You are ENFP –

The Standard Bearer!

As the ENFP Standard Bearer, you seek the hidden, heroic

worth within everyone, and wave its banner high!

Version 1.1.0 Updated 18 July 2015

There are numerous stereotypes and misconceptions about
personality typing, but here we’ll get to the root of it all:
Cognition, the underlying thoughts and desires that make
you who you are in your own individual way. You think the
way you do for a reason. Your secret desires, interests, and
fears make sense. Learning to understand how you think,
why, and what you can do with it, naturally helps everything
in life go more smoothly.

Cognitive typing is not a listing of simplistic limits or divisive

caricatures. It’s a set of tools, an open-ended guide to help
you better understand everything that’s already been going
on inside you. This equips you to derive ever greater benefit,
insight, and enjoyment out of being the incredibly complex
and unique person you really are.

So, what does it really mean to be a cognitive ENFP?

You’ve probably run into the letters ENFP before, maybe
online or in books you’ve read. Unfortunately, the way most
sources define those letters is often a little shaky, focusing
on behaviors instead of cognition. But behaviors change
throughout a person’s life, and two people might do the
same behaviors for very different reasons. This leads to a
difficulty in really nailing down who is and isn’t ENFP, caus-
ing subjective arguments on the matter all over the internet.
Worse, it leads to simplified misconceptions about what
ENFP actually means. Getting back to the roots of cognition,
your underlying thoughts and reasons why you do what you
do, allows us to cut past all the simplifications and subjectiv-
ity.

Perhaps when you opened up this document and saw ENFP,

you immediately remembered unpleasant stereotypes that
certainly don’t apply to you. ENFPs are often portrayed as
unreliable, childish, overly perky and emotional, and even
weak or stupid doormats, so you may have been tempted to
think you couldn’t possibly be ENFP. Well good, because
those sorts of oversimplifications are simply untrue. They’re
stereotypes that have nothing at all to do with cognition,
coming from shaky definitions of the letters that end up con-
tradicting themselves and falling apart under the rigors of
experience. Human thought is far more complex than that!
Being a cognitive ENFP does not place any limits whatsoever
on your abilities, talents, career aptitude, behaviors, or atti-
tudes. You can decide who you want to be. As you come to
understand the way you already cognate, you’ll naturally
end up getting out of your own way, striding forward as the
person you’ve always been rather than sabotaging yourself
by trying to hide who you really want to be.

These letters are merely a representation of the way you

naturally approach the world. In every thought, every expe-
rience, and every interaction, we each make unconscious
choices about what we’re going to focus on most. These un-
witting choices display what matters to us the most. Being
an ENFP means that deep down, what matters most to you is
finding and becoming everything you can be, and helping
others do the same. Your mind constantly chooses what to
focus on first, based on this desire that reflects the core of
everything it means to be you.

This leaves all behaviors, attitudes, and abilities open to you,

yet you will always end up approaching them in a way that
reflects your deepest desire. All the letters and all their ef-
fects are simply results of what your mind naturally priori-
tizes in life, based on what you want most. Now let’s get into
defining those letters, so you can know what you’re working
with, get past all the simplified limitations, and just be you!
E – Extravert

Being a cognitive Extravert has nothing to do with how so-

cial you are. Rather, it simply means that you naturally look
outward at the world around you in order to form thoughts,
decide on actions, and make judgments. You tend to ob-
serve, considering the opinions of others and the behaviors
of your surroundings, and then you form thoughts from
those observations. While cognitive Introverts naturally
form thoughts in the quiet laboratories of their own heads
before testing those thoughts against the real world, Extra-
verts usually form their thoughts in observant reference to
the people, objects, and events around them.

Social extraversion, by contrast, is a behavioral habit that

can change depending on a person’s situation or mood. Cog-
nition is the natural framework of thought beneath all one’s
changing habits and behaviors, the inner self that motivates
all actions and attitudes of every kind. So don’t worry if you
don’t feel particularly socially extraverted; that’s an entirely
different matter from cognitive Extraversion. Most sources
in books and online deal with behavioral habits like social
extraversion or introversion, but those behaviors are not
cognition. Behaviors are about what you do, which can
change dramatically in varying situations, but cognition is
about how you think, beneath any and all behaviors.
There are times to be socially extraverted and times to be
socially introverted, and any healthy person of any type will
learn to develop both. Being overly socially extraverted can
in fact be a coping mechanism, a way to try to escape or dis-
tract oneself from personal doubts or insecurities. Likewise,
being overly socially introverted can also be a coping tech-
nique, keeping others at arm’s length in order to avoid hav-
ing one’s pain or weaknesses brought into the light. Either
behavior can be enjoyed healthily or clung to unhealthily,
and all people, of all types, can be equally healthy or un-
healthy in their social habits.
Yet cognitive Extraverts, regardless of their social habits, ap-
proach all situations by looking outside themselves first in
order to gather information. Everyone processes infor-
mation inside their heads, and everyone observes outward,
but cognitive Extraverts observe first before anything else.
They look to the opinions of others in order to form their
own, seeking to gather other points of view to create a relia-
ble opinion of their own. Extraverts constantly harvest the
beliefs, habits, actions, and abilities of others, in order to
gauge how best to act and think. They’re always mentally
looking outward.
Being so focused outward, Extraverts can find it difficult to
make decisions without input from others; this can in fact
induce some cognitive Extraverts to behave socially intro-
verted! They prefer to have someone to bounce ideas off of,
and can feel at a loss when left to decide on their own. On
the flip side, though, this focus on other people equips Extra-
verts to better take into account the desires, reactions, and
choices of others, adapting their own desires and plans ac-
cordingly.

