ESTP-Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging.
This Myers Briggs Personality is known as the ” Entrepreneur”, or the “Persuader”. Some may go as far as to call them “Dynamos” which today’s case study was. They are generally pretty objective and can come off as being insensitive to many people but really, it’s because they value living in reality. Certain world leaders who are ESTP’s, the likes of Donald Trump, Thomas Edison, Ernest Hemingway (novelist), and Madonna the singer, who have interesting backgrounds gave exemplified this “Dynamo” quality.
This article is to discuss this personality type and its relation to the individual that possessed it and His Purpose in God’s plan.
Let’s get to it.
1.) EXTROVERTED.
They derive their energy from people. Their innate values of passion, aggression, and compassion, all involve people, and they are happy to share it and receive it in return.
2.) SENSING.
Mostly the Extroverted Sensing. Their natural realism with no need for daydreams, they are mostly drawn to visual, auditory, and tactile experiences.
3.) THINKING.
As realists, they don’t feel their way through life. They use facts and practicality to get the job done using their keen sense of observation in decision-making.
4.) PERCEIVING.
Probably what makes them amazing entrepreneurs since they use this trait to navigate life. They adapt to the world, unlike the judging types that like to control it. They are open and aware of their surroundings and operate according to what the situation calls for. They have fun with the world as it comes.
The ESTP-Case study, Samson.
POSITIVE TRAITS OF THE ESTP.
1.) Confident and Courageous.
For most of us, boldness is something that we have to learn over time through self-awareness, untraining, and retraining of the mind. Samson never had this issue from birth. His strength may have had something to do with it but his inherent personality and his role as a child of prophecy also played great roles in this. He has fought lions, and armies alone, and commanded the Israelites as their judge. Samson was a man’s-man that made a friend with crowds easily and made enemies just as fast. Only confidence of extraordinary proportions can make such a man as Samson.
2.) Adaptable.
ESTP’s change with the environment. They are according to Charles Darwin, the easiest to survive in any calamity if what we go by what he stated stands true – “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent that survive, but the most adaptable”. This explains why Samson, against all odds, somehow managed to get out of his multiple dangerously dramatic situations. Such as when he used a jawbone (a jawbone…seriously) of a dead donkey and used it to slay a thousand men (Judges 15:9-15) or how he used his bare hands to tear open the mouth of a lion that attacked him as he was on his way to seek a wife from Timnath (Judges 14:6). These were not planned situations, they just happened out of the blue and he found ways to dissolve the situation became they became lethal to him.
3.) Straight-Forward.
ESTP’s make terrible liars since they cannot trust imaginary stories. They therefore cannot fathom others falling prey to such stories either. They appreciate the frankness and can grow very hostile when you do not respond to them honestly or trick them into doing something that they did not intend to do unless it was fair play. This can be evidenced by when Samson killed 30 Philistines after he got tricked by his wife on his wedding day into answering a riddle that he had asked them, in a bid to give a promised price. (Judges 14:10-19). We’ve seen the same kind of lashing out in our modern-day celebrities such as Trump as a result of being lied to.
4.) Practical.
ESTP’s see life as a group of practical problems that require practical solutions. They are solution-oriented by nature. This coupled with adaptability helps in getting things done. Samson never missed in achieving everything that he got his mind to do. Especially when it came to killing the Philistines. That was his calling. Because the Philistines had bothered the Israelites for years, God rose a champion to defeat them. That champion was Samson. And his mission was clear from birth. We can see just how good he was as a single man without a bomb or rifle. A lion on his way to look for a wife, 30 men on his wedding day, 1000 men with the jaw of a dead ass, a few hundred after he burnt down the enemy crops and stirred starvation, and 3000 including himself when he brought an entire building down with his own hands. He did his job with the assets he had at his disposal at the time, and he got the job done well. There is nothing more practical than that.
5.) Tenacious.
This trait has been well exemplified by Samson. His life was not an easy one. His strength helped him get through it, but his life was not what we can call a cozy one. Born in a race hated by the neighbors, different from his people in every strength imaginable, bared a secret of his strength (his hair) that he never shared with anyone except the woman he loved (who betrayed him in the worst way possible). Moreover, his wife betrayed him on his wedding night, he had enemies left right, and center, including his heart, and a whole nation against him. Were it not for his strategy, tactical abilities, and strength, I don’t think any normal man would easily bare that. He bared emotional suffering from betrayal, and mental suffering from being different and unwanted by his own people when young. As he grew older, most people feared him. It’s no wonder he desired women from other parts of the nation, his people knew his history and wouldn’t dare be with him for all the reasons that he wanted. But even without the borders, he couldn’t fail to stand out due to his strength and the naivety that he had from his sheltered Israelite Nazarite life, which did not prepare him for the unscrupulous and envious people that were the Philistines. Yet he preserved. Not once complaining, always accepting the repercussions of his actions. Never looking back, always looking forward. The ridicule he experienced as a prisoner and the suffering he endured in chains all ended in him becoming close to God again as he was in a way, atoning for the sins of his mouth and his lust. God heard him in his final mission, and he silenced all his betrayers and persecutors of Israel along with himself all in one clean swoop when he tore down the pillars of the building where the Philistines were enjoying themselves. What a man worthy of respect.
