(Part 2) Top products from r/intj

I have always focused my learning on hard skills. I thought this was really all that mattered. Good ideas can speak for themselves, right???

Only recently I realized how important soft skills are in life. Like you, I am also researching communication skills, confidence, persuasion/influence, body language, etc.

Here are some materials I have come across. Hope they are helpful in your journey.

This book was very insightful on building rapport: http://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-All-About-Techniques-ebook/dp/B0060YIBLK

It was written by a guy in the FBI who's job it was to build relationships with all kinds of people. He outlines 10 steps you can use to build trust with strangers. Topics include using open body language, commenting on surroundings and/or personal accessories, asking open questions about them, etc. Many things covered might seem like "common sense", but if you are not consciously using them is it really "common sense"?

And another book that was helpful about body language: http://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Book-Body-Language-ebook/dp/B000SEH9QG/

This was fascinating and discussed all types of body language, what they mean, and theories on why we do it. There is a section on mating/courting body language, which was also quite eye opening. Again, you will not realize the potential until you bring this stuff into your conscious mind. Many of the things we do while communicating we do subconsciously. It is extremely interesting and sometimes quite funny seeing how people communicate with their body.

One other interesting point on this subject is that your mental state affects your body language, which then affects your mental state, etc. If you have unconfident body language, you will have unconfident thoughts. Watch the Amy Cuddy video on "Fake it until you make it". Have confident body language all the time. If you start slouching, lift up your chest and hold your head up high... even if you are hanging around! You will feel more confident as you turn this into a habit. Practice this stuff every day. You WILL get better. Small wins build confidence and you will create a positive feedback loop.

Regarding "how was your summer", maybe try complementing them instead. People love to feel good about themselves. Are they wearing a unique accessory (watch, necklace, hat) or clothing? Say, "Wow that is a really interesting hat!" See what they say. If they don't open up try a follow-up question. I tried this comment and they opened up about where they were from, how they moved here, etc. The hat was really a way for them to communicate their identity. Another approach is the sympathy card... "Hi, sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you could help me out". Talk about a situation you are in and ask for their feedback. Then branch out the convo based on their responses. Make sure your body language is open, yet confident - do not come on strong or closed.

Hmm. Both.

I've found the Five Love Languages materials (easily found online) to be pretty interesting.

I got a book called No Nice Girl Swears, which was written for girls in the 1930s. It's interesting to pick up on the places where the author is being sarcastic-- it's social commentary on modern dating and courtship for women who were trying to figure these things out 80 years ago.

A friend recommended The Invisible Heart as a good story for people who like romance to include logic and statistics. I enjoyed An Abundance of Katherines for that reason, even though it's a light, funny read about teens and not relevant to my research on adult relationships.

I've been doing a lot of secret (but deliberate) observations of people on dates when I'm in coffee shops or restaurants. In my town, the first wave of weddings happens about 2 years after high school graduation (for people who didn't go to college), and then the final wave of weddings happens 1-2 years after college graduation. I generally have to go into the city to see people older than 24 on dates. I love when I find couples on first dates-- sometimes you can tell the "chemistry" is there and they're both nervously trying to figure out how to not screw this wonderful thing up, and sometimes things aren't going well and I feel awkward for them, and sometimes it's a little of both and it feels like a job interview with both people trying to appear confident and gracious while reciting generic date questions and commentary and responses that sound like they were rehearsed and memorized in advance.

I've also created a few online dating profiles mainly to see who I get matched with and what single men in my cohort are saying to try to attract women. Coffee Meet Bagel is an app that takes your Facebook friend list and asks you a few basic questions about what you're looking for and then shows you one eligible friend-of-a-friend each day that you might want to date. It's unexpectedly fun. I like trying to figure out who our mutual friends are (it doesn't immediately tell you who they are-- just how many you have). Match.com is interesting because it confirms my suspicions about single men in my area: they believe they look most attractive and impressive while holding up a red solo cup or the big fish that they caught in their fishin' hole somewhere. Their dating profiles all seek a woman who "won't play games" and "likes to go out and have fun, but is also happy to spend an evening at home." Many of them are looking for a "country girl." In short, I'm really happy that I'm single, and there are times when I'm tempted to give up on the experiment.

