Unhealthy ESTP: The Negative Aspects of the Entrepreneur

The unhealthy ESTP personality can be triggered if an Entrepreneur continually faces a lot of stress and represses important cognitive functions.

Regardless of the reason, once this happens, charming, bold, and authentic ESTPs start behaving differently. Unhealthy Entrepreneurs exhibit manipulative tendencies, inflated narcissism, excessive hedonism, and other toxic personality traits.

Today, we’ll dive deep into the traits that characterize an ESTP's dark side, explain how they become unhealthy, and explore the telltale signs you’re dealing with an unhealthy ESTP. Finally, we’ll discuss effective ways of helping unhealthy ESTPs heal properly.

Key Takeaways

• Healthy and unhealthy ESTPs primarily differ in their emotional awareness and communication styles.
• Entrepreneurs become unhealthy when, as a result of continual stress, they trigger a loop of overusing their dominant cognitive function at the cost of ignoring the auxiliary cognitive function.
• Unhealthy ESTPs often exhibit manipulative tendencies, excessive hedonism, inflated narcissism, neglect of responsibilities, and disrespect for boundaries.
• Entrepreneurs can become healthy by thinking before acting, practicing delayed gratification, and constructing a healthy routine to guide them.

Healthy vs. Unhealthy ESTPs

Before exploring the most common reasons that make ESTPs “turn bad,” let’s make a comparison between healthy vs. unhealthy ESTP traits to discover how these two differ.

Healthy ESTPs are much more aware of other people’s emotions. They will not deliberately manipulate others; they will use their strong suits to help elevate the mood of those dear to them.

On the other hand, unhealthy ESTPs are quite insensitive. They prioritize doing whatever they want and assessing how their actions affect the people in their lives. A good example of this behavior can be seen in the fictional ESTP character from Girl, Interrupted—Lisa Rowe—where Angelina Jolie’s character exhibits manipulative, destructive, and reckless behavior.

Secondly, their communication style is also different. While healthy Entrepreneurs rely on their charm and keen senses to establish an effective, direct way of communication, their unhealthy counterparts will often lack the patience to hear others out and get into conflicts frequently.

How ESTPs Become Unhealthy

ESTPs become unhealthy when they encounter a great deal of stress that prompts them into a cognitive function stack imbalance.

Like all the other 16 personality types, ESTPs have both strengths and weaknesses, so Entrepreneurs shouldn’t be considered unhealthy every time they succumb to one of their flaws, as this is quite a normal occurrence for many.

However, when they experience lots of continual stress, their cognitive function stack shifts to prioritizing the shadow functions:

• Introverted sensing (Si)
• Extraverted thinking (Te)
• Introverted feeling (Fi)
• Extraverted intuition (Ne)

Since these functions feel uncomfortable to them, they enter a loop where they try hard to overuse their dominant function (Se) and ignore their auxiliary function (Ti), which makes them less sensitive and thoughtful of others.

Due to this, they become more impulsive and reactive, finding it increasingly difficult to be introspective and thoughtful—diverging from their healthy state. Finally, they also find making connections on a deeper level more challenging due to the overwhelming level of stress they endure.

7 Critical Signs of Unhealthy ESTPs

Now that you’re familiar with the basic differences between healthy and unhealthy ESTPs, here are nine ways to discover an unhealthy Entrepreneur:

#1. Manipulative Tendencies

Unhealthy ESTPs, both male and female, often express manipulative tendencies. In these situations, the Entrepreneur can view people as tools for achieving their goals.

While the ESTPs’ struggles with sensitivity and emotions are generally an omnipresent weakness, this trait can overcome their pros and prompt them into reckless behavior. This characteristic is commonly associated with their dominant extraverted sensing (Se) and includes manipulating others to get what they want.

Unhealthy ESTPs often don’t view their approach as manipulative. In fact, they replicate what they’re used to. So, this tendency is often triggered as a consequence of their personal experience—a situation where they felt neglected or let down.

#2. Commitment Phobia

When unhealthy, Entrepreneurs cultivate the “every man for himself” approach as a response to their hurt feelings and develop the habit of relying on themselves. As a result, thanks to their ability to adapt and the courage to do pretty much anything, unhealthy ESTPs don’t see a reason to form deeper emotional connections.

Naturally, as they start avoiding commitment at all costs, ESTPs go into radical self-isolation, which makes them ignore other people’s boundaries and expectations. This is another way of secluding themselves from forming emotional connections; as a result, they feel free to do whatever they want, regardless of the consequences.

#3. Disrespect for Boundaries

All ESTPs are known for bending the rules now and then. They do it either because these don’t make sense to them or because they believe they could get away with it while getting a sense of rush.

An unhealthy ESTP personality will also seek more control and assert dominance over the situations and people surrounding them. In this case, Entrepreneurs’ disrespect for boundaries grows as they feel like they have to prove they’re in control.

This will also pay greater attention to personal goals than social norms and responsibilities, elevating their personal points of interest over the “unnecessary” rules the others abide by.

#4. Excessive Hedonism

Healthy Entrepreneurs might occasionally go too far in their pursuit of pleasure-seeking, but what happens when an unhealthy ESTP finds comfort in an excessively hedonistic lifestyle?

In such cases, they double down on recklessness and indulge in present-moment pleasures. They’ll go on a bender without caring how much it costs, doing whatever’s necessary to prolong the fun activities that will stop them from thinking about their feelings or actions.

