ISTP Personality Type Advice - 0103

(upbeat music) - Hey, welcome back to the Personality Hackerclass. My name is Jill Markwitt. - And I'm Antonia Dodge. - Today we're completing our series on all the Myers-Briggs personality types. Today we're talking about the ISTP personality in the Myers-Briggs system or the accuracy sensation personality in the personality hacker system. - Right, and it's been a really cool journey going through all of these different Myers-Briggs personality types. And I think what I've really come to learn and understand especially since with all of these, before we've done a podcast on each of the personality types, we sent surveys out to our audience and we got a lot of responses back. What's so great is this idea or this really, struck home to me, how much each type varies wildly from person to person. - Yeah. - Because you're the same Myers-Briggs personality type, doesn't mean that you're going to be the same person. - You don't value the same things, you don't have the same experience. - Yeah, exactly. There's going to be trends, you're going to see, some people in clusters, like based on personality type, there's going to be some trends around interest and there's going to be some trends around values. But each person is completely individual. And I think that's one of the reasons why it's so important to understand the concept of cognitive functions. Because cognitive functions help explain how our minds are wired, but it doesn't tell us who we are as individuals. And what's really fascinating, I think, especially going through each of the car models for each of the types, is really recognizing that our levels of development vary wildly as well. It's not just our cognitive functions or the quote-unquote passengers in the car. It's also what we've been developing and working on and the dynamic between them and how that shows up for us as individuals. So it's actually been a real pleasure to go through all 16 of these types, do a deep dive, get these survey results back, and have it really illustrated how varied people can be. And the reason why I wanted to mention that, especially about ISTPs, is that ISTPs very wildly from person to person, two ISTPs can have the exact same mental wiring and be very different styles of people. So I think what we should do is deep dive, go directly into that car model for the ISTP, and then explore the different ways that ISTPs can show up, and of course, talk about growth paths and developmental paths for people of this type. Sure, you heard us reference the car model if you're a new listener, head over to personalityhacker.com and just type in car model into the search feature there. You're going to find an article or two talking about this car model. It's a visual representation. It shows you where what, until you just mention those cognitive functions of your mind stay in your personality. Where they're positioned. We're going to walk through this verbally right now, but having that visual reference will be very helpful for you as an ISTP if you're listening, or if you have an ISTP in your life to understand how they're showing up to the world, or how you're showing up to the world. As an ISTP, you are leading with a cognitive function, this is a technical name. It's a mental process, technically called introverted thinking. And we've nicknamed it accuracy. We call it accuracy at personalityhacker. And the question that this is a decision-making function, this is how you decide what to do every day. And this is your flow state. This is how you show up with the world primarily, and you've been doing it your entire life. It put you in flow to be here, and make decisions based on what's accurate, what makes sense to your internal mental world. It is detached from personal feelings. It wants to be detached from all the messy stuff of relationship and how humans are feeling about things. And it wants to know the data. What makes sense logically? What is internally, consistently logical about this decision? And this is something that you have a superpower of. As an ISTP, you show up to the world, understanding logic and understanding the internal metric for what you value as an accurate way of viewing the world and making decisions in the world. - Right, so Joel just called this a decision-making style. And what we mean by that is whenever somebody leads with decision-making, it means they have very specific ideas on how the world should be. All of our should statements as people come from this decision-making style of wiring or mental processes. So for people who use introverted thinking or what we call accuracy, all the should statements come from logic. It comes from what makes analytical sense to me. But what's interesting, and we've talked about this in the podcast on INTPs, and the other thinker perceivers in the Myers-Briggs system. So we've talked about this accuracy process for INTPs, INTPs, and ESTPs. Now what makes it a little different for an ISTP is that this concept of logic and what makes analytical sense to me is not married to something like the idea of pattern recognition or abstract thought like it would be for an NTP. And it's not the co-pilot or secondary or almost after thought position like it is for an ISTP. It is the driving process for an ISTP and it's coupled with a process, what we call the co-pilot, a process technically named extroverted sensing or what we nicknamed sensation. Now extroverted sensing or sensation is here in the moment. It's very concrete. It's a information gathering process that focuses on what is verifiable right in front of me. What are my senses picking up? What is true and real and concrete and that I can personally engage with? So if you couple this concept of logic, right? Data, information, what makes analytical sense. And then you marry it with something that is very tangible concrete. My body can interact with that thing. You'll get somebody who is particularly skilled with things that are data, heavy, and real. And we call those things