(Part 3) Best products from r/intj

Read most of the comments here but may have skipped over some of them.

I have also found that the social scene can be a "disgusting" thing but have started to do a few things lately that are helping to change that - maybe we can help each other?

Talking about myself here - maybe you'll find one or more of these to be relevant.

1. Being smarter (or thinking I'm smarter) than most people in the room
   
   1. Not a good place to be - I come off as arrogant and know-it-all.
      
      1. Study body language books/courses - so I can be not so off-putting and aloof.
         
   2. Am I actually smarter?
      
      1. IQ test does wonders for your self-confidence
         
      2. If you have a high IQ then you understand why people don't get you.
         
      3. If you have an average IQ then you understand that you're not that special.. guess there's not really an upside to that.
         
2. Socially awkward, or, "I don't know what to talk about."
   
   1. Study body language books
      
   2. Read up on a lot of topics so that when you meet someone you will always have at least a rudimentary knowledge about their interests and can hold a decent conversation.
      
      I'm studying the following:
      
      NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming)
      
      Body Language
      
      MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator)
      
      Character development
      
      Leadership
      
      
3. NLP
   
   1. Books by Daniel Smith such as Banned NLP Secrets
      
   2. Have bought both "Brain Manuals" on Amazon - tons of info - but I think Daniel Smith's book covers it all in a VERY short book.
      
4. Body Language
   
   1. Books by just about anyone about body language - again, I really like Daniel Smith's books on this
      
   2. Definitive Book of Body Language
      
5. MBTI
   
   1. just about any books/courses out there on MBTI can help to learn different subtleties of people's personalities.
      
6. Character development
   
   1. Fan of Daniel Smith's books again - It's like he has gone the path that I am going - Charisma Secrets
      
7. Leadership
   
   1. Classical Leadership books - John C. Maxwell, Ben Horowitz, Dale Carnegie, among others.
      
      Worthwhile mentions:
      
      Aaron Clarey - very intelligent author, possibly INTJ or very similar personality - worth reading all of his books
      
      Daniel Smith - very skilled with people skills and breaking them down for the highly intelligent reader. Not much bull-shitting around, he makes his point and moves on. Worth reading all of his books.
      
      ​
      
      Since I have started studying body language I have found that it's fun to tear apart what a person is like while they're talking, making notes on their character traits, reading the subtle body clues as to what they like or dislike, who they're interested in, what makes them upset, how they react to things, and so on.
      
      > Assuming that something is wrong with me is the best way to ensure your inferior status in my estimation. Treat me with respect and you will receive it in kind. I assume that’s how many other INTJs operate. Yet others disrespect us quite often, then expect us to simply put up with it.
      
      INTJ's tend to treat other people on a scale of 1 to 10 with someone they have just met at 5, and someone they fully trust at 10. All others fall in-between. You make fun of or disrespect an INTJ and you go to 0 pretty fast.
      
      The people you are meeting may treat people as a 0 until they meet them, and then quickly put them in the scale from 1-10 based on a quick "sense" of where they want the person.
      
      Basically, if someone meets an INTJ - they start at 5. They start out deserving some time/respect - and that goes up/down depending on lots of factors.
      
      If someone meets some of the more "social" people out there, they start without a number, they need to earn respect/time.
      
      Good luck in your journey!
      
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It seems like there's some pretty deep wounds there. If I had to hazard a guess, he was probably pretty emotionally manipulative, am I right? So here's the thing- People who are good at emotional manipulation will leave you feeling COMPLETELY GODDAMN INSANE. They create almost a feeling of addiction in the people they manipulate- it makes no sense and you can hate the shit out of it but it still works. They do this by using intermittent reinforcement with their approval and affection, and our brains pick this up like it's crack. In the absence of being able to predict what actions will bring reward, we almost panic, and end up behaving in ways that don't make sense to even ourselves. People like that can take totally normal, healthy people and make them feel like they're going insane.

Breathe. It's your brain responding the way brains naturally responds to intermittent reinforcement in intensely stressful situations. Your brain has created this link that he will provide approval and affection if you can only get the pattern right, and you're trying to get that dopamine hit from his affection and approval by any means you can think of. You're not broken, you're not fucked up in the head, your brain is doing one of the annoying little things that brains do sometimes and you will be okay without him. I know that's really hard to fathom, but think of it like this: your dopamine rush when you got affection and attention from him was so strong that your brain is almost literally treating him like an addiction. It's not love, your brain has been conditioned by his manipulation into a state of obsession. Intermittent reinforcement is the strongest reinforcement pattern, and lasts long after it feels like it "should" have ceased.

