What was your "dumb luck" exactly? Good genes?Should be an option for dumb luck. My own success is down to:
40% Advantages
60% Dumb luck
0% hard work
GAT
What was your "dumb luck" exactly? Good genes?Should be an option for dumb luck. My own success is down to:
40% Advantages
60% Dumb luck
0% hard work
GAT
%%I appreciate the spirit of your post -- but somehow, I doubt its accuracy re "0% hard work"...![]()








complete nonsense. numbers are in the wrong place. it is 0% advantages 40%dumb luck . 60% hard work, grit etc. o% advantages. This is particularly true in America.
%%What was your "dumb luck" exactly? Good genes?
Should be an option for dumb luck. My own success is down to:
0% hard work
GAT
Also modest
I think a combination of advantages and dumb luck are enough to be rich, where it's my personal definition of rich: not needing to work ever again (so probably low to mid 7 figure net worth in liquid assets). I'm basing this on the fact that I've never worked harder than I have to, I've frequently found myself working in jobs with plenty of time for dossing around, and if I've ever found myself working too hard (investment banking) I've changed careers.
But what if you want to be properly rich, like 8, 9 or 10 figures they're probably not enough. *
For that I'd add something to that list which I don't possess: single-minded ambition, or to be more brutal: greed. Not quite the same as hard work. But basically once I'd earned enough money that I didn't have to work anymore (due to advantages and luck), and I stopped enjoying my job, I stopped working. To be properly rich you need to keep going in that situation.
GAT
* Okay if you win the lottery you can be properly rich just through dumb luck. But that's a corner case. Ditto if you become a billionaire purely through inheritance.
Should be an option for dumb luck. My own success is down to:
40% Advantages
60% Dumb luck
0% hard work
GAT
OK, so who did the work if not you, your wife?This is my personal experience of my own life, so with respect, you have absolutely no idea whether it's complete nonsense or not. I don't think we've ever met.
And more generally, the rate of social mobility in the US is lower than in nearly every other developed country and has been falling for the last 40 years or so (in lockstep with wealth inequality as you would expect). Advantage counts for a hell of a lot in a country in the US, much more so than in more equal societies like Scandanavia. And luck also plays a much bigger part than people acknowledge (Advantage of course is a form of luck - it's the luck you get before you're born).
Successful people find it hard to believe that their success isn't down to their own brilliance and / or hard work. But it mostly isn't.
At least one of the richest people in the US understands this:
GAT