I have been out on one dinner date and a few "mini dates" so far, and it's definitely a learning experience. I think my INTJ avoidance of casual physical contact is going to be a problem with my research. I cringe at the thought of awkward post-date hugs goodbye. If I were attracted to these guys, I wouldn't mind the contact, but it's so weird to have zero chemistry with a person, barely know them, and yet be expected to press your body against theirs while lying about how you had a great time and will keep in touch. I wish it were acceptable to end bad dates with a smile, a handshake, and a hearty "best of luck in all your endeavors!"

I wouldn't worry about college; you'll be studying things more attuned to your interests, and you'll be surrounded by similar sorts of people. College is actually great for figuring yourself out for this very reason, since you'll be exposed not just to all sorts of different types of content and perspectives, but you'll also get some chances to go more in-depth on particular topics of interest, especially once you start taking upper-level courses that expect specialization. My favorite college memories are actually of afternoons in the library reading, taking notes and putting papers together. I loved this so much I've even started writing my own stuff post-college.

As for getting to know yourself, I'd recommend reading. Since this is the INTJ-sub, I know everyone here prefers things to be a bit more direct, and while I certainly read more nonfiction, I've found things like art, music, poetry, film and fiction are great ways to understand yourself better than any nonfiction work could tap into. I got into fiction via Joseph Campbell, a literary critic who himself was heavily influenced by Jung, and from there it was writers like Hermann Hesse, James Joyce, George Saunders and Olga Grushin that taught me things about myself that I doubt any nonfiction work could. This isn't to downplay the importance of nonfiction (Heidegger, Marion and Kierkegaard have all been huge for me as well), but since fiction and the arts in general don't seem as valued throughout reddit, I thought I'd throw that out there. Read.

I had a similar experience in elementary school and high school, but I got lucky and found people like me in college.

Since college (that's 14 years ago now), I have found a few wonderful people who enrich my life in the way that you're wishing for.

Here's my advice. Two pieces.

1. Train your social skills. Read books and then practice in real life. A couple of good ones to start with are Please Understand Me and Captivate. You have to be able to get to know people if you want to get to know great people. It didn't come naturally to me; I had to treat it as a set of skills like metalworking, but I get better every year.
   
   
2. Less than 1% of the population is nice, interesting, intelligent idea-people. You've got to meet hundreds of people and talk to them enough to find out whether they're nice/jerks, interesting/boring, and ideas-people/people-people. You've got to meet lots and lots and lots of people to find a few suitable ones. So don't get your hopes up that there will be any in your fifteen work colleagues; that's not realistic. Too small of a sample. Plan on joining clubs, going to events, and trying out a lot of different places before you find some. They're out there, you just have to do something to find them.
   

If you’re at the stage of looking into comparable websites during your development, check out Helen Fisher’s TedTalk about her research into love and hormones. She designed the test you take when creating an account on Chemistry.com, and I find it to be another really cool way of categorizing people and analyzing what matches work best most of the time. The book The Confidence Code actually talks about mutations in proteins related to some of the hormone traits Fisher describes that I didn’t know about until recently, pretty cool stuff. I hope it helps you in your search!

I’ll try to find the exact video later as I can’t find it right now.

Edit: here is the talk from Helen Fisher, it’s actually a Google talk

Might also suggest It's Not All About "Me": The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport with Anyone by Robin Dreeke. He advocates for:

1. Establishing artificial time constraints. People are more comfortable if they think even if this conversation goes bad, at least it will be short.
   
   
2. Accommodating nonverbals. Smile, do a slight head tilt.
   
   
3. Speak slower.
   
   
4. Use a sympathy or assistance theme. People want to help, find ways to let them.
   
   
5. Check your massive ego (we've all got them). Make it about the other person.
   
   
6. Validate others. People like people that like and accept them.
   
   
7. Ask questions. How? When? Why? People want to talk about themselves. All you need to do is ask open ended questions.
   
   
8. Prime the pump. Other introverts are going to want you to lead. Say a little something to get things started or if someone realizes they have been spending the whole conversation talking about themselves and stops, say something about yourself that builds on that and gets them comfortable that it is an exchange.
   
   
9. Give gifts. Either of your attention or material. It's a way to show people you like the person you are talking with.
   
   
10. Manage expectations. Mostly your expectations. Everyone is talking for a reason. If you focus on what the other person wants more than what you want, you are more likely to get what you want too.
    
    It's a helpful list of suggestions. And, I'd wager that most INTJs, like me, frequently are doing the opposite of a few of these when they have a bad social interaction. It can't just be about getting information. It's got to be about the other person and building a relationship too.