Extraverts especially desire appreciation for all they do, and

can feel particular hurt from feeling taken for granted. Eve-
ryone likes to be appreciated, but with their outward focus
on the world and people around them, Extraverts have a
natural need for their efforts and successes to be recognized
and praised. This focus on other people’s thoughts and opin-
ions can also lead Extraverts to be a bit morally relativist. It
can be harder for them to stand up for what they know to be
right in a situation, since they’re so used to considering the
viewpoints of so many people. The objective facts of a situa-
tion can be very complex, and different people may view the
same facts very differently, so this can make it difficult for
Extraverts to stand up for what they really believe. They can
of course learn to better acknowledge what they know, deep
down, to be right, but their constant outward observation
means that it comes a little less naturally to them.
All this observation can sometimes cause Extraverts to be
pretty quiet, taking in information like a vacuum while si-
lently watching and listening to everything going on around
them. Their focus on observation can make them appear es-
pecially socially introverted at times. After looking outward
to observe, Extraverts need to quietly process all the infor-
mation they’ve gathered. They observe first, but afterward
they tend to become very thoughtful and introspective.
Wisdom, understanding, and quiet, thoughtful insights are
equally available to healthy people of all cognitive types.
P – Perceiver

Perceiver vs. Judger is one of the most crucial factors in any-

one’s cognition, yet it’s also one of the most commonly mis-
understood. There are stereotypes and oversimplifications
about all the letter pairs, causing people to be mistyped or
made to feel that their own type is inferior in some way, and
that doesn’t help anyone. But unlike the other three letter
pairs, the difference between Perceiver and Judger entirely
changes a person’s whole cognition process. The switching
of just this one pair of letters produces a completely differ-
ent order of cognition steps, resulting in nearly opposite
strengths and weaknesses. A person who’s mistyped be-
tween Perceiver and Judger might end up feeling confused
about how their type thinks, what they excel at and what
they need to watch out for, because the switching of these
two letters changes around the entire cognition process.

As a Perceiver, you are not any less organized, responsible,

or decisive, regardless of the plentiful oversimplifications on
the matter. Perceivers simply prefer to take in options be-
fore committing to a course of action or opinion. Even if it
takes longer in the short run to get something done, Perceiv-
ers prefer to get it done right. Some Perceivers may be
messy or scatterbrained, and some may be incredibly finicky
or punctual, yet all Perceivers focus on taking in options
first, before deciding on a course to follow. They prefer to
move forward cautiously, adapting carefully to any situation,
rather than trying to plot a path and make it work.

Perceivers view the world and all experiences as potential

tools that they can add to a growing arsenal of abilities.
They approach life like an endless series of puzzles, instead
of as a roadmap with definite, preplanned destinations. So
in their drive to continually solve life’s puzzles, Perceivers
are constantly seeking better tools for the job. They’re less
focused on “getting things done” and checking them off, than
they are on learning how to get things done better in gen-
eral.

Frequently for a Perceiver, finishing a project or meeting a

goal isn’t even their real intent; they simply engage in expe-
riences in order to learn something from them. Others may
pressure them to finish what they begin, make a goal and
stick to it, and go through life as a series of definite check-
lists, while in truth the Perceiver’s mind is only seeking to
test out new potential methods or tools. The project or goal
isn’t the objective; learning and testing new tools is. Once
they find out how well their new tool or idea works, their
mind is satisfied; they got what they were really after from
the experience.

Therefore any attempt to force Perceivers to complete defi-

nite tasks will be difficult for them, because the completion
of tasks wasn’t really what they were seeking in the first
place. They may be led to feel guilty for leaving piles of pro-
jects “unfinished,” but in truth their real goal was finished:
the learning and testing of new tools. It is inefficient, and in
fact irresponsible, to try to force Perceivers to finish projects
when that would be a waste of their energy. Perceivers are
most productive when they’re allowed to see that productiv-
ity is measured not only by goals reached, but also by tools
perfected. With a growing arsenal of better, faster tools,
Perceivers become more equipped to clear the way for oth-
ers and show them better methods of completing projects
and pursuing goals.

This is not to say that healthy Perceivers don’t like to get

things done; it’s simply not their primary focus. And like-
wise, healthy Judgers learn to enjoy considering new options
and tools in their drive to plow forward, yet the perfecting of
new tools isn’t their main focus. The more Perceivers let
themselves be Perceivers, the more they’ll naturally find
themselves getting things accomplished. The more they al-
low their minds to focus on exploring new methods and ap-
proaches, the more they won’t be able to resist using those
new and improved methods to knock out their goals in rec-
ord speed! But if they feel guilted into suppressing their
deep and necessary desire to find new tools, if they feel
pressured into getting things done first, then their energy
will be largely wasted and their minds will try to rebel
against being forced to go forward using inferior tools.

At the same time, though, this focus on seeking better tools

can sometimes make it hard for Perceivers to settle on a
course of action and go forward with it. While Judgers may
stride forward without considering sufficient alternatives,
Perceivers may spend so much energy considering options
that they fail to just take the leap and make a decision.
Watch out for this “paralysis by analysis,” focusing so much
on potential solutions to a problem that you can’t manage to
even begin to choose one!

The ability to say, “You know what? I have several options

here that may work, and they’re all too comparable to decide
between them, so I’ll just pick one and use it!” is a powerful
tool for Perceivers to add to their toolbox. Perceivers excel
at adapting to new and changing situations, but there won’t
be anything new for them to adapt to unless they take a leap
and see what happens! Considering the options, then taking
a chance and adjusting after, allows Perceivers to be quick
and decisive while still considering options and perfecting
new tools. As always, the healthier we grow in any letter,
the more we naturally and automatically gain the strengths
of that letter and its opposite as well, while gradually losing
the weaknesses of both.
EP – Extraverted Perceiver

Extraversion’s outward orientation combined with Perceiv-

ing’s constant desire to find and gather new tools makes EPs
doubly observant in a way. They focus on gathering as many
options as possible, from as many different external sources,
before making a decision. This also makes them doubly reti-
cent to solidify on a decision, since the making of a decision
can seem a little too final, cutting off other potential options
that seem too good to lose.

EPs thrive off of having as many different options as possi-

ble, and when there’s just so much information, so much to
do and see, so many different people and opinions and ideas,
it can make it hardest for EPs to make decisions about what
action to take, or what opinion to hold. It’s hard to limit all
the complex and diverse information in the world down to a
single choice or viewpoint. Actually making a decision, suck-
ing it up to “just do it,” can seem to cut off painfully many
valuable possibilities or alternative points of view.

