The ESTP personality type has everything it takes to be an outstanding entrepreneur. They have a hands-on mentality and are exceptionally skillful improvisers. Combined with their preference to take immediate action, ESTPs are known to get things done. Similarly, ESTPs are excited about exploring the unknown and making new experiences. Often quite bold in their behavior, ESTPs continuously seek to challenge themselves. In fact, they enjoy taking risks, which often bring them high rewards. In the following, we’ll have a close look at the ESTP personality type. It will show you their interesting character traits and how ESTPs differ from other personalities.
Interestingly enough, your thinking and behavior are greatly determined by your psychological preferences. Even more so, your entire perception of the world is influenced by your specific personality type.
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”
Theodore Roosevelt
Therefore, understanding what personality type you are will give you important insights about yourself. It will also allow you to better identify the subtle factors that ultimately shape your entire thinking, feeling, and acting.
Here’s everything you need to know about the ESTP personality type.
Even more importantly, if you are able to identify someone’s personality type, you will gain valuable knowledge about this person. This will aid you in better anticipating how this individual will react in certain situations. At the same time, it will help you in better understanding what it is that motivates this person.
To identify someone’s personality type, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is often applied. It is a classification of personalities that was originally intended as a guide for women who were entering the workforce. However, the Type Indicator quickly gained popularity. As of today, it is a classification that is very accurate and can be applied for numerous different purposes.
Let’s have a look at the ESTP personality type, which is one expression of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
The ESTPs Personality Type Explained
If you yourself are an ESTP, there will be many surprising and valuable insights into your personality in the following. Similarly, the following knowledge will help you in identifying the factors that are responsible for how you see and perceive the world. At the same time, it will also show you how your behavior and thoughts are influenced by your personality type.
If you regularly have to deal with ESTPs, the following will present you the necessary information that allows you to better understand these individuals. Such knowledge will aid you in dealing and interacting more efficiently with ESTPs.
Table of contents
What does ESTP mean?
ESTP personality traits
ESTP careers
ESTP relationships
Famous ESTPs
In the next section, you can find an explanation what ESTP actually stands for. This is followed by an extensive analysis of ESTPs and their different personality traits.
What does ESTP mean?
ESTP is an acronym that stands for Extraversion, Sensing, Thinking, and Perception. This is a result of the assessment of their psychological preferences in the following areas:
- How an individual focuses attention (extraversion or introversion)
- How an individual perceives information (sensing or intuition)
- How an individual meets decisions (thinking or feeling)
- How an individual interprets the external world (judgment or perception)
Therefore, the ESTP personality type prefers the above-mentioned expressions over their respective opposites. The different terms of the psychological dimensions describe the following:
- E – Extraversion: The ESTP personality type prefers extraversion over introversion. As such, they enjoy social interactions and are not depleted by them.
- S – Sensing: ESTPs prefer concreteness over abstractness. Therefore, they are excellent at focusing on the details but often struggle to keep the big picture in mind.
- T – Thinking: When it comes to making decisions, ESTPs put more emphasis on objectivism and logic than on subjective criteria. For this reason, they often do not consider personal or social factors when meeting decisions.
- P – Perception: ESTPs prefer to finalize decisions as late as possible. Doing so allows them to quickly make adaptations and changes should things change.
Let’s have a look at the personality traits of ESTPs.
ESTP personality traits
The ESTP personality type is firmly rooted in the present moment. They seek to make the best of their lives and genuinely want to share their happiness with others. ESTPs are also hands-on individuals that have the innate ability to quickly come up with innovative improvisations to overcome the challenges they are confronted with. Even more so, ESTPs are very active and highly energetic people who dislike inactivity. Instead of defining and discussing problems, ideas, and people, they rather prefer to put their thoughts into practice.
ESTPs are truly active individuals. As such, they are known for their capability to make things happen. However, everything they do, they approach in a unique style. In any way, they are true masters at making everything they do seem fun and exciting. One could even say that they add a certain artistic and entertaining style to their activities.
Be that as it may, ESTPs continuously seek to challenge themselves. They are not very fond of being trapped in routines and repetition. Instead, integrating something new into their lives on a regular basis is what excites them the most. Even more so, they derive a great deal of excitement from exploring something new. In short, they continuously seek to make new and challenging experiences.
At the same time, ESTPs are naturally adventurous and risk-seeking. They thrive in situations where a great deal of risk and danger is involved. To them, the willingness to take such high risks comes with very high rewards.
In general, ESTPs can be quite entertaining individuals. For this reason, boredom seldom comes up when you’re in their presence. They enjoy living life to the fullest and almost never reject the delicious fruits life has to offer.
Another important characteristic of ESTPs is that they are highly social individuals. They enjoy social interactions and usually have a very broad circle of friends and acquaintances. Similarly, they seem to have a sixth sense for knowing precisely what to say in order to charm others. For this reason, ESTPs are very popular and skillfully say the right thing to the right person at the right time.
Simply being around the ESTP personality type can be quite entertaining. They brim with exciting, funny, and sometimes even totally hilarious stories. Despite having excellent social skills, however, ESTPs maintain a certain distance to others. They are often perceived as mysterious and will only allow very few to fully get to know them.
