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Quit now, get a job, and why bother. Everything is luck.

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lewj24

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many 'successful' people were born into privilege, took part of the family business or had significant financial support from family.
Just doing a background check on many successful people shows the true underlying principles at work which is often a significant headstart

Have you done a background check on:

Sam Walton
Jeff Bezos
Steve Jobs
Henry Ford
Richard Branson
Walt Disney
Warren Buffett
John D. Rockefeller
Ray Kroc
Colonel Sanders
J.K. Rowling
Robert Herjavic
Daymond John
Mark Cuban
John Paul DeJoria
Felix Dennis
Joyce Hall
Benjamin Franklin
Wayne Huizenga
Duncan Bannatyne
Oprah
Steve Harvey
(insert almost any professional athlete, comedian, actor, singer, etc.)

I'm sure i missed a few million people but you get the idea.
 
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Thomas Baptiste

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OP is kinda right.

Successful people typically pick something and stay true to it. They work hard at it for years and eventually that hard work pays off.

I agree with OP too in that there are loads of successful people who went to university. They get a craft and sure they work for a long time but eventually they make seven to nine digits a year. Working in a proven career is no different than working on a proven business model. I did some work for a lawyer last year who decided to take a three month break so he could go chill in Mexico whilst raking in money from his firm. 'Why should I start a businesses when I can work in a proven career path which will make me rich?' Can't blame them for sticking true to it. It's no different from an entrepreneur sticking to their plans.

On a quick side note, people who think universities are useless are idiots.

Today there is so much distortion about how to be successful. There's thousands of books being published every week on it, thousands of YouTube videos, every man and his dog has a course on Udemy on how to become rich. Shopify! Fulfillment by amazon! Write a blog! Write an ebook! Trade currency! Do this! Do that! What is it going to be next week? Meanwhile the real successful people stay away from that noise because they're busy working.
I agree with this 100%. Honestly, there is so much noise it's very hard to get to the truth of matters nowadays. It is getting easier to follow misconceptions, and naive people (majority of people) become much more gullible.

I've been fed misconceptions, and the slowlane doctrines my entire life. It took a disaster to really push me out my comfort zone, see life for what is it, and seriously analyze the direction my life was going. If not I would be just another lost soul out there in the sea of social media and motivational videos trying to find easy and quick ways to make money.

I'm really grateful to the good people here that take the time to guide others. This forum is a blessing, and I consider it THE best place on the internet. It can be so difficult to change your mindset from money chaser to money maker, when your belief system has been tuned that way for so long.
 

Brad S

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Have you done a background check on:

Sam Walton
Jeff Bezos
Steve Jobs
Henry Ford
Richard Branson
Walt Disney
Warren Buffett
John D. Rockefeller
Ray Kroc
Colonel Sanders
J.K. Rowling
Robert Herjavic
Daymond John
Mark Cuban
John Paul DeJoria
Felix Dennis
Joyce Hall
Benjamin Franklin
Wayne Huizenga
Duncan Bannatyne
Oprah
Steve Harvey
(insert almost any professional athlete, comedian, actor, singer, etc.)

I'm sure i missed a few million people but you get the idea.
You know what all those people have in common (besides the narrative fallacy and halo effect)?

Luck of genetics and luck of circumstance.

The list of people with similar traits as this list who didn't end up rich or with a successful company would be from here to the moon.

They are called the silent graveyard.

Nobody's writing books about them.

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The Abundant Man

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You know what all those people have in common (besides the narrative fallacy and halo effect)?

Luck of genetics and luck of circumstance.

The list of people with similar traits as this list who didn't end up rich or with a successful company would be from here to the moon.

They are called the silent graveyard.

Nobody's writing books about them.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
upload_2019-1-13_23-7-12.jpeg

What does genetics and halo effect have to do with those people being successful? So there's a gene to be successful at something?


images



Pack your bags boys! If you don't have the gene to be successful might as well not live on this planet any longer.

Hard work? Is there a gene for that?

Elon Musk just got lucky that's all. We went to the moon? That's just all luck and their genetics.

Just don't worry about it. Just don't do anything in life. It's all about luck and genetics.

I'm going to go back and live in my mom's basement and see if I have the right genes and luck...

images
 
Last edited:

Brad S

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View attachment 23324

What does genetics and halo effect have to do with those people being successful? So there's a gene to be successful at something?