However, all this can in fact be a powerful and needed

strength. The EP drive to take in and consider numerous
points of view can protect them—and others who listen to
them—from making unwise, hasty decisions that would hurt
themselves or others. In this way, adventurous EPs who
love trying new things and seeing “what does this button
do?” can actually serve as a voice of restraint to their more
action-oriented friends, alerting them to options they may
have overlooked.

Our culture often prizes decisive action over deliberation or

observation, but that “leap before you look” hubris is the
cause of much tragedy and misunderstanding. There’s no
problem so bad, no crisis so dire, that swift, decisive, wrong
action can’t make worse. As an EP, be proud to use your
strength of observation, taking in and considering more and
more options and points of view. As you do, you’ll find that
you grow ever more comfortable being decisive when you
need to be, able to choose the best option because you’ve al-
lowed yourself freedom to observe. Yet if you let others
make you feel guilty or silly because of this natural strength,
you might resist developing it, and continue to take longer
than you’d like when making decisions, and end up never re-
ally being happy with most decisions you have to make any-
way. Enjoy looking at and trying options, be proud of it, and
then you’ll naturally grow to do it with greater speed and in-
sight.

It’s good for EPs to spend time enjoying all kinds of different
options, rather than always trying to go forward and do “re-
sponsible” action. Without observing different options, ac-
tion will go awry and opinions will become oversimplistic.
Therefore, as an EP, recognize that it’s more responsible for
you to slow down and play around with options! It is not re-
sponsible for you to hurry on and satisfy others by filling up
checklists if it causes you to neglect your unique strength of
seeing the possibilities that others might rush past.

As EPs try to force themselves to be responsible through ac-

tion, they tend to shove down their real desires, and may end
up fighting themselves, eddying around, and never really
getting anywhere. You don’t need to rebel and throw out all
desire to accomplish things, yet as you recognize that you’ll
accomplish more by slowing down, as you let yourself be re-
sponsible by trying things out instead of always checking off
goals, you’ll feel less guilty and you’ll become a powerful
voice of sanity and sense to those who might rush headlong
into decisive, hurtful actions.

Through its uniquely powerful ability to observe, Extravert-

ed Perceiving excels in seeing nuance and patterns in the
complexities of life, and most especially in people. EPs natu-
rally know how to handle and interact with people and their
reactions, seeing right to the heart of people’s motives. EPs
may or may not be social, but they know how people work.
They have an easier time knowing just how to get a laugh or
a smile, how to cause shock or comfort, and especially how
to push people’s buttons.

Overall, EPs are naturally

oriented toward people.
They constantly watch
what others do and how
they think, and then
measure themselves by
that yardstick and chart
their lives accordingly.
This makes them particu-
larly affected by others’
opinions, beliefs, and ad-
vice, since they want to
look outward and gather
as many different points
of view as possible.
When making an especially complex or important decision,
EPs will tend to try to gather as many different opinions as
possible from other people, in order to see which ones seem
to be the best. They’ll ask friends what they think, they’ll go
to family, books, articles, magic 8 balls, even talk to them-
selves out loud, anything they can get their hands on.
But all this gathering of different sources can make it hard
for an EP to acknowledge when they already know the right
answer. When others around you seem to make compelling
arguments that you know aren’t quite right, it can be hard as
an EP to throw away their input, even when you know deep
down that it’s wrong. EPs hate the idea of losing options or
possibilities, and they sometimes feel as if disagreeing with
someone’s opinion will cause them to lose that person as a
source of information.

The solution lies in EPs’ natural strength in understanding

the motives and character of people. Use that strength, ad-
mit when you know someone is or isn’t a good, reliable, or
honest source of information, and you’ll find it easier to de-
cide whom to trust and listen to. EPs are all about sources;
they rely on those whom they trust as sources in order to
help them choose how to navigate all the surprises and dan-
gers of life. There’s just too much information otherwise!
When EPs boldly choose good sources to rely on, instead of
trying to cling to all sources, they feel safer and freer to exer-
cise their gift of seeing right to the heart of anyone.

And nowhere is an EP’s observation of people stronger than

in their observation of themselves. They have a natural abil-
ity to see and understand themselves and their own motives,
which can often result in a healthy surge of self-love. But if
an EP has been made to feel ashamed of the things they ob-
serve in themselves, especially if they’ve been made to feel
guilty for having trouble choosing appropriate actions, then
they may try to avoid observing themselves.

This can cause the EP’s bright glow of self-love to become

buried under bitter self-loathing or sweetly apologetic self-
demeaning. The nastiest jerks among EPs are often simply
reacting to a self-hatred caused by their own reticence to ob-
serve themselves for what they’re really like and who they
really are. Stung by guilt imposed as a result of their difficul-
ties with taking reliable action, they fall into denial about the
good they really see in themselves. Soon enough, they’ll
start denying anything good they see in anyone else, too.

But when an EP embraces their ability to penetratingly ob-

serve everyone, especially themselves, then they won’t fall
into denial of either the positive or the negative in anyone.
They’ll be free to healthily be themselves without clinging to
the parts of themselves that they don’t really like, and with-
out suppressing the heroic, tender, powerful goodness with-
in them. All this leads to a genuine confidence and a compel-
lingly attractive swagger, which is entirely different from the
forced confidence, insecurity, and inadequacy displayed by
unhealthy EPs who avoid or deny what they see in them-
selves. As an EP, look inward, recognize that it’s most re-
sponsible for you to observe and experiment with options
rather than rush forward with checklists and goals, and as
you do, you’ll be excited to observe yourself, love yourself,
and so lift the lives of everyone you interact with.
N – iNtuitive

As an iNtuitive, you are not necessarily smarter, more book-

ish, more rational, or more enlightened than Sensors. Like-
wise, you don’t have to be any less practical, less athletic, or
whatever else that oversimplified stereotypes may assert,
both in books and online. Being an iNtuitive simply means
that you see the world primarily in terms of concepts and
ideas, while Sensors tend to view life in terms of their own
experiences. iNtuitives view all their experiences in terms of
what they show conceptually, rather than the other way
around. Both are needed, and as with all the letters, every-
one does both. Yet iNtuitives view everything conceptually
first and foremost, before applying those concepts to their
own experiences.

