Breaking Down Personality: Thinking vs. Feeling – Everyday Fulfillment
No Vacation Required
If you’ve ever been in a disagreement where one person is leading with their heart and the other is essentially leading with a spreadsheet, you already know exactly how challenging the Thinking and Feeling dynamic can be.
It’s one of the most glaring differences in how we process the world. When one person is focused on objective logic and the other is weighing the human impact, it’s easy for wires to cross. You might find yourself wondering, "Why are they being so cold?" while the other person is thinking, "Why aren't they looking at the facts?”
This week, we are diving into the core cognitive engines of personality: Thinking vs. Feeling. We are breaking down how to bridge the gap, whether you are navigating a love relationship, a friendship, or a dynamic at work.
Onward and Inward,
COMMON QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE
❓What is the main difference between Thinking and Feeling personalities? Thinking types prioritize detached, objective logic and cause-and-effect when making decisions. Feeling types weigh personal values, human impact, and relational harmony more heavily.
❓Why is the Thinking vs. Feeling pairing so challenging in relationships? When one partner leads with logic and the other leads with values, it can be easy to misunderstand each other. A Feeling type might perceive a Thinking partner as cold or distant, while a Thinking type might struggle to understand a Feeling partner's emotional response.
❓How does the Thinking vs. Feeling dynamic show up in the workplace? Many workplaces prioritize "Thinking" traits, such as data, logic, and clear metrics. This can be challenging for "Feeling" types who may struggle to implement decisions that make sense on paper but don't align with their personal values or sense of harmony.
❓Can a person be both a Thinking and a Feeling type? Yes. While everyone has a natural preference, we all contain multitudes. We use both thinking and feeling processes, and understanding your type is about recognizing which one you naturally lead with.
❓How can Thinking and Feeling types better support each other during stressful times? Under stress, a Thinking type may become overly critical or detached, while a Feeling type might become overwhelmed or overly accommodating just to keep the peace. Supporting each other starts with recognizing these different reactions and asking curious, non-judgmental questions about how the other person is processing the situation.
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Mind Share: AI content, bear encounters, and the failing of discernment
(03:30) Understanding Thinking vs. Feeling
(04:09) Objective logic vs. personal values
(05:07) Why this personality difference is the story of our life
(07:25) The fallout of making values-based decisions in a logic-driven world
(11:05) Why the T-F pairing is the most challenging for couples
(14:05) Navigating a culture that prioritizes the "T" (Thinking)
(19:22) Questions a Thinking person can ask a Feeling person (and vice versa)
(24:20) Mailbag: Why do my partner and I handle stress so differently?
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TRANSCRIPT
Caanan (00:00)
Okay, Caanan, I know you have something on your mind, so share it. Sometimes we don't talk about these things in advance, and sometimes we do, and we've talked a lot about this one, but I'm very excited to talk about it ⁓ with y'all. ⁓ can we talk about AI content on social? Because ⁓ as you probably know, Kent and I are big hikers ⁓ and we have encountered a lot of bears in our time.
Caanan (00:28)
And so we have kind of a keen eye for bear encounter videos and because we watch them when they show up, they show up a lot. We're about to head into major hiking territory, so we're kind of yeah trying to trying to find our get an awareness of what what's the bear vibe at, where we're going. Yeah. Okay. But generally speaking, if you know, a bear on trail video shows up somewhere, we're gonna watch that. So much of them are AI now.
Caanan (00:58)
I know. It's just like where we are in the world. ⁓ So much are AI that now like animal encounter videos – Kent would you agree, like you just your mind just says this isn't real? Yeah, well I want to jump in and thank you for that because anything I come across or mention, you'll say, Well, I think you have to start by assuming it's not real. Yeah. But this is where your mind share gets really good. Yeah. So this is where I'm ultimately gonna land. But ⁓ the other day
Caanan (01:27)
Kent, you showed me a video and it was a bison ⁓ approaching a guy at a campsite or something and throwing him. Approaching a senior citizen at a campsite and literally like ⁓ like yeah, throwing him up into the air. Nothing has ever looked more AI in the history of AI. It was it was like three years ago Will Smith eating spaghetti fake looking. ⁓
Caanan (01:56)
And you know what? ⁓ It was real. It was actually real. ⁓ And I could not believe it. It looked so fake and it was real. And I keep falling when I fail to ask myself, is this real? for bear encounters on trails of videos that are fake and look ⁓ so real. ⁓ So here's my thing. Here's my point. You kind of just made it. I feel like we talk a lot about discernment. Yes. ⁓ And
Caanan (02:25)
that's very important. It's probably the most important skill you can have nowadays, but we are at a point where I think discernment is failing us because these things are becoming indiscernible. The the truth is becoming indiscernible from the AI generated content. So I don't know what to say about that, other than what what you brought up and what I'm always saying. Pretty much everything we engage with now, I have to say, is this real?