75450955.jpg





Pack your bags boys! If you don't have the gene to be successful might as well not live on this planet any longer.

Hard work? Is there a gene for that?

Elon Musk just got lucky that's all. We went to the moon? That's just all luck and their genetics.

Just don't worry about it. Just don't do anything in life. It's all about luck and genetics.

I'm going to go back and live in my mom's basement and see if I have the right genes and luck...

I said they have luck in common not that "it's all luck".

Hard work is a given.

But predicts nothing.

Once again we dont hear from the many people who "worked hard, thought big and took action" and 5 years later still " in moms basement".

And not one gene but many that contribute to a person's outcome.

Your response is your fear talking.

Fear that you can do everything you can and still end up "living in your moms basement".

What you would like to believe and whats actually true are at odds.

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The Abundant Man

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I said they have luck in common not that "it's all luck".

Hard work is a given.

But predicts nothing.



And not one gene but many that contribute to a person's outcome.



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You should have put this in a disclaimer at the bottom.

The reason why I got upset is because it seemed like you put in that the only reasons why those people were successful was due to their genetics and luck. When that is a fallacy because there are multiple variables to success.
 
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lewj24

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I said they have luck in common not that "it's all luck".

Hard work is a given.

But predicts nothing.

Once again we dont hear from the many people who "worked hard, thought big and took action" and 5 years later still " in moms basement".

And not one gene but many that contribute to a person's outcome.

Your response is your fear talking.

Fear that you can do everything you can and still end up "living in your moms basement".

What you would like to believe and whats actually true are at odds.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Can you give some examples of how some of those people I listed got lucky? Genetically? or through their circumstances?

It seems to me that everyone I listed had different circumstances and different genes just like everyone else.
 

James Cozens

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So I completely agree with a lot of what you said in the OP. I'm 30 now and only just recovering from 5 years of the same bullshit. Tony Robbins saying "just follow your passion" Robert Kiyosaki saying "invest in assets"... all the generic guru advice out there just F***s you up because it's never specific - you're left to draw your own uninformed conclusions.

I think there are rules I can apply to people who are successful with a college degree: e.g. Zuckerberg
People who attend college with no idea where they're headed are setting themselves up to fail.
People who attend college while running a business (and who plan where they are going and what they are doing) will become successful.


It's the same with the internet. There is SO much info out there, it can either be super easy to get rich or super difficult to get rich, based on one key difference.
You have to know what you're doing and where you're headed.
If you don't know what you're doing, you'll end up typing in "how to get rich" and drowning in all the vague, "positive thinking law of attraction, start a social media marketing agency" bullshit.

But:

If you've already decided that you're going to start a salmon breeding farm, then most of the information is already out there on the internet and you can get very specific answers to each question that arises: e.g. "how much food does a salmon eat" "what is the ideal P.H. level of the water"

Same goes with uni: if you're already running an ecommerce store and you decide to study marketing at university, you're going specifically for the EDUCATION, not the DEGREE and you will probably gain a lot of useful, applicable (if not overpriced) information. The people that go to uni just to get a piece of paper so it will "open up their options for getting some sort of job" probably won't do well.

My advice is: Pick a problem in the market to solve THEN find specific information on the internet.

Once you've committed to an idea and started to action it, surprisingly some of the guru bullshit starts to make sense. They just don't hand out the full picture!
 

Brad S

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Can you give some examples of how some of those people I listed got lucky? Genetically? or through their circumstances?

It seems to me that everyone I listed had different circumstances and different genes just like everyone else.
It's not that they had any circumstances in common or even genetics in common necessarily.

I can't point to any genes because I don't know enough about genetics to identify millions of clusters of genes.

No one does yet.

Take John D Rockefeller for example.

If you ran a simulation with the many thousands of people that were involved in the oil industry in his time one million times, someone would always end up as John D. Rockefeller: the Monopolist of oil refinement.

Same thing with Warren Buffett.

If you have enough people in your simulation (millions for example)there will always be an investor just on luck alone that will have results like Buffet.

It's not like there were 5 people who invested and refined oil other than them.

Then their achievements would have much less luck involved with those low numbers.

And would be much more impressive in skills.

But the higher the number the more inevitable it will be to get a huge outlier.

I do believe in the case of Buffett and Rockefeller for example they had some type of superior genetics that probably suited them statistically better then most of the other participants in their game to be the outlier.

But we are talking about a slight edge here.

