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| Thread: The role of luck in success |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Doomforge
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posted April 16, 2011 10:26 PM |
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provided you have any talents at all.
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Elodin
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posted April 16, 2011 10:56 PM |
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Edited by Elodin at 22:57, 16 Apr 2011.
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Larry Bird did not have a lot of natural talent but he worked hard at his game and became a legend. Same for Pete Rose with baseball. They put in lots of work and it paid off for them.
And what makes you think that he didn't have talent? lol sure he's a legend because of "hard work".
I'm laughing really hard now.
Bird wasn't a particularly great leaper. He wasn't particularly fast. But he was a very hard worker and worked on every aspect of his game. Yes, he became a legend because of his hard work during the game and during practice.
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Of course he did. Like Messi, like C.Ronaldo, like every professional athlete.
No, every professional athete is not a hard worker. S
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Elodin, no offense, but are you into BDSM or something? Most people don't like pain, exhaustion, boredom and diminishing health, all of those are connected to "hard work" but you seem to, idk, take some weird pleasure in it.
No, I'm into success. 
I don't like pain, exhaustion, or boredom. But I do like success. So I made the choice to be a hard worker.
An old Chines proverb:
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“He who wants milk should not sit in the middle of the field waiting for the cow to back up to him.”
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Nocturnal
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posted April 16, 2011 10:57 PM |
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First of all, that is a subject which can be properly be debated only when face to face, with some beers and cheers. But I don't have this choice.
Luck is for me, what decides most of the things in life. But in the context of Obama's speech, when we are talking about money, luck decides everything.
With luck someone can have much better a fortune than what you did with very hard work. Even the beginning of our life is decided by luck, we cant choose our parents. If you are born to homeless people, you cannot achive anything with your hard work in your life because you will not have the conditions you need to work hard as you are poor. And your being poor was decided by to whom you were born.
In any life-story of any person who is told as "born to be very poor, she/he rised with her/his own hard work" you will see some turning point where it will most surely say "and what day I met X" or "and that day this happened", etc. All are out of luck.
If you are very good at your job but don't have the luck which will make the richer customers to you, you won't get as "fortunate" as the one whose luck brought him/her the richer customers who paid much better, talked about you job to their rich friends, which also came to you, and you got richer and richer. "But the other one is much better in the job, work harder" well, but he got unlucky.
In every kind of case I can imagine about getting financially well, luck is the factor that decides everythink. Which means nothing is decided by anyone. Which means this world is in total chaos and we are trying to survive in the middle of it. So, yes, Mr.Obama is very right using that word.
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del_diablo
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posted April 17, 2011 12:18 AM |
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del_diablo:
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If economy is not a zero-sum system, that means it is either impossible to achive stagnation
It is impossible to achieve permanent stagnation, at least. It's possible to have temporary shrinkages, as businesses fail and people lose their jobs during recessions, but the overall trend is positive.
Then read the rest of the quote too 
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Providing that the goverment is forced to actually spend everything it aquires, that means the taxed amount will get back into circulation.It would, but that's not the same as it being invested. (Also, governments are spending more than they acquire. )
I have heard the US goverment do that, but mine does not do that(at the least not to my knowledge). And by the "at the least to my knowledge", I mean that we have no foreign debt from the states side.
And it is the same as it being invested, because that money will have to be spent, and with each spending the money will be more likely to end up somewhere where someone will want to invest them(IE: some owner of some establishment).
Consider that a "economic crisis" is nothing more than circulation stagnating on a really massive scale, which then causes even more stagnation, just getting more money back into circulation IS the same as investing.
Of course, you could argue in sematics here, but that is more or less irrelevant for the point I am making.
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We also have game theory and human psycology: If someone is going to take your money if you do not use it, then you will most likely invest that money into something.
Not if they take even more of your money if you invest it.
That depends on how much.
Besides: Greed will outweight anything if the conditions are properly set, the greed for more money can be quite alluring too.
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mvassilev
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posted April 17, 2011 12:44 AM |
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And it is the same as it being invested, because that money will have to be spent, and with each spending the money will be more likely to end up somewhere where someone will want to invest them(IE: some owner of some establishment).