Caanan (02:53)
Yeah, and I want to say too on this topic that it opened up a good conversation for us and I hope it does for everybody out there too, where you really have to set some I don't know, some parameters for yourself so that you do bring this awareness that so much is AI. Yeah. And that you leave a opening in your heart for the old man almost getting killed by a buffalo, being a real old man almost getting killed by a buffalo.
Caanan (03:30)
in this series we're talking about personality, which is so fun. We're talking about the the four personality pairings, So the first week in the series we talked about extroversion versus introversion. The second episode in the series we talked about judging versus perceiving.
Caanan (03:50)
And this week, week three, we're talking about thinking versus feeling. And I don't know, I hate to pick favorite kids, but this is kind of a great one, isn't it? Yeah, it's it's it's among the best. Yeah. So this this this one evaluates your standard for making a choice. It weighs whether you prioritize detached objective logic.
Caanan (04:15)
Cause and effect, which is thinking. ⁓ or ⁓ if you weigh more heavily personal values, human impact, relational harmony, which is feeling. And ⁓ here too, I think we said this in one of the prior two episodes, because we always like to have ⁓ a story to tell. Right. this Caanan said to me this morning, this ⁓ T versus F.
Caanan (04:41)
Evaluating one standard for making a choice and how that impacts their personality is sort of the story of our life. So I love what you had to say about this. Absolutely. I mean it makes perfect sense that you would say this is your favorite because this is fundamental to our no vacation required life.
Caanan (05:05)
it's hard to even talk about this in terms of our life because almost all of our stories, all our most compelling stories, are rooted in F versus T, if you will, feeling versus thinking. Yeah. Values alignment versus black and white. Rigid back. So but I'll I'll just hearken back to
Caanan (05:28)
Our decision to transform our life from working in a corporate space to working for ourselves. Yeah. that decision on paper, looked crazy to a lot of people. So crazy that in our book, No Vacation Required,
Caanan (05:51)
We talk about the fallout from it. We lost friends, it didn't make any sense to our family. a lot of people really struggled to understand what we were doing. But in terms of how we make decisions, it made perfect sense. And we had this deep resonance with this idea we had. It didn't mean it wasn't scary or risky or any of those things that they come with change, but it made perfect
Caanan (06:18)
sense to us. Yeah. Right? Yeah, we had to we had to do because here we we share an F. We're we're both an F and this is such a a powerful place if you share this process pairing type or if you are in opposition with your say love relationship or your boss.
Caanan (06:47)
it's such a big one. We feel like it's the most glaring one. And yeah, we just had to I didn't know you were gonna talk about that time specifically. And I just think about all the people that were saying specifically, and I think I mentioned this in a recent episode. What about your 401ks? Right. how does this look on paper? No, I I really love what you're doing, you know, giving up your corporate jobs and and doing your own thing.
Caanan (07:15)
But I this has to pencil out first ⁓ before I can ⁓ accept
Caanan (07:23)
the feeling that you guys are talking about. And so here's that's just such a great, I'm so glad you wanted to talk about this, Canaan. That just so well encapsulates the difference. Do you come from a place of needing values alignment, thinking about the impact on yourself and on humans, thinking about harmony, or are you somebody who
Caanan (07:50)
Pride yourself on a more, you know, a detached, and I say that in the most positive way, like the ability to make a black and white decision from a detached place, prioritizing objective logic and systematic cause and effect. I mean, there's a place for both of these things. So that's why we're digging into this today.
Kent (08:14)
In everything we've done, in our personal lives and as sought after business and career development consultants, we've learned one consistent thing. Most people just don't know themselves. NoVacationRequired.com is where we talk about how you too can build a life that you don't need a break from and how it all starts with knowing yourself. There you'll find all of our podcast episodes, information on services, and the scoop on us. And to really raise the bar, we model this as a couple.
Kent (08:44)
To show that a relationship doesn't have to be a compromise or a counterproductive union. When two people are each doing their own work, the heightened connection becomes a shortcut to building a no vacation required life.
Caanan (08:59)
Again, we're talking about T and F, thinking versus feeling, as our third pairing, personality pairing. And it's important to say here that in weeks one and two, we talked about the structural keys, the things that unlock the way your personality unfolds. So that's the E and the I, extroversion, introversion, and the J and the P, judgment, perceiving, side note.
