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The Million Dollar Question

sebastianmarshall.com

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Re: The Million Dollar Question

#11

Post by ryanwaggoner »

mixmax wrote: post #9
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #6

This is a fantastic post, very thought-provoking. But also very sad to me. I disagree with the underlying premise that success and happiness are somehow negatively correlated. There's this idea in the post that if you want to be uber-successful, you can't have a "normal" life. I know very successful people who are miserable, stressed-out workaholics. And I know very successful people who could have been one of the pe…

I think you might be misunderstanding the post - or at least interpreting it differently than me. I dont' think it's so much about success as it's about being different. Once you step over the cliff into the unknown there aren't that many people that will follow you. You become a loner, a misfit and a stranger to many people. Your desires, goals and interests drift away from normality, and thus you will eventually fi…

That's one of the ideas presented, and one that I agree with. That's part of why I think it's important to have people around you who are supportive in general, but also people who have similar goals and dreams. No matter how abnormal you are, there are probably many out there who can relate.

But that's only part of the post, and Sebastian seems to indicate that "being different" means not living the idyllic suburban family life. And not because he doesn't want it, but because he's driven and wants to succeed (like where he talks about $40m as being his number). And this is what I disagree with; you can be driven and successful and still have a happy family life. You can even live in suburbia! There are literally millions of millionaires in the world. There are almost a million households in the US with net worth of more than $5m. Most of those people live normal family lives. They don't all float around continents writing blog posts and attempting to win the lottery by trying to start a bank one month and sell a $2m government contract the next.

In fact, now that I'm thinking through this, I think what bums me out about this post is the idea that it doesn't really matter what you do as long as you get rich. I doubt Sebastian has any real interest in starting a bank or fulfilling a huge government contract. He just wants money, and it's not even clear why. I don't think that's a healthy way to live, that's all.

Re: The Million Dollar Question

#12

Post by Dove »

Fantastic insight that people tend to say "no" when offered a chance to pursue their dreams. But I disagree about the reason. I don't think it's that they don't want to be different; having an interesting dream is already being a bit different. I think it's that once you can have something, it's no longer a dream.

Re: The Million Dollar Question

#13

Post by Hisoka »

I just want to say.. this is 1 of the most insightful, and meaningful posts I've read in my entire life. Thank you so much for sharing this. I resonated with every single bit. Thanks for not making feel alone in my thoughts.

Re: The Million Dollar Question

#14

Post by typicalrunt »

espadagroup wrote: post #10
typicalrunt wrote: post #8

Amazing post. I read every word of it (as opposed to just scanning it). What type of work does he do* and where can I meet/read more people like him? He strikes me as a kind of mentor...something which I find is lacking in the IT industry. Mentors don't always need to be the smartest person in the room, they just need to have experience and patience to see the things that you are blind to. * He says he's a strategist…

From his about page: "I’m consulting on increasing LVOC numbers (lifetime value of a customer – usually selling additional valuable things to customers you’ve already got, but also conversion rates, price points, referrals, etc), doing some light real estate development, and some professional writing."

Understood. But you misunderstand me. I read that section of his About page, but it's not succinct enough.

If I were to walk into a crowded room and say, "For my business to succeed, I need an %X", what would be the value of X for it to apply to Sebastian's role? I can't just say "consultant".

Re: The Million Dollar Question

#16

Post by rdouble »

Almost every millionaire I know is married with kids and living in the suburbs. Unless you win the lottery or are a professional skateboarder, becoming rich is more like boring suburban reality than being an international flaneur. (Interestingly, the rich pro skaters I know all live in the suburbs with their kids, too)

As someone who has also floated around a lot, even through Japan, it's an interesting lifestyle but sort of the opposite of how to get rich.

Re: The Million Dollar Question

#17

Post by ForrestN »

Sebastian identifies a key problem that underlies a lot of how society works: lots of people effectively have motives to avoid things they want. But I'm not sure he's right about his reading of why the problem exists. As nice as it is to think of this as some kind of trade-off, I'm not sure that most people gain any normalcy or understanding, at least not in any positive way.

Think about his friend, the one who's big goal is financial independence. It's his primary first-order objective, and he's being shown a plan to pursue it. He's not afraid to pursue it because he thinks it's going to cause him to be less understood (at least one of his friends, Sebastian, will probably relate to him more). He just flinches at the thought of really going after what he wants.

The million dollar question is the right one: why do people get anxious and self-sabotage when a path to success is put in front of them?

Unfortunately I think the answer is that most people have a lot of psychological conflicts around being happy/getting what they want. Why this happens is probably some complicated mixture of neurology of and pain acquired in childhood, and how to fix the problem is one of the central aims of psychology and psychiatry. The behavior Sebastian describes in his friend is a great example of one's ability to function being impaired by his psychology.

Hopefully we'll get even better at fixing these sort of problems, but in the mean time, hopefully more people will understand that these problems aren't inherent to living life, that there's no sad tradeoff to going after the life you want, and thus be comfortable seeking treatment. You don't have to be crazy to pursue psychological help, you just have to notice that your feelings sometimes get in the way of you functioning the way you want to.

Re: The Million Dollar Question

#18

Post by networkjester »

mixmax wrote: post #9
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #6

This is a fantastic post, very thought-provoking. But also very sad to me. I disagree with the underlying premise that success and happiness are somehow negatively correlated. There's this idea in the post that if you want to be uber-successful, you can't have a "normal" life. I know very successful people who are miserable, stressed-out workaholics. And I know very successful people who could have been one of the pe…

I think you might be misunderstanding the post - or at least interpreting it differently than me. I dont' think it's so much about success as it's about being different. Once you step over the cliff into the unknown there aren't that many people that will follow you. You become a loner, a misfit and a stranger to many people. Your desires, goals and interests drift away from normality, and thus you will eventually fi…

That was a fantastic story; I'm wondering if it was completely true, or just an awesome metaphor? Either way, very nice and rather inspiring!

Has that been posted to HN yet? I'd love to see it on the front page!

Edit: I submitted it just to be sure (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2946884). I think many will really enjoy it. Cheers!

Re: The Million Dollar Question

#19

Post by kirse »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #11
mixmax wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might be misunderstanding the post - or at least interpreting it differently than me. I dont' think it's so much about success as it's about being different. Once you step over the cliff into the unknown there aren't that many people that will follow you. You become a loner, a misfit and a stranger to many people. Your desires, goals and interests drift away from normality, and thus you will eventually fi…

That's one of the ideas presented, and one that I agree with. That's part of why I think it's important to have people around you who are supportive in general, but also people who have similar goals and dreams. No matter how abnormal you are, there are probably many out there who can relate. But that's only part of the post, and Sebastian seems to indicate that "being different" means not living the idyllic suburban…

He just wants money, and it's not even clear why. I don't think that's a healthy way to live, that's all.

Reminds me of Ecclesiastes... "Whoever loves money never has money enough..." The entire book is full of wisdom on chasing the vanity of material goods and all that is "under the sun".

By all accounts, Solomon was a man who had everything the American dream could ever hope for - money, possessions, women, power, prestige... And yet from his position on high, he realized it was all meaningless. Pretty powerful.

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