If you want to develop your Se, taking up some sport might help. Hell, even regular jogging/running in the woods will probably do a lot of good. Keep in mind that INTJ's Se is a rather subconscious function, since it's so far down the function stack. It just constantly takes in information, something the Ni uses to get gut-feelings about how something is unfolding or will unfold in your environment. It's this synergy that makes some INTJs pretty darn good at reading opponents in games.

Various forms of meditation might help you hone both Se and Ni at the same time, especially spot-meditation (forcing yourself to pay 100% attention to a task like doing the dishes). Mindfulness meditation will help with strengthening parts of your brain that govern emotions/stress/memory/focus, leading to enhanced presence of mind and focus even in crisis situations.



To be honest I wouldn't worry too much about Ni, as it usually sorts itself out. It's your dominant function and it's a perceiving function, so it kind of just does it's thing as you experience life. You can use Te to decide what you want your Ni to mull over, however. To get it to work more on strategic thinking, you could start writing/talking out loud about ideas you have about how things in your life/the world are likely to turn out (based on Ni insights). These ideas can then be verified/disproved and readjusted as events unfold.

If you mean 'strategic thinking' in the way of maneuvering in a social landscape, knowing your own feelings is key. Being brutally honest with yourself is a good start if you want your Fi to mature (this goes for all personality types, as well). We tell ourselves a lot of lies that make us feel good, but once you start demolishing these lies you become way more confident and functional in social maneuvering (which is a blanket term I define here as all the social things). Meditation will help here as well, as you might gain some insight into how your mind works (and how much bullshit is actually going on in there on a regular basis).


If you're specifically looking for some games that might be up your alley, perhaps Paradox interactive has some good grand-strategy games.



I hesitate to mention these two books, since I'm not sure how much impact they've had on my life (I don't practice anything mentioned within consciously, it seems). But they were very interesting:

Robert greene's "The 33 Strategies of War" and "The 48 Laws of Power"

>Has therapy been helpful for you INTJ's with depression?

Yes. I highly recommend it. You can talk with the psychotherapist briefly first to see if they would work as your "mental health provider," and if not, you can go try a different one.

I saw a therapist for a year near the end of high school because of massive depression. She helped me immensely move through my own shit, recommended future plans, and got me to read a few really good books, such as this one. Note that this book does not apply to all INTJs, but I think a lot of you could identify with what is inside it.

I'm actually about to go back to a therapist because I've got a few things in my life that I cannot seem to work out myself (not for lack of trying). I've got a "trial appointment" with him next week. I'm super busy with school, so I don't have time to dedicate several hours per week to working through this stuff on my own. Of course some psychotherapists may only be able to help you as much as you can help you, but they can usually do it much more quickly and much more efficiently. Others can help you more than you can help yourself (at least in your present condition).

Honestly, the hardest part of him is where to start. Ask five people and you'll get six answers.

But as a general recommendation, stick primarily to Walter Kaufmann's books, and you can't go wrong. He was one of the leading scholars on the school of his thought, and I find his translations of Nietzsche to capture the dramatic emphasis of his prose the best.

For a brief introduction I'd start with his Biography by Kaufmann, this is useful for understanding the time in which he lived, the philosophical climate, and debunking myths about him, followed by Basic Writings, and then The Portable Nietzsche which contains his more complex works, Twilight and Zarathustra. Each of these contain complete texts, as well as discussion and expositions to give them more context, and are extremely helpful in understanding the work.

Also, If you're a materialist already, an Atheist or an agnostic, start with The Antichrist and you'll fall in love with him in the first pages. Its a summary of his view on Christian morality, and it doesn't hold back at all, a quick read at about a hundred or so pages. If you want an appetizer, peruse The Will To Power, his book of aphorisms, to whet your palate (this is also where most of the romance quotes live). These were my introductions, and I never looked back.

Not really written or marketed as "self help" but I think Ralph Nader's "The Seventeen Traditions" is a lovely book about the important things in life, what we should be focusing on to be happier, contributing members of society. While it's autobiographical, it touches on a lot of keystones of morality and how productivity/determination/gratitude lead to satisfaction.

Have you read Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto yet? You must.

Don't worry about whether you "appear" boring to others. They have no idea of all the thoughts and ideas that flood our minds. You just need to find people like yourself, people who don't need others for energy or to feel alive like extroverts do.

