Transcription
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Hi, welcome back to Typecast Heroes, where we believe typology can save the world. I'm Amanda Fogelson, and I'm Jesse Miller. And today, we are going to be talking about, as we have been for quite some time, how each of the cognitive functions presents in each of the positions in the cognitive stack. And that is a mouthful to say. So, if you are familiar with us, we've got lots of stuff on our channel. Go watch it. I'm not going to give that spiel every time.
As we do want to remind you guys, though, um, that we believe anyone can be anything. And while we do wholeheartedly believe that, in this series, we're really taking a look at not only the behaviors that we see that are consistent across the board with, in this particular case, any inferior, um, but the actual motivation behind the behavior. So, while you may relate to a few of the examples that we give or the situations that we talk about, again, the true relation to the functions, I guess, is the motivation behind what the examples say.
Something else to keep in mind is that as you go through type development, particularly for this function and this position, which we are talking about extroverted intuition as it presents in the inferior position, as you go throughout your life, if you are super young, if you're in your teens, 20s, 30s, you may not have yet encountered some of these issues. If you are on the other end of it, you may have encountered them already and kind of moved past it. So, this is about average type development. You may have encountered things in your life that forced you to confront your inferior earlier, or you may be in your 60s and you've never really crossed that bridge except for in severe nightmares or with anxiety or depression or something in that matter because you have not been ready to deal with your inferior function. So, all of those things are important to remember as we talk about this function in this position.
Okay, so moving on. So, let's talk about what these things are. So, we've got lots of things on our channel. The end. Go, go watch all of the things. But extroverted intuition as it presents in the child function is specifically for ISFJs and ISTJs. So, let's go ahead and go over some of the definitions.
The inferior position is the position, the function that we feel bad about. We feel defensive about. We feel insecure about. It's something that we know deep down inside we are not super great at. So, for the ISFJs and the ISTJs, they know that they like their routine. They know that they like their experience, and they are comfortable there. And they might feel a little bit defensive when it comes to this.
Extroverted intuition is when you are pulling in information. It's a perceiving lens, and you are pulling in lots of new ideas very, very quickly. So, it's something that is novel or it's advanced pattern making in the external environment. So, for an ISTJ or an ISFJ, these are new. This is not just new information. So, this is important. When you lead with introverted sensing, you can take in information, and it can be brand new to you, and it might just take you a couple of days, and then you incorporate it into your introverted sensing system, your introverted sensing framework. But when it becomes inferior is when you are having to pull in lots of new information when you are completely out of your element.
So, you give, and actually, you give somebody who has integrated something as their hero, so an ISFJ or an ISTJ, and you present them with something that they've literally never seen before, something brand new, or you present an idea to them that is super out of the box. Yes, Amanda's going to give an example in a second with her mom. But if you are somebody who has that as your inferior function, it means you might get defensive. You have a tendency to be like, "That's crazy," or they'll be like, "You're not creative." Because sometimes introverted sensors can feel like they're not the most creative people. So, one of the ways that our ego protects itself is to be like, "Well, that's not creative. That's just psycho. I'm the real creative one because I have creativity, but my creativity is practical." That's one of the ways that the defensiveness can present. It can also be very triggered by external environment that they don't understand. So, events that they've never seen or never encountered.
So, Amanda, do you have an example for us with your mom?
One situation that my, my mom is an ISFJ. I am an ENFP, so my hero function is actually extroverted intuition. Um, so when, in regards to COVID, we're in the middle of COVID-19 right now. Um, we just had a very long conversation the other day about her really pushing super, super hard. She was pushing so hard that I read all of these different news outlets and that I take in all this information. And not only that, she is, um, she is, uh, very religious as well. And, um, so one thing she kept pushing was for me to read a certain book of the Bible, um, so that I could relate it to COVID. That's obviously not how I function. And so I sat there and I told her, I was like, "I can't do that. You love knowing all these things. You love it. It doesn't cause her anxiety to know. It causes her anxiety to not know, even if the information is like false. She'll take it in."