This focus on concepts and ideas naturally results in seeing

all the world as an interconnected web, as every idea flows
into every other. No part of the web can be considered in
isolation, since a single change to one part of the great web
of reality will result in far-reaching changes to everything
else. iNtuitives tend to focus on the whole of life, people, sit-
uations, and experiences, rather than on the individual piec-
es that make them up. Everything is connected in a fantasti-
cally complex network or implications, contrasts, and effects.
This leads to an excited awareness of all the connections,
parallels, metaphors, and relationships between everything
in life, noticing how concepts fit together and seeing what
those relationships say.

iNtuitives thus try to understand things from as many sides

as possible, forming complex opinions that try to reflect all
the interconnected grandeur of their conceptual webs.
However, just because their opinions tend to be complex,
that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily accurate! One little
misconception in one unattended corner of their beliefs can
pull the whole web off balance. Because they focus so much
on concepts rather than experiences, iNtuitives can often be
the last ones to see just how far off the mark their opinions
have been pulled.
A concerted and deliberate effort to work on focusing on raw
experience, rather than conceptual ideas alone, can help to
gradually bring an iNtuitive’s web of opinions more and
more in line with reality. It can be tempting for iNtuitives to
try to shoehorn all experiences to fit with their conceptual
beliefs, but as they instead humble their ideas to adapt to the
harsh dictates of experience, they’ll be able to enjoy all the
conceptual beauty and complexity of reality without trying
to force it to fit any predetermined opinion.

Viewing everything in terms of ideas and concepts leads to

an awareness of potential combinations of events, ideas, or
actions, and all the possibilities that they can lead to. This
causes iNtuitives to frequently focus on trying to imagine
things that could be, rather than trying to protect things that
already are. Of course this is powerful, but they must be
careful not to neglect the good in things as they already are.
All too often, iNtuitives are tempted to not appreciate what
they have, throwing out the good with the bad in their drive
to reach for new things.

On the flip side, iNtuitives can sometimes resist and fear

change, pessimistically clinging to things as they are when
they cannot see a better way that could be. In both cases, the
harsh realities of experience can dispel the arrogance of pes-
simism about things that might be, and demonstrate the pre-
ciousness of things that already are. Protecting and appreci-
ating good things that already exist is a necessary fuel in any
effective pursuit of things that have never yet been, and con-
stantly adapting one’s ideas to fit with experience is a neces-
sary anchor to the pursuit of thoughts that have never yet
been imagined.

As always, both iNtuition and Sensing are needed, and both

can be equally healthy or unhealthy. Healthy iNtuitives
should cultivate a careful protection of the good in the world
and an awareness of raw experience instead of only inter-
connected concept, yet they should also enjoy allowing their
main focus to be on the conceptual whole, and all the excit-
ing and awesome things that could yet be! While numerous
stereotypes portray iNtuition as over-idealistic or impracti-
cal, all types can be practical or impractical, pessimistic or
idealistic, in their own unique ways.

Indeed, any attempt to imagine conceptual possibilities

without practicality is simply unhealthy. Such impracticality
tends to come from overlooking the interconnected com-
plexity of practical ingredients necessary to make an idea in-
to reality. Healthier iNtuition keeps track of more complexi-
ty, not less, and therefore grows ever more practical and ev-
er more daring in its dreams for the future. The more an iN-
tuitive lets themselves be an iNtuitive, seeing all the inter-
connected conceptual nature of everyone and everything,
the more practical, appreciative, and effective they’ll become
in all their hopes and ideals.
F – Feeler

As a Feeler, you are not necessarily any more emotional,

sappy, irrational, weak, or whatever else the numerous ste-
reotypes may say about Feeling. Being a Feeler simply
means that you focus first on the intrinsic meaning and sig-
nificance of things, before seeking ways to put them to use.
Everyone looks at both meaning and use, but Feelers focus
first and foremost on the meaning and inherent precious-
ness of the world, events, and people.

This means that Feelers want ideas, people, and the world in
general to live up to the meaning they see in them. When
anything seems to fall short of its potential preciousness,
such as when a person decides to be selfish, or a potentially
brilliant philosophy turns out to be flawed, such failure will
be particularly disappointing to a Feeler. Yet all this focus on
meaning gives Feelers a compelling and powerful ability to
see, understand, and then make use of the significance and
meaning in people, events, and ideas. Meaning thus has a
use all its own.

Any healthy Feeler will learn to care for the necessities of

use as well as the wider perspective of meaning, but their
natural focus will still be on meaning foremost. This results
in a more zoomed-out view of everything, focusing on the
whole picture and the purpose and meaning of each part
within that picture. In a way, “meaning” is nothing more
than “use in the context of the whole, big picture.”

It is the focus on this wide, sweeping meaning that gives

Feelers an almost effortless ability to grasp the context of
that big picture, even when they’re not at all aware of all its
varied details. This provides a zoomed-out pragmatism, see-
ing what must be done in the context of the whole. Feelers
therefore tend to find themselves focused more on end goals,
which protects them from getting lost by focusing on only
the road to get there. It is this sense of perspective and con-
text that fuels meaning and gives it its unique usefulness,
without which Thinkers might quickly paint themselves into
corners.
The differences between Feelers and Thinkers have gar-
nered a particularly large amount of stereotypes, many of
which seem flat-out mean spirited. Feelers are no less ra-
tional than Thinkers, and Thinkers are no less emotional
than Feelers; everyone, of every type, can and should be both
healthily emotional and rational. And every cognitive type is
equally prone to being overemotional, each in unique ways.
The difference doesn’t lie between Feelers and Thinkers, but
rather, between being healthy or unhealthy in general. An
overly emotion-driven psyche is an unhealthy one, and every
type is equally vulnerable to being hijacked by their own
emotions in times of stress or weakness, each in their differ-
ent ways.

