Allan: Regarding personality types, my brother is an INTJ like me (I recognize NTJs quickly) and his ex-wife used to joke to my mother that sometimes he seemed like an alien. To which my brother would reply in a montone voice (with his two forefingers on top of his head like antennae): “Take me to your leader.” That always killed me.

Regarding those corporate motivator things (“successories” – uggh!!), you’ve probably seen the anti-successories (“demotivators”), but if you haven’t, please visit http://www.despair.com. True genius at work.

Some folks just aren’t wired to work for other folks. It’s better to just acknowledge it and move on – as you’ve done – than try to fit your square peg in a round hole and end up miserable.

Actually, taking a tangent here, I have a large fund-of-funds client that I consult for and they were thinking of investing about $15 million with my former employer. It would have been ten-year locked-up money with a big carry if things worked out. Naturally, I steered my client to someone else, thus costing my former employer somewhere in the neighborhood of $4-$10 million (depending on performance). Now, you may think, “Wow, that’s petty, Dave.” To which I would respond, “Yes. Yes it is. And yet I enjoyed it.” And it had the additional benefit of actually being the right thing to do on behalf of the client. But I digress.