I want to give the motivations, the inner workings. Yeah. What's happening here? Yeah. So, her mom has, using her extroverted intuitive inferior function, she has made patterns because that's honestly how extroverted intuition works. And if it's in your inferior function, you may not have all the nuance to do it properly. Or not even properly, but to do it as quickly as an or as, as nuanced as an extroverted intuitive hero person would. So, what she's done is she's connected this something in her experience, something in her SI, with the outside world because she's encountering COVID. COVID is not in her frame. It is not in her SI anywhere. She's never happened. Yes. And so she's never gone through a pandemic. She's never gone through quarantine. She has got this book of the Bible, though. Yes. And so what she's doing is she's connecting that to the external world using her extroverted intuition. But because it isn't as far-ranged as somebody else's, it can seem to the observer as kind of crazy or kind of out there because this is the way that introverted sensing is making it function. It's making them work in this new environment. It's that they are connecting things.
So, I won't go as far as to say she's wrong. I don't know right. But the point is, is that that leap was so huge and so dramatic, not like, you know what I mean? Just like it was just such a big leap to make to say, "COVID-19 is Revelations." Like, that's such a big jump to make. I'm sure a lot of people out there and now are like, "Yes, it is." Um, that's nice. I'm sure a lot of you are actually believe this. Yeah. So, if you believe this, that's okay. You can believe that. It's completely okay. I'm not saying it's wrong. Like, just like I said, I'm not like, I was, I was just explaining to her that like, I can't do what she was doing. I see a whole bunch of gray area in the middle there where she saw like this and pieced it with this. Um, and so that's just one example.
Another example about it's not maybe too much information, similar to COVID, but, um, maybe just a little too out there, a little too crazy of an idea, um, is that I want to pick up and live in an RV and I want to travel full-time with my family. And I've got two almost three-year-old twins and an eight-year-old. I'll be homeschooled. And I literally want to sell my house. I want to sell everything I own. And I want to get an RV and I want to just travel around the world, around America. She's going to go across the ocean. Bring that up to my mom. For her, she is very supportive. She is extremely supportive. But she does not hesitate to tell me when I need to slow down. Constantly saying, "Slow down. Think about this. Have you done enough research? Have you thought about this enough? Have you talked to other people who have been through this?" That is her number one thing. "Have you actually met people who have done this and who have succeeded?" She wants her validation. Her, she wants to know that other people have done this and that it's okay to do. If it's brand new and if no one else has ever done it, it, she would never get over the fear of me doing it. But if she knows that someone else has been before me and has gone down this path and that success can happen, she becomes a little bit more inclined to be okay with that idea.
Because it is this, this inferior position, they feel nervous about this. They feel bad about this. But let's talk about the other side. Extroverted intuition. Wow. Extroverted intuition as it presents in the inferior function is sometimes like a vacation from yourself. So, ISFJs and ISTJs can indulge in these new experiences, these new ideas when they are ready to move into a different place in their life. This usually happens during the midlife crisis. Sometimes it's a little earlier for people who are forced into it. Sometimes it's a little later. So, like we had somebody on our Reddit page, I think it was an ISFJ, it was an SI dominant who said that her experience in life, she was very young, but her experience in life was to travel a lot. This is super important because people often associate traveling a lot with extroverted intuition, right? But what she was actually doing is like her introverted sensing frame was to travel a lot. That was her experience. So, she wanted to keep replicating it because that's what she knew. She knew to keep traveling, to keep moving, to keep looking. Um, so it wasn't essentially the newness. It was the sameness of constantly moving. And, um, and that's pretty interesting to me. I think.
And so when somebody is constantly doing so, for her, for this particular ISFJ, her way of indulging in extroverted intuition may actually have been to buy a house in the country and settle down because that's something that she's never done. And she doesn't have a friend. I believe she actually said that, didn't she? That like her, I don't think so. No. But the new, like for her to dive into an EI would be almost like settling down, which it often would look like the opposite. But I don't think so. I don't know. We'll have to look back at this. But, um, but it's the point is that they are so used to that's like they have their experience, their knowledge, their information, and completely novel, out-of-the-box, abstract ideas can mess up their frame. But when they indulge in it, when they play in it, when they are a little creative, and sometimes it can come out in very different ways, but when they do that, it's like taking a vacation from yourself. So, it can be very healthy. It doesn't have to be defensive. It doesn't have to be wild leaps. It can be very healthy.
So, one of the ways that they can do this is they can be like, really curious about like out-of-the-box restaurants or like, like some type of dining experience that they've never had in a million years. And everybody can like this, but it's like the reason they like it. They've eaten the same thing every day for 40 years. All of a sudden, they want to go to that really weird vegan restaurant down the street and they want to try it because they saw it on like TV and now they want to do it. Or they randomly want to take like a weekend getaway. Into them, like that spontaneous feeling of deciding on a Thursday night that you're going to leave Saturday morning for a week and get away is the craziest thing in the world. Um, because that's something they would never do. Whereas for me, it would be like, just another weekend.
