INTx and Strategic Thinking

[FarDraft]

@Rebelondeck, this is exactly correct in my experience. ILI’s tend to think, think, think, and rarely do, while LIE’s want to do, do, do, but are forced to think just enough to keep from going off in the wrong direction.

On this forum, I’ve sometimes said that I do “Ready, Fire!, Aim” all the time. I do it too often, but I can’t seem to not do it. My whole approach to projects, or everything for that matter, is to gather enough information to be about 85% sure of success, then start right away and course correct as things progress and we get more information.

ILI’s, on the other hand, seem to prefer to endlessly study a problem and never implement it. In my experience, they are attracted to fields like financial planning where you can screw around with numbers all day but only have to make a trade for your clients rarely.

One other thing I’ve noticed: When the market recently dropped, I looked at it as a buying opportunity, but when I visited my ILI financial advisor, he was nervous as hell because, I guess, he thought I’d hold him responsible for picking stocks that suffered huge losses (but only if you sell them at that lower price, obviously). He tried to put a better spin on the losses by reframing the picture and emphasized how the rising value of my real estate had covered the losses. It was funny to watch this reframing in the context of Socionics.

One thing that I’d say holds ILI’s back from realizing their enormous potential is a strong aversion to being held accountable when things go very wrong. This is probably baked into them by their drive to cover all the bases, or maybe I have it backwards, but it causes them to prefer to keep their plans hidden and thus deniable. But their aversion to risk-big-and-correct-on-the-fly makes them miss a lot of opportunities.

I have a lot of ILI friends and associates because I like and respect them. Sometimes, when I’m alone for a day or three, I find myself descending into depression and endlessly worrying about the details of something I should be actively doing. At those times, I feel like I might be turning into an ILI. It is horrible.

It seem like the "think think think and rarely do" mentality comes from weak Se. In that case, how would an LII be different in this regard? Would they be different?
I will concede to a lot of the things you say, though. I hate missing bases in plans, and I hate revealing too much information in case I might be wrong. I think it's definitely a negative about my personality. You're right in saying that I would probably enjoy something like financial planning. More like corporate financial planning and strategizing but similar nonetheless. It's one of my main career prospects besides academia and entrepreneurship.
However, I think you're wrong about the way ILIs think about details. It's less about fear of something going wrong (sounds more like a type 6 fixation) and more of a certainty of things going right. Since ILIs are process oriented, they focus on all the things that need to get done without missing one. While negativism keeps them constantly looking for more things that could be better thought-through, detailed planning is done so that "on-the-fly" adaptation doesn't have to occur.

How would you say to improve as an ILI since you claim they have "enormous potential"? Developing Te and Se? Ne?

EDIT: I have to disagree with my disagreeing with Adam since, through further reading, it seems as though ILIs are incredibly focused on what could go wrong and how to mitigate it. An emphasis is placed on not repeating past mistakes, though the Ni imagination is capable of seeing ahead other possible ones. This leads to cautiousness and preparation (different than planning, though planning is also likely).