Plenty of those people that were involved in their similar businesses in their time periods also probably had genetic advantages and still didn't become them.

Because they weren't lucky enough.

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Madame Peccato

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While being in the right place at the right time and having a good dose of luck are indeed needed to achieve the level of success of the people mentioned, their level of success is beyond the scope of anyone. What I'm getting from your post is that you need luck and specific conditions to be met to be in the 0.1% of the 0.1%.

I like to think of getting money (value vouchers?) as having a pretty simple basic concept, and then there's all the other factors that work as multipliers for the concept.

For example, think when people pinpoint the success of certain people to having the "right idea". Sure, the right idea is an amazing propeller, but as MJ explains in his books, even a terrible idea, if properly executed, can earn you all the money you'll ever need. The quality of the idea is just a multiplier of how much you can earn via execution.

I personally consider the "luck" or the "right conditions" to also just be multipliers of your potential earnings. But "luck" can never be 0. Having a 0 multiplier in luck would mean you wouldn't even be able to post on this forum. It means being born crippled, in extreme poverty, in a severely underdeveloped country, from abusive parents, dying at a young age, or any other such factor.
 

Brad S

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While being in the right place at the right time and having a good dose of luck are indeed needed to achieve the level of success of the people mentioned, their level of success is beyond the scope of anyone. What I'm getting from your post is that you need luck and specific conditions to be met to be in the 0.1% of the 0.1%.

I like to think of getting money (value vouchers?) as having a pretty simple basic concept, and then there's all the other factors that work as multipliers for the concept.

For example, think when people pinpoint the success of certain people to having the "right idea". Sure, the right idea is an amazing propeller, but as MJ explains in his books, even a terrible idea, if properly executed, can earn you all the money you'll ever need. The quality of the idea is just a multiplier of how much you can earn via execution.

I personally consider the "luck" or the "right conditions" to also just be multipliers of your potential earnings. But "luck" can never be 0. Having a 0 multiplier in luck would mean you wouldn't even be able to post on this forum. It means being born crippled, in extreme poverty, in a severely underdeveloped country, from abusive parents, dying at a young age, or any other such factor.
Or the luck of being born at all.

Whether you think it's good or bad luck...lol

Unbelievable long shot.

Trillions of planets and stars in the universe and we could be alone.

A bacteria to human conciousness.

All by accident.

No goals.

Talk about luck.

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Madame Peccato

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I mean yeah, it's all a coincidence that we are here conversing on this forum, for all I know the human race could have been wiped millions of years ago by giant ants that spit fire and we're just a very evolved version of the videogame "The Sims" being played by some crazy xenomorph who enjoys war and starvation.

I'm talking about the realm of possibilities within we are right in this moment, it doesn't matter that we are here because the planets aligned to allow us to be here, what matters is that we are here, and that we can achieve extraordinary results within our abilities and with what little we know about the universe that surrounds us. Our comprehension of what surrounds us is very limited, and quite frankly I'm not even sure if what little we know is right, or has any chance to be proven right.

You can consider being born a lucky event, an unlucky event...or just an event. The history of the universe is full of events. The simple fact that we just so happened to have 1 planet like the Earth, while every other planet would be inhabitable by life as we know it feels so random.

If I were never born, there wouldn't be an "I", and then all the discussion about "getting lucky" just doesn't happen, because "you" can't be lucky if there's no "you" to begin with. Luck (randomness) changes the outcome of events that involve stuff that exists, if something doesn't exist luck can not influence it.
 
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jcvlds

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It's not that they had any circumstances in common or even genetics in common necessarily.

I can't point to any genes because I don't know enough about genetics to identify millions of clusters of genes.

No one does yet.

Take John D Rockefeller for example.

If you ran a simulation with the many thousands of people that were involved in the oil industry in his time one million times, someone would always end up as John D. Rockefeller: the Monopolist of oil refinement.

Same thing with Warren Buffett.

If you have enough people in your simulation (millions for example)there will always be an investor just on luck alone that will have results like Buffet.

It's not like there were 5 people who invested and refined oil other than them.

Then their achievements would have much less luck involved with those low numbers.

And would be much more impressive in skills.

But the higher the number the more inevitable it will be to get a huge outlier.

I do believe in the case of Buffett and Rockefeller for example they had some type of superior genetics that probably suited them statistically better then most of the other participants in their game to be the outlier.

But we are talking about a slight edge here.