machines, right? - Yeah. - Machines are the world of making sense, information, data, coupled with concrete reality. And so ISTPs frequently get the nickname mechanic, even if they're not mechanics, they frequently get the nickname of a mechanic because they just have this intrinsic sixth sense ability to understand how machinery works. - The machinery could be anything. It could be anything from a car, literal mechanic car, like a mechanical machine to maybe a piece of sports equipment or a weapon or a way of, you know, even your own body as an ISTP, you can see as a machine. You see it in machinery terms and it functions like a machine. And this can really, this metaphor can extend to a lot of different things. So don't just be locked in this idea of mechanical things or actual physical machinery, but we are talking about physical things, tangible things that are interpreted in your mind as like a machine. - Right. And so a lot of people who are, people of this type, you know, a lot of ISTPs talk about having just, like they just have a natural knack for understanding how cars work. They have a natural knack for understanding, you know, how the human body works, a natural knack for understanding how airplanes work, et cetera. But introverted thinking or what we call accuracy, isn't just focused on information and data for its own sake. The thing that most people who have, who share this process as either a driver or a co-pilot have is a desire to be competent. It's a desire to be able to perform. - Yeah. - And so what it's always looking for, what this process is always looking for is it's looking for leverage points. It's looking for small actions that will have big results. And so when a, an ISTP is, you know, really interested in the human body and how it performs, or when it's really interested in things like cars, or as you mentioned, weapons or equipment of some sort, it's not just to master it or like to understand it for its own sake, it's to understand it to be able to improve its performance, it's to be able to get it to the next level. And that's why you see people who are ISTPs, not just as mechanics, but specifically as people who are like super enough to master cars, or not just pilots or like, you know, people who race cars, they're like the best in their field. They're not just people who understand the human body and have mapped it well and understand equipment or weapons or, you know, tools. It's the ability to be the best at whatever they're doing. And so ISTPs are seen in really high-end, you know, athletic competitions. My suspicion is that if you did a personality profiling session on every person who had ever been to the Olympics, you would probably see a disproportionately high number of ISTPs among them. And if you pulled people who were surgeons and were pilots, race car drivers is mentioned, if you did a poll of all of them, you probably would see a disproportionately high number of ISTPs because it's not just about mastering the understanding of these kinds of machinery, including things like the human body and including things like the machinery of performance, but it's to be uber competent at it. It's to be the best. And that introverted thinking process is also really good at focusing. It's super good at having like a pinpointed focused precision outcome and just going towards it, just being able to get to that end game, finding all the leverage points to get to that component of Uber competence. So the ISTPs at the top of their game are people who are at the top of the game in these different fields. Yeah, I think for an ISTP, the phrase peak performer or peak performance is one that really resonates with the ISTP. Now obviously people are at different levels development, but if you're a healthy ISTP and you want to be at the top of your game whatever game that is, whether it's Frisbee Golf or being a sharpshooter in the military or being an Olympic athlete, you want to be a peak performer in whatever you do and we see a lot of peak performance coming from the ISTP personality type. That is something that it does lend itself to. So you can see how, like we said, if you're accurately looking at data and you're making these data connections about real-time things and you're taking in real-time information, how much this machinery metaphor can be extended. Now that can also be limiting. If you only see this idea of an ISTP being machinery focused, I mean obviously you're a person. You have emotions as well. You have thoughts and feelings and other things. You're not just a machine. You don't just do road work and become a machinery or a mechanistic type person. But this is something that I think resonates with you as an ISTP. You understand what we say when we say this. And I can see you starting to make those connections. You're mind like, "Yeah, I do see things in extension of myself. When I'm playing Frisbee Golf, that Frisbee as I'm holding it, it's like I'm extending myself and I'm sending a piece of myself out from there." And I want to continually refine and nuance how I just bend my wrist to slight angle to make it float further toward the goal I want to hit when I'm playing Frisbee Golf as an example. So there's all these little tweaks and nuances and leverage points that you're continually refining to get to that peak performance nature that you're after if that's what you want to do. Yeah, and I think this is one of the ways that ISTPs and ISTPs are a little different. That sensation or extroverted sensing process for an ISTP, it's their driver process. And extroverted sensing or sensation has a very, it just has a super in touch with its own body. The mind mapping that our brains do to encapsulate and understand our bodies is, it seems to be heightened in people who have the sensation process. And so there's a lot of elegance that comes along with it. There's a lot of understanding how your body works and understanding physics around you. And so ISTPs tend to be more natural, like physical performers than ISTPs do. But