Caanan (09:26)
Hate those words. Yeah, we're gonna say it practically every time. These words ⁓ may not make sense to you, and that's okay. They're not great words. Yeah, so now we're moving from those structural keys here in week three to the core, what what are called the core cognitive engines ⁓ of your personality. So here we have T and F and I just wanted to say ⁓ this is something Caanan and I happen to talk about all the time.
Caanan (09:54)
not only in a work context, in the context of the work we do and the passion we have for helping individuals and work groups ⁓ build a no vacation required life, ⁓ it pops up
Caanan (10:10)
In our day-to-day, because so much strife we witness ⁓ among people, ⁓ not just the people we work with on a work basis, ⁓ is based in indifferences on this ⁓ this T and F pairing. And I said either in the last episode or the episode before the people are always saying, you know, asking, okay, what kind of person do I want to be paired with? This is my personality type. ⁓ What kind of personality type pairs well with my personality type?
Caanan (10:40)
I will say much like we said about introversion and extroversion, that even more so thinking and feeling can be a really tough place, a really challenging place to differ. And here I'm speaking very specifically with a love partner. it's entirely possible and a beautiful thing if
Caanan (11:07)
you have differences in any of these pairings, there's a great thing that can happen there. But what we're saying is the T F pairing is a very challenging one for couples specifically, because if one is a T and one is an F, one is thinking objectively logically, first and foremost. And the other one is thinking very much based on
Caanan (11:34)
Personal values first and foremost. And unless this pairing has a way of understanding
Caanan (11:42)
And working with that, it can be really tough. So I'm just gonna take a big swing because we've got decades of experience in this. The most successful couples tend to be couples that match in this pairing, T or F. And maybe it's hard for you to see it in your own love relationship if you're into that or friendships, because I think
Caanan (12:08)
Caanan and we were talking earlier, like in work, this becomes so magnified. Yeah. ⁓ I I'm glad you said what you did because I think something that's very important here, A TF relationship can work ⁓ if you know ⁓ your personality types, right? If you know who you are, then you know where somebody else is coming from when they're not responding to you in the way that feels
Caanan (12:34)
Correct or caring or thoughtful or smart or strategic. So you've got to know your personality type. And then a lot of these problems become very manageable. maybe you don't have an example that you can easily go to in your personal life, but I bet you can see this in your work life.
Caanan (12:58)
And here again, TF, you know, we are all, if you're listening to this in the United States specifically, we're steeped in a culture that prioritizes the T, that prioritizes the logic, the thinking, show me the data, make the math math. It doesn't so much, once you're recruited and hired, care a lot about how these things feel to you. Exactly, yeah. Right.
Caanan (13:28)
So you can think about the discordant situations in work where you're, if you're an F, you're being told to do something, the math does math, the data does support the decision, but it doesn't feel right to you, and you're struggling to implement this thing, even though you can see on paper that makes sense. It doesn't fit for you. Meanwhile, the T's in your work group are like
Caanan (13:58)
What's her problem? Yeah. Why is she being so emotional about this? Yeah. look how clearly this makes sense. Yeah. I think it's most surprising. I can think of all the times where you realize that the person behind the T also has a lot of F. And by the way, I'm excited to get into that because
Caanan (14:25)
we just haven't wanted to confuse this four pack of episodes. ⁓ But we are ⁓ all everything. We're all extroverted and introverted, thinking, feeling, judging, perceiving, sensing, intuiting. Ambivert-y! Yes, we're all that on a scale. So when you realize there's a F behind the T, ⁓ they just ⁓ cannot ⁓ not ⁓ lead.
Caanan (14:55)
with ⁓ the T. So sometimes it can seem ⁓ very confusing to see somebody who you've seen ⁓ as caring and humanistically inclined. ⁓ And then there's this decision that seems to be ignoring that. And it can feel ⁓ so ⁓ cold. Cold! that's the perfect word for that. Yeah, the other thing I think about is a couple
Caanan (15:22)
friend of ours, and I bet you know who I'm talking about, where one is a raging F and one is even a more raging T and the F, who I think we're we're closer to just Well, because she shares our
Caanan (15:43)
F type. We can relate on that level. Yeah. so you do know who I'm talking about. You just said she. Yeah. yeah. yes. The the T is just mad making. So I think going into this conversation and thinking about this particular pairing, understanding in your love relationships, your friend relationships, your work relationships, that everybody has some.
Caanan (16:12)
Of both. There's there's some F behind that T, there's some T behind that F. And the challenge becomes having the discernment. I'm gonna use your word from the top of the episode regarding AI, having some discernment to know that and to
Caanan (16:34)
Thanks for listening. We'd be honored if you'd subscribe, like, and share. It means the world to us.