If money is redistributed downwards, lower-income people will have it, and they invest less, not more.
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del_diablo
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posted April 17, 2011 01:17 AM |
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And it is the same as it being invested, because that money will have to be spent, and with each spending the money will be more likely to end up somewhere where someone will want to invest them(IE: some owner of some establishment).
If money is redistributed downwards, lower-income people will have it, and they invest less, not more.
Last time I checked that was not the case.
1. They can barely manage to have a saving account compared to the upper class.
2. They are a lot closer to the cost of living, meaning that they will spend a lot more % wise on average than someone in the upper middleclass.
3. All money they spend, will at some point end up at the investors, nevermind that most of f the world is quite into a bit of the concept known as: "Consumer economics" too 
4. Who is using the money is irrelevant for the economy, the only thing that is relevant is how much money is used, and how much of the economy that is. The next thing that matters is how long it takes until those money change hands.
Besides, the "investors" must also get their money from somewhere.
Which means we are back at the point where I said that the rich will start to hoard money, which has yet to be debunked.
tl r: The rich will hoard money, because investing them is hard work. The poor/middle class will use more of their money because they are forced to it by the cost of living.
I thought I had already said something on the issue, but it is only implied back at page 3.
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mvassilev
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posted April 17, 2011 01:28 AM |
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2. They are a lot closer to the cost of living, meaning that they will spend a lot more % wise on average than someone in the upper middleclass.
Exactly - they'll consume more, thus leaving less for investment. As for your third point, you're confusing the nominal and the real. There is only a given amount of productive capacity during a given period of time, and it can be used for consumption or investment. If there's more consumption, there's less investment.
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del_diablo
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posted April 17, 2011 01:31 AM |
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2. They are a lot closer to the cost of living, meaning that they will spend a lot more % wise on average than someone in the upper middleclass.
Exactly - they'll consume more, thus leaving less for investment. As for your third point, you're confusing the nominal and the real. There is only a given amount of productive capacity during a given period of time, and it can be used for consumption or investment. If there's more consumption, there's less investment.
Your point is already covered?
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Doomforge
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posted April 17, 2011 10:18 AM |
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Bird wasn't a particularly great leaper. He wasn't particularly fast. But he was a very hard worker and worked on every aspect of his game. Yes, he became a legend because of his hard work during the game and during practice.
Let's see...
First of all, Bird is 206 cm tall. How many people can't play professional basketball because being too small? A lot. Bird was lucky to be tall in the first place.
Then, even on my wiki, it says something like "Bird had an astonishing talent of reading the game". I guess reading the game is not something you can "hard work" for. It's related to perception, which is, again, a dice roll. You're born with it or not.
So, I'm not exactly sure if you're using a good or even decent example by writing about a legendary player that was huge and had awesome perception, both of which weren't his doing.
I'm not saying he didn't train, I'm sure he did. I'm just saying that without talent (and height), he would been an average Joe like everyone else, with the hardest training ever.
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No, every professional athete is not a hard worker.
Those that slack off are not top, definitively. There are slackers, yes, but imagine an "average" non-talented person slacking off while playing for a professional team, lol. What an embarrassment that would be, to see them trying to do stuff they have not only no talent for, but also, they never practiced enough.
Another point for talent-defines-people, I'm afraid.
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No, I'm into success.
I don't like pain, exhaustion, or boredom. But I do like success. So I made the choice to be a hard worker.
That's fine, I'm happy you did well in life, actually (yes!). I just don't understand why do you insist on hard work. Success isn't exactly related to hard work. You can be successful without it. Yet you seem to bash every thought of being successful without hard work.
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“He who wants milk should not sit in the middle of the field waiting for the cow to back up to him.”
It's nice, but for people who actually got the cow to back up to them, it's useless.
I.e. you worked for 30 years to be rich, I won a lottery.
Not everyone that's rich "worked hard". I thought it's rather obvious.
If we're talking success, not richness, it's highly subjective what's "successful" anyway. For me, being successful may as well mean having lots of free time, average payment and a colorful life rather than 100 hours per week work and lots of cash.
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Elodin
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posted April 17, 2011 04:37 PM |
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It is amazing how some people dismiss what others have accomplished through hard work. Some people truly forge their own doom. Anyone can sit around and dream. But not everyone is willing to sweat to forge their dreams.
