6 Harsh Truths that will make you a Better Person

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that is what I said.

No, it isn't.

You said you need both in spades. I said you especially need executive functions, not so much social intelligence. We live in the age of the internet. It doesn't take social skills to but/sell/trade things online. It takes executive functioning. Ditto with moving on from selling products/services and investing those profits in online trading accounts - all executive, near zero social skills required. The internet is as great an equalizer as money.

you need social skills to be able to read the market and predict what the other guy is gonna do as well as what the herd is gonna do. you have to be able to grok other people, to have proper theory of mind. Wharton isn't gonna work if you lack at least a proper TOM.

You need to be able to read and interpret numbers, not poker faces. Even with the data available using a basic account like I do (vs. paying for access to fancier charts and analysis tools) one can decipher an awful lot about what's going on with a particular stock at the moment. There's a live readout indicating how many people are bidding what price for it, and how many people are willing to sell at what price.. so you can see which side is higher or lower and thus which direction the pressure is being placed on the price and thus which direction it's likely to shift to live on the fly as you're watching. Sure, that's just a generalization but my point is that it's all numbers, no interpersonal skills required whatsoever. All you have to be do able to do is read the numbers and interpret what each one means and then make the best decision based on that information.

Of course that's just talking about more short term day trading. But even long term "value investing" in the style of Warrent Buffet doesn't require social intelligence. It requires business knowledge and analysis skills. I only have to be able to read and think to be able to figure out when I see a company making the rights sorts of moves to make their stock price go up and then act on a decision to invest in them, hold, and wait.

Although, I have read that having a strong sense of "interoception" helps - basically.. "gut feelings" about market changes. It's a bit of a new area of actual study, but it's legit, and there are some traders who do make better decisions based on what they feel than only what they know.

But yeah.. numbers, numbers, numbers.. if you can take a look at the source code and see The Matrix like Neo you can figure things out relatively well. If you take a look at a stock trading account and have no idea what each number represents or what all the lingo and acronyms mean, you may as well put your pennies in a slot machine and pull the arm. None of these things require even talking to or looking at another human being.

I believe it's even more complex than this. Financially successful businesspeople don't necessarily need to be uber persuasive or charismatic, but they do need to be able to form a good team to complement their own strengths and weaknesses. These team members don't have to be employees. They have some skill, like marketing or sales or accounting or even scheduling, that the entrepreneur lacks. It helps to have some starting capital also, because contracting for these services costs money.

The most wealthy seem to have this executive mentality of surrounding themselves with resources and people who bring in the business. I don't know any millionaires, but I've spoken with very successful businesspeople and also read stories about how they got where they are. At some point, they all found a way to get others involved. They manage their time and resources well because they're uber motivated, and they have support systems for when they're discouraged. They believe in their own skills and purpose so much that they don't take rejection personally. They take risks and learn from mistakes. They adapt when their industry changes or their behavior isn't working for them. They grow to understand what their customerss need, what problems their customers are desperate to solve.

In short, they're extraordinary, or they become so. Not to mention, they're lucky enough to have reaped some rewards from some of their risks before their capital or resources ran out.

I believe it is due to accumulated good karma from many previous successful lifetimes. they are older/more advanced souls.

Same here. Even when I do understand sarcasm, I don't find it funny. I find it rude and insulting.

Yep, agree.

I find mean-spirited sarcasm and passive-aggression insufferable and infuriating, which is unfortunate because it seems to be one of the most common forms of 'humor' in my damned generation.

I think I know how they do it. A girl at work said her parents own 13 houses. They rent them out to schmucks like me and they set the rent to be about the same as the mortgage. This means their tenant pays off their house for them. They can do this with several houses at a time. Then they retire with millions of dollars worth of assets.

^^^^^I HATE those kindsa bloodsuckers.

That's true, although rentals are also a form of risk. They're not always profitable, partly because of flaky tenants who don't take care of the house or pay their rent. Or the house could need lots of expensive repairs, eating up some of the rent money. So then we have neglectful landlords who let their tenants live in bad conditions, and tenants who don't value the rental property and break the rules.

lotsa bad renters and landlords, which is why most states have laws addressing landlord and tenant misconduct.

I'm really careful with the places I live in. I've left apartments in good condition. I'm paying their mortgage for them.

Anyway. Every place I've been in has required a bond payment. If their tenants leave the place in poor condition, the landlord has several thousand dollars in bond to fix the place with.

Also, if poor tenants or other factors cause the landlord to have additional expenses, he can claim it on his taxes. If you own your house and the shower breaks, you can't write that off on your taxes. If you're a landlord and the shower breaks, you can write that off on your taxes.I hate that I'm not one

If I had been smart with my money and lifestyle I could be one. But I wasted my money so now I can never invest in real estate

I missed out on the chance to retire wealthy because of some poor financial decisions I made.

Yes, this...

I like some sarcasm, but not when it's mean-spirited and used in a way to try to persuade people into being sociopaths like this article seems to do.

I also don't understand why sociopathic and narcissistic behavior is considered attractive. I feel put off by those types of people because I don't like fakeness or arrogance. Vulnerability is more attractive imo.

Last edited by slw1990 on 14 Jan 2017, 1:28 am, edited 2 times in total.

I just heard that with the property assessment values that were just released and delivered to every home in BC, the house I live in is now assessed at a little over $1M. Crazy. I'm making this post from a Million dollar home lol. W/e, some of the houses I work on are worth over $40M. That's nuts.

"Millionaire" isn't really what it used to be.