Objectively I don’t think my job sucks. If you’d told me 20 years ago what I’d end up doing for a living I’d have thought it was pretty damn cool. When I tell people where I work most of them seem quite impressed/interested. But it’s in an industry that’s rapidly going the way of the buggy-whip makers — and besides, even if you love your job, would you want to be tied to it, knowing you couldn’t just decide to go and do something more fun for a few days or a few weeks when the mood struck you?
I think you left off, “There’s not as much opportunity as you think; there are more people smart enough to be rich than there are rich people, not that all rich people are smart.”
In my case, “I made poor choices,” is fair (and what I answered with), but honestly I gave up when I saw how stacked the deck was.
I find this fascinating and have a lot of questions. Would you consider starting an “Ask the Successful Contractor” thread?
A lot of people could retire but choose to work well past the age of retirement. I was saying, to not have to work to pay the bills when I’m mid- 50’s would be considering myself rich. Choosing to work because you love what you do is not the same as,“i hate my job but can’t retire because I don’t have enough money to pay the bills.”
I’m not rich, far from it actually. I am, however, very comfortable financially, thanks, in part, to making choices throughout my life that have paid off and, in part, by making poor choices that I learned from, leading to better choices later.
I have a wife who is too good for me, knew me when I had nothing, has put up with my crap for over 20 years, and crazily enough worships the ground I walk on. I truly don’t deserve her, so I am rich in that respect.
That, and I value my family, friends and personal life enough to not want to put in the kind of hours that it takes in those jobs to get to the “rich” stage. I did my time at a management consulting outfit; I’m not cut out for it. I don’t like having a lifestyle centered around work, and I’m just flat-out not slick enough for the higher-ups to have considered me partner material.
As for “anyone can be rich”, I think that’s not necessarily the case. Just about anyone can be middle class or even upper middle class through hard work. Making that jump to executive salaries and titles is something that takes a lot of luck ultimately. You have to be in a position to get promoted, and that almost always has a heavy “feel” judgement to it- if you don’t look the part, or play the role the way the higher-ups think you should, you’re fucked, regardless of how well you do your job. As a matter of fact, I’d claim that looking and acting the part is more important than anything else to making that jump. If the execs at your company are a bunch of pretentious golf-playing ex-frat boys, you’re not going to get anywhere if you’re a guy who wears cowboy boots and plays video games, no matter how good you are at what you do.
I’m so smart that I do work that I love, for less than full-time hours, and spend the extra time with my family and making art.
Ditto my husband, though his hobby is a community workshop.
Management consulting (in my experience) is one of the worst ways to get “rich”. It’s a profession that first of all, has up to a 25% turnover every year. It’s also based on how many hours you bill. Eventually there is a cap as to how many hours in a day you can work and how much you can bill for those hours. That’s why you don’t see consultants making as much as investment bankers.
This is middle class thinking. I think rich people think very differently from you. The theme of this post is that if you “fit in” well enough and work hard enough, eventually “they” will reward you with a high paying executive job. You believe that much of it is outside of your control and is a result of “luck”.
Truly successful people don’t rely on luck. They find what they love and pursue their own path doing it. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t “fit in”. Mike Bloomberg was actually fired from Salomon Brothers before he started Bloomberg.
I think people really understate the value of persistence. My in-laws immigrated to the US with basically nothing. They had four kids, and both worked very hard, to the point of being homeowners. Seeing them now, I considered them very rich, considering I know other couples with EVERY advantage (white, parents paid for college, no kids, 2 cars, fluent in English, etc) who are chronically broke, living in a tiny apt/parents, with more excuses than motivation.
I pursued a major that I didnt do much with. I didnt market myself so had a hard time finding a job. My current job has nothing to do with my major, but it pays extremely well for what I do. I also have the ability to work extra days as much as I want. I consider myself “rich” in that my job gives me the means to be independent and afford the lifestyle I want.
I’m not rich because in my experience virtually all self made millionaires work at it 24/7 to achieve their goal, but then the achieving becomes the thrill in itsself, long after they’ve become millionaires.
I’m too lazy, plus theres 6,000,000 of you out numbering me, in spite of my genius.
None of the above.
I’m intelligent in ways that our current society hasn’t and doesn’t value enough to spend money on – arts, creativity, communicating meaningfully, thinking in terms of “how does the customer feel when you try to sell to them this way?”