Now, the wide, sweeping perspective of Feelers can some-

times appear to simulate greater connection with emotion.
A focus on the meaning and significance of things within the
context of the whole picture can generate great feelings of
hope or despair, wonder or contempt. These are big feel-
ings, and noticeable ones. Yet so, too, can Thinkers’ focus on
the specific uses of things elicit more immediate emotions of
joy or frustration, excitement or disappointment, or any oth-
er conceivable feeling. Thinkers are no less emotional than
Feelers, and no less vulnerable or tender in any way. Feel-
ers’ emotions focus more on the whole picture, and Think-
ers’ emotions are most often applied to specific uses or mis-
uses of things; apart from that, both can enjoy equal connec-
tion with emotion, as well as equal risk of overemotional ir-
rationality.

And no healthy person, of any type, should indulge in irra-

tionality or emotional subjectivity. Healthy Feelers are not
subjective in their views; they seek to focus on the objective,
measurable significance of things in the context of every-
thing else, while healthy Thinkers focus on the objective and
measurable use of things in their own right. Subjectivity, re-
action, and impulsive emotion are neither a Feeler trait nor a
Thinker trait; they’re simply human, and all types are equal-
ly equipped to master them healthily, in their own ways.

In the same manner, all types can learn to be in touch with

their emotions and all the power therein, each in their own
specialized way. To be human is to have emotions, and
that’s good! Healthy, bridled emotions provide vital per-
spective that human thought alone cannot hope to contain.
Healthy emotion reminds us of truths we might be entirely
unaware of, even as we feel that they’re there. This is why
emotion can be such a powerful, guiding light, at times
dwarfing conscious reason. Yet this is also why runaway
emotions are so dangerous, smothering all attempts at rea-
son and balanced perspective, just as all powerful things are
dangerous when they run amok.
This sheer power of emotions, and their ability to remind us
of things our thoughts alone cannot keep track of, is why
suppressed emotions always find a way to influence all our
thoughts, views, and actions. This makes suppressed emo-
tions much more dangerous, because their sweeping influ-
ence is ignored even while they steer conscious thought.
The quickest way to be controlled by emotion is to pretend it
isn’t a factor, thereby letting it run unattended in the back of
our minds, coloring all experiences and skewing all opinions
and ideas. Only unhealthy people, whether Thinkers or
Feelers, attempt to suppress emotion, or indulge in being
driven by it.

Regardless of how unemotional some may seem, those who

are the most quiet about their emotions are often the ones
who nurture them the most deeply, whether they mean to or
not. Being a Feeler therefore does not mean you’re doomed
to be weak, wishy-washy, or unreasonable in any way, nor
does it justify such unhealthy coping mechanisms. And
while some may attempt to be coldly unemotional, that de-
sire is often a very emotional desire in and of itself, usually
resulting from fear, loneliness, or pride.

Such attempts to be unemotional are an example of un-

healthiness. While blubbery, stereotypical emotions can cer-
tainly get in the way of reason, so also can emotions like dis-
taste, discomfort at unwelcome ideas, and disdain or pessi-
mism block all rational thought. These sorts of negative
emotions are still emotions, yet they often replace reason for
those who consider themselves unemotional.

Yet when reason and emotion are nurtured together in their

natural relationship, we can live safely above either extreme
of overemotional subjectivity, or falsely emotionless hard-
ness. We can cultivate a rational and honest approach to life
by remembering that emotions, when heeded, will lead to
new discoveries and protect from unseen hazards. Feelings
of all kinds can help us prioritize where we should employ
our thoughts and our energy. Without emotion, logic loses
context and perspective, causing it to neglect key principles
and wander into inaccuracy. Healthy emotion is free to all
types, both Thinkers and Feelers, each in their different
ways.
NF – iNtuitive Feeler

With iNtuition viewing life as an interconnected web of con-

cepts, iNtuitive Feelers naturally focus on how the meaning
of each thing connects with the meaning of everything else.
The significance and preciousness of anything affects the
significance of everything; the loss or violation of the mean-
ing of one thing has damaging effects on the preciousness of
related things, in a widening ripple effect. Likewise, when
anything is honored, respected, and valued for its intrinsic
worth, then everything related to it becomes easier to treas-
ure.

NFs naturally think according to these relationships, seeking

to understand the full meaning of whatever it is they care
about. Looking to the future of what things could become,
iNtuitive Feelers want to help the things they care about
grow to be ever more meaningful, even if it means that those
things have to change. Healthy NFs are not afraid to change
the things, ideals, and people they care about, in order to
help them attain all the dignity, value, and joy that they can
grow into.

Both intrinsic meaning and concepts are timeless things, and

NFs tend to think of things in the context of all time as a wide
and infinite whole. Context is the big word for all NFs.
Whether they care most about principles or data, actions or
people, they’ll view it in terms of how it fits into the big pic-
ture of everything else, how its context in that grand whole
defines its precious worth.

This timeless attitude causes NFs to think of people, actions,

and everything in terms of justice and mercy: Is this action
or idea just or deserved? Or is it undeserved, yet merciful
according to the needs and value of those involved? Or is it
flat out cruel, or unjust? Often without realizing it, NFs think
of right and wrong in these terms. Justice and mercy are
good, each in their proper place according to the needs and
value of those involved, while injustice and cruelty are bad,
and are often misapplications of runaway mercy or justice.
iNtuitive Feelers excel in understanding the far reaching im-
plications and applications of justice and mercy, but they
should be careful to remember that there are many other
facets of right and wrong, good and bad, and everything that
makes life worth living.
Cognition Steps – ENFP

Now, we can combine all your letters to find your full cogni-
tive specialty: ENFP! By combining the four Scopes—EP, EJ,
IP, and IJ—with the four Objectives—NF, NT, SF, and ST—we
derive the sixteen different facets of cognition, each with its
own unique strengths and specializations, which all the oth-
er types depend on. And each comes with its own particular
weaknesses as well, needing the support of other types who
are strong in those areas. Only with all sixteen types com-
bined can we enjoy and benefit from the entire spectrum of
zoomed in and zoomed out perspectives, collective and indi-
vidual focuses, usefulness and meaning, things as they are
and things as they can yet become. A deeper understanding
of each type leads to better use and appreciation for all types
of cognition.