I think it might hit NT types even a little harder than other types, because our Fi is so intense but very difficult to express and explain, and we pride ourselves so strongly on our rationality. We often lock our feelings up because they can be so vicious and blistering, so when we let anyone in and we get that first hit of approval, our brain kind of loses its shit and knocks us sideways and sucks the air out of our lungs. Our brains are so pattern hungry that intermittent reinforcement is almost irresistible- we want to figure out the pattern, we feel like we've almost got it, if only we could put in the last piece.

So, if you're looking for a hint as to what the pattern is, it's control. It's not random. He will give you a breadcrumb as long as he wants to string you along, dropping one every time you start to distance yourself even a little. Learn about the cycle of abuse, especially narcissistic abuse, and you'll find the answer there. From breadcrumbs to freezing out to love bombing, it's a pattern designed to fuck with your brain and make you lose your emotional balance.

You will heal. It will feel better, but the only way out is through. Face your inner emotional damage, whatever you've got, and learn more about your own emotional processing- enough to understand how you tick and what sets off this kind of reaction in your brain. Keep talking to your therapist. Start reading books on emotional abuse patterns and on psychology, find your pattern there instead of in him.

You'll be okay. You know at some level you will be. Soldier through and work on your internal stuff and you'll get there, and will be better for it. Use your brain to beat your own brain on this.

-----

Edit: OP, look up Complex PTSD and see if it strikes a chord. A good book if you're looking for one for is The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, and resources for adult children of alcoholics would probably be pretty helpful. I would definitely recommend trauma therapy- it is probably your best bet for longer term healing, even if you do DBT first. EMDR may help, too, if you can find a therapist who works with it (many trauma therapists do). If you dissociate at all, try grounding techniques like this to get back to your more rational center. If anxiety is a big part of it for you, it's highly treatable with therapy focusing on tools and techniques to calm and ground yourself, and there are TONS of resources on the internet.

Your emotions may not make sense to you, but they aren't illogical, they exist to guide you and to give you information about the world. They may be out of proportion, but that's due to the thought processes you have and the story you're telling yourself. They're perfectly proportional to what your thoughts/self-talk are saying to you, so you have to adjust the internal dialogue to be more objective in order to make your emotions more useful and in proportion. Buddhism as a philosophy is great for helping with this, it's like the softer side of Stoicism with more focus on being kind and present. A good book on finding and correcting cognitive distortions (the self-talk that makes your emotions go nuts) is Feeling Good by David Burns (It's almost DBT lite).

Absolutely! I'm not an expert, but I find great joy in wading into the thoughts of some of the great philosophers. You may also be interested in reading an "introduction to philosophy" type of book or taking a philosophy class before delving into original texts. It may help with building context and categories of topics like Epistemology, Ontology/Metaphysics, Ethics, etc.

Nigel Warburton's A Little History of Philosophy is a decent book to set the stage. The Great Courses offers Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition as an audio lecture series - also a great overview. Finally, Hank Green's Crash Course: Philosophy is an outstanding video series presented to a general audience. Enjoy, my friend, and I hope you are able to glean as much joy as I have from investigating our understanding of the world around us!

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!"

More books!

"The Millionaire Next Door" as I said is a must-read. For real estate, I actually learned a lot more just through Reddit and BiggerPockets than any books I read. Most of the books I read I would classify as entertainment rather than guides. I read this book on short sales after meeting the author on BiggerPockets and it's pretty useful. Tim Ferris' "The Four Hour Work Week" is a good book to read and steal mentality from, but with massive cautions; treat Tim as an eccentric madman and don't take his advice as gospel. He would tell anyone to just start an online business and then fly around the world blowing money. Trying to hype the reader up by encouraging rampant materialism is a big part of his writing style. Don't take the book too seriously, but there's a lot of really good mentality bits you can steal from it, specifically the stuff on the Pareto Principle.

