mean that the rest of the world will share your open acceptance.

There may be times when you will have to face rejection, even open hostility, in order to remain your own best friend.

The perceptive in you likes diversity in work, has no trouble shifting gears from one assignment to another, one technique to the next, just so long as the work doesn't require a lot of decision-making.

Your perceptive side is open: patient to changing situations, patient when a task requires repeated revisions. On the other hand, your perceptive side may show itself as a tendency to start too many changes without being asked, revising when it isn't necessary. Many of these self-started activities may wind up in a desk drawer, first postponed, then forgotten. Much of what you start may never reach completion.

Your perceptive quality ensures that you will always be curious, open, willing to hear all sides of an issue before deciding on a course of action. Of course, you also tend to keep topics open excessively long; coming to a decision is almost painful to you. You're a master of the delicate art of postponement.

As a perceptive, you may lack patience with judging sorts when they jump to conclusions, point an accusing finger at your indecisive nature (which you generally deny or explain away!), and suggest that you're basically gullible to everyone's inputs, long after an issue should have been closed and settled.

Try to calm down when you hear those comments; try to weed out the judgmental indignation and see if your occasional critics might not have some-thing worth considering. After all, you know that there are both positive and negative aspects correlated with every personality feature. Let that perceptive openness lead you to personal revision when it's in your own best interests.

You're a thinker, and when you walk into the work place, everyone around you may hear a computer switch on. Depending on the strength of your thinking and feeling functions, when it comes to matters you assign to your thinking side, you probably tend to be unemotional: both unaware of and uninterested in people's feelings.

It's not that you intend to be unkind, but—where work is concerned—you probably tend to make decisions on an impersonal, logical basis.

Without meaning to do so, you may inadvertently hurt people's feelings in your working environment.

You can reprimand people when necessary. You can even fire them, when you feel the situation really demands it. No one would deny that can be an asset: the ability to do what needs to be done, free from self-recrimination and guilt.

You probably are aware that such impersonality crushes more feeling-type people, but you also recognize that separating your personal views from your work personality is an important ability to keep if you're to succeed in any number of highly competitive work fields.

As a person who values logic over sentiment, you probably don't demand personal treatment yourself; you simply ask to be treated fairly. What's more, you understand that there may be adverse reactions to your impersonal stance, and you take some consolation in the fact that you are more capable than others of getting along without harmony.

But you may wish to spend some time examining this part of your personality. If you suspect that most of your associates candidly consider you to be hard-hearted and insensitive; and if you find believable sympathy only among other "thinker-type" workers, you may wish to invest some time and energy in considering alternative points of view. Remember, there are no "rights" and "wrongs", "weaks" or "strongs" when it comes to personality. There are only differences. You may find added insight and sensitivity an asset, both in the practical and personal sense, when it comes to your co-workers.******* So, what sort of career would be a good choice for someone with your personality?

Generally speaking, scientific careers are attractive to folks like you, and— whether science is your chosen profession or not—your mode of thought in any work field will probably be scientific. "What's going on and why is this happening?" are questions always in your mind.

Choose a job that lets you use your abilities to understand, predict, and explain reality, but watch out for one of the natural pitfalls of such work: living in an abstract world of ideas, trying to figure out what everything means, and, thereby, missing out on a lot of direct experience in life. If you find yourself living in the future more than the present, it may be time for a personal "tune up."

Being an inventor or a promoter may attract you as a life work, and, again, whether or not your job description actually uses those words, there'll be a bit of the inventor/promoter in whatever work you choose. Understand it as the unique expression of your personality characteristics.

Public relations and advertising—or other similar people and ideas fields— are good choices for extraverted intuitives.

Look out if life corners you into some bureaucratic institution. You'll be interested in ideas, research and development, inventive marketing or promotions—and you'll pursue your personal interests by ignoring rules, procedures, chains of command and such-like. You may not survive very long or very happily.

Chances are decent you'll blow yourself right out of a job by getting into a fight about ideas or bureaucratic stagnation, or pink, yellow, and blue forms that take three months to process before you get to do what you want. Your meteoric career in a big organization may leave behind you a vapor trail of creative changes you brought about at the cost of your own employment, and it may leave you personally scarred and disillusioned. Life needs people like you. Institutions need people like you, even if they won't tolerate your presence very long. It's all right to take a whack at a big organization and come away a bit bruised. The institution may be licking its wounds, too. And, even though you may never get the pleasure of seeing your ideas put into action, chances are good that your innovations will trickle into the mainstream eventually.

In the long run, you'll be wise to opt for a career which offers you control over your work, or for one which puts you in the companionship of other creative, like-minded souls who also detest structure for its own sake and admire ideas for their intrinsic worth.