451–460 of 920 posts
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If it came down to hundreds of decisions along the way, not just one or two, that isn't luck. She's a good decision maker.
Bad decisions can have good outcomes. People are notoriously bad at predicting the future, so really it depends on how often you get lucky. I think charisma has the greatest effect on this.
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I very much enjoyed reading your post. You made a statement that, taken literally, I disagree with and wonder if you care to elaborate more on it. I made it and you can too. It seems to me that luck plays a huge role in each success story like yours. My wife had a similar trajectory and makes quite a bit of money. However, along the way, there were hundreds of decisions made that could have gone the wrong way. She's…
The important part is to focus on the things you can control. Luck always plays a role, but your own actions decide how prepared you are to capitalize on lucky breaks when they arrive. Luck is important, but it’s a mistake to try to attribute the success of others purely to luck. Someone winning the lottery is lucky. Someone who gets hired because a company noticed their quality GitHub commits to a project relevant t…
Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…
> I made it and you can too. Poverty has no color. It impacts everyone. You can't tell just by looking at someone. I love your story. There's also a ton of people who will delight in cherry-picking your story, as justification for not expanding the social safety net. "throwaway-0987 did it, and you can too! You just need to stop being so lazy" A few factors to consider: - You had an aunt you could live with - As a yo…
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Your idea isn’t backed up by statistics. The vast majority of successful entrepreneurs come from upper-middle class or richer families. If it was just about “building a talent stack”, then the distribution would be relatively flat across all family income distributions. You also missed the part in the article that described how hard it is as a poor person to just find the time and resources necessary to learn those s…
do you have data on this? Are you talking about tech entrepreneurs? My understanding is many self made millionaires come from the trades (plumbing, electricians) starting their own company. I can't find my source, thats why I'm interested in your source.
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There's a local saying that in Finland, people would prefer paying €100 to the neighbour getting paid €50. I take it that's true elsewhere too? :)
Here it's "let my cow die, just if two of neighbours' die" But yeah... we earn relatively little (compared to you), and have better cars than most of the northern europe... most of them on long year loans... It's not rare to see an (eg.) BMW X7 owner at a gas station pump 9.85eur of gas, than slowly fondle the pump handle, because he only has 10eur for gas. The neighbors see the car, not the amount of gas inside :) A…
Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…
I'm glad you got out, but hard work is no guarantee. A lot in this world is luck and connections.
"I made it and you can too" should be "I made it, but lots of others don't. If you work hard, you might, but don't be discouraged if you don't. It's possible to do all the right things and not make it out. If you make it out, give back to those who are in similar situations, and try to improve the pathway out of the darkness."
Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…
> I made it and you can too. Poverty has no color. It impacts everyone. You can't tell just by looking at someone. I love your story. There's also a ton of people who will delight in cherry-picking your story, as justification for not expanding the social safety net. "throwaway-0987 did it, and you can too! You just need to stop being so lazy" A few factors to consider: - You had an aunt you could live with - As a yo…
I grew up in a below-average household, my SO in outright poverty.
We couldn't afford shool books and clothes other than off brand stuff, her family had to buy appliances like a washing machine or refrigerator used.
The five of us lived in a 45m2(500sq. ft.?) apartment, the four of them in a 25m2 one.
My dad bought his car in 1992 new (back when we were better off), and accumulated less than 140k km over the 23 years he had it, both of her parents didn't have a driving license.
But with all that we could rely on public healthcare, transportation and the areas we lived in were relatively safe.
Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…
> I made it and you can too. Poverty has no color. It impacts everyone. You can't tell just by looking at someone. I love your story. There's also a ton of people who will delight in cherry-picking your story, as justification for not expanding the social safety net. "throwaway-0987 did it, and you can too! You just need to stop being so lazy" A few factors to consider: - You had an aunt you could live with - As a yo…
I don't mean to argue against a social safety net (free college in this example was certainly a good thing). I just mean to say that you can't discount the importance of hard work and good judgement. The government can not and should not lift people out of poverty if those people refuse to work to better themselves.
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> I made it and you can too. Poverty has no color. It impacts everyone. You can't tell just by looking at someone. I love your story. There's also a ton of people who will delight in cherry-picking your story, as justification for not expanding the social safety net. "throwaway-0987 did it, and you can too! You just need to stop being so lazy" A few factors to consider: - You had an aunt you could live with - As a yo…
Does it really help to inform someone sharing a story of their privation that they could have had it worse? I mean I am on board with the notion that there are various aspects of privilege, and that someone who had it hard in some dimension might have some privilege in others. But it doesn't seem like an appropriate response in this context.