As an ENFP, your entire cognition revolves around your

unique combination of these cognitive variables: the EP
Scope focusing on people and their motives, and the NF Ob-
jective seeking the meaning of things as they could be. This
unique combination prompts every thought, motivates every
action, counsels every judgment and inspires every
worldview. It sums up the end goal of everything you pur-
sue, the result of the things that matter the most to you in
your most private heart.
Every time you’re faced with any decision, any thought or
feeling, any experience or person or anything, your mind
naturally races through four cognitive steps. The order of
these cognitive steps depends on your unique Scope and Ob-
jective, as you subconsciously focus first on the things that
matter the most to you. You’re probably so used to thinking
in your own order, all the time, that it may seem like the only
natural way to think. This makes it all the more amazing
that people of differing cognition approach the same world
so differently, each offering something unique and powerful
to share.

As an ENFP, your first cognition step is

Observation of the world and especially
of people, their motives and workings
and desires, because that’s what matters
most to you! You look outward and see
patterns and connections (Ne, or extra-
verted iNtuition) which weave together
into a vast, detailed tapestry of the
workings of people and the world in
general.
Secondly, you turn inward to draw conclu-
sions about the meaning and significance of
everything you’ve observed (Fi, or intro-
verted Feeling).

Thirdly, you take all this

meaningful Data and draw
from it overarching Prin-
ciples of how the world
works, by looking out-
ward and seeing what
works, what’s practical,
useful, and realistic in a
way that’s universally ap-
plicable (Te, or extravert-
ed Thinking).

Fourthly and finally, from these universal

Principles you decide on Action and form
opinions, by playing out specific scenarios of
experiences in your head to see what seems
like the best option (Si, or introverted Sens-
ing).

And then the cycle starts over: Your Actions

cause results that you then Observe via Ne
(extraverted iNtuition), your fourth step feeding back into
your first, over and over. You may go through this entire cy-
cle of cognition many times in a single second without even
noticing.

Action is your fourth and final cognition step because it’s

what you focus on the least. This makes it the weakest of
your cognitive steps. As you observe the world and people,
you tend to see so many options that it’s hard to decide on
just one! And when you do decide, you may find out that it
would have been better to have chosen something else. This
is nothing to be embarrassed about. Every type has a weak-
ness, just as every type has a strength that may appear al-
most superhuman to other types.

Healthy EPs are naturally able to see right to the core of

people with speed and surety that might seem reckless to
others. Healthy EJs, on the flip side, can accomplish long lists
of tasks with precision while other types would be struggling
to even get started. IPs delve deep into probing questions
that others might never even think to ask, while IJs provide
complex and comprehensive answers to even the most baf-
fling of those questions. All the types need each other; this is
why we call them the Type Heroes! Each approaches the
same world from such a different angle,
and each supports, guides, and teaches
every other. By seeking out and learn-
ing from other types, especially types
that think very differently from you, you
can grow stronger in all your cognition
steps.

And usually the best way to grow more

reliable and strong in all your cognitive
steps is to focus on your first step. This
is the step that your mind naturally pri-
oritizes first anyway; it’s what you care
about the most, even when you might
feel like you shouldn’t. As you focus on paying attention to
your first step, you’ll find that all your other cognitive steps
grow sharper and stronger as a result, almost automatically.
When it comes to cognition, play to your strengths and your
weaknesses will grow to keep up.
It’s when people focus too much on trying to improve their
fourth step directly that they tend to become defensive, de-
pressed, and discouraged about it, often neglecting their
strengths and falling into denial that they even have a weak-
ness. Some such people try to cover their weakness by inad-
vertently posing as a different cognitive type, in order to act
like others who don’t share their weak area. Yet this usually
results in only a parody of the type they’re trying to become,
attempting to gain the strengths of another type without
first mastering their own. You can develop all the strengths
of all the types, but you cannot do it by trying to fight or sup-
press what you naturally want most. Let your first cognitive
step be your focus, let yourself be you, and then you’ll be free
to grow to become everything you want to become.

Focus on your strength of Observing people and their mo-

tives; as you do, your weakness in choosing correct Action
will grow stronger of its own accord. And remember, if ac-
tions go wrong, they can often be fixed! Beware of getting
down on yourself about Action; enjoy seeing and under-
standing people and the world, and then you’ll learn how to
better lift, advise, and inspire others.
Type Specialization – ENFP Standard Bearer

Cognition is the result of where you naturally focus your at-

tention, your desires, and your interests. Regardless of what
your momentary desires or interests may be, each of us has
certain deep, secret hopes that mean more to us than any-
thing. While moods and opinions may change, these deepest
desires are such a pure reflection of who we really are. In a
world where there is so much to do, so much to experience,
so much need and so many discoveries waiting to be found,
we each inadvertently focus the most on some things over
others. The things that we focus on most of all reflect what
we want most out of life, deep down. This comes out
through cognition, as the unique specialization of your cog-
nitive type.

As the ENFP Standard Bearer, perhaps nothing is more im-

portant to you than becoming the noble, heroic figure you
see in your heart, and helping others do the same. Cognitive-
ly, you focus on the potential meaning (NF) that people (EP)
can have, most especially yourself. This causes you to think
of everything in terms of how it applies to particular, real
people you know, rather than to theoretical people as a
trend. What matters most to you, deep down, is finding the
hidden worth within everyone, and waving its banner high.
This gives Standard Bearers a dramatic fascination with he-
roes and heroism. While colorful superheroes might natu-
rally excite the imagination of everything a person can be-
come, ENFPs tend to care a great deal more about “regular”
heroism, the sincere and selfless deeds that normal people
can freely choose in their own daily lives. They enjoy en-
couraging others, rallying them around the meaning and sig-
nificance that each person can find in themselves. As an
ENFP, you may have a flair for the dramatic, for bold and in-
spiring idealism, or instead you may find that you quietly
and unassumingly lift and inspire those around you, who
will come to treasure your friendship.