because introverted thinking or accuracies, they're co-pilates, those little leverage parts, those come over time. So you have like a natural physical elegance and then you couple that with little tweaks to improve your performance. For an ISTP, it goes the opposite direction. And ISTP is already thinking in terms of peak performance and leverage points. It's already thinking in terms of these little tiny tweaks that have really huge gain. And then it couples it with that physical elegance. So ISTPs might not be as naturally elegant as an ESTP is, but they're more focused by nature. They're more dedicated to the goal. They're more on target as a general rule. And so they might have to put a little more effort into being as physically elegant as an ESTP is, but they have that commitment when they're at the peak performance, when they're at the top of the game. They have that greater commitment to just those little nuanced differences that make all the difference. And that's why I think my guess is that ISTPs have a tendency to be more often the gold winner as opposed to the silver winner because of that dedication and that focus. Now of course, we're talking about ISTPs that are at the top of their game. We're talking about ISTPs who are. Idealized. ISTPs. Exactly. Idealized. Top performers, people who know what they want to go for, people who have been in training for their whole lives. And that's not all ISTPs. There's plenty of ISTPs who are not doing anything with their lives. There's people of all types that are peak performers and people who are not doing much. So obviously it runs the gambit. But we're talking about what an ISTP can be. And when they allow themselves to focus, when they allow themselves to go for that, that's. I mean, the sky's the limit really. I can think of a couple of my favorite rock drummers who I'm pretty convinced are probably ISTPs because they just. The ability to have that speed and control and the leverage and the focus on drumming and the beat, all of that makes total sense for them being that ISTP type. Now let's talk about ISTPs less desirable or not less desirable but less developed qualities. The stuff that's going to challenge you as an ISTP. Exactly. And how that influences the type. So the driver is introverted thinking or what we call accuracy. The co-pilot is extroverted sensing or what we call sensation. In the tenured position in the car model sitting behind the co-pilot is sensation or extroverted sensing's opposite, which we call perspectives. But the technical name is introverted intuition. Now if you listen to the podcasts on INFJs and INFJs and actually all the NJ types, but in particular INFJs and INFJs who have this as a driver process, you know that introverted intuition is about being in touch with how the mind form patterns or the mind forms patterns. It's about watching your own thoughts, it's about understanding sort of like these aha moments or these six senses that just sort of come to you. You don't really know how you reach the conclusion, like something just became obvious all of a sudden. And it's because on some level, especially if it's a driver process, you're actually watching your own mind form patterns and you're understanding the pattern of the patterns. And it gets really like it's a very future paste, it gets inside other people's minds really well. It's a, you know, as a driver process and as a sophisticated process, sometimes it feels like ESP, right? It feels like you just know something and you don't know how you know it. As a 10 year old process, it's still in your conscious awareness as an ISTP, but it's not as sophisticated as it would be if it were a driver or even a co pilot process. And so since it's not as sophisticated and 10 year old processes have a tendency to be very defensive, they have a tendency to be where a lot of our insecurities or fears live, right? That would make sense as a 10 year old. What ends up happening for an ISTP is if they overreliar, overidentify with this process, they can get a little conspiracy oriented. They can get a little paranoid. They're not, they have the ability to kind of understand how people's minds work and kind of be able to shift into those perspectives, but they don't necessarily have the sophistication to be able to understand the implication of it or really what it means. And so there can be like a fear of what's coming up in the future. There could be some paranoia about what's going on inside other people's minds or how they're appearing to others. There can be the sense of nobody likes me or what's cut, you know, like maybe even some physical fears around what's coming up. There can be a sense of like hyper vigilance always ready for somebody to attack you or always ready for somebody to come to come at you. And I think in particular for an ISTP, it will go that direction. We've already talked about perspectives as a 10 year old in the ISFP podcast because it occupies the same space for ISFPs. For ISFPs, it's a little bit more about like the dangers of the world in sort of an abstract or maybe even relationships in the abstract. Like you don't know what your mate is thinking. I think for ISTPs, it's more like a sense of I need to be prepared all times because I never know what's going to come at me. It's more of a get ready for any sort of physical altercation. And so, and I think that that probably goes for both genders. So ISTPs that are over identified with their 10 year old or what's technically called the tertiary process that are over identified with this can get a little conspiracy oriented or a little paranoid. And that's because they're not checking any enough with that co-pilot process of sensation. Sensation wants to know what's like reliable, verifiable right in front of its, you know, right in front of its senses so that it can directly interact with it, engage with it. Whereas perspectives is a projection of reality. It's a possibility of how reality could be. It's a future pacing. It's a suspecting, it's a suspicion