LIE and the Business Dream — Hustle, Success, and the Price of Ambition

How Successful Are Jacks Really in Business?

I suppose, before talking about this sociotype, I should answer the question that concerns most socionists: how successful LIEs are in business, how connected to it they really are, and the whole story people in socionics circles love to dwell on.

Let me focus on three people I know well; three should be enough to show a trend.

Case Study 1 – Anton: Playing Business at Nineteen

The first is Anton, whom I met in college at the Moscow Regional Institute. He immediately struck me as a very proactive, restless guy who couldn’t sit still.

His first business was a brokerage firm he launched at 19. In my experience, things really start to “take off” for LIEs—and for the Gamma quadra in general—only after 30, once something finally matures.

Before that, Anton had advantages: he had some money of his own and could attract external funds by building partner connections and pitching ideas that were supposed to make everyone rich. Being Yielding, a LIE focuses on resources and never puts all his eggs in one basket, so he simultaneously ran several ventures with different people—the brokerage, car-insurance agency work, and especially the LED business.

Around 2005 almost nobody knew about LEDs; it was still a pure promise. I remember him in a restaurant explaining that all lighting would eventually switch to LEDs because they save huge amounts of energy and last far longer (with a three-year warranty). He saw the scale clearly and set a bold goal for a 19-year-old: open a factory.

I’ve noticed the same trait in both LIEs and SEEs: they push past their actual means and display what they could have rather than what they do have. That meant taking out a car loan for important meetings, renting suits, and making sure the first impression was flawless—expensive car, sharp appearance, polished presentations and brochures. Anton registered a company, hired staff, and began ordering equipment from China. Outwardly he seemed to be rising fast; in reality everything was on credit and leverage, so he was essentially standing still.

He worked extremely hard and sacrificed a great deal—no dating, because there was simply no time. He used to say all of that could wait: once he got rich he would buy a villa in Italy, a gorgeous blonde would be waiting, kids would run around, he’d have a yacht, and he would simply scale the business, franchise it, and live off the returns as an investor.

At the time neither of us knew socionics; the script simply unfolded on its own. When I visited him I was struck by the shelves of identical “millionaire-mindset” books—Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad’s Cashflow Quadrant, and the rest. He bought and read every one of them. Alongside his own ventures he was also co-training a group with me and hustling in still other projects.

It all led to the same place: he never found a real investor, money ran out, and rent plus payroll consumed what was left. He dropped to absolute zero. Yet his flexibility and resourcefulness covered most of the risks. One example (I helped a little) was the car lease: in those days the vehicle went on the company’s balance sheet, so when they wound things down the organization, not the individuals, was the debtor. He walked away completely clean, at least regarding the car.

In short, he spent years “playing the game of businessmen”—driving and meeting people fifteen hours a day—until he burned out. The last time we met, about three years ago, he was working as an investment-project analyst, calculating risks and approving funding for construction projects. In his free time he threw himself into theater, again using clever tactics: he invited everyone he knew to his first performance at the Maly Theater on Taganka, so the house was full without any marketing budget and he even made a little money—as it turned out, everyone had to pay the admission!

He had another striking skill—self-positioning. When I was stuck after college and couldn’t get interviews, I called him. He took one look at my résumé, called it nonsense, and showed me his own. It wasn’t a conventional résumé; it was written as if he were already a Chief Financial Officer. He listed every training, medal, and achievement without a hint of modesty. If there is one thing to learn from him, it is that ability to present oneself at the highest possible level.

Case Study 2 – Vitalik: From Security Guard to Rapid Ascent

The second of the three is Vitalik, an adult, mature man from Ukraine. He moves to Russia and takes a job as a security guard—an odd start for an LIE. He doesn’t sit still, though. At a plant (I won’t name which), he begins as a regular guard and, within a year, rises to head of security. That position gives him access to the financial directors; the alcohol business is shady, with plenty of cash-outs and similar dealings. Action follows. After he turns 30 he finally starts to breathe more freely and grows at a very fast pace.

His gimmick is the same as Anton’s: constant hustling. He has to meet someone, talk to someone, find things out. He makes money on everything—even Japanese shampoos he sells by the box to his many acquaintances and wholesalers. Literally, if he hears someone needs something, he immediately says, “I can get that!” He takes on everything from deals that yield a couple of thousand to huge projects, and he always tries to scale them.

This is a shared trait among everyone I’m describing: they all hit a moment of scaling the business, and scaling often means running several projects in parallel rather than focusing on just one.

Case Study 3 – The Woman Entrepreneur: Opportunity, Investment, and Scaling

The third person is a well-known woman (I won’t name her). Already over 40, with no prior financial-business experience beyond bank analysis work, she opens a small factory when the opportunity appears and begins scaling it with very large investments. Unlike the first two, who built everything from scratch, she had real starting opportunities. I don’t know the current state of that business.

Not every LIE has the chance to play these games or invest such sums just for experience. A tendency toward financial and risky operations does not guarantee success. Of these three, only one can really be called successful—and even he is always taking risks and could hit bottom or burn out at any moment. There is no automatic business success simply because someone is an LIE. Success depends on many factors, including the environment and location. I’m speaking here about Moscow. Every LIE has 4D Intuition of Possibilities and operates according to the environment they find themselves in.