Caanan (16:41)
So I wanna lean into something you just said, Kent, about
Caanan (16:46)
Essentially recognizing that the person you're engaging with may not be your type in many many times they're not going to be. So if you're an F and you're processing information via your feelings, the person you may be engaging with could be a T and they're not processing their information via feelings, they're processing that information via logic and thinking and black and white and facts.
Caanan (17:15)
So you have to have the space for that. you have to recognize that people are processing information differently. I want to talk about how that might feel in a love relationship, because I think this is where it gets really tricky. If as an F, I'm having the feels about something. Yeah. I'm all up in my feelings, and the person I'm in a relationship with is a T and they're
Caanan (17:42)
evaluating something via logic, we're gonna have a big problem. Yeah. Because I'm going to look at that person and be like, Why are you so cold? Why are you so distant? Why don't you care about my feelings? Yeah. That person is likely not not caring about your feelings. They're just using a different process to evaluate that information. And so you have to have space for that. Yeah.
Caanan (18:10)
Yeah, I go ahead. I always think about well, we talk about this every time voting comes around and we're currently voting. We always joke wow, all this is at its worst when there's voting in a household and you've got somebody making decisions based purely on logic and somebody else making decisions based on values and we kind of snicker like, Ooh, to be what is it, a fly on the wall in one of those houses right now?
Caanan (18:35)
Painful. Painful. Painful. But yeah, it's bringing this discernment. Yeah. And this maturity and deciding we are all multitudes. Nowhere is that saying more legitimate than when it comes to personality. And as we say over and over, and why we've landed at this point in our lives being the biggest proponents of figuring out you, of building a life you don't need a vacation from, and doing that via personality and figuring out yourself.
Caanan (19:06)
No expensive external fixes, no mysteries, no balm, no pill, no cream. Knowing who you are, and similarly, knowing who your loved ones are. So as all good therapists say and coaches say, it's about getting curious. So we want to leave you with some things in this case, you know, things that say a thinking person can ask a feeling person,
Caanan (19:32)
A thinking person can say, Okay, you say it doesn't feel right. Help me understand what you're noticing that makes you say it doesn't feel right. interesting, yes. Yeah. A thinking person can ask a feeling person, Well, how do you weigh the impact of a decision on people? Because you seem to be so people focused in your decision making. How do you do that with a degree of confidence?
Caanan (20:03)
Another one I like is how do you distinguish between empathy and simply wanting to avoid conflict? I think this question gets to the heart of things where people with the T orientation can tend to think that an F orientation can be kind of immature. so allowing that F by asking, well, what's the difference between empathy and trying to think of the
Caanan (20:30)
humanitarian impact of how you're making that decision.
Caanan (20:36)
How is that not just trying to avoid conflict and trying to be the one who's liked by everybody? That's such a good question. Yeah. ⁓ Let me move on to a few questions that a feeling person can ask a thinking person. ⁓ I think this one's so interesting. It sounds so passive aggressive to me, but I love it. ⁓ Number one, how do you know when you have enough information to make a decision? So the here the feeling person is getting curious about...
Caanan (21:04)
Okay, this person is using data, black and white information. How do you know when you have enough? Yeah. Coming from a place of
Caanan (21:16)
Don't you rely more on your intuition or your gut? you know, really asking what information and how much do you need? ⁓ asking the thinking person, what does being objective mean to you? And I love that because I think you you see then when you ask questions like that, you see a lot of commonality and you realize that the T being objective actually is landing in the same place intellectually that you are.
Caanan (21:44)
They're just getting there in a different way. and this is the biggest one. we've asked this of people that we've argued with. Like, ⁓ how do you separate the issue from the person? 'Cause for a feeler, it can seem ⁓ so impersonal. Yes. ⁓ To have all this data and black and white thinking. So ⁓ yeah, Caanan as you just leaned into,
Caanan (22:09)
Discernment. Yeah. ⁓ I something came to me as you were asking those questions because they are wonderful questions to ask of somebody else. And again, you need to know your type and the people in your life's type in order to even ask those questions. But it it struck me that they'd be really good questions to ask yourself. I was sitting here saying please say that. Please say that. Please say that's Because we said at ⁓ early on, ⁓ you know, this thing about everybody's ambivert-ish.