No one is born knowing how to play basketball, much less being good at basketball or great at basketball (or anything else.) It takes time and effort to get good at anything.
No, you don't have to have huge size to play basketball. Certainly you do need to some size to play center or power forward. On the other hand Charles Barkley was less than 6'5'' and was a tremendous power forward.
Top Ten Shortest basketball players
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It's nice, but for people who actually got the cow to back up to them, it's useless.
Those who go sit in the middle of the field waiting for the cows to come and back up to be milked would not get any milk.
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If we're talking success, not richness, it's highly subjective what's "successful" anyway. For me, being successful may as well mean having lots of free time, average payment and a colorful life rather than 100 hours per week work and lots of cash.
Oh, I agree that success is not all about money. I was talking about the kind of financial success that some people are saying is luck and unfair for some to have and not others.
So, if "rich" people are taxed on their "excess" money should you be taxed on your "excess" time? Maybe the government should determine how much free time you need and tax you on all time in excess of that.
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Salamandre
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posted April 17, 2011 04:53 PM |
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Both of you are right, IMO. Doing hard work without talent is quite a wasted time in some activities, as art, sport and science. The talent is not sufficient, still. Without hard work, the talent remains at in intuitive level, and true inspiration is talent + work. And talent is -/+ luck based. You born with it, others don't.
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Doomforge
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posted April 17, 2011 04:56 PM |
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It is amazing how some people dismiss what others have accomplished through hard work.
It is amazing how some people dismiss what others have achieved because of luck.
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No one is born knowing how to play basketball, much less being good at basketball or great at basketball (or anything else.) It takes time and effort to get good at anything.
There are people knowing to play basketball, that have dedicated time and effort to it, and are still bad players because they have no talent.
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No, you don't have to have huge size to play basketball. Certainly you do need to some size to play center or power forward. On the other hand Charles Barkley was less than 6'5'' and was a tremendous power forward.
The man is 198 cm tall. that is not tall to you?
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Those who go sit in the middle of the field waiting for the cows to come and back up to be milked would not get any milk.
I see that you need a more graphical example...
*Elodin works hard whole life*
*Doomforge does nothing*
*Doomforge plays at lottery*
*Doomforge wins and earns 10 million dollars*
*Doomforge is 100 times richer then Elodin without two seconds of work put behind it*
That's good enough for you?
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So, if "rich" people are taxed on their "excess" money should you be taxed on your "excess" time? Maybe the government should determine how much free time you need and tax you on all time in excess of that.
I'd say, send all those non-working snows to mines, Elodin will be happy since humanity will be hard working 24h/week. Oh, and glue their mouths shut so they don't complain.
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Corribus
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posted April 17, 2011 05:14 PM |
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Ugh, way too much to catch up to. I will, in time, but again a quick comment to Doomforge:
No, I don't really want to get into the metaphysical aspect, but it might be necessary if you're going to keep claiming that what circumstances you are born into is randomly determined.
Aside from that, I'd like to point out that winning the lottery DOES take a quantity of work. Yes, it's pretty trivial, but you do have to go and purchase the ticket. So I think the best we can say is that degree of success is not exactly proportional to the work input, though I think it's pretty obvious there's a positive correlation. More to the point, is it possible to become rich while doing no work at all? The only possible way that I can see inheritance - but that's not an acceptible answer because while YOU might not have worked for the money, SOMEONE did. So the fact remains: wealth takes work, even if it's someone else's.
Finally, I'd like to ask an important question: is talent innate? Perhaps starting with a definition of talent would be useful. To my mind, being tall is not a part of being talented at basketball.
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Doomforge
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posted April 17, 2011 06:10 PM |
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More to the point, is it possible to become rich while doing no work at all? The only possible way that I can see inheritance - but that's not an acceptible answer because while YOU might not have worked for the money, SOMEONE did.
Lottery
you have 56 million dollars atm in jackpot at PowerBall, for instance 
You can find the ticket on the street. There you go, no work at all 
or, if you want a more ridiculous example for no-work-get-rich:
A diamond gets carried away by tornado and falls into your hand.
