[kakacik]

The first point, and I can see in my own life, is valid. Not properly rich by any means, but vastly surpassed any expectations and most of my peers from earlier life (which is rather easy when coming from poor eastern Europe but somehow most folks from back home didn't, too deep in their little comfort zones or fears of risks that were mostly made up).

It can be reframed as cca discipline too, willingness to suffer a bit for later rewards. Can see this as massive success multiplier in many real world situations.

[burningChrome]

>> willingness to suffer a bit for later rewards.

Almost every person I went to college with had this viewpoint. There's also something comforting knowing you and your friends are all doing the same thing. We all were dirt poor in college trying to support ourselves with crappy part-time jobs working delivering pizza, working in fast food joints, cleaning offices at night. The idea was we all believed we were working towards something better than our current situation. The suffering some how made you a better person, more resilient, made you understand what it was like to really earn something.

All of my close friends I had in college all went on to do successful things. Engineers, attorneys, stock brokers, software engineers, pharmacists. We all eventually got to where we wanted to be, but the suffering is what still binds us together to this day. Talking about some of the houses we lived in that should've been condemned. Having to work 60 hours a week, and still do well on that exam on Friday.

The willingness to suffer is eased when you have a shared experience with others around you.

[wredcoll]

The great thing is you can just focus on the one person who "worked hard" or "self disciplined" or "studied well" and got rich while ignoring all the other people who did the same thing and didn't.

[kakacik]

Working blindly hard is rarely rewarded well. Working smart, much better success story. This can be applied across whole job market but also within white collar jobs - I saw folks around me almost burn out with little to no reward, when it was cca clear it would end up that way. I didn't at that point, and leaned into stuff in other areas of my life and that worked much better.

I only write about myself and my perspective, have nothing to sell here, just sharing experience. No need to be so dismissive. There is always a factor of luck, but much less so if that approach spans across decades and generally works for me.