I consider this book purely entertainment, but it was still a decent and easy read. I also read a book on Forex trading (this one) that taught me quite a bit on risk management and chart technicals, but I don't know that it's entirely relevant. I spent a few months trading Forex with extremely low-risk strategies and was averaging 1% a month, but I didn't like the disconnect I felt from the actual business, and I found I could make money faster in real estate (I'm doubling my net worth annually from buying the houses).

If you struggle with weight, read "Why We Get Fat" (or the bigger, harder read "Good Calories, Bad Calories") by Gary Taubes. It's the perfect book for INTJs and will completely spin your mind around on the concept of nutrition without being a dry read at all. It kept my attention the whole way through (Why We Get Fat, that is- GCBC is a dryer read and targeted at doctors, but even more informative). I would say "Why We Get Fat" is the book that had the biggest effect on my life. Even if Taubes simplifies things considerably, you quickly realize just how much nutrition advice is complete crap. I used to try to eat healthy by packing a bunch of bananas to work. No wonder losing weight was hard. (I am skinny now- didn't used to be.)


I'll send you anything else that pops in to my mind; this is just off the top of my head. I read a lot more online than actual books. FlyerTalk has the most credit card churning stuff, and BiggerPockets has the best real estate stuff. I subscribe to /r/investing , /r/realestate , /r/personalfinance , and /r/financialindependence.

Don't take anything as gospel; always analyze for yourself and ask "Why". If everyone tells you to do something a certain way, they're probably simultaneously right and wrong. It's probably the conservative option, it probably has the best risk/reward ratio, you probably can do better, but you'll probably get screwed if you try unless you're better than everyone else.

For example, most people shouldn't use credit cards for rewards. Why? The psychology aspect. It will trick you in to spending more than you would with cash or a debit card, unless you're disciplined enough to not let it. I am. So I use it. I wouldn't tell my poorer friends to get a credit card just for rewards...they'll screw up.

Common knowledge is like that. /r/investing will tell you to use nothing but index funds, or spread your money across 20 stocks. They're right to give that advice. Completely right. Most people try to be clever, but overcentralizing exposes you to too much risk and the vast majority of people who overcentralize in one stock get burned down in the end.

But when I suggested these real estate ideas with a throwaway to /r/investing, I was told "You aren't Warren Buffett" and that I shouldn't try and would lose everything. The groupthink becomes too strong.

My key advice:
Don't take advice as a law; figure out the principle behind that advice, and why that advice is given.


Oh! And learn to play Poker. Seriously...pick up a book or something, or find some serious players who will play serious games without money. (Don't gamble...but learn to judge risk/reward like a gambler. Poker is not true gambling. The best player will consistently win the majority of games.)

this is so pedantic, who the fuck cares what the term is?

Edit - at least provide a link so we know why the hell he's raving about IQ, which everyone already knows is awesome but a person cant exactly change...It was a Quora response here https://www.quora.com/What-is-more-beneficial-in-life-a-high-EQ-or-IQ


we all know what people mean by emotional intelligence because it's now part of popular culture, and it's great shorthand for discussing precisely that manifestation or combo of all the other words he uses -- agreeableness, social skills, paying attention to another person, using your empathy to understand and your intelligence to help another person out, to avoid toxic weirdos, etc.

Everything you use to 'tune in' or 'get' what someone is about, those arent very scientific ideas either.

Like grit or self esteem or happiness or pride for that matter... you know it when you see and feel it.

Maybe this guy's pissed he's not come up with anything a wide audience finds useful and relateable. Not everything has to be staunchly empiricist to be helpful to others - the ted talks on grit and related motivational stuff are still positive contributions.

What a weird tone he has given his book Maps of Meaning seems really comfortable with loose terms and cultural patterns. It's too expensive but seems pretty cool https://www.amazon.com/Maps-Meaning-Architecture-Jordan-Peterson/dp/0415922224/ref=la_B001HMLIKQ_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480908766&sr=1-1

EDIT 2: He's (Jordan Peterson) also part of a neat website about personal change. So despite his toolish rant he seems pretty decent http://selfauthoring.com/ and the most of his quora answers are thoughtful

I'm really sorry to hear that. I wouldn't wish low self esteem on my worst enemy.

It's a good thing you turned to this subreddit for help. I'm always really glad to help.

First, I really recommend reading The Six Pillars of Self Esteem by Nathaniel Branden. Like it's seriously worth a hard copy and just sitting down and seriously reading the book. It's a nice dissection of what self esteem is and how it affects you. It's a good first step to take to understanding the core problem and will make you aware of some of one's bad habits and mindsets.