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Fauch
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posted April 17, 2011 06:25 PM |
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Edited by Fauch at 18:26, 17 Apr 2011.
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I might have a chance at basketball, I'm taller than 2 of them. though they are all heavier than me, is that a disadvantage? well, the fact I don't like basketball could be an even bigger disadvantage actually
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is talent innate?
it's just a belief, but I would say no, or maybe a small part, but no really significant.
doomforge was talking about the perception of that basketball player. if it was just an innate talent, I fail to see why they insisted so much about it when I learnt to drive. in that case, it would be like saying to a basketball player, you need to work harder to grow taller
I'm a bit known for being good at making maps in video games, but I'm not born with that talent, at the beginning I made crap maps like most people, but I learnt what works well. I've never felt that making good maps involved luck. but standing out from thousands of maps (even if most of them are crap), now that involved some luck.
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shyranis
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posted April 17, 2011 06:40 PM |
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Edited by shyranis at 18:46, 17 Apr 2011.
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@CorribusQuote:
I don’t see how your statistic, if it’s true, suggests that at all. For one thing, according to your statistic, the average income is higher in Sweden.
There is one benefit to the economy tanking there (USA I mean) and little employee benefits, the sweatshops are coming back.
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Except that Obama, a far left-wing politician, has had some of the biggest campaign donations in history.
Actually I'd argue that he's centre-right, much like the Democratic party as a whole. Your entire political system in built on corporatism and two parties that fight over its sweetbreads, to ensure it stays providing them and their backers with as much money as possible.
You may have been exaggerating, but Obama is certainly no far leftist as Fox News likes to paint him, he hasn't even really stood up for any "Leftist" policies. The healthcare reform he passed for example was a classic case of a Democrat using a centre-right plan pitched by Republicans as early as the Nixon administration at least and late as the Clinton administration (nationally, throughout states during the Bush admin) as an alternative to Universal healthcare. Now that a Democrat passed it, it's suddenly "socialist", because the parties have a vested interest in making it look like they are actually in opposition instead of subtle, backdoor, agreement.
If you want a "Far Left" politician, look at somebody like Bernie Sanders for example, who can't even run as a Democrat.
As for the original post, in so far as being at the right place at the right time (a descriptor that fits most people on the road to success in business or investing), it is partially luck. Some of it may be intuition and business sense, I am not arguing that it's entirely without merit that one can earn a fortune without being "fortunate"; but finding the right startup to invest in or being at the town square selling umbrellas when the unexpected monsoon hits takes some luck (serious guesswork at least).
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Salamandre
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posted April 17, 2011 06:43 PM |
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Of course talent is innate and we still have no explanation for it. Take the best example, Mozart, at age of four he could compose symphonies. I doubt something capital occurred to him before age of four which "gave" him the ability.
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Doomforge
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posted April 17, 2011 07:16 PM |
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Of course talent is innate and we still have no explanation for it. Take the best example, Mozart, at age of four he could compose symphonies. I doubt something capital occurred to him before age of four which "gave" him the ability.
exactly 
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Elodin
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posted April 17, 2011 11:26 PM |
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Clcky
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Want to be a millionaire? Don't overspend and use debt wisely.
We all may not be millionaires but there are plenty of financial and life-planning secrets we can learn from the well-heeled.
Most people know that wealth in the U.S. is in the hands of a small percentage of the total population. And, today, most of those folks with a net worth of $1 million or more have earned it themselves.
They're mostly entrepreneurs who create everything from high-speed networks to garbage haulers. They dig ditches and build houses and grow corn and make jewelry. They deal stamps or coins or artwork and control pests and cut lawns. They also cure people and give them new teeth. Others will defend their neighbors or even feed them.
And they're not big spenders. In fact, most of those with big bucks live well under their means -- think about Warren Buffett still living in that modest Omaha home -- and they put their money instead toward investments that help them stockpile more wealth.
"Wealth is what you accumulate, not what you spend," according to Thomas Stanley and William Danko, the authors of the seminal tome on America's wealthy "The Millionaire Next Door," first published in 1996.
