Retire Early Personality Test............

[unclemick]

Well - I'm INTJ - think act think or in my case think act worry.

Now my worry is how to model a sliding asset mix on FIREcalc or other planner. Perhaps I'll do think procrastinate worry until after all the relatives visit and leave over the holidays - I wonder if there is a couch potato version of INTJ.

[Trace]

INTJ for Me

ISTJ

[Toejam]

I am 50 years old and not retired yet - but plan to within the next year or so. *I am an INFP. *I have read a lot of stuff on meyers briggs personality studies.

I think a lot of INTJ's are represented in the early retired because one of the strongest personality traits in an INTJ is their high need for INDEPENDENCE and AUTONOMY. (They also tend to be competitive and can come across as intellectually aloof and argumentative - but also have a drive to constantly improve everything - even other people and mostly themselves.)

As an INFP, I am not your typical ER (according to the "personality study". The only reasons I intend to "retire early" are: 1) I don't like my job. 2) I can, due to many years of savings and investing, and a generous buy-out of stock held in the company I work for. 3) I ain't getting any younger, have recently had some health problems relating to an injury, and have a more acute sense of my mortality.

I am single, have never been married, and have no kids or dependents. I want to feel completely free to do what I want to do.

Hello Toejam and others. Toejam, your brief
description of INTJs could be the shortest most accurate
summary of my personality ever written. I also agree
with your conclusions, both about INTJs being
"programmed" for early retirement, and about your individual decision to hang it up. BTW, I never had a
regular savings/investment program to amount to anything, have 3 kids and have been married my entire
adult life, except for 3 years. With a little more planning
and a little less baggage (than I had), I truly believe most anyone could ER. I did everything wrong and still made it.

John Galt

[Ted]

I think that it is noteworthy that the common characteristic of everyone who responded to this is that they have a "T" in their profile. By his own admission, salaryguru just barely made it, whereas it was my strongest trait. As my daughter would say, "Well, no duh."

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Continuing a trend, a big fat INTJ here. I used to date the woman who did the meyers briggs employee testing at my old company.

Bad idea, by the way.

[popyee]

Toejam, take heart. I'm a 56 year old ENFP who just retired on Januay 2. Early retirement gives me the chance to do what ENFPs do the best -- play and be spontaneous. It's great to have the time.

Popeye,

You seem to be the first 'F' here. Everyone else is a 'T'.

My wife is Just like me ESTJ except for she is an 'F' an ESFJ - but she still works and likes it

[sgeeeee]

There may be a misunderstanding by some about the significance of the scores in the personality type test. For example the third letter is either T (thinking) or F(feeling). Although relying on thinking in making decisions is usually a good thing, the T score is partially a measure of the balance one places on thinking as opposed to consideration of people's feelings. A high T score can indicate that you are unaware of the importance of people's feelings. Just as a high F score can indicate that you do not consider factual analysis enough. In addition, the amount of thinking you rely on does not speak to the quality of that thinking. A high T score, for example, does not indicate high inteligence anymore than a high F score indicates inferior inteligence.

Other letters in the score are similarly measures of balance along a continuum.

Although some people's personalities may be well defined by their answers to a few dozen questions, most people have personalities that are more complex than that. People with personalities that do not conform to the simple tests often find that most questions cannot be answered in a definative manner. If the question is answered with respect to one issue or one aspect of their life they would give one answer, while if they think about another part of their life they may provide a different answer. Many people's scores and even letter designation will vary significantly if they take the test twice -- especially if the test times are more than a day apart.

You can evaluate how well your personality conforms to the test by taking the test multiple times -- once while considering your interactions and decisions related to your closest friends and family, and a second time while considering physics or engineering, another time while considering finances, politics, etc.

I've taken the test multiple times, with enough time expired between so that I did not recall any previous
questions or answers. However, I was always INTJ and I always agreed completely with the description of INTJ
traits as they applied to me.

John Galt

[popyee]

Cut-Throat,

Yes, I'm an "F". It was interesting since I was a sceintist where the type is mostly "Ts". In fact, All my life I worked mostly with ISTJs and INTJs.

Work can cause all kinds of stresses. The advantage I have is that I can "adapt" and do it well. I'll do well in retirement.

[TheFIREman]

I once took a personality test, but I failed. That's when I decided to become an engineer.

[unclemick]

I was an engineer for 25 yrs BEFORE taking the personality test - I MAY have had one but I don't remember.

[sgeeeee]

Quote:

I've taken the test multiple times, with enough time expired between so that I did not recall any previous questions or answers. *However, I was always INTJ and I always agreed completely with the description of INTJ traits as they applied to me. * John Galt

I'm not surprised by that, John. Many people's personalities are captured fairly well by this simple test or it wouldn't be so common.

[sgeeeee]

Quote:

I was an engineer for 25 yrs BEFORE taking the personality test - I MAY have had one but I don't remember.

When you say, "I MAY have had one . . ." do you mean you may have had a personality? or you may have had a test?

I've taken tyhe test and a couple others a few time so over the past 2 or 3 yrs. I'm an ISTJ maybe 2/3rds of the time and an INTJ the rest

Quote:

on Today at 11:16am, unclemick wrote:I was an engineer for 25 yrs BEFORE taking the personality test - I MAY have had one but I don't remember. When you say, "I MAY have had one . . ." do you mean you may have had a personality? or you may have had a test?

Actually he means he MIGHT have had ..... context indicates a "personality"

[fire5soon]

ISTJ here. Not too many of us it seems... but that's the way we like it according to the descriptions.

Quote:

ISTJ here. Not too many of us it seems... but that's the way we like it according to the descriptions.

I noticed that myself but for a dfferent reason. Seems like the people most likley to talk about it are INTJs but if I recall correctly at the REHP web site there are study results that show ISTJ's are in fact the MOST likley "types' to retire early. They are also, again going from memory here, a much smaller total of the human population. But I dont know how much larger the INTJ population is

[fire5soon]

Quote:

I noticed that myself *but for a dfferent reason. Seems like the people most likley to talk about it are INTJs...

I guess we'll never know how many ISTJ's there are out there because of our quiet nature. Our numbers are probably just as large as INTJ's, you just have to lift the rock to see us scurry around.

-Jay