None of this means that your specialization of lifting and in-

spiring comes easy for you. You have to work at it, just as
much as anyone else would. The difference between you
and other types is that you care to work at this, above all
else. Some may say that it’s just easier for you to be optimis-
tic, encouraging, or passionate, but that’s not true; you simp-
ly care enough about unlocking and enjoying the potential in
people, that you’re willing to work much harder at it.

No cognitive type has it easy; every type has to work just as

hard at their specialization as anyone else would have to.
And every type has to deal with social pressure that tries to
make them feel ashamed or embarrassed of their unique
specialization. This pressure results in unhappiness and
deep, internal conflict, as people feel tempted to ignore their
specialization in an effort to not stand out, rock the boat, or
look foolish or make anyone else uncomfortable. When we
try to ignore our own deepest desires, the reflection of who
we really are and really can be, we feel torn, frustrated, and
unfulfilled.

This is why understanding our own cognition is so im-

portant! As we come to understand what we already wanted
in the first place, we learn how to get out of our own way.
We learn to let ourselves shine, rather than hiding our light.
The world needs what each of us can uniquely offer. We
need all the strengths of all the types; each is special at the
same time, because each is special in a different way. You
don’t do anyone any good when you hide your unique
strength, even if you’re afraid it will make others feel uncom-
fortable. Let yourself be the Standard Bearer you are, wave
your banner high, and do it in your own personal way. As
you do, you’ll implicitly give others permission to embrace
their own potential and raise their flags alongside yours.
Type Angst – ENFP McFly Conviction

Everyone has good days and bad days; every type enjoys
successes and suffers through failures. Yet we each react to
those same successes and failures differently, depending on
our cognition. The things we value most, and the things we
focus on most, determine how we subconsciously interpret
everything that happens to us. While our Type Specializa-
tion reflects what we most desire out of life, every cognitive
type also has a Type Angst, a reaction to our deepest fears,
worries, and insecurities.

Of course, anyone can be afraid of anything. And anyone, of

any type, can suffer from any weakness. In fact, it’s much
easier to gain the unique weaknesses of other types than it is
to gain their unique strengths! When we attempt to adopt
the strengths of another type before mastering our own,
usually all we end up with is the weaknesses of both and the
strengths of neither. Yet each cognitive type has one deep-
est, most fundamental worry, resulting from their unique
order of cognition steps.

As an ENFP Standard Bearer, your central fear, beneath all

others, is that your feelings, desires, and emotions don’t mat-
ter. That they’re not valid. That everything you’ve ever been
through, everything that’s ever mattered to you, is foolish,
pointless, and ultimately ridiculous. Again, anyone can have
this fear. But for Standard Bearers, this worry is at the root
of them all.

With ENFPs’ weakest cognition step being Action via Sens-

ing, Standard Bearers naturally fear that their actions, and
their understanding of the resulting consequences, are espe-
cially lacking. Specifically, they worry that their actions lack
all-important meaning and significance (F), in an experien-
tial way (S). You fear that your thoughts and feelings about
your experiences lack importance. This unconscious worry
that your thoughts and feelings are not SF enough results in
the fear that everything you’ve been through, everything
you’ve ever felt, all your hopes and ideals and the passions
that make you yourself, are pointless and invalid.

This is almost certainly false, but that doesn’t make the fear
any less persistent.

Since these worries come from our cognition, we might not

even realize that not everyone has them, just as we some-
times forget that not everyone has our same Type Specializa-
tion. And since these fears come from our cognition, they’ve
been with each of us for as long as we’ve been thinking.
They can be overcome, entirely, but only by understanding
how they work. Yet when each of us is young, we inadvert-
ently react to every scare or disappointment through the
lens of our own type’s central fear. The things that leave the
deepest scars are the ones that hit us right in this most vul-
nerable place.

But since our minds therefore associate these fears with the
earliest experiences of childhood, we ironically tend to run
to these fears as if they were a place of safety. Childhood
usually feels warm, safe, and right in our minds, even if in
reality it was nothing of the sort. So when life gets hard,
when disappointment strikes, whenever we feel insecure,
overwhelmed, or uncomfortable at all, our minds naturally
and inadvertently rush back to these deeply ingrained child-
hood fears. The coping behaviors that result are our unique
Type Angsts.

As a Standard Bearer, whenever you feel or experience any-

thing stressful or negative in any way, your mind tries to
rush back to the supposed safety of childhood. This causes a
surge of your central fear that your feelings, thoughts, opin-
ions and experiences are all foolish and invalid. As a result,
you then feel the tempting pull to indulge in the ENFP McFly
Conviction.
The McFly Conviction is the burning desire to prove that
your feelings and thoughts are valid. This is good, but in
your eagerness to prove it, it’s all too easy to end up pushing
down others’ feelings in order to assert your own. If you feel
stupid, you might find yourself treating others as stupid in
an effort to prove your own validity. If you feel irresponsi-
ble, unworthy, unenlightened, or any other negative feeling,
you might be surprised to realize that you start treating oth-
ers that way as an attempt to build yourself up. McFly Con-
viction causes Standard Bearers to sabotage their own
treasured specialization, pushing down the validity of other
people instead of building them up.

Particularly unhealthy ENFPs expend tireless effort seeking

out ways to make others feel invalid. It never helps the
ENFP feel any better about themselves for more than a mo-
ment, and then they feel only more ridiculous and invalid af-
ter the high of bullying passes. An unhealthy ENFP’s entire
reason for being becomes making others feel of less worth,
in direct opposition to their Type Specialization. This ulti-
mate contradiction, desperately fighting against one’s own
deepest, most treasured desire, is miserable to say the least.

Yet even healthy Standard Bearers tend to indulge in McFly

Conviction when things get hard. As a natural and uninten-
tional way of guarding themselves, a Standard Bearer may
make others feel like they need to compete with them for the
validity of their feelings, as if only one person can be valid.
These unintentional slips into ENFP’s Type Angst are noth-
ing to beat yourself up about; after all, they’re unintentional.
Beating yourself up may make you feel safer from the accu-
sations of others, but in truth it will usually make you feel
even less valid, making the cycle worse.