"It is seldom luck or inheritance or advanced degrees or even intelligence that enables people to amass fortunes," the authors wrote. "Wealth is more often the result of a lifestyle of hard work, perseverance, planning, and, most of all, self discipline."
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JollyJoker
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posted April 18, 2011 08:22 AM |
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Cheap propaganda to fool the people.
Wealth is what you CAN spend while still keeping wealthy. You want to be wealthy for a couple of specific reasons, not because it's so great to accumulate the money instead of spending it.
These reasons are:
1) Security: having enough money to be able to live well in case you are not able anymore to earn money or don't want to work anymore (for example because of old age; for a sports professional, for example, this may come quite early).
2) Health & Good Living: you want to be able to enjoy at least some the amenities of life; even if you are not deeply into luxury, you will probably want a nice home in a nice neighborhood. You want to be able to let other people do the work you don't like and have no talent for. You want the best health care. You want to have the money to eat high quality food. You maybe want to have children, and today children are expensive even if you don't spoil them. You want to go on an interesting holiday once in a while; see something of the wonders this world has to offer; make some interesting experiences; try a couple of things you may need money for. Have a hobby that may cost a bit.
You are wealthy, when you can check-mark both 1 AND 2.´
We had the same or at least a similar discussion when discussing wages and saving and how long it takes a nurse to save herself to millionaire.
The main problemes were:
1) When you want to see becoming a millionaire as a nurse, you don't have a life anymore, but live in a shoe box, eat garbage, watch TV with your mom for entertainment, and can't have a family while you fervently hope that a million is still worth a million by the time you have it.
2) The fact, that if indeed everyone does so, societal consumption will drop, so that the economy will heavily suffer: if the majority of people doesn't spend any money, but saves it, the money becomes worthless, since no one needs it and new businesses will fail, since no one will buy anything except what is absolutely necessary for life. Modern capitalist society NEEDS a certain level of consumption, otherwise it will decline.
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The bottom line is, that for all this reasons you need a suitable INCOME. "Suitable" means, above a certain level. That level depends on country, of course, but it must allow a certain level of consumption AND significant investment/saving at the same time.
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That said, true is also, becoming a businessman - opening your own business - is at least in the first world always a possibility. This DOES indeed involve work, work and more work beside having a business idea plus the ability fo flesh it out and make it workable. Oftentimes people who do so have a regular job and develop an idea for a business. They start saving some money and make all the preparations to do it, while working in their regular job, until they take the jump and do it.
Naturally, not everyone is successful, and most who fail don't fail because they wouldn't work hard enough.
There are those, however, who succeed. Still, that doesn't mean they are wealthy. Failure, competetion, organized crime...
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Leaving aside the well-paid high-qualification jobs you can really aim at like lawyer, surgeon and so on, that really depend on educational qualification (which you must meet), personally I think that for those, at least, who do live in a 1st world country the biggest obstacle for getting wealthy is the desire to become so. Most people who really become wealthy do so because they are obsessed by what they like and therefore do and not by a desire to become wealthy. They may struggle in a cheap mobile home and be glad that they have a job as an English teacher while they use every spare minute to hammer their nightmares into a small typewriter.
Or, as a kid they may spend every spare minute on some worn Basketball court, dribbling an old ball and trying to sink it when not engrossed in 2 vs 2, while at nights spinning it on the fingers.
Or they may have the desire not to just listen to music, but make some, learning to play and/or sind, play in school bands, until you leave home, do it for a living and start writing songs.
Or they may be obsessed by good food, love cooking, try far-out recipes and have visions about serving celebrities.
The problem is, only the best really make it - for every winner there are lots of losers; in this regard there isn't much of a difference to playing in a casino.
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Here's some advice for kids therefore:
1) Pursuit your interests:
a) if your interests are "conventional" in the sense that you can cover them with conventional high-grade education and see a well-paid regular job at the end of it, put all your effort into it to get all the conventional formal qualifications necessary with a grade as high as possible.
b) if your interests are "unconventional" (you can't see a regular job behind it), pursue the interest obsessively, putting all your spare time into it. Reduce educational efforts to the bare minimum necessary to proceed and make the grade.
2) Always play the lottery with a minimum bet.
Never forget: mediocrity doesn't earn wealth.
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