Thank you Dave. It's always good to meet a kindred spirit. I still get weird looks when I say I worked for 100% commission. My point to these people is simple - If I sell something, in my case it was management consulting projects, and those projects return a profit to the company, I want 25% of that profit. Not very complicated, although I had to watch the project manager's accounting very closely.

But I was around at least once a week to check progress, and I attended all interim-project updates with clients. And in a prior life I was in finance/accounting, so I understood what I was looking at.

So the downsides are 1) working on an RFP for weeks and not winning, and 2) selling an unprofitable project. The 1st happened a lot more than the 2nd.

And I had one of those jobs where comp was base plus bonus. Those comp plans sucked. There was no way to tie the bonus to profitability.

Funny story - I overheard a guy about my age at the gym and also retired how he would have made so much more money had he gotten his MBA. Turns out this guy was a career-long insurance adjuster. NOT a risk taker.

I didn't butt in, but an MBA alone is little more than table stakes to get a job you want. I have an MBA and it did help a little. But I made money because I was willing to take on risk, work without a net, and accept the bad times and move on.

Education is fine and needed, and I learned a lot getting my MBA. But people are delusional if they think they'll be thrown buckets of cash because they have the degree. Be smart, have confidence you can do the job and deliver, take on acceptable risk, and insist on a cut of the profits that is easily verifiable.

But back to my insurer-adjuster friend - he had an average career and was compensated accordingly for not being willing to take on risk. An MBA would have been a waste of time.

Thanks again Dave! Always a pleasure!

Joe