Do You Have to be Ruthless to be Financially Successful?

[calveless wonder]

no, you don't. The most ruthless people typically never sustain your success. you double cross too many people, especially in a relatively small industry, and you're fucked.

but you DO have to be assertive and decisive.

nef nailed it.

luck is involved in being successful, but what separates those who are and who aren't and the risks they take and taking advantage of their opportunities.

i know alot of very successful people financially and they all did it by being aggressive but ethical (of course there are grey areas )

 

[musclemom]

Remaining competitive = not ruthless. It's necessary to adapt and stay alive.

To become "successful" requires many things, if you have them all - great. If just a few, good.

1. Looks
2. Age
3. Education / Skills
4. Going the extra mile
5. Positive Attitude
6. Professionalism
7. Mentors (the "mastermind alliance" if you read Napoleon Hill books)
8. Luck
9. Good morals and values (very important once you go high up)
10. Height (yes, you heard that right)

Put them all together, wrap them around a BURNING desire to be successful (ie: You CAN'T live without it. Failure is not a word you understand), train your sub-conscious to take over and deliver that goal. Then just sit back and let your subconscious do all the work for you. Telling you what to do.

It's not that hard. But training your MIND to REACH a goal (remember morals and values, don't place your goals in pure greed or vanity) and fool yourself in believing you have ALREADY reached that goal -- you will fulfill a self-fullfilling prophecy - to your BENEFIT.

Napoleon Hill and Leigh Steinberg are great authors on this. But i'm giving you a dummies