of what's happening. And so if an ISTP spends too much time in that 10 year old process and not enough time actually checking in with what reality is telling them, they're making too many leaps of logic or too many leaps of, you know, speculation. Then they're not in their best self. They're not focused on a goal. They're not leveraging themselves and getting to the best, you know, person they can be. They're instead hiding. They're withdrawing from reality. They're assuming people are out to get them. And this doesn't put them on a trajectory of peak performance and happiness. It actually has them withdrawing from the world and not being able to perform at their best self. And if they're tweaking that accuracy process. So if you're in the middle of, let's say you're working on, you know, perfecting a craft or some kind of a skill. And you're not relying on the actual real world feedback. You're relying on your assumption or projection of feedback. Your tweaks, the way you're leveraging and the way you're manipulating how you're approaching things is going to be off. Like you're not going to make the right tweaks because you're not getting real world feedback. You're thinking about it and you're thinking about the feedback you're going to get instead of actually testing it against reality. And so that reality piece, that getting back into your sensation process and vetting things for their actual tangible nature is going to be a superpower for you because you're going to be tempted to sometimes take the easy road out. Take the, I don't want to say lazy, but just the path of least resistance sometimes. It's so much easier to not get up and actually test it against reality. But just think about, okay, if I do this, this is going to be the tweak I'll need to make. But it may not be the tweak you need to make for that performance that you need. That's that getting that accurate specific real world feedback is going to be so important for you as an ISTP. Yeah, it would be like trying to measure something with a ruler from across the room, right? Like it's the difference between actually putting the ruler up next to the thing you're trying to measure versus sitting across the room and kind of eyeballing it and going, I think it might be sort of this. It's if you actually want real time feedback that helps you make those really high quality tweaks, like you mentioned, you have to be right there in the action. You have to physically be up against the thing you're measuring. So that's a metaphor. It's kind of an example of a bigger, more sort of holistic approach to the world. If you actually want to be able to engage with the world as a peak performer, you have to be out in the world. You have to be engaging with it. You have to be measuring it directly. So if you get too many sort of idealizations as well or too many sort of resting into what if scenarios, then you're not making any progress. You're just, you know, you're basically doing nothing and going, well, I can get to that later. But in order to actually get to the end game, you have to be in the game. And so one of the major recommendations we make for people of this type is don't let yourself withdraw from the world. Don't let yourself get, like you mentioned, Joel, taking the path of least resistance or getting lazy. Like you have to be willing to engage with the outer world. Now, one reason why an ISTP might withdraw is because when they get out into the outer world, when they use extroverted sensing to get out into the world and engage with it, they're also going to bump up against the world's feedback that reflects back to them. They're three-year-old process. Now the, in the car model, the three-year-old sits behind the driver because the driver process is like that's your go-to tool. That is your strongest, you know, that's the thing you've chosen to focus on and by choose, I use that word very loosely since we don't really choose our cognitive functions. We're sort of come out of the hatch with them. But in the outside world, you're going to be dealing with human interaction and that will put you in your three-year-old position of what's technically called extroverted feeling or what we've nicknamed harmony. Now, harmony, if you've listened to other podcasts like the ENFJs, ESFJs, all the FJs, really in the Myersberg system. You know that harmony is all around relationships and conflict management, conflict resolution, unspoken social contracts, knowing the appropriate thing, caring about social status, all the stuff that if you're nice to be listening, all of what I just said probably gives you the HEBGBs, right? All of that like emotional interplay that probably also like drama to you. And when you're in the outside world using extroverted sensing or sensation, when you're out in the world really performing your craft, you're going to run into people. And running into people means that you're going to have to engage with them. And there's all sorts of unspoken social contracts that are expected out of each individual which you might be kind of blind to. So you probably have noticed the more you get out of your house, the more you put in your foot, you know, you're putting your foot in your mouth, or the more people are mad at you for some reason. You can't figure out why. You're just being radically honest. You're just telling people how it is and then all of a sudden everybody's pissed off at you and you're not sure why. And all you're doing is speaking truth. This is really baffling, right? You're just saying, "Hey, this thing is not. " Like this is what I'm seeing here, that this is red and everybody's going, "You can't say that out loud." We all know it's red, but you can't say it. That's inappropriate to say this thing, whatever the thing is, right? And you're like, "Why is that inappropriate?" Like that's the truth, right? Like why are you telling me that's not cool? Right, because the accuracy process or introverted thinking is about recognizing information and data separate of how we want