I apologize for my last post very unauthentic. These past two weeks have been crazy. It has been one huge realization after another. I think this post is more inline with what I said in the first one.

If you met me now I would not seem like an ENFP. I mostly look upset or indifferent. I have created hard exteriors to protect myself from perceived harm from other people. Sometimes I am able to break out of this way of being with strangers but not on a regular basis. I am a lot more comfortable around people I know, I am able to act like myself around them. And they think I am awesome. There were a series of events when I was younger that made me create these hard exteriors.

I want to become an author/consultant/speaker/entrepreneur. What drives me the most is to help people with their issues and help them have happy successful lives. That is what I am most passionate about. These hard exteriors are really getting in my way of accomplishing my goal, my social life and my health. I know an older enfp he is so fucking destructive to himself and at times other people, it is amazing. I am nowhere near as bad as him but I could get that way. I am heading down that road and 11 years from now without change I would be exactly like him. It is scary.

I used to have no clue what I wanted, now I do. I used to think all the time about it. During this time in my life I was pretty destructive. Luckily I have learned to control myself. During this time I switched from job to job, created really hard exteriors, hurt other people, hurt myself, became distrusting, became introverted and no romance. The main thing I want to deal with is the belief that people will hurt me and think I am weird if I act like myself. I have caused a great deal of trouble be not being authentic. Who knew not doing such as simple thing could cause such my much trouble.

Two years ago I decided entrepreneurship was my love. The first business I started was a consulting business called b-emotive. The idea of the business was to do personal/business consulting. Somewhere throughout the start-up process I believed that people would want to see that I was successful in business before I could do consulting for them. This feeling stems back to the belief that people will not understand me and try and hurt me when I am being authentic. It has been two years and 14 other misc. businesses other than consulting later and I have had no success. These two years have been really tough. I was really emotional last night so I watched Rudy and read a whole bunch of forum stuff. After I watched this movie a major realization came to me. I cannot no matter how hard I try do something that I am not passionate about it messes with my inner values. I realized two major other things last night. One, that the consulting business ironically the first business I started was what I was truly passionate about and the only thing I truly want to do. Second, that my belief that people will hurt me if I am authentic with them caused me to not do the business and is a direct contribution to how hard the last two years of my life were and has really has affected my whole life in a negative way. The funny thing about this is I am so good at understanding where people are coming from and knowing the right way to deal with them to inspire change in their business/personal lives. I could write many books about the subject. And conduct many speeches about it. I am so damn good at it! But my ability to do this is what scares me the most because when I am doing this is when I am being most authentic.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
I would like to know how to longer fear what people will think of me when I am being authentic it is the source of all my many past and present issues. It is almost comical that I am afraid of doing the thing that brings me the most joy and will bring me the most amount of success.

Quote by Kim Basinger that totally describes me and probably lots of other ENFP's
“I feel there are two people inside me - me and my intuition. If I go against her, she'll screw me every time, and if I follow her, we get along quite nicely.”

Something funny just occured to me starting a successful consulting business is being successful in business

ENFP,

I run and have run business. Let me give you a few lessons that have helped me.

1. Get a CRM. Contact management system. You can have one for free or very cheap. google "free crm"
2. Get on linkedin.
3. Become an officer at a charity and or social chair for a charity or local chamber of commerce
4. How old are you? I didn't think I was sane until I was 25.
5. Get a day job and consult for free or cheaply until you build a track record. Think of it as an internship. Once you have successes under your belt then you are a consultant and it won't matter that you didn't have a past business. Like you said, being a consultant is having a business. I would encourage you to do the internship thing for a few years. I have been k-1ed or 1099 since 2003 and I am still learning stuff everyday.
6. Work on 3-6 projects at once. I don't feel good in my self unless you have many things. My ENTP friend mentioned that for xNxPs we need to have several projects going on:
a. real job
b charity
c. some fun hobby
d. slowly build a business
e some other business you are building

I'd go insane if I only had one project to work on. I have two full time jobs and a work website and this one. No one can match us in multiple projects

7. I would stay out of sales until you get older or you become a master at something.

I'm 21 and I had a similar problem with defensively hardening myself in social situations. My girlfriends always told me I because different in front of other people and I found myself generally dissatisfied in the long run because I felt fake. sbalbom gave good business advice and I could see it working out.

I think the biggest part of overcoming this is recognizing it's happening while it's happening and then also taking time to think about it when you're alone.

Intuition and Feeling are your best friends here, I think. You have the innate ability to tell how a situation is going and also to judge the motivations of others with little or no evidence. I found that if you use these abilities aptly and work from a base of compassion (don't have expectations of people. If everyone's generally good, there's no reason to push them away) you can instantly become friends with everyone in the room. Plus, if they end up being a jerk, you can tell right away and at least you started with them on a good note.

ENFPs are easily influenced by their surroundings. Throughout high school I was best friends with a staunch ENTP. After going through some self-analysis and learning more about Jung's types, I realized that my facade most certainly tended towards ENTP behaviors. This makes sense if you take into account your shadow type, ISTJ. I don't know if you've read much about your shadow, which is who you become in times of stress. Social discomfort leads us to search for a way to deal with it. Would you say that when you are in social situations you tend to judge people before really giving them a chance? I did. The intuition is horrible here, because it's hardly ever wrong. But, if used in conjunction with unregulated judgment, you will be more prone to viewing people pessimistically.

As far as becoming a public figure of any kind (I'm a musician), you have to do it. Performance takes practice. Even though practice can be a dirty word for ENFPs, you can learn to balance it because it's fun as hell to be in front of a crowd. It will help develop your presence in the external world. I would start small too. Start reading. Since in times of stress we tend to introvert, pick up a book. If you want to kill two birds with one stone you could pick up some kind of psychology or philosophy book. I suggest the Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama or The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

Remember, time alone is your best friend as an extrovert. If you have time alone, spend it doing something awesome, like ENFPs do best. We are the Visionaries. We show people the right paths to take in life and make people feel confident about the unknown. It's what we're best at and what I think you should try to do. Try to find the good path in the maelstrom of horrible ones.

Feeling inauthentic is soul crushing, don't think you're alone. Haha. When something is stagnant, that means there is a problem. You can do it. You can change yourself. ENFPs are rare. Successful ones are even rarer.

Treat everyone with compassion, even yourself. Look up your shadow and study it diligently. INTJ. Read everything you can find about it and then try to recognize it when it pokes through.

Create something. It'll give direction. Work in small ways towards your goals. Make lists, do research. If you feel ambitious, start something up. If you can find a business partner with whom you work well, I highly recommend working with them. Solo projects are a pain in the ass and I haven't finished anything alone in years.

Good luck man. You can do it.

Enfppreneur,

I felt like I was reading about myself in terms of the hard outer shell. I agree with nageekdoog's comments & would add: a lot of times my fear of being authentic is that people around me won't like it & it will lead to conflict. Ok, that could happen. I think for me part of the answer is putting myself into that situation over and over again enough until I come to recognize: hey, if I am well-intentioned and transparent, most of the time conflict will successfully resolve (as opposed to leading to some type of imaginary apocalypse or destruction of self), and we'll still be friends. That experience allows me to have trust. The trust gives me comfort to be authentic.