Quote Originally Posted by Adam Strange View Post
I considered the fact that my descriptions do sound like those of INTJ's in MBTI. It might be because I don't see a big difference between the descriptions in the two systems, and I might have a hard time seeing the Ni because I have Ni myself and kind of swim in it.

Yes, I actually do know a few ILI's in both business and academia who use their meticulous planning and knowledge for personal gain. Most are actually quite well-off. But the two I know in academia are not less motivated by personal gain because they are in academia. Rather, it is because one is probably an e9 and a genuinely nice guy who wants to teach, while the other is a computer systems manager for a college and wants to hide in the machine.
The differences between the ILI's whom I know seem to be based on enneagram rather than job descriptions. I think most of the ILI's I know are ILI-Te's. I think an ILI-Ni would spend most of his time dreaming and very little of his time doing.
Ah, ok. I knew enneagram made a difference (I noted it in one of my replies to this thread), but I wasn't certain how big the difference would be in comparison to the differences caused by subtypes. Many of them overlap, actually, which I think can make it difficult to discern between enneagram fixes and subtypes if we're not being careful. For example, 9s are naturally more focused on human connection (fear of loss), which could be seen as having heightened ethics, leading one to conclude that they are an Ni subtype. This may be the case (probably is most of the time), but motivations/fears need not affect cognition in the same way each time.