to feel about that. It's just clear pure data. And so if you're pointing out something that you think is clear pure data and everybody else says, "Yeah, we all know that, but we're not allowed to say it," right? Like it's the Emperor's new clothes and you have to pretend like he's not naked. To an ISTP that can be not only baffling, it can be maddening and infuriating and it makes them think that everybody else is an idiot. So on some ways, in some ways ISTPs and INTPs share this frustration. They share the frustration that other people seem to be so tied in with and so married to this human interplays, these emotional interplays where we are all supposed to care what you think is appropriate and inappropriate. When really a person who's leading this process only cares because they don't want to get in some way sort of metaphorically kicked out of the tribe. They just don't want people mad at them. They don't want people disliking them. But every time they run into somebody, somehow they said something that was inappropriate. So some ISTPs go ahead and in some ways they project that they're not like everybody else. They advertise that they don't care about unspoken social contracts by using their body as a placard of advertisement. They'll do things like get a lot of tattoos or they'll die and cut their hair in really short and short and short. They're not going to play by your rules. You can tell because I've got a spiky mohawk or a dog collar on my neck or I've got sleep tats or neck tats or whatever. ISTPs want you to know that they're not playing by your rules. And even if they don't go to that level of using their body as an advertisement to let you know they're not playing by your rules, they will in some ways communicate that to you. They'll do it by maybe clipped conversation or just a frustration with small talk or just going or maybe having no problem with swearing around other people. There's usually way in which they communicate to you that they don't care about your rules so that you'll stop projecting your rules on top of them. So one of the reasons why an ISTP might shy away from developing that co-pilot process of extroverted sensing or sensation is because extroverted sensing gives plenty of opportunities for extroverted feeling. Right? It's the same world that you're occupying so there might be some avoidance of doing that. It's understandable but it's not the way or it's not the path of health for an ISTP. It's not the path of happiness. The more an ISTP allows themselves to get inside their bodies and get out into the world and really engage with the world. And you don't have to do it socially. You can just do it through experimentation or through adrenaline rushes or through athletics or sports or whatever. The more you allow yourself to get out there and do that, the more you'll figure out what it is that you're here to do as a leverage point. For example, one of my favorite ISTPs is, and I don't know what position she holds now, but when I was acquainted with her about five years ago, the women's world champion of Racketball. And she was amazing, totally focused, totally dedicated to a point where at like three weeks before one of her world champion events, she got jumped by two people who were, I can't remember which drug that they were on, but they were like completely off their guard and they attacked her. They beat her so badly that she had to have massive reconstructive surgery on her face. She played the championship with like, and like practically half of her face engulfed in bandages and casts. And she won that year. The reason why she did it is she said that she was just completely, single-mindedly focused on winning that title. Like she just had to have it. And I asked her, what were some of the methods you use when you play Racketball to make sure you keep that focus? And she talks about the Racketball always has the name of the company that produces the Racketball on it. And what she chooses to do is she chooses to focus on a single letter of that advertised like the brand name, a single letter and she does not let herself like take her eye off that letter. I have no clue how somebody even does that. Like I've seen, I've played Racketball before and they're flying really fast at you. How do you even get to the perception level? This is the super power of this SE process that we're talking about to be able to single-mindedly foot with accuracy to focus on a letter that's moving through the air. Can you imagine the focus that takes? Yeah, that feels like Matrix bullet time to me. Exactly. But this is how she thinks and this is how she's a world champion. Yeah, exactly. It's totally magical. As far as I'm concerned, that is magic. And yet it's just how she operates when she's playing Racketball. That's her method. And that's the kind of thing we're talking about here. We're talking about that ability to create such extraordinary focus combined with the fact that obviously she just practiced constantly. She created muscle memory inside of her body so that her Racketball was just an extension of her body and there was tons of muscle memory around playing Racketball. And then she would add that ten-year-old component of perspectives or introverted intuition to anticipate where the ball was going. I remember which there's a book that talks about. Is it a. I'm trying to remember the book. I'm trying to remember the writer and I'm trying to remember the hockey player. Wayne Gretzky. Wayne Gretzky. I don't remember the book. What was the book? It was. But it is. It's talking about Wayne Gretzky. So the story still applies. I forget where it's written down, but I know what you're referring to. I hate that. I hate when I don't remember my references. But there was a book that was illustrating ways of observing the world and engaging with the world in order to keep pace and actually outpace your competition and business. And they said that Wayne Gretzky said that he was always. The way that he was so good at what he did is he would not skate