You're in college so you might think that if you're not hanging out at the frat parties or you're not hanging out in the popular people's dorm rooms shootin' the shit with everyone else, that you're being anti-social. Been there, done that. Find the club—or start one (get an extrovert to help you spread the word)—that organizes relatively small groups to play board games (the people who gravitate to board game nights are usually our type of people). There are other introverts at college who do want to spend some time around others—but not a lot (need that recharge time)—to have deep discussions, talk about current events in meaningful ways, or maybe get a pizza and watch a favorite movie.

We're loners, but that doesn't mean we're alone (big distinction!). You will find your soul mate who gets you, who understands what it's like to be you, and he or she will likely not be an extrovert.

To piggy back on this, I really recommend this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713/ref=sr_1_1

Despite the name, it doesn't necessarily promote apathy.

But it does promote a more conscious view of what we choose to care about, and a method for self-questioning whether those choices are helpful.

It is a quick and fun read with a lot of interesting ideas.

Some people do this stuff instinctively. Some of us have to treat it as a skill.

So I got a lot of value out of books on this stuff. I read about the techniques, I practiced them, and I do ok.

Here are two really good ones:

Captivate by Vanessa Van Edwards

and

What Every BODY is Saying by Joe Navarro

You can improve these skills; they're just skills!

Sure. I like these specific ones, but they are hard to find. If you google the model number you mind be able to find them. I buy them for $5 ea at a near by Asian mart. I font know where there are online.

This one is nice too.

Honestly look up "problem solving notebook" or if you want a more technical version, "A3 Problem Solving notebook" and you'll get a bunch of results. There are a million variations so you can find one to suit your needs. I like the ones that do not include a calendar/planner because many of my projects/ issues aren't schedule or date specific. I feel like this helps the notebook last longer too. I recommend a bound one if you find the right one because my paper bound one is beat to hell.

Sounds like you're in a flow state, which is awesome. A couple books you might like:

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance

I read this biography about Elon musk. He is definitely an interesting person. While I respect him in many ways and he is certainly going to either directly or indirectly change the world, he is an asshole. For example, there was a story about an employee that was asked to take on an impossible task. The employee came back in defeat. Musk fired him and did the job himself. Musk's mind is amazing, his personal skills are surely lacking.

There is a great book I read about 8 years ago that really speaks to those of us who are comfortable with being alone. It is called Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto by Annell Rufus. Here is the amazon link. You can read the intro there. It was the inspiration for my handle.

It is quite uplifting, and is excellent at describing how the introvert is not at fault but can have a fulfilling life with this trait. It is also quite informative for extroverts trying to understand introverts.

waitbutwhy has a series of 5 very detailed blog posts about him that explain who he is and what he wants to accomplish with tesla and spacex (and why those accomplishments are important).

DISCLAIMER: these blog post are really long, more like a short book than a blog post.

if that is not enough there is also a biography written by ashlee vance

Thanks, I've read the first and now I've ordered the sequels.

Try http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Demonkeeping-Pine-Cove-Series/dp/0060735422. That was a good one.

I've read his book and even if he isn't INTJ, the way he writes really makes sense to me. He's probably one of my favorite writers regarding dating and social skills. It feels like everyone else focuses on gimmics, while he takes what I'd consider a more "realistic" approach.

Verbal Judo by Dr. George J. Thompson - Teaches you how to talk to people.

A Mind for Numbers by Dr. Barbara Oakley - Teaches you how to learn effectively.

I use Trello (which is available on anything that connects online) with a layout inspired from the book Getting Things Done.

http://www.amazon.com/Highly-Sensitive-Person-Elaine-Ph-D/dp/0553062182

Try The 48 Laws of Power it is more in keeping with what we do, plus it doesn't candy coat anything.

There are no bad or good days. Just days. Did your dog just die? Still another day. Events happen, many outside of our control. Assigning the arbitrary day they happened a meaning is pointless. It's really hard for us not to though.

I remember watching a TV show where they locked a bunch of people in a room and they had to escape. There were all sorts of little things they had to try to escape. The only thing keeping them there was time. But they started to assign meaningless reason to their actions. When they finally escaped they all thought they had done something, but in reality the timer on the clock ran out.

This is what you're doing. A timer on a clock ran out, something happened, you prescribe it happened because you were wearing or doing x.

I also highly recommend reading this book - http://www.amazon.com/House-Stairs-William-Sleator/dp/0140345809
Take the time to consider the wider implications and what it would mean for you.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

When I am depressed, I read The Book of Disquiet. When I'm ready to pull out of it, I read The Consolation of Philosophy. These are my ying & yang.

When you realize that you are allowed to write off the negative spiral read the solution, Flow.