ESTP careers
The ESTP personality type dislikes authority and avoids making commitments. Similarly, ESTPs are firmly rooted in the present moment. For this reason, they prefer professions that allow them to find solutions to logical problems they are directly confronted with. In short, ESTPs seek professions where they can solve issues right on the spot – preferably with their own approach.
As a result, long-term planning and abstract anticipations of future problems is something they dislike. However, if they are confronted with concrete problems, they are exceptionally skillful at finding unique solutions or improvising creatively. Therefore, they make good leaders that are capable of navigating companies or organizations out of difficulties.
ESTPs have a hands-on mentality and prefer concreteness over abstractness. Therefore, they dislike having to draft abstract ideas or solutions. Instead, they prefer putting logical and practical ideas to practice.
The ideal profession for ESTPs offers them not only excitingly new experiences on a regular basis but also a lot of adventure and fun. Here are some excellent career paths for ESTPs:
- Mechanic
- Building inspector
- General contractor
- Forrester
- Landscape architect
- Radiology technician
- Budget analyst
- Firefighter
- Flight engineer
- Mechanical engineer
- Civil engineer
- Surveyor
- Carpenter
- Exercise physiologist
- Chiropractor
- Land developer
Many times, ESTPs struggle with professions that do not allow them to be very active. For this reason, not all ESTP personality types appreciate desktop jobs. Similarly, professions that require strict adherence to specific work processes may not fully satisfy them.
ESTP relationships
The ESTP makes a thrilling, exciting, and adventurous friend or partner. They are fully rooted in the present moment, which they use to create exciting experiences for others and themselves. In fact, ESTPs seek to make the best of each moment. For this reason, they live intensively without thinking too much about the future.
ESTPs approach their various relationships on a day-to-day basis. As such, they do not plan in which direction their relationships are supposed to develop. Similarly, they dislike making long-term commitments in their relationships. Still, the ESTP personality type may be quite committed to those they really like.
Those that are very close to the ESTP personality type will describe them as exceptionally charming individuals. Similarly, they are articulate, clever, but also quite sensual. These characteristics greatly contribute to their large popularity.
ESTPs as partners
The ESTP personality type makes a charming and sensual partner. They are sure to introduce a lot of fun and excitement into the relationship. They celebrate everything they do in a unique way and their relationship is no different from this. At the same time, ESTPs seek to live in a relationship that continuously offers them new and exciting experiences. For this reason, many ESTPs quickly feel bored if this is not the case. However, they will remain committed to the relationship if they have other means of introducing excitement to their lives and if they are willing to settle down with their partner.
On the downside, ESTPs may struggle to express how they feel. Similarly, they have great difficulties in understanding how others are feeling. For this reason, they may often be perceived as insensitive. Similarly, their partners may often feel emotionally neglected because ESTPs do not naturally understand when affirmation and support are needed.
Another potentially negative aspect of the ESTP personality type is their dislike for long-term commitments. As such, they do not like planning too long into the future. Instead, they prefer making decisions about the relationship on a day-to-day basis. For this reason, they may not hesitate to leave the relationship abruptly when it does no longer excite them.
ESTPs as parents
The ESTP makes a very fun and exciting parent. Being big kids themselves, they don’t need to be asked twice to spend quality time with their children. In fact, they greatly enjoy these moments when they themselves can be kids again.
Usually, ESTPs do not provide a lot of structure and organization for their kids. Instead, they approach parenthood on a day-to-day basis. This means they teach their children as circumstances require it – without planning too long into the future.
However, ESTPs make great teachers for their children. In fact, they will transform whatever presently comes up into important lessons for their children. Even more importantly, ESTPs treat their children as individuals and respect their opinion. Therefore, they will take into account what their children want and give them certain rights of co-determination.
ESTPs as friends
There’s not a doubt that ESTPs are very popular individuals. They have highly developed social skills and can be quite entertaining. Similarly, they bring a lot of excitement and fun to their friendships. For this reason, it is not unusual that ESTPs entertain a lot of friendships.
Their social skills allow them to easily get along with different personality types as well. Therefore, you will often find them surrounded by friends with many different personalities. At the same time, ESTPs especially like to have friendships with personality types that are similarly active as they themselves are.
However, they may not particularly enjoy spending too much time with individuals with a preference for Intuition and Thinking. This is because such individuals are highly abstract and approach life from a rather theoretical perspective. For this reason, they are significantly different from the action-loving ESTP personality type.
At the same time, not all ESTPs are exceptionally loyal and committed to friends that are not that close to them. For this reason, they entertain a certain percentage of friendships in their lives that quickly come and go. However, most ESTPs will be very committed to their closest friends. Not only will they be very loyal to them but it is also likely that they maintain the friendship for their entire life.
Famous ESTPs
There are many notable individuals who express the personality traits of ESTPs. These famous ESTPs include:
- Donald Trump
- Bruce Willis
- Alexander the Great
- John F. Kennedy
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Author Conan Doyle
- Ernest Hemingway
- Dale Carnegie
- Malcolm X
- Thomas Edison
- Angelina Jolie
- Kevin Spacey
- Jack Nicholson
- Madonna
- Amy Winehouse
I hope you enjoyed this analysis of the ESTP personality type. Have you ever met an ESTP? What are your experiences?
To learn more about all the other interesting personalities, have a look at the 16 Personalities of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
Stay victorious!
