Comments on: Wow! You Are So Lucky to Retire Early!

By: PinkNoise

PinkNoise — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 18:20:38 +0000

Thank you for this! I do believe that some luck is involved in anyone’s success, but I agree that hard work and choices are underestimated by most people. I attribute my own success of paying off my student loan debt early to reading books and blogs about personal finance and how to save more. I spent time and put in the effort to educate myself and follow through instead of sitting around complaining about how hard it is to live on my paltry salary like most others I know. Of course I’m lucky that I was born in a first world country to parents that valued education, but so many others have very similar situations that choose not to capitalize on their luck.

By: Mr. Clipping Chains

Mr. Clipping Chains — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 13:48:57 +0000

In reply to Steveark. Steve, thanks for the insightful comment. Adam Ondra aside, I still agree with the research suggesting that talent and luck only take you so far, in most cases. As I said a few times, luck and talent are certainly real. Perhaps you were lucky or naturally talented, and are one of the outlier cases where you floated through school and a career, as you describe. Either way, the point is for those on the outside looking in to not take on a mindset of "this is something for someone else. I can't do this." I strongly believe that with intentionality, many folks can improve their lives, however that looks for them.

By: Steveark

Steveark — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 20:04:45 +0000

I think luck is a bigger part than you think. Take your climber, if he was the wrong body type then he would have received a ton of negative reinforcement on his way to learning to climb. Say he was built like an American football offensive lineman, 6’4” and weighed 295 lbs. He would never be even an average climber no matter how much he tried. But Adam is the Michael Phelps of climbing. He was probably better than most people at the gym his first try at climbing. That positive reinforcement is what fuels grit, not some intrinsic part of his nature. I was very gifted at math and science. Without ever studying hard I sailed through chemical engineering and had an outstanding career. There was virtually zero effort in getting that college degree. And there were times I worked very hard at my job after college but it was fueled by the certain knowledge that my hard work would be rewarded because I was naturally better than everyone else I worked with. It just made sense to invest in that one thing I was world class at, or maybe semi-world class in my case. But having the innate talent to excel at something, anything, is not learned, its a result of your DNA. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who ever reached the top of any field who wasn’t genetically gifted with the qualities needed to get there. Sure they also worked hard but they did that with the confidence that their hard work would pay off, because they knew they were better than their competition. It doesn’t take any grit at all to bet on a sure winner, it is just common sense. I worked with dozens of engineers that lacked top talent, none of them did very well in their careers even though every one of them worked much harder than me. It is not a fair world in that respect. Hard work without talent is kind of futile, and if you’ve got enough talent you will never have to make yourself work hard, it will be obvious to you the rewards outweigh the pain and you’ll enjoy working hard.