Plenty of those people that were involved in their similar businesses in their time periods also probably had genetic advantages and still didn't become them.

Because they weren't lucky enough.

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Why stop your data analysis mid-way and prematurely determine that it's just not worth "trying" because out of the millions of people trying the same as you, you are not likely to be the one outlier at the very top? Why stop, and say, they were the outliers due to sheer luck and NOTHING else.. no other variables considered.

What business attributes could you enter into the graph and analysis (many attributes or variables that MJ explains in his book, or many others explained in other business books) that could provide further insight into possible explanations of why those outliers made it to the top?

There are many business books that take on different perspectives of why past successful companies made it and why others didn't (everything from business strategy, market forces, industry forces, value array of the given product/service, etc). Your statistical analysis does not factor in ANY of these variables.

What if you could learn from these outliers things that they did, that are common to other outliers as well, that signals higher chances of 'success'? Then maybe, even if you didn't end up the 'ultimate outlier' (aka John D Rockeller), you could end up in the higher 75+ percentile and still have an amazing life and amazing wealth.
 

top boy

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Can you give some examples of how some of those people I listed got lucky? Genetically? or through their circumstances?

It seems to me that everyone I listed had different circumstances and different genes just like everyone else.

Jeff Bezos

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told his parents he was leaving Wall Street to start selling books on the internet in the mid-90s, according to "The Everything Store" by Brad Stone. At first, his parents were skeptical. Soon after, they invested $100,000 in the company.

Steve Jobs

Jobs was lucky enough to meet Wozniak who had early access to computers and electronic components at a very young age and lucky enough to born at a time where the personal computer industry was new and developing.

Felix Dennis

“I have watched my own idiocy transformed by a piece of good fortune. I have stood, amazed, as catastrophe transformed itself into another chance—or, even more ridiculously, into a home run. And I have witnessed genuine achievement and hard work undone by a series of genuine achievement and hard work undone by a series of astonishingly unlikely events—mostly in others, I hasten to add.”

Excerpt From: Felix Dennis. “How to Get Rich.”

I'm pretty sure if look at the biographies of the others will find a common thread.
 

RazorCut

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And going back to the privileged. Many, many successful entrepreneurs in the western world have come from immigrant backgrounds. They have excelled in life because they rejoiced in the vast number of opportunities their new country had to offer them.

I'm quoting myself here as I have just read this article:

Made In America: How Instasize Is Rocking The Visual Media Universe

"Money was tight, Lopez recalls, including some years when there were no holiday gifts and times when the family had to rely on a local church group for food."

This was posted on the forum by Hector himself who, as a member here, (@hlopez22) wanted to share his success with us as a way of encouragement:

Featured in Forbes

Congratulations guys.
 
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Fox

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View attachment 23324

What does genetics and halo effect have to do with those people being successful? So there's a gene to be successful at something?


images



Pack your bags boys! If you don't have the gene to be successful might as well not live on this planet any longer.

Hard work? Is there a gene for that?

Elon Musk just got lucky that's all. We went to the moon? That's just all luck and their genetics.

Just don't worry about it. Just don't do anything in life. It's all about luck and genetics.

I'm going to go back and live in my mom's basement and see if I have the right genes and luck...

images

Go easy on the gifs, I removed the 2 posts that were 90% images.

This forum is a cut above anything else out there so let's try to keep the posts high quality - not flashing memes.
 

biophase

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Steve Jobs

Jobs was lucky enough to meet Wozniak who had early access to computers and electronic components at a very young age and lucky enough to born at a time where the personal computer industry was new and developing.

Yes, Jobs was just lucky that he liked computers and happened to go to a meeting, unlike other people who were so unlucky because they went to a movie on that night. And all those poor unlucky saps who were at home watching TV on the day that the internet was invented.

@top boy, how are you so unlucky that you weren't born 20 years earlier when there was no internet, and that you were born into a time after the easy money online was already made?
 

ZF Lee

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Jeff Bezos

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told his parents he was leaving Wall Street to start selling books on the internet in the mid-90s, according to "The Everything Store" by Brad Stone. At first, his parents were skeptical. Soon after, they invested $100,000 in the company.

Steve Jobs

Jobs was lucky enough to meet Wozniak who had early access to computers and electronic components at a very young age and lucky enough to born at a time where the personal computer industry was new and developing.