I’m not intelligent in ways that society typically rewards with wads of cash – wall street, making bad-value, predatory loans and then lying about their worth, hard selling the customer whether they like it or not…
Obviously there are things I do that are more effective/efficient than “the way it’s always been done,” but Corporate America culture/inertia/politics trumps all, it seems. In other words, I’m not mercenary enough to be rich, since making a LOT of money typically requires doing so at someone else’s expense. Just look at Romney.
I wish it were different, and I’d love to see it change, but at this point it is what it is. Not a hell of a lot I can do.
Just noting that the VAST majority of entertainers make maybe a middle-class income, if that. I know only one or two who make their living exclusively through their art. I know hundreds who occasionally get paid for their art, but are never without the “day job.”
There are tons of really talented people out there who are barely making ends meet (or, especially these days, not making ends meet). Hitting it big and landing a million-dollar gig is basically pure luck. For every millionaire entertainer, there are hundreds who are as or more talented, trained, skilled, but you’ve never heard of them.
Bullshit. It’s not like they just worked hard and got rich. Both of them had lucky, innovative ideas that they were able to capitalize on.
I don’t think it’s possible to work your way up into “rich”-ness without having some combination of luck, nepotism, family wealth or connections.
I chose “Actually, I’m not so smart” because it comes closest to what I say when people call me smart: “I don’t claim to be smart.”
The phrase I used to hear a lot that was equated with “rich” was “independently wealthy.” You’re not independently wealthy if your wealth is dependent on your showing up at work every weekday.
This is your perception and I respect that, but I do disagree with it.
As I stated in my post above, I am not rich, but my household income is between the upper 8% and upper 15% of incomes in America (depending on whose data you use). Luck had very little, if anything, to do with where I am now.
My dad was drafted into the military shortly after he and my mother were married. He had no money, my family had no connections, and I received no breaks. My dad could only afford to pay the first year of my NYU tuition; I had to work full time while managing full course loads to pay for the rest, and then again into grad school, and then again in study for subsequent certifications. I sacrificed anything resembling a life between the ages of 16 and 40, clawing my way, tooth and nail, over hurdles throughout my professional career.
I’m 51 now, and things are really good, but please be clear that I worked my butt off to get here; there were no shortcuts.
Oh I know that. I was referring to the top ones who do make millions.
That…is why you fail.
I don’t think anyone’s arguing that you didn’t work hard to get where you are, but realize there are a LOT of people who work damn hard and still get nowhere. If you think luck or connections didn’t play a part in where you got, you are mistaken. The right friend who introduces you to the right hiring manager who gives you the right job that gave you the right experience… those dominos of luck and knowing the right person at the right time matter, a hell of a lot.
Through grade school, I always did very well. Very bright, all my teachers said. Almost got bumped up a grade (would have skipped, I think, 4th grade) but my mother decided against it.
That may be the last really positive contribution to my schooling my mother made. I love her, and she did her best, but she had no idea how to be a mother in a traditional sense.
While I did well at school, it set me up to just breeze through Jr. High and High School on getting good test scores and schmoozing with the teachers. Reality kicked me in the teeth pretty hard, and it’s a miracle I managed to graduate at all.
Being brought up poor… really poor, government cheese and food stamps and all that jazz, I had no idea how to handle money.
I got married early, kids, disasterous marriage, the whole nine yards. Now, on my second marriage, with a woman who has been teaching me to be a better man (after some rather rocky periods of adjustment).
I am, somehow, firmly middle class (mostly due to the wife, who has an excellent job). I have a decent job, but it’s a road to nowhere. My main focus in life at this point is not to be rich… that won’t happen to me, I don’t have the drive, or the skills, or the luck.
But I’m hoping I can raise my kids so THEY can be rich, if they want to. We’ll see how it goes.
I don’t believe that anyone in America who truly works hard throughout their lives will get nowhere. Although I will stipulate that many people who work hard may not achieve the level of success and income they may desire, and may encounter roadblocks that impede their advancement, sometimes significantly, no one can ensure you get nowhere other than you.
Please pardon my disagreement, but you have not lived my life and cannot know whether or not luck has played any part in it. Your assumptions and assertions are simply that and nothing more. I had no connections other than those I made myself. I’m one of those people who lived, breathed, and ate the possibilities of my future, not the banalities and petty desires of my present. There was no time for friends, no time for dates, no time for games. Although you possibly cannot concieve of it, I made my way to my success by the sweat of my own brow and my ambition, and not by the assistance of anyone other than parents, teachers, and professors. Perhaps these are the ‘connections’ to which you refer.