to the puck. He would skate to where the puck was going. So my friend Ronda would. and anticipate where the ball was going. And that is an expression of introverted intuition combined with a much stronger expression of extroverted sensing. So you've got muscle memory, and then you've got just enough future pacing. You've got just enough pattern recognition and ability to have that sort of foresight or that ESP, you know, that little dab of ESP to be able to anticipate where the ball was actually going. Just like Wayne Gretzky anticipated where the puck was going. It's important to note though that that perspective's 10 year old process was in service to that sensation process. The only reason she knew where the ball was going is from repetitive experience in knowing, oh, I see, when the ball hits a wall at that angle, it goes this direction. And she saw that over and over again. She experienced it real time. She didn't just think this up off the top of her head. It wasn't imaginary. It was based on experience. So now she's able to predict what's happening based on her getting out and actually testing the ball against the wall by hitting it in different angles to see how it hit. So now she's starting to pattern recognize those actual experiences that she collected over time. And that's really important to understand is that that 10 year old process is in service to that extroverted sensing, that sensation process as an ISTP. Exactly. And so it's really important to understand how, like you just mentioned, for an ISTP, just like with all the types, the growth path is utilizing your cognitive functions in a certain way. Like relying on your driver process, developing and making that co-pilot process as skilled as possible, really exercising it, and then bringing in the 10 year old process. So it's not that you don't want to use introverted intuition or perspectives as an ISTP. You want to make sure, like you just said, Joel, that you use it in service of your strengths. The other piece of this is recognizing that three year old process of extroverted feeling or harmony. What I've noticed is that ISTPs that really focus on extroverted sensing or sensation, that co-pilot, really focus on developing it, they do become at the top of their game, and so they're well respected. There's a sense of people look up to them. And that states your three year old process of extroverted feeling or harmony, because even if you're not, like, massively connected to each individual person, you've got a good reputation. People think well of you. And unfortunately, if you have a fear or if you have a suspicion that people don't respect you, or they're not thinking well of you, you'll get pulled into the drama of that three year old. You'll stop seeing things in accurate terms. You'll stop being so committed to radical honesty or to what's logical. You'll start getting drawn into drama. You'll get drawn into, like, games that people play. But it's a three year old process, so you won't be actually playing those games very well. You'll just get drawn into the games. One of the best ways to get out of that is to be at the top of your game, even if that doesn't mean you're going to the Olympics. Even if that means you're just like the best mechanic you can be, or the best-- you could literally do anything as nice to be, honestly, except for maybe, like, the jobs that really require a soft touch and a lot of engagement with other people's problems. But as long as you're not in a situation that requires you to really handhold other people in their issues, as long as you're not getting drawn into a lot of emotional drama, the sky's the limit for ISTPs. They can do just about anything, because they're so competency oriented. So if you are an ISTP, like, you could literally be doing any job. And the better you do, the more well respected you'll become. You'll respect yourself. Other people will respect you. And you won't get pulled into the drama of that three-year-old harmony process. You won't get pulled into playing games. You'll have more integrity. You'll show up as a better version of yourself overall. And you won't feel so tied to this, like, do people like me? Do people not like me? Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing? And then fearing that paranoia that can sometimes come in from that 10-year-old process, projecting on to other people that they don't like you. And making your fear a sort of a reality in your mind. Make sure you are not in your backseat passengers. Make sure that you are fully expressing those front seat pat-- the driver in the co-pilot-- so that you don't get pulled into the drama of your backseat. Now, as an ISTP, that's going to be a challenge for you. Because obviously, this is your blind spot, right? This is your three-year-old process. So what are some markers for you as an ISTP to know whether you're being pulled into that drama? I would say one of the biggest markers for you as an ISTP is to check in with your negativity thermostat. If you're finding yourself showing up and your auto-responder is to be critical or negative in situations, you probably are in that three-year-old process more than you should be. If you're showing up and you're being positive toward a situation, you just have a predisposition to a positive. That means your thermostat's probably set correctly. And you're not reacting in a negative way. And I know-- I have a friend who's an ISTP who-- another friend of ours is like, I just can't talk to him. Every time I talk to him, he just brings me down because he's always negative about everything. He's talking about how the world and financial markets are going to crash. And he's like-- because that's his-- remember, that's his ten-year-old perspective. He's future-pacing into doom and gloom. And he's negative about people. And he's negative about this. And things are going to be bad and wrong. And I'm thinking, that's really an unhealthy ISTP. He doesn't see the world in terms of possibilities or in terms of positivity. He