All types can be tempted to declare that they or their loved

ones are already everything they’d like to be, even if it
means ignoring glaring truths or putting others down. Our
Type Angsts tempt us to feel entitled, like we deserve to al-
ready be at our goal, rather than being willing to learn and
grow patiently, gaining successes for real. This sense of enti-
tlement is a harmful twisting of the good desire to be special.
In reality, everyone can be equally special in ways that are
different from one another, allowing all to be unique in
unique, diverse ways.

As you surround yourself with the loving support of people

who care, as you seek out others who try to understand you
and accept you, you can grow less and less vulnerable to the
self-sabotage of McFly Conviction. Look to your Type Spe-
cialization, be a Standard Bearer with a vengeance, and your
mind will retreat less and less into the fears and scars that
result in your Type Angst. And even when no one else is
around, perhaps the best, most effective, and most fulfilling
way to gradually eliminate your Type Angst for good, is to
get in touch with your Paradoxitype.
ENFP Paradoxitype – INTJ Dragon

Each cognitive type enjoys a special relationship with every

other. Types with opposite letters can form a special, excit-
ing bond with each other, while types with opposite first and
last letters have a unique sense of camaraderie and close-
ness. Each relationship between the many types has special
qualities and advantages, but maybe the most important of
all these is Paradoxitype.

Your Paradoxitype is the secret person you are deep down.

It is not your “true self,” but rather the hidden, private side
of yourself that others may rarely get to see. It can shine out
when you’re feeling especially exuberant or comfortable
among close friends, who get to see this hidden you that oth-
ers might never know. On the flip side, in times of great dis-
tress you may be unable to keep it in, leaving it to burst out
of you haphazardly. Yet the more you get in touch with and
cultivate your Paradoxitype, the more easily and naturally
you’ll end up mastering the strengths of your own type,
while avoiding its weaknesses.

Cognitively, Paradoxitypes differ in all their letters except N

or S. So for you as an ENFP Standard Bearer, your secret, in-
ner Paradoxitype is the INTJ Dragon! This may seem, well,
paradoxical to stereotypical ENFP attitudes, but that’s exact-
ly what makes it so special. It’s this sort of complexity that
makes healthy people POP! It’s this adorable paradox within
you that can always surprise people just when they think
they’ve got you figured.

Learn to let loose your inner Dragon. Reach up for IJ per-

spective, indulge in exploring the universal principles of
what works and what doesn’t, and stride forward with fiery
determination to use those principles to powerful effect on a
worldwide scale. Let yourself be fierce and decisive when
needed. Stand boldly against danger and ridicule. The more
you let your inner Dragon come out in all you do, the more
you’ll naturally stand tall as a mighty Standard Bearer in un-
precedented strength, complexity, compassion, and genuine
happiness.

Obviously, understanding your own cognition is a marvelous

tool. We each approach life according to the particular
Scope and Objective of our unique Type Specialization, so it’s
immeasurably empowering to know how that works. The
more we understand what our mind is already trying to do,
the better we can gain what we’ve always been after, the
more we can avoid the pitfalls that have always nagged us,
and the more fully ourselves we can always be.

In this culture where some make flippant declarations about

“human nature” being unavoidably corrupt, jealous, or self-
destructive, it’s powerful to understand how our minds real-
ly work. We don’t have to feel at the mercy of Type Angsts
or other weaknesses, when we know where they come from
and how to heal them. We don’t have to repeatedly feel like
the person we see in the mirror isn’t quite up to the caliber
of the person we’d like to be in our secret hearts. We don’t
have to constantly struggle for elusive fulfillment, success,
and lasting joy, when we learn how to get out of our own
way in pursuit of what we’ve always really wanted all along.

We can each be a unique, one-of-a-kind version of our own

cognition’s Type Hero. These days, most people roll their
eyes at the idea of real heroism. It’s just not realistic, not
practical. We’re so often trapped in occupying ourselves
with the gray repetition of maintaining the things we care
about, and so optimism bows the knee to routine. Hope
struggles against the harsh verdicts of experience.

But when your car won’t start, you can throw up your hands
in surrender and accept that maybe it was never meant to
run in the first place, or you can learn how it works and find
out how to fix the problem. When life doesn’t match up with
what we really feel it can and should be, we can declare that
it was never meant to be that great anyway, or we can learn
how it works and find out how to fix the problems. You are
far more complex than any car, yet maybe the simplistic, ea-
ger dreams of childhood weren’t so far off. Maybe as you
learn to tune your own cognitive engine, you can slowly
grow to attain everything your deepest desires have always
reached for.
You can be a hero, and this world certainly needs heroes.
But what does a real-life hero look like? Real heroes are
usually not flashy, not famous, and certainly heroes aren’t
afraid to work tirelessly to do what needs to be done while
receiving little or no recognition. It’s quite common in fact
for heroes to be resented for enduring hardship and sacrifice
in order to lift others. Heroes are willing to go through
whatever is necessary in order to help those who need it,
and as they let themselves go through pain, humiliation, and
hopelessness, they gradually grow to shine as larger-than-
life, apparently superhuman figures in the real world who
inspire others to reach for their own heroic possibilities.

Now, there are plenty of people who work very hard to excel
at physical or mental pursuits, yet who are rather self-
serving. That’s not heroic. Heroism is not about having su-
perhuman abilities; it’s about learning how to do superhu-
man good with the abilities you have.

You do not need to wait to have greater abilities than you al-
ready have in order to be heroic. Heroes are those who use
their own abilities to selflessly help others, in whatever ways
they can. As we start with the desire to help, using the abili-
ties we have, then our abilities naturally increase. As we
humbly help in little ways, we grow more prepared and able
to see how the world needs our unique, personal strengths
in larger ways.

Stand tall as you, as the Standard Bearer you are, with your
own style, your own experiences and insights and particular
skills. Just be you, and learn how to get out of your own way.
You can be a hero. You can shine nobly as everything you’ve
ever wanted to be, and help everyone you meet do the same.
The more you grow into the full measure of the ENFP Stand-
ard Bearer you’ve already always been, the more successful,
fulfilling, and irrevocably happy you can become, because it
will just be who you are.

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