NEGATIVE TRAITS OF THE ESTP.
1.) Tire or Bore Easily.
Certain things in this life can only be lived in routine. It’s not because it’s enjoyable, but because of the circumstances created by a sedentary lifestyle. As an adventurer, you can only imagine how constrained Samson felt and desired something different. Different cultures from himself, different lifestyles from himself, and different women from what he was used to. This desire for different ways of living even though as a Judge he should have been primarily positioned in Israel, he instead dwelled outside of Israel most of his adult life using anything really as an excuse. Love, missions, espionage, or just plain fleeing. Surprisingly, it was for these same reasons that he used to return to Israel whenever he left the foreign land. His search for an adventure sure made his life entertaining, although at a cost.
2.) Hedonistic.
ESTP’s are sensing individuals, which means they are stimulated by the visual, auditory, and tactile. Unfortunately, Samson was no exception, especially to the latter. He was more of a tactile individual than he was a glutton. He loved women, especially women that were different from the Israelites even though he would have easily married one if he so desired. He wanted the Philistine women, which could be that it was psychologically programmed into him since at the time Philistines weren’t the greatest of friends with the Israelites. They were more like sworn enemies. His love for the taboo in the women from other lands made him seek these women out. He went through lions, and dead Philistines and became an enemy of the people to get there. And once he met the love of his life, she betrayed him and undid the strong man that was Samson. His love for women is what destroyed him in the end. It is the one part of him that he failed to use his practicality. A consequence of only knowing innocent Israelites in his youth and not knowing those without Israel.
3.) Missing the Bigger picture.
Samson fell prey to this vice. Most ESTP’s have this uncanny ability to reminisce about the past and its consequent grievances when they are down in the dust. Their daily approach to life however is living and adapting to the now in regular days. Their foresight however is generally lacking in most. They fail to see the big picture due to having a low intuitive ability, rather, not trusting their intuition at all. They see the trees and handle them, but they can’t see the whole forest most times. Samson was great at battle, but he could not intuit that the war was still ongoing with his list of enemies growing by the day. He was great at strategy, but he couldn’t fathom that the Philistines would use his greatest weakness, his love for women, as a weapon. He enjoyed his time with the women there and then, and even after being lied to twice, by Delilah and escaping by the thread when she kept asking about the secret to his strength, he still couldn’t realize that she was in cahoots with the Philistines. He saw the Philistine warriors (the trees) but didn’t see Delilah, who was also a tree in Philistine territory. They all made a Philistine Forest, while he was an Israelite outsider that didn’t belong. Had he recognized this earlier, maybe his ending would have been much different.
4.) Amorphous and unstructured.
This is a great trait to have as an army general. But not as a Judge. Samson was a Judge of Israel. He was a leader in the top ranks, yet he did things without structure. Yes, he was adaptable and solution-oriented, and he always got the results he wanted. But he failed to see how his unpredictability and disregard for rules, even when it came to handling his enemies, often resulted in the breaking down of his original plans because of the resultant social fallout that ensued. He loved entertaining foreign women in foreign lands for example. Lands that he knew no culture or way of life. Philistines weren’t the most trustworthy of types and he knew that from previous experiences. Yet he entertained their women anyway not thinking that it would annoy the Philistine men. He went back to the lands he caused hunger in by setting their crops on fire, forgetting that people take such things to heart and do not forget. He fled the Philistine lands after attempts on his life and still went back because of the women. It’s almost as though he thought everyone operated as he did. Act today, forget tomorrow. But that was a luxury only people of mighty strength like him had to enjoy. Weak mortals could never forget being victimized even if they were in the wrong. His lack of consideration of the human mind and its structure in behavior response and habit, and his assumption of people thinking as he did is what caused him his incarceration and eventually, his life.
5.) Insensitive.
Samson was not a god, but he had tremendous strength. That basic difference in comparison to other males made him a “demi-god” among men (no blasphemy intended. Just a metaphor). When you grow up with such an obvious status and difference, you develop a complex over time. It is not intentional. It’s just circumstantial. He unfortunately did. Because he knew of his strength, he couldn’t help but think himself untouchable by meager men. His feats of might on the battlefield only solidified this. He disrespected the Philistines in battle, by taking their women, by starving them out, without ever thinking that their resentment would amount to much. After all, he was the strongest man alive at the time. He was insensitive to the feelings of his enemy who had no qualms involving women to subdue and destroy him.
That was his greatest flaw. Generally speaking, though, most ESTP’S are verbally abrasive when they want to get a point across, especially when stressed. They speak their mind without a care about what is going on in the receiver’s head when they listen to what they are saying. This is a point of improvement for those who don’t want to end up as Samson.
BOTTOM LINE.
Remember the Gospel.
God loves us, but He is not crazy about us.
We are wallowing in our sin for which we have no savior.
We should always repent and believe in the sacrifice of our God, Jesus Christ who was sent by the father to die for our sins, so we might get to have eternal life.
[JOHN 3:16]
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