Caanan (22:37)
Everybody contains multitudes. You're not 100% F. You might have a little T. You might have a lot of T behind that F, vice versa. I think it's a great, a great exercise to ask yourself those questions, especially like the one you said, when do I know I have enough information? Kent, you and I, this is something you and I have to do, because we're both Fs. We don't have a T dropping into our lives to help us
Caanan (23:07)
navigate big life decisions. We've had to cultivate that skill in ourselves. And that's a perfect example of a question we would ask ourselves ⁓ to bring a T perspective into the realm so that we're not just ⁓ moving through the world like big soft feelers, ⁓ not looking at things strategically. Yeah, and now Caanan is jumping ahead to like our advanced personality course because that that's the beauty of all of this is
Caanan (23:36)
Once you know these tools, as we're trying to inspire you to consider now, then you go deep into them. And as you're saying, then you're able to see, I'm a E S T P. Okay, how do I balance this out more? I'm not never going to change my personality. Right. Well, you can. More on that in future sequences too. it gets so juicy and interesting. But how do I
Caanan (24:07)
How do I balance out? You're asking yourself.
Caanan (24:12)
What are my blind spots?
Caanan (24:21)
it's time for mailbag and ⁓ I Kent I didn't run this by you yet, but I pulled a mail bag. Mailbag. ⁓ I pulled a question that somebody asked that I wouldn't generally have pulled because it's kind of an unanswerable question. Yeah. ⁓ But I thought it would be so fun to answer from the perspective of this topic. So ⁓ wait, you mean
Caanan (24:43)
TF? TF. This process pairing. Yes. What is it? So the question is I've noticed that my partner and I handle stress completely differently. Yeah. Why is that? And how can we better support each other? Well, the reason I wouldn't have pulled this generally is because that's an unanswerable question. We don't know enough information about you and your partner. There are all sorts of reasons why you might handle stress differently. Okay, enough with the caveats. I want to hear. I'm gonna I'm gonna take it from the perspective of a T
Caanan (25:12)
versus an F. Yeah. Because that's what the topic is about today. And so I just wanted to say, you have to know your type, as we're always saying. And in this case, you need to know how you process information, thinking or feeling. And so if you're a thinker under stress, you might become overly critical or detached, while a feeler might become overwhelmed by the emotions of a situation. Yeah. Or
Caanan (25:39)
as you said earlier, Kent over over accommodating in order to keep the peace. Yeah. So we're 'cause harmony is such a top priority for an F, not from a weak place, but from a place of harmony is of paramount importance. Nothing works if there's not harmony. Yeah. So yeah. That's such a good point. Yeah. I love that. I mean we could look at this from
Caanan (26:08)
almost every process pairing and answer the question in an interesting way. But because we talked about FT today, I wanted to tackle that from that perspective. Yeah, I do wanna jump in here and and say I'm so glad you picked this question and it just gave me all the feels about this is why you need to know who you are and who your partner is. because what comes up big for me is the E I pairing, okay.
Caanan (26:34)
Mm-hmm. How do you each energize ⁓ arguing and not knowing each other's energy mapping, not knowing your own energy mapping? You know, maybe maybe one of you is an I and needs to have ⁓ all things near and dear around you to kind of recharge a comfortable place, yeah, a small group, ⁓ or your most loved, or maybe just you. ⁓ maybe the other person
Caanan (27:04)
Recharges in an extroverted fashion and needs to be around people ⁓ to shake off ⁓ what's happening. so I can imagine, you know, my mind goes places because we've helped so many clients. And just intuitively our minds go places. ⁓ I think, okay, in this coupledom, stress comes up, ⁓ one of them is taking off. Yeah. Right. And the other one's like, Wait, why are you leaving? Do you not
Caanan (27:32)
value this relationship when in fact that is how the other one heals and prepares by being out, by being around other people. Even if that's a walk around the park, just being energized by being around a lot of people. And without this knowledge, the other person is sitting at home ready to talk it out or get real serious as an I and they're thinking, now I have whatever issue and I'm basically abandoned. Yeah.
Caanan (28:01)
Right, and our E who's say walking in a busy park, is thinking ⁓ like, whoa, why is this other person being so doom and gloom and kind of isolating themselves and this is getting morbid and Yeah, we're using sit there and wallow in this? Yes. So I ⁓ to me this is such a great mailbag.
Caanan (28:20)
I'm so curious to know we if it was a client or who, but we can talk about that later. Who got in touch because it just speaks to the benefits of personality. And I'd imagine they got in touch because they listened to one of our first two episodes. Yeah. it was actually, I think, a listener, and it just reminded me something we never say. Like, if you're listening to this, we would love to hear about your situation, how personality plays out in your relationships, your love relationship, your work relationships. Let us know how that.
Caanan (28:50)
that
Caanan (28:50)
looks and feels to you. And if you have questions, let us know that because we love to get those, we love to get those insights and we love to get those questions.