This includes impulsive spending on drinks, food, illegal substances, or anything that might suit their need for instant gratification. Tackling emotional issues and taking accountability is a terrifying notion for an unhealthy ESTP, meaning they’ll try their hardest to neglect responsibility and act on impulse just to get away.

#5. Inflated Narcissism

Both unhealthy ESTP females and males tend to exhibit inflated narcissistic traits. They are known for seeking constant attention and validation while simultaneously acting overly arrogant and sure of themselves.

They feel like they should be admired and understood. However, they fail to return the favor due to an emphasized lack of empathy. Unhealthy ESTPs combine their three Cs (charm, confidence, and charisma) to manipulate others to achieve the desired outcome.

Conversely, when something doesn’t go their way, the unhealthy Entrepreneurs become irritated and aggressive, exposing their sense of grandeur and the other weaknesses of ESTPs, including insensitivity and impulsive behavior.

#6. Superficiality

Entrepreneurs’ lack of patience grows when they’re unhealthy, prompting a very superficial way of conducting themselves. They view this as a means that will help them reach instant gratification quicker.

By keeping it superficial, an unhealthy ESTP avoidsemotional or factual responsibility and uses its keen eye and immaculate charm to shift perception and gaslight others if they find it necessary.

Apart from the unhealthy Entrepreneurs’ relationships, their superficial behavior also extends to their “live in the moment” mindset, relieving them of future responsibility by diminishing the consequences.

#7. Negligent Attitude

If there’s something that really irritates an unhealthy ESTP, it’s dealing with responsibilities. As these are considered commitments by default, Entrepreneurs have a natural problem dealing with them. This is due to several factors, including impatience, disorganized lifestyles, and troubles with routines.

Their dissatisfaction with the given responsibility might prompt excessive procrastination or some impulsive decision-making. Needless to say, this makes unhealthy Entrepreneurs extremely unreliable and, overall, irresponsible.

On the other hand, the rush for a new activity will make ESTPs struggle with structured environments or routine tasks. As their need for instant gratification is elevated, they’ll neglect responsibilities even more.

4 Growth & Healing Tips for ESTPs

Whether you’re dealing with an unhealthy ESTP or you’ve identified yourself as one as a result of a personality test, chances are you’ve seen better days.

However, don’t fret! Here are the three growth and healing tips that will help any ESTP get their strengths up and running again:

#1. Think Before Acting

By thinking before acting, an unhealthy ESTP accomplishes two things at once: they stop themselves from acting on impulse and also practice sensitivity.

To do so, they must practice mindfulness. Entrepreneurs need to take some time to collect their thoughts, analyze the advantages and disadvantages of a given action, and think about the long-term consequences before acting.

The second step is to seek advice. While challenging, doing this will empower an unhealthy ESTP and help them appear more down-to-earth, causing others to be sympathetic to their willingness to change.

#2. Practice Delayed Gratification

While it might feel like a dull chore at first, an unhealthy ESTP can make delayed gratification entertaining!

By setting up clear, achievable, long-term goals, Entrepreneurs should break them into smaller steps and practice awarding themselves with a fun activity every time they reach a milestone. In time, an unhealthy ESTP will witness the results of avoiding instant gratification, develop an interest in the future, and stop being obsessed with the present.

Moreover, practicing delayed gratification will also help ESTPs embrace and leverage their inferior function, introverted intuition (Ni).

#3. Establish a Healthy Routine

For an unhealthy ESTP, a healthy routine represents an oxymoron. Regardless, setting up a structure or at least an outline of expected daily behavior will introduce a much-needed grounding that will act as a base for a safe future.

Apart from helping them develop discipline and achieve better results at work or school, establishing a healthy routine will also make ESTPs seem more reliable.

Entrepreneurs have to remind themselves that having a routine and being spontaneous are not necessarily exclusive to one another. In fact, coming up with a fixed time to deal with their responsibilities and the ability to deal with them daily will help them indulge in all the fun, unplanned activities even more!

#4. Find External Support

Unhealthy Entrepreneurs can’t solve all the problems alone. What they can and should do is set up a system of external support to help them grow.

External support can include an ESTP’s family or friends, professional counselors, or support groups (for specific challenges and shared experiences).

It’s important to note the difference between enablers and coaching support. While petting someone’s back and nodding their head at everything an ESTP might make sounds supportive, it’s not helping them heal. A more balanced approach is needed here.

On the other hand, coaching helps with setting (or reminding them of) clear goals, formulating structures and plans to achieve them, and embracing the need to change unhealthy behavior.

The only way to do this is by first understanding why things like avoiding commitment or excessive hedonism are bad in the first place. And a healthy external support group can do wonders at pointing it out.

Final Thoughts

As a result of non-stop stress and other unfavorable life circumstances, an ESTP can start to rely heavily on their dominant cognitive function (Se) and neglect the auxiliary one (Ti). Due to this, Entrepreneurs’ weaknesses become a regular occurrence in their everyday lives.

This can cause unhealthy ESTP behavior, which entails manipulative tendencies, disrespecting personal and professional boundaries, excessive hedonism at the cost of neglecting responsibilities, and more troublesome traits.

Healing requires taking control of their thoughts and using them to control their actions. It’s also beneficial to practice delayed gratification and work on developing a healthy routine that will (re)introduce some valuable structure to combat recklessness.

Unhealthy ESTP FAQ