needs to get more into his sensation process. He needs to see the world for what it actually is, not what he thinks it's going to be in the future. Like, the world financial markets might crash in the future, but they're not crashing right now. Like, we're OK right now. Focus on the positive of the here and now. Don't get caught up in like a conspiracy theory of things going bad for you down the road. Or people are going to, by definition, just automatically treat you bad. So I think that negativity, thermostat, is one place as an ISTP you can really look at and say, where am I showing up negative and how am I showing up negative? Or positive? And I think that's the adjustment that you'll know. That's like a metric for you. Your accuracy process can latch onto that metric to see how much negativity you're bringing or how much positivity you're bringing to know what adjustments you need to make. I think that's a really good one. As you were talking, what came up for me too-- and I hadn't really thought about this before we started this podcast-- I thought about it, but I didn't really have the words for it. But now I'm really using that this would also be a touch in with whether or not you're doing well or growing as an ISTP. And then it was, what is your commitment or integrity around truth or honesty? Are you a person who wouldn't lie to get what you want? Do you find that to be smartly? Do you find that to be really showing a lack of character? The more committed somebody who leads with accuracy or introverted thinking, the more committed they are to the integrity of telling the truth and having no tolerance for lies, the better off they are. When a ISTP really gets into the drama of their three-year-old around extroverted feeling or harmony, that's when they start getting super manipulative. They manipulate other people to serve them or they manipulate other people in order to feel an odd connection with them. The connection becomes about the fact that they can get the other person to dance on their string, so to speak. And so they will lie. They will be manipulative. They will go behind somebody's back. They will emotionally manipulate that other person to get what they want. And that's a sign that you are not in a healthy space as an ISTP. If you have a commitment and dedication to truth and honesty, and that doesn't mean that you have to always be totally transparent, it doesn't mean you have to tell everybody everything. It's just when a person has a right to a piece of information and you withhold it, or you deliberately lie to them and lead them the wrong way with information or data, then your hold on introverted thinking or your development of it is pretty low. So not only looking at things like what you just mentioned, Joel, which is making sure that you have a positive perspective, but also an attachment to truth or a value around being honest. When a person has a right to that piece of information, I think that's probably another way that you would really know if you've got some development. And weirdly enough, extroverted sensing or sensation actually helps ISTP stay on the right path because it gets them out of perspectives. It gets them out of that piece where they feel like they have to lie or they feel like the whole world is manipulating them so they have to manipulate it back. It gets them out of that paranoia and into like, no, I can work with this, right? The world around me, I can work with this. I can show up as a person of integrity in this world. I can do that. So I think ISTPs that really have that integrity around truth. - Well, you can see why this would develop. An ISTP, you show up to a social situation. Let's say you, just, I mean, I'm not picking on anybody particular. Let's say you see two women and one says, do you think I look nice in this outfit? And the other woman's like, oh, you look great and like really shines it on socially. And the ISTPs are going, she looks like crap. Like, why would you say she looks okay when you, like all of us can see, it's kind of the emperor has no clothes type thing, right? All of us can see that that outfit looks terrible on her. And this other woman just lied to her to tell her she looks great. I see that must be how we play the social game. We must have to lie about what's going on in order to like grease the social wheels. So that's what I'm gonna start doing. It's not like you're a liar as a person as ISTP when you're in this space. It's that you are confusing that there are social truths going on and you're seeing that as, okay, well, we must have to lie and manipulate just to be able to like socially interact. That's actually now what's happening with those two women. It probably is probably what it looks like to you. It's a social dynamic interaction that's way more complex than what you're reading. You're reading the lie, but there's like six billion things happening in that interaction. It's a very, it's a very, it's a very, very, very, very, truthful interaction for those two women that are engaged in that if that's their strength, if they're in an extroverted feeling manner, which would be your weakness or your blind spot as an ISTP. So just understand, and that's what that, again, that sensation process. If you're really paying attention to what's going on, you're going to start seeing, "Oh, I see. That's not a lie. That's just a way of being in a social situation and it's a social truth. It's still a truth. It's a social truth." So that's different than a straight-out lie. And I think that's just a nuance here and just trust us that getting into that secondary process is an ISTP because we're going to hark on that like crazy, harp on that like crazy. That is such a superpower for you because it's so tempting to not go there as an introvert, but that's going to be your power. That's going to be your showing up as your best self. Well, and I think the reason why extroverted sensing works too is because it gives an ISTP opportunity to just engage in a neutral zone. They can go