Felix Dennis

“I have watched my own idiocy transformed by a piece of good fortune. I have stood, amazed, as catastrophe transformed itself into another chance—or, even more ridiculously, into a home run. And I have witnessed genuine achievement and hard work undone by a series of genuine achievement and hard work undone by a series of astonishingly unlikely events—mostly in others, I hasten to add.”

Excerpt From: Felix Dennis. “How to Get Rich.”

I'm pretty sure if look at the biographies of the others will find a common thread.
Sure, each of these 'fortunate' events might have given them an upper hand.

But how well would these advantages last? How long?

Take Bezos. If the market decided that they didn't like buying books online, that $100k loan from the parents would have gone to crap. Only when you have actual BUYERS providing a steady flow of revenue do you have sufficient finances to service debt or move up the investor chain (profit aside). Bezos got his paying customers, and then he had something to talk to more investors about.

Steve Jobs? Sure, Wozniak was a whiz at computers. But he sure can't do it all alone. Can two guys alone manufacture 1000 Macintoshes in one week? Or run 50 error tests? Impossible. They need to hire, set up offices and train folks, which goes beyond merely technical brawn. And that's just one part of the biz.

Each of us do have our advantages, but we must only use them as part of our building blocks, not ALL of it. There's more to it than just a $100k loan and Lady Luck.

Yes, Jobs was just lucky that he liked computers and happened to go to a meeting, unlike other people who were so unlucky because they went to a movie on that night. And all those poor unlucky saps who were at home watching TV on the day that the internet was invented.

@top boy, how are you so unlucky that you weren't born 20 years earlier when there was no internet, and that you were born into a time after the easy money online was already made?
IMO, someone needs to read the David Goggins book ASAP.

I think I'm very lucky to be born into the right time of computer development. Old programming language is a nightmare, compared to the likes of Python and Ruby.
 
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Notice how anytime someone makes an excuse it's always external.

You never hear anyone saying it's their own mind or self(internal).

You never hear anyone say "Damn! if only I was more self-aware I would be rich!"

Or "If only I understood the market well enough".

Here is why self-awareness is crucial: It acts as an immune system to your mind. It lets you identify self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors. It keeps bad ideas out, ideas conditioned into you since a child or school. No, you cannot "Will" yourself thoughts you have to do the work to deconstruct your principles, assumptions and beliefs and replace them with more reasonable and realistic ones which is not easy.

As Ray Dalio says you can't work with principles unless you first become an independent thinker.
 

top boy

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Sure, each of these 'fortunate' events might have given them an upper hand.

But how well would these advantages last? How long?

Take Bezos. If the market decided that they didn't like buying books online, that $100k loan from the parents would have gone to crap. Only when you have actual BUYERS providing a steady flow of revenue do you have sufficient finances to service debt or move up the investor chain (profit aside). Bezos got his paying customers, and then he had something to talk to more investors about.

Steve Jobs? Sure, Wozniak was a whiz at computers. But he sure can't do it all alone. Can two guys alone manufacture 1000 Macintoshes in one week? Or run 50 error tests? Impossible. They need to hire, set up offices and train folks, which goes beyond merely technical brawn. And that's just one part of the biz.

Each of us do have our advantages, but we must only use them as part of our building blocks, not ALL of it. There's more to it than just a $100k loan and Lady Luck.


IMO, someone needs to read the David Goggins book ASAP.

I think I'm very lucky to be born into the right time of computer development. Old programming language is a nightmare, compared to the likes of Python and Ruby.

You're missing the point.

Someone with more talent and the same drive has the same or more potential, that's just how it works.

Someone with more talent and even more drive, will be on average better than the mass majority.

To get that top spot, to be in that special category both is needed. But even more than that, a lot of luck. Circumstances play a major role, whether everything was at the right place at the right time, makes all the difference. The luckier you are the less talent and drive you need. If you have all the talent and drive, but never meet the right people, never observe and process the right thing at the right time, it'll never hit that point. You could try putting yourself in the right position (drive) and have the talent to be recognizable but the reality is it just may not happen. There are just factors out of your control that you need to fall into place. People don't like that fact and it it's hard to accept, but that's just life, and it's not personal.
 

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Did everybody here just finishing reading Outliers or something?

There are millions of millionaires in the United States. Yes, there are micro instances where luck is involved. In general, very few of these people got “lucky.”

@harry wilson I admire you for wanting to make something of yourself on your own but stop worrying about the stigma of taking over your fathers business. If you have that option and that advantage by all means take it.