Well, you would spend all weekend talking about it. Whether or not it actually occurs is a different thing entirely. Well, they would probably actually do it. Oh, yeah. Which it just depends, right? I was about to say, I mean, if I, if it's a weekend getaway, that's literally. But again, that fits within like, like we're constantly going and we want to constantly be going. Um, so it literally. But like to someone who's so organized and plans and like thinks out every step of the way first, that would be like a really thrilling adventure to like just pick up and go on a Saturday morning, like be away for Saturday and Sunday. My mom does that all the time now. But when she first started doing it, it was like a whole new world to her. It was like a whole different type of freedom that she had experienced. It's really funny. So, you should encourage them, right?
So, sometimes, and other ways that this can present is because they know that they may not be the most creative people, or they may feel like they're not the most creative. Let's not even say no, they may feel like they're not creative, or they may feel like they don't have unique or interesting ideas. Sometimes, some of the ways that this can manifest is they can stretch the truth a little bit to make it seem like things are a little more out of the box than they are. And especially because this world puts so much emphasis on extroverted intuition, or not actually, but just on intuition in general, they can make it want to seem like something is happening that isn't. It cannot. So, it can make them very challenging. They don't like chaotic information either. So, like when an extroverted intuitive is explaining something, and I've actually had this happen. I've had this happen with people I've been trying to to type and to work with them, and they're like, "Man, I really don't understand cognitive functions because they don't have practical applications." In fact, I had a very long conversation with an ISFJ who she said she didn't understand the cognitive functions until she could apply them to practical, real life, until she could see out the behavioral patterns. So, it can make this, because their extroverted intuition is again inferior, it can make it really hard for them to to take in something so abstract and philosophical as cognitive functions, right? Um, it can make them super defensive. They can even be a little embarrassed. And I've talked to the MBTI community is really mean to ISTJs and ISFJs. And I've talked to some of them and they're like, "Yeah, there's nothing really interesting or special about me," or "I'm not really, I'm not really creative." And I hate hearing that because they can be creative. I don't believe intuition owns the market on that. Um, and they can be interesting. I find them fascinating. I wish I could find way more of them to talk to me. But it's part of those things about the inferior extroverted intuition.
So, society needs that healthy extroverted intuition because it can be that release. It can be a vacation. Um, they need Amanda's mom to go and take those weekend getaways. They need her to plan a garden that she's never planted. Or they also need to be able to tell you to slow down and to think about what you're doing before you do it. But then also be able to sometimes indulge in those fun moments. So, a little bit of, uh, self-growth is just to lean into that extroverted intuition. And, like we said before, there is a type development process that typically will people go, typically people will go down. Um, and so eventually you'll get there. But if you're hearing this and you're in your 20s and you're an ISFJ or an ISTJ, just know that you do have that ability. If you feel like you're kind of stuck in a rut, or you feel like maybe you want to take that spontaneous weekend trip, or you want to, I don't know, go do anything that feels a little crazy to you, but that you really deep down know that you would love to try, you're just, you know, for whatever reason, I'm so sorry it's so late, guys. Um, but for whatever reason, you just haven't tried it yet, just know that you do have that ability.
So, not only do you have that ability because you have this function, you have this cognitive function to play with in your inferior function, um, it is because, I mean, you're also a human who is so worthy of doing these fun, crazy, unique things. So, just know that you do have it in you and you can tap into it whenever you want to. You don't have to wait for that moment. But at the same time, it's so nice to have you guys around and keep us all just in line. So, don't stop doing that either. Because being human is hard, and hopefully this makes it just a little bit easier.
Thank you for watching our channel. We've got lots to do. And Amanda's going to tell you what to do. Sorry again, it's late. Um, please subscribe, comment, like, share. Tell all of your friends. Um, if you have not watched our very first video, welcome to Typecast Heroes, to learn about this project and the interview process and who we are and why we're talking to you right now, um, please go watch that video. And then, if you are interested in doing the interview process, please comment below. We are also on Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Discord and would love to talk and just can and show up with an interview. Thanks for listening. Let's gather around the type fire and sing our type fire song. R-M-B-T-I-T-Y-P-O-L-O-G-Y song. And if you feel uncomfortable, then know there's nothing wrong.