out, engage with the world, interact with it, get better at a skill or a tool or task, become more competent, and they get some distance from all that social game. They don't have to think about other people while they're just in their craft. They don't have to engage in that space. It kind of gives you a place to rest while at the same time I am building your competence which is one of the most satisfying things to the self. I think one thing that I'd like to mention before we wrap this up is men and women that are ISTPs. Whenever we talk about introverted thinking or accuracy as a cognitive function or a process, to me, I always feel the need to make a qualifier of the difference between men and women here. I think ISTP men, obviously depending upon the individual, you're going to have struggles as a human being and you might have struggles based on the past you came from or different modifiers in your life. But I think most of us see ISTP men as being very masculine. In some ways, we set them up on a pedestal. That's what a real man looks like. The John Wayne Swagger, the person who comes in just takes care of business as single mindedly focused on getting an objective accomplished and is very competent. That feels very masculine to us and especially the physical prowess that comes along with it. I think as women ISTPs, because most other women have extroverted feeling or harmony as a strength for them, as a driver or as a copilot, and I think the statistic breakdown is like 50% of women are FJs. 50% of women use extroverted feeling or harmony as a driver copilot. Which is the biggest percentage of any cognitive function being used. Totally. 50% of people. Yeah, it's like this total of all the statistical anomalies in type. That's the biggest. You lead with introverted thinking or accuracy as a woman, which is the opposite of harmony. A lot of ISTP women have struggles around other women or they have struggle thinking of themselves in feminine terms, thinking of themselves belonging to women. A lot of times they'll kind of endrojnus or they'll just get really sporty. They'll get really athletic or sporty. That's the place that they just go, "Well, I guess I'm just not like everybody else, so I'm just going to differentiate through athletics or sports or whatever." As a fellow accuracy user, that is a woman. I'm an ENTP, so I'm a very different thinker/percever person who uses introverted thinking than you are. I can still really understand the struggle like I get it. It can be really challenging. It can feel very difficult. It can feel like sometimes it feels like the world is against you in some ways that it doesn't acknowledge you as a woman. I think that there are some really great examples of ISTP women who are very desirable and it's the differentiation that makes them so desirable. Not that being desirable is the end game or anything, but there is a sense that there's beauty in what you are. It's not like other women and you never are going to be. It's just reality, but you can come with such a unique perspective, a perspective that is missing amongst basically the ocean of women. You come with a very different perspective. Please don't think of that different perspective as being non-feminine. It's not feminine in the same way that other people experience femininity because we have all these stereotypes around how women are supposed to be harmony. It's not the same, but it doesn't mean that you're any less feminine. I think another piece of this too is you have a unique opportunity to dominate certain industries that are considered male industries. I think of so many different athletic sports, so many different industries that are so male-dominated and here comes the ISTP woman just like not caring that she's not supposed to be able to do that. Not caring that the stereotype is that a woman can't do that, not giving two craps about that, just making sure that she gets her goal accomplished of being that thing. I think ISTP women frequently make inroads for other women, like blaze trails of going, "Yeah, no, I'm a woman, I'm totally competent, I can completely do this." It's really inspiring to other women. I just want to make a little comment around how I get that there's a struggle as an ISTP woman, but there's also some really awesome unique opportunities. What do you think? You've been listening with us about ISTPs, maybe you're an ISTP or have an ISTP in your life. I want to hear from you. You haven't been able to talk to her in this podcast, but come over to personalityhacker.com. Leave a comment to question. Leave feedback underneath this podcast on the website because we want to hear from you and we want to continue this conversation off air. You can also join our community of like minds, people like you that want to grow themselves in personal development over at facebook.com/personalityhacker or twitter.com/personalityhacker. If you enjoyed this podcast, you can subscribe to us on iTunes and various Android platforms. If you'd like, we would love it if you'd be willing to leave a rating and review. That is actually very helpful to us. iTunes has these algorithms where they'll cross-pollinate our podcast with other podcasts. They'll rate as higher based on those ratings and reviews. If you're feeling a spirit of reciprocity and you'd love to go do something kind for us, we would love it if you would be willing to leave a rating and review. This is your first podcast you've listened to. We've done this for all 16 Myers Break's types. A deep dive in each one and you would find a ton of those resources over at personalityhacker.com. Tons more podcasts, tons more articles, videos, recordings, all sorts of stuff that you can get over there and take our personality test. Find out what your personality is and your tailored personal growth path for your personality, which is a great place to be. My name is Joel Mark Whit. And I'm Antonia Dach. You've been listening to the personality hacker podcast. You can't wait to talk with you on the next episode.