I completely agree that there is a plethora of nonsense online...so don’t look only online. Guy selling fish...go talk to him. Ask him questions. It isn’t complicated people.
 
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lewj24

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First you say this:
Luck of genetics

Then you back it up with this:
I can't point to any genes because I don't know enough about genetics
I do believe in the case of Buffett and Rockefeller for example they had some type of superior genetics

That's got to be the weakest argument I've ever seen. You say it's genetics but have no clue how genetics works or what genes those guys had. You created a fantasy out of thin air with zero proof.

You single out Buffett and Rockefeller yet didn't point out any single thing they got lucky in in their lives, except for saying they had millions of competitors and since they were at the top it must have been luck and superior genes.

Also you do not understand luck. Luck is not a random dice roll or lottery number pick. Luck is about the odds and putting them in your favor.

Example: What are the odds that you get eaten by a shark? Google says 1 in 11.5 million. You must be really unlucky for that to happen right? Now lets say you strap on a suit made out of 50lbs of raw, bleeding fish and swim into shark infested waters. What are your odds of being attacked by a shark then? I'd say 100%. What if you never went in the ocean? 0%. The math of odds is more complicated than you make it out to be. You can change your luck by changing your odds.

Odds of winning the lottery? 1 in 300 million. What if you buy every ticket? 100%.
Odds of dying at in a car accident? 1 in 103. What if you never step foot in a car? 0%.
Odds of having a baby with down syndrome? 1 in 1,250. What if the parents are young, in shape, healthy, and have no family history of birth defects? I'd say slim to none.

You can change your luck in life. What if you don't believe you can? Then you will end up a failure with a shitty life and it will all be because of some uncontrollable factor. You are cursed to forever be unlucky because you don't understand how luck really works.
 

daru

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Did everybody here just finishing reading Outliers or something?
Or perhaps Nassim Taleb. Who I think argues that luck (black swans) has a far bigger impact on our life than we want to acknowledge.
 

Brad S

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Or perhaps Nassim Taleb. Who I think argues that luck (black swans) has a far bigger impact on our life than we want to acknowledge.
Exactly.

Nassim Taleb.

Many on this forum are in dire need of reading all 5 of his books.

Especially Fooled By Randomness, Black Swan and Antifragile.

Throw in 101 Zen Stories and Greatness Cannot Be Planned by Kenneth O Stanley and your mind may be wiped clean of all you think you know.

Or just read another business/self help/new age/religion hybrid (that the business section has become) called:

101 habits and mindsets used by billionaires, leaders, high performers athletes, celebrities and aliens that will get you to kick a$$, hustle, think big, have abundance, take massive 100000000000x action, get a mentor, have a mastermind group, be in the millionaire fastlane and think like Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs at the same time .....





Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 
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windchaser

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Thanks, Now I feel better about my age. I see it like I could of been finishing medical school or law school, or masters and getting into a high paying job, but I'm just here same old me continuing university where I left off 4 years ago because I went chasing shiny objects that seemed like good ideas but in hindsight not so much.

I just wanted to show the other side to all this motivational talk, sometimes the best quote or case study can be applied to completely the wrong person's scenario and make them worse off.

Yeah I'm trying to talk my dad around. One of the main reasons I'm going back to university is to learn more and get more qualified to give him confidence I can run it, he wants to retire soon and is deciding whether to sell or get a manager he is pretty hands off anyway but cant detatch from it (hes 69).
I believe you are also mystifying lawyers and doctors, you are making the same idealification that you did with the online wisdom and get rich easy. I have been a lawyer myself and worked in top law firms and I know that world very well. Yes, there are lawyers who make those amounts you mention but I can tell you it is not even 1% of the lawyers out there. For any rich partner in a big law firm there are thousands of lawyers that do not make even a tenth of that and many that even make just enough to pay their bills. Also, big law is a very slave way of live, and if you want to make it to the top you have to make huge personal sacrifices and that is not even a guarantee. I remember one of Men's quotes very applicable here: "driving a Mercedes to the slautherhouse does not make you less of a sheep". I have also worked in the financial sector and similar things apply and I would bet the same dynamic holds for most if not all white collar careers.

My advice would be to change your "the grass is greener on the other side" mindset and focus on creating value either at your dad's business or at any other field you think you can provide it.

In my opinion, the biggest obstacle to success is our own mindset, try changing it and switch your focus to create value, you will be amazed of the results. Also, you will be happier.

