I’ve worked hard over the years and certainly made some good choices, but the fact that I started life middle-class and white definitely has given me many privileges that others do not have. Similarly, I have met people who seek to limit my choices because I am a woman.

Define “so many.” There is actually huge income mobility within the U.S. economy. Note that the Gini coefficient is a measure of inequality at a point in time, not of mobility. I think it’s reasonable to tolerate a fairly high Gini measure, if in return you get a booming economy and a high degree of economic mobility.

Answer those four questions and you’re well on your way to success as you define it for yourself.

Fave quote:
“Luck is preparation meeting opportunity.”

The losers and the slackers always “blame” the success of others on luck…totally ignoring the hard work that went into it…because then they aren’t faced with the cold hard fact of their own lack of said hard work.

Re the poor, a great book about learned helplessness is Ruby Payne’s Understanding the Framework of Poverty. A lot of the thought patterns and habits of the poor keep them poor. Even if they had all the lucky breaks in the world, if they don’t start thinking differently, they’ll not be successful.

Part of my work involves helping poor people become successful, and we talk about the thought patterns and habits that hold them back and what needs to change to bring about success. Instead of just writing them off as hopeless and stuck and unlucky, I’m actually doing something about it.

That being said, there are some poor people who are successful at being poor and working the system and being proud of that. They work hard at not having to work and feel sorry for the sell-outs who have to kowtow to The Man. If life ever dealt me an unending string of bad luck and I ended up destitute, I’d seek these people as my coaches and mentors about how to be poor successfully because they’re really good at it.

Caveat: poor is not the same as broke. I’ve been broke but I’ve never been poor.

“Success” is not a choice or an outcome–it is a nominalization. So is “choice.”

Who is choosing to do what successfully?

There’s one word people can’t act on and it’s action. People love to dream about thier goals but they never even take the first important step to do so. Instead, they get into that comfort zone and stick there making a decent salary.

“Success” is not a choice, it’s an outcome.

Sure, I worked hard for 6 years to get a college degree and a master’s degree, but does that mean that someone who spent those same 6 years working in a factory didn’t work just as hard as I did? Is my work automatically more useful to society than that of a hard-working laborer? Why can’t we both be seen as equally successful?

I think this is one of your best pieces ever! Very inspiring. I think it would be great to add a lit of people who succeeded against insurmountable odds. Off the top of my head I can think of Oprah and Lance Armstrong. But there are so many lesser know examples. FOr instance, the first man to boat the Grand Canyon only had one arm.

ALso, last night I saw an amazing documentary on the little known Joe Hammond, considered by some to be one of the greatest basketball players to ever live. He annihilated Dr. J and Wilt Chamberlain in pick-up games, but turned down a contract with the Lakers because he could make more money hustling and dealing drugs on the street. He was eventually incarcerated. Towards the end of the movie some guy says he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he had the type of talent that Joe Hammond had and just wasted it.

1) They remind me of all those motivational books that are full of rah rah but little substance.

2) Second, there is this thing called “learned helplessness”. If you put a rat in a situation where it gets shocked uncontrollably and cannot escape, after awhile it will learn that it’s behavior has no control over outcomes. What happens if that rat is placed in a situation where it can escape the shock (such as removing a barrier to a safe location)? The rat will continue to get shocked because it has learned it cannot do anything to escape. Now if we see people in a similar situation, we would think they are crazy, why aren’t they escaping the shocks? But to those people, who have had negative experiences and learned that they do not have control over their destinies, those mental barriers are just as real as any physical barrier. Trent, if you directing this blog to them, words are not going to do any good (Retraining CAN help where they relearn that their actions have consequences does help, but that requires behavior modification, not words).

3) Maybe I’ve read too many books on Taoism or something, but what is all this deal about being a success? I know, success can mean many things to different people, but I guess I don’t define my life in terms of success. Don’t get me wrong, I have many things that could be considered “successful”, a PhD, first authored papers, a good job, positive net worth, loving and healthy family. To me, my concern is that my life be full of meaning. I don’t give a damn whether other people consider me a success or not.

Success is what you make it. It’s not necessarily having the newest car or the biggest house. It’s liking what you do and who you are, and having the confidence and spirits to continue on, even when you fail.

I came from a horrendous family situation (poverty, drunkenness, shiftlessness) and am now working as a consultant and obtaining my degree at an Ivy League university. It’s possible to do what I did (crawling out of the ghetto by my fingernails) if you really want to.

You just have to really want to, and make absolutely no excuses why you can’t.

All that and no credit card debt at all :) maybe it is a simplistic notion but I think its true that our choices largely determine our outcome :) that and positive outlook go a long way… many days in the beginning I thought I would have to pack it in but I kept going and worked hard and it all worked out :)
Good luck to everyone and I wish you all much success!
ps. Trent, I read your blog everyday! Love it :)

While I do agree that your own success falls on you for the most part, (though luck does have something to do with it) the very process of our economy (and any economy for that matter) may deter *financial success.* Firstly, personal success and financial stability can be mutually exclusive. For example, some of the most notorious artists in the world can die penniless.

In capitalism, everyone has a role. SOMEONE has to be poor in order for capitalism to even really exist. Capitalism is a class-based economy and while we’re all free to work hard to move up, there still has to be a consumer and a producer. One feeds off the other.

I have chosen mediocrity. I’m disabled, with fibromyalgia and social anxiety and so forth, and if I pushed harder to find more therapy, and to push it, I would have more success. Right now, I’m hanging onto my husband and my kids, knowing that I’m in a tenuous situation because I depend upon them so much.

Instead of a job and knowing that everything will be okay if I were alone, I fight exhaustion and do my best to learn how to help my kids, who both have their own disabilities. In some ways, I am a success, because I am striving for a better future for all of us and because I make it more possible for my husband’s success, but I know that right now I’m not ready to be employable.

There *is* a trade-off, between personal success and success for a family; some can manage both, while I have to choose. Slowly, I improve myself, and perhaps when my family doesn’t need me as much I’ll be ready and willing and able to grasp success for myself. :) I think about it, often, to prepare for that day – and it just might happen.