Second, start trying to make lists about things in your life. I know it'll feel a bit corny but writing out some of these lists will really help getting things clear in your own mind. Try to cover a few things:

• What makes you happy? Family? Friends? Try to cover the things that give you the greatest fulfillment.
  
  
• What prevents you from being happy? Do you have toxic relationships? Do you lack a belief in yourself? If so, why? Try to see things from a fair perspective.
  
  
• What do you like about yourself? Your skill at folding beautiful origami designs? Your devilishly good looks?
  
  
• What do you value in life? Success? Money? The truth? Self expression? Intellectual accomplishment?
  
  I'd like to read what you write down. Self esteem is awful. I still have self esteem problems but I know I've gotten really great at helping others, even if it's just listening

Depending on who I'm talking to I'm either an atheist or a a Buddhist because they are good shorthand. I generally avoid telling people anything because I feel that spirituality is extremely personal and isn't always meant to be shared. My beliefs on Buddhism are also based almost entirely on the works of Alan Watts (link to one of his books at the bottom).

I was raised in a very conservative Christian environment but went through all kinds of different phases after rejecting it. For a while a practiced witchcraft and ceremonial magick, studied christian mysticism, Kabbalah, shamanism, and was even part of a Chaos Magick group for some time(interestingly virtually every person in this group was an INFJ or INTJ). These things no longer play a major role in my life but to claim that I have left them behind would be dishonest. The ideas and beliefs, or rather the malleability of ideas and beliefs, that I encountered during this part of my life still affect every part of who I am. I won't try and justify any of this logically, all I can say is that it is a type of study that some people are naturally drawn to and they have to be really careful to not get lost in self delusion. The best way I can describe "Magick" is that it is the study of the nature of reality and the power of symbols in the human psyche.

Today my main form of spiritual practice is just meditation and automatic writing. I meditate anywhere from half an hour to an hour a day and It has more benefits than I could have ever imagined. I am more effective at everything I do, I'm more focused, I'm more confident, I rarely get depressed, my temper never flairs up, I'm more patient, I'm better at dealing with people, I'm now almost completely unaffected by other people's emotions etc... Automatic writing just means writing as fast as you can without consciously thinking about what you are putting down on the paper. The only goal here is to learn about yourself and dig into your beliefs. All of us have an incredible amount of unhealthy beliefs about every part of life and they can be replaced. I have also came across very interesting ideas and poetry this way. This is very personal and It's benefits are very personal. I cannot guess what someone else would learn about themselves by doing a similar practice.

This only scratches of the surface, but today the main belief I try and live by is that everything is one and my identity is an illusion. There is only one experience or one event that makes up the entirety of the universe. Practically it just means that everything is "environment". My "identity" is implied by the environment and the environment is implied by my identity, infact to divide the two is a logical fallacy. An itch, my idea's, a door, my roommate's emotions, a tree, and the sun are all really the same thing- environment, God, universe, experience, Ubik etc... There is only one experience and bliss can only be enjoyed by complete acceptance and love of the experience.

If you are curious about this idea check out The Book: On Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts and/or The Wisdom Of Insecurity.

I'm also willing to discuss, to the best of my ability, anything else I wrote here.

Photography!

Anything in particular you want to know? I think people fall into two categories with photography:

1. People who have "the eye", but lack the technical knowledge of their equipment to take full advantage of their natural ability.
   
2. People who have learned technical knowledge and artistic concepts, but who lack artistic intuition.
   
   Of the two the first kind of people are the best raw material, but anyone can make a career out of photography with enough work, and the most important component is perhaps not how good your photography is, or how much of a natural you are, but how well you market your work.
   
   I, too, considered going into professional photography when I was younger. When I got my work printed for the first time I was told that it looked much better than the professionals who frequently came to get their stuff printed. I say that not to brag on myself, but to demonstrate how essential marketing is. No one knew about my work and I wasn't bothering to market it. So, does it matter if mine's better if no one knows about it? I ended up pursuing a different career path because at that time in life I knew I lacked the experience and discipline to wake up each morning and essentially run my own company.
   
   Have you identified your weak points/areas for growth? What are you doing to attack them? Personally, I'd say steer clear of school. You do not need to drop money on school for photography. You just need equipment, knowledge and experience/practice. Do you know how to shoot glass? Metal? In mixed lighting situations? Do you know how to work with artificial lighting to create a scene from scratch? Do you have an established post-processing workflow? Are you tagging your photos in Lightroom/Aperture so you can find them again?
   
   What kind of photography do you want to do? If it's wedding/portrait, there's money in that, but some of us (me) hate those types of photography. If you want to do nature/macro, then it'll be tougher to make a living off of that. You might need to build an extremely large portfolio of very high-quality stock photography, most of which is shot at daybreak or sunset.
   
   Going back to education for a moment, knowing how to recreate very specific lighting scenarios is nice (Rembrandt lighting, "high key" lighting, "butterfly" lighting, soft vs. hard lighting), but the most important thing is understanding how to identify and control light itself. So, when looking for books, it's arguably more important to find books that explain the nature of light (polarized vs. unpolarized, angles, reflections, shadows, etc.) than it is to find books that show you a photo and tell you exactly how to recreate that specific scene. If you know the concepts and techniques, you don't need to know how to recreate a scene step-by-step; you can figure it out yourself. This book does a better job of explaining light than most formal education will and for a very reasonable price.
   
   Try to build your portfolio however you can. This might involve shooting for free. I worked at a summer camp for pennies on the dollar to build mine, but ended up with a robust array of kid shots to fill out that area of my portfolio. You could shoot music shows to learn how to deal with low-light and unpredictable lighting... You might be surprised how thankful some starving artists would be to have someone shoot 'em with nice equipment. Just try not to let people take advantage of you. If you're doing it for you, great. If someone needs some headshots and it's not going to help your portfolio, consider setting the precedent of getting paid.
   
   Oh yeah, and get insurance for your gear. Some lowlife can literally steal your business by taking your stuff. My 40D and 24-70mm f/2.8L got stolen out of my house a few years ago. Took me about a year and a half to save up and get new equipment.
   
   Please let me know if you have any additional questions. I can't speak much about photography as an industry as I've never done it "professionally", but I have done a lot as a hobbyist, and as someone who, at one point, considered going pro. Finally got a 6D recently to replace my stolen gear. Might get into a little astro or night photography down the road now that I've finally joined the full frame club.
   
   Wish you the best

Remember: Depression lies. It makes disappointments seem like disasters, it makes everyday activities seem like monumental chores, it makes other people's lives seem unattainably better than our own. Even worse, it often makes us think that the way we feel is permanent.

The good news? There are resources to help you with this.

Counseling can be tremendously useful in the short-term as a way to vent, as a reason for introspection, and to learn coping mechanisms and social skills that will make it easier for you to function in the world.

And while antidepressants don't always work in the same way for everyone, there are dozens to try at different doses that could help you at least get a bit of a breather from the unrelenting weight of depression. I remember when I took Wellbutrin after about 2 years of major depression; it was the third medication I'd tried, and the first that didn't cause me any serious side effects. When it kicked in, I wasn't suddenly blissfully happy, but instead, I actually just felt more things and my mind didn't automatically trend into a downward spiral. I thought, "Oh, is this how other people normally feel?" and it significantly helped me get over a bad period in my life. Please give some serious consideration to reaching out for mental health assistance--either counseling or medication, or both--because it can be truly life-changing when you need it.

I'd also urge you not to completely dismiss the Self Help aisle of the bookstore. There are lots of options; look for something that piques your interest and is reasonably well-reviewed and you're likely to find something useful.

My own favorite option as a starting point is Louise Hay's You Can Heal Your Life. Whether or not you believe that your thoughts can literally cure what ails you, Louise Hay's approach to creating a more positive mental space, replacing negative and critical self-talk with thoughts and affirmations that are uplifting, will help you deal with your self-esteem issues. There's also a movie based on the book that provides a nice overview of Louise Hay's teachings. If you don't get great feelings about her, maybe try Dr. Wayne Dyer's work instead. I'd suggest The Power of Intention or his classic, original bestseller, Your Erroneous Zones.

The truth is, until you are able to get a handle on your depression and bolster your self-esteem, you probably won't be in much of a position to make good friends or be a good friend yourself. But if you put in a bit of work now--daunting though it may seem--you will be in a much better position to develop a social life that works for you. Hang in there. It really can and does get better.