Enviado desde mi SM-G920T mediante Tapatalk
 

rogue synthetic

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Or perhaps Nassim Taleb. Who I think argues that luck (black swans) has a far bigger impact on our life than we want to acknowledge.

You're headed in the right direction, but the actual argument is a bit more sophisticated than this.

Taleb's books are more about the limitations inherent in the concept of probability and (especially) the way it is applied in common forms of forecasting.

Humans intuitively expect certain patterns of regularity in nature. This works for some things -- the sun will rise in the east, etc. -- and it fails spectacularly where the assumptions no longer hold up. It turns out that a whole lot of interesting things, like human behavior, fall into that latter category.

Taleb would agree with part of Brad's point. The difference between Bill Gates and a doppelganger who has the same talents and drive but ended up as an anoymous middle manager is partly a matter of circumstances.

But let's unpack that a little more. I think a lot of the confusion here is because two different problems are getting mixed up.

1. One thing is how we answer the question "Why/how did X become successful?"

2. The other thing is how people should act moving into an uncertain future.

For any wealthy success-story you can name, things happened in that person's life that did not happen to equally talented, equally motivated, and equally connected people. No doubt part of a lucky draw has to do with abilities and action. But (this is part of Taleb's point) history is extremely sensitive to random, unforeseeable events, which means actual outcomes are highly path-dependent. (The road you take matters VERY much.)

This is why looking backwards at very successful people may not be very helpful. Sure, you can distill some general traits, but MJ put this well in Unscripted : you can't will success into existence with determination and good ideas. The gumball spits out what it spits out.

Here's the punchline: that same randomness works in your favor. Your job looking forward is to maximize exposure to these positive events while minimizing your exposure to the downside.

You can't guarantee anything. You can't copy today's billionaires and expect their results. What they did is not a repeatable path to success. That's the sort of mistake Taleb warns against, the kind of mistake that blinds you to ruinous failure.

Like throwing your life savings into $20,000 Bitcoin in December of 2017.

Maybe not that bad.

It's the same attitude, absolute faith that what has happened will happen again, that what you can see is all that matters.

What you can do is set yourself up in attitude and action to be as prepared as you can be for a future that offers no guarantees.
 

JokerCrazyBeatz

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This is 100% true . I have been running a online business BEFORE I knew anything about this whole online business world .
So for some reason a few days ago i decided to check the sales analytics from previous years on Paypal (something I've never done and I've been using paypal since like 2010-2009) and I was AMAZED at the sales statistics . In 2015 I made $14K from my business (this was also the year I stumbled upon the world of "success and entrepreneurship") .
Now this Isn't any major mind blowing number BUT due to the fact I've never kept track of my sales or cared about it for some reason ????? I dont know .
Thanks to all this misleading mumbo jumbo I somehow convinced myself that I didn't know anything about business , I am a wantrapranure because I wasnt doing all the strange ritualistic stuff then started doing the ritualistic stuff (to not much noticeable change) , and I was a failure and/or I havent even begun my entrepreneurial journey .
And as you could guess my sales have declined dramatically since i've been focused on keeping up with all the new books , new youtube videos , and "inspirational IG post from gurus"
I say all this to say
1. Obviously I DO need some kind of business/psychological guidance if i missed out on a $14k year lmao
2. Most of the success stuff IS confusing mumbo jumbo
3. I often feel the reality distortion from all of the guru talk is un-repairable
I've been in a cloud of confusion for a while now
 
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daru

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You're headed in the right direction, but the actual argument is a bit more sophisticated than this.

Taleb's books are more about the limitations inherent in the concept of probability and (especially) the way it is applied in common forms of forecasting.

Humans intuitively expect certain patterns of regularity in nature. This works for some things -- the sun will rise in the east, etc. -- and it fails spectacularly where the assumptions no longer hold up. It turns out that a whole lot of interesting things, like human behavior, fall into that latter category.

Taleb would agree with part of Brad's point. The difference between Bill Gates and a doppelganger who has the same talents and drive but ended up as an anoymous middle manager is partly a matter of circumstances.

But let's unpack that a little more. I think a lot of the confusion here is because two different problems are getting mixed up.

1. One thing is how we answer the question "Why/how did X become successful?"

2. The other thing is how people should act moving into an uncertain future.

For any wealthy success-story you can name, things happened in that person's life that did not happen to equally talented, equally motivated, and equally connected people. No doubt part of a lucky draw has to do with abilities and action. But (this is part of Taleb's point) history is extremely sensitive to random, unforeseeable events, which means actual outcomes are highly path-dependent. (The road you take matters VERY much.)