An Extra Illustration: The Village LIE and the Logic of the Landscape

Take another LIE who lived in a real countryside village. What is an LIE supposed to do there? He started hustling scrap metal: first the combine harvesters, hauling them according to the price per kilogram, burning them, and writing them off. His reputation was ruined; the locals saw him as a scumbag and he had to leave for another village. It went as far as selling a water tower and pumping station (aluminum, worth far more than iron), leaving part of the village without water. Again, hustling according to the landscape he found himself in.

When the Machine Stops: Super-Id, Dualization, and the Quiet Path

Yet there are also LIEs who don’t hustle at all. This is especially true of women, who more often go into ordinary employment. Destinies unfold in very different ways.

What can stop this machine tuned for success and entrepreneurship? For any type, it is getting stuck in the Super-Id—the dualization everyone dreams about. When a LIE becomes caught in relationship dynamics with a financially supportive partner, a bottleneck appears.

That is why many 18- or 19-year-old girls marry and stop hustling on any public scale; they may do something on the side, but the drive largely disappears. Heavily activating the Super-Id is a fast way to quiet someone: they sit tight, smile blissfully, and no longer need achievements because “I’m already getting everything I need—life is good.”

The Suggestive function is a bottomless pit. You fall in, your eyes close halfway, and you keep scooping from a barrel that can never be filled. It is the tastiest, most pleasant function—“I always want it, it’s never enough”—but once you sink into that pleasure, everything else is forgotten. From society’s point of view, a person who has fully covered their Super-Id is lost to society: they feel fine and no longer want to move forward. From the inside, of course, everything is simply great.

So that’s the story. Now let’s smoothly transition to the portrait.

Core Ideals, Mission, and the Drive for Success

What does an LIE dream of? As a Researcher type, a missionary, an assertive person and in some ways an idealist, LIE dreams of a mission that will transform the world—make it more precise and efficient, change an unfavorable environment, and especially overcome material and financial hardship.

This drive toward higher goals comes at the cost of personal self-sacrifice. They abandon a comfortable existence they could enjoy right now for the sake of the future: “Right now I will ignore some of my needs so that later I can make up for everything—collect the debt I am placing on myself.”

It is a trap. It will never be enough. The LIE always believes things can be done even better, which turns into a constant race for self-improvement. The LIE wants to be successful in everything: first in sports, first in business, and so on.

Success itself is rooted in Objectivism: the results must be undeniable to the vast majority so that as many people as possible objectively admire them. It is concrete—“I came from a simple family with nothing and reached this position; my photo is on the Forbes page among the ten coolest people.” This reflects a strong desire for the social image of a high-achiever attained through self-sacrifice. When others go off to rest, the LIE says, “No, I can’t afford that; I have so many obligations and targets to meet.”

Work Ethic, Perfectionism, and Demanding Environments

Because of dynamic Extraverted Logic, the LIE is often dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. Perfectionism follows: one cannot relax; everything must keep improving. LIEs are people of practical action. They want to be useful in the best sense, fill life with meaning, and do everything in their power to reduce disorder and hardship.

Driven by these ideals, an LIE creates companies with special conditions so that people simply will not want to leave: “This is going to be such a cool job! We’ll buy awesome laptops, rent an amazing downtown office—a huge space with great couches and top-tier coffee machines…”—all so that people become brainwashed and work like crazy. Innate optimism assures both others and the LIE that the work can always be done even better.

The same high demands the LIE places on himself are projected onto everyone else. He expects complete dedication during the work process and criticizes anyone who fails to meet expectations that are extremely difficult to live up to. Many people quickly burn out because they cannot keep up with the pace.

This does not come from a desire to squeeze people dry and then discard them. The LIE simply projects his own mindset, worldview, and principles onto others. He considers it right and cannot understand how it could be any other way.

Friction with Others and Insensitivity

LIE begins to criticize others: “How can this be? If I’m working my fingers to the bone, why should you be resting?” This creates misunderstanding, because every person has their own sphere of interests and values. Someone may believe that after work they should go home and take care of their family. If the LIE has no family, he simply does not understand and insists: “What you’ve done isn’t good enough. How can you leave your workplace when you belong to the company right now and should keep grinding?”

When someone says, “Sorry, I’m already working without days off or vacations, and I want to go to the seaside with my family,” the LIE replies, “Wait, we have a cool deal worth millions! How can you be thinking about a break right now? Nothing is done yet; everything is ahead of us!” In this race for success he constantly wants better and better—perfection knows no limits.

The objective truth and logic that drive LIE can play a cruel trick. As objectivists who strive for success, they look for explanations through social norms, yet their objective truth turns out to be subjective as well. On one hand, it seems obvious that everyone wants a better life, a higher-paying job, a more expensive car, a prestigious neighborhood, and designer clothes. On the other hand, not everyone needs this. Accepting that fact is extremely hard for LIE: “If you have a chance to push yourself harder and earn more, how can you choose not to?”

I witnessed a clear example. Two female friends met, and one (a female LIE) began criticizing the other for looking neglected: “Why do you pity yourself so much? Why don’t you take care of yourself? Is it really that hard to get up in the morning and run for forty minutes before work? Is it impossible to get a gym membership and, instead of going home after work to stuff your face with cookies, work out for a couple of hours?”

In such moments it is very difficult to explain to an LIE that the words are hurtful. Carried away by talk of success, the LIE criticizes those around without noticing who is listening—for instance, declaring that people have no excuse to get fat when wonderful fitness centers are everywhere (“It’s pure joy—you don’t even want to leave!”) while speaking to someone who is overweight. She does not understand why the person is offended; she believes she is saying the right things. On one level they are right, but on another they come across as complete insensitivity. LIEs end up being “too right.”

Sacrificing Personal Life, Relationships, and Well-being

On the one hand, the LIE’s workaholism seems socially approved. On the other, it requires sacrificing the vulnerable function—introverted sensing, comfort, enjoyment, and any present satisfaction. These are simply ignored: “It hurts right now, it’s unpleasant, I don’t have a family, but I keep grinding to build a foundation of money and real estate. Later I will invite someone into that foundation and we will be happy.”

Time given heavily to one area means other areas are neglected; relationships and experiences in the “here and now” are the usual casualties. This affects other people, who quickly run out of steam and drop out of the race, but it affects the LIE’s own well-being first and foremost.

A successful woman fully immersed in entrepreneurship often reaches her thirties and thinks, “Work is fine—now it’s time for a family.” Relationship problems follow. It is hard to find a man who seems worthy of her level; most appear foolish, primitive, or weak. Constant comparison arises: “I worked so hard, invested so much in myself, spared no strength or time. What were you doing all this while—resting and having fun?” A deep misunderstanding appears: where to find someone who has put in equal effort toward material success? Yet at the same time: “Why do I need someone just like me? I need something different!” The contradiction creates ongoing difficulty.

The same overload affects sexuality. In the early twenties a person already buried in serious responsibilities, with a phone that never stops ringing, finds it very hard to switch into romance or simply give in to feelings—even to use sex as an escape from the constant problems. People by nature are lazy and want to shirk; they lag behind and mess up. The LIE, however, carries enormous responsibility: loans hang over him, projects must be closed, and sponsors demand results. He has promised too much, exceeded expectations, painted an ideal picture, and thereby created the high expectations that led others to entrust him with their money.

Health Toll, Over-responsibility, and the Corner of Individualism

You have to give yourself some slack; otherwise stress, psychosomatic issues, and other problems follow. One LIE told me he was simultaneously working for someone else and running his own business, so he never managed seven hours of sleep. His solution was melatonin to cut sleep time. It is rational and raises efficiency, yet it is not that simple.

By trying to maintain a standard of perfection in the eyes of society, the LIE drives himself into a corner of individualism. High standards create inflated expectations in the people around him. When he finally gets tired or falls sick, he criticizes himself for the lapse, while others—accustomed to him working like a dog—ask why he left at six instead of nine.

He conditions those around him with his social success, so they expect Superman performance. Proving you are Superman makes you forget yourself. It is impossible to be cool in everyone’s eyes; something is inevitably pushed out, and stress follows.

LIEs over 30–35 often regret that by fooling others they also fooled themselves: they worked like a horse and forgot their own desires and needs. The role of being first in everything comes at a very high price.

Delegation Issues, Outbursts, and Seeking Realization

The core difficulty is delegation—allowing oneself to let go, stop micromanaging, and let others handle things. Because of this, LIEs often become overwhelmed with both work and household chores. They try to bring every activity to perfection, spot flaws along the way, and grow irritated.

When completely drained they start thinking: “Why am I the only one slaving away? Why is all the responsibility on me? What are these freeloaders doing?” Anger erupts and pressure is applied to those around them—an attempt to provoke extraverted sensing so others will pull themselves together and work. The result is loss of confidence, a sense of incapacity, negative emotions, and self-pity for having sacrificed desires and simple joys for the duty they took on.

At that low point the LIE may finally gain access to true needs: realize what actually matters, accept that rest is allowed, that no one can be perfect at everything, and that mistakes are normal. Conversely, when obligations are finally met, the long-dreamed rest can turn into going off the rails; even then some control is still required, because the release can create a real mess.

Conclusion and Practical Recommendations

LIEs strive for flawlessness and high standards in actions, words, and thoughts. They believe things can always be improved and that their ideals can be realized. They take obligations seriously, try to be honest, grow professionally, eradicate their own flaws, and develop in several directions at once (spirituality, sports, healthy lifestyle). The proverb “business before pleasure” fits them well, yet pleasure is often pushed far into the background.

Practical advice:

• Allow yourself to relax, rest, and disconnect from tasks.
• Take a more grounded view of perfectionism: flaws are normal and need not become a tragedy.
• Start thinking about yourself instead of constantly thinking for others; draw clear boundaries between your life and theirs.

Every person must still be examined individually through their own backstory—why they got stuck, what is holding them back, and what prevents them from either relaxing or moving forward. That requires an individual approach.

Source: S. Ionkin