This is why looking backwards at very successful people may not be very helpful. Sure, you can distill some general traits, but MJ put this well in Unscripted : you can't will success into existence with determination and good ideas. The gumball spits out what it spits out.

Here's the punchline: that same randomness works in your favor. Your job looking forward is to maximize exposure to these positive events while minimizing your exposure to the downside.

You can't guarantee anything. You can't copy today's billionaires and expect their results. What they did is not a repeatable path to success. That's the sort of mistake Taleb warns against, the kind of mistake that blinds you to ruinous failure.

Like throwing your life savings into $20,000 Bitcoin in December of 2017.

Maybe not that bad.

It's the same attitude, absolute faith that what has happened will happen again, that what you can see is all that matters.

What you can do is set yourself up in attitude and action to be as prepared as you can be for a future that offers no guarantees.
Wow, Good answer and explanation! I just throw it out there since I saw some of Talebs thinking written in this thread.

By the way. Taleb also want to create a special day to honor entrepreneurship and failed entrepreneurs. He thinks they (we, I) are heroes. Like fallen soldiers.
 

WJK

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Since the age of 17 I started reading tons of success books scoring all online forums etc, there is probably no book out or success quote or video is haven't come across. I am now 24 and my mind is screwed, I tried so many things, got in a MLM and left 2 years on, from drop shipping, selling t shirts online, dropped out of university with 1 year left, moved to new york, did Real Estate, trading, now I'm a Stock Broker. Basically chasing success on f*ck all wages. I got lucky once with Crypto Currency getting on it early but then lost it all after.

So now to get to my point here, I've seen so many rich people in my day to day, as we basically search them out for our job. Most of them do not do anything that you can learn to do in a forum thread. Most require university education or to be in the right place in the right time.

Out of the hundreds of thousands of supremely wealthy people out there, in forums and places people go to seek out success, we always discuss topics like 'how to start your own marketing agency' or 'how I make 100k a year from selling tshirts to my batman fan page'. This is not how most wealthy people are made but it gets by far the most attention. Or go to youtube and you'll see a talk from a guy who founded a cliff bar or some company you see every day.

You go away thinking to be successful you have to do all these things, and most actual wealthy people do not do any of this and have never watched a youtube motivational video.

there are so many people making huge amounts of money doing sh*t you never even thought of, one guy I speak to makes tens of millions a year selling fish, where the f*ck do you go to learn that? what about Real estate developers and house builders? there is nothing online about how to build housing developments. What about lawyers, there are tons of lawyers, partners at their firm, after 15/20 years and are now making 500k/1m plus a year just from being a 'slowlaner' same with doctors and engineers yet we are all told university is useless. And we all look at some guy on TV that sold his coconut water company to coca cola, or founded the app you use everyday, thinking if we can just copy their habits it will help us.

My advice is to not over read and watch all this stuff, it will f*ck you up and distract you, my original goal was to take over my dads business, it turns over 1m+ a year which is respectable by most standards, except all this bullshit made me think I'm so special and that I can make more myself, I dropped out of uni because I thought 'all the truly successful people didn't use university'. Now years later I'm 24 and financially just average and finishing my university online part-time and regretting not working with my dad and wondering if it was too late. Yeah you can get lucky, go out on your own and make a lot some ways, but it shouldnt be your main focus as if it doesnt work out, do you want to be like be, 7 years later you are still the same?
I read this entire thread and here's my thoughts:
So, you sowed some wild oats for a while. Good for you. It sounds like you've gotten it out of your system -- for now.

Build bridges. Now go back to your dad and tell him what you learned. (And you've learned a lot more than you know.) Then listen to him. You have 2 ears and one mouth. Use them in that ratio. I'm SURE he would love to guide and teach you. It's every father's dream.

The ideas in the books and posts you read will morph into new ideas as you mature. Not all will work, as you found out. But, I figure if I get one gem out of reading a book or post, it's worth the time and trouble to read it. Think of what a head start you have on the young people around you.

Your contact with wealthy people is also very valuable. You've learned how they made their money -- and more important -- how they think and live. It's all about how they approach a problem and find their answers. That's their real secret to their successes.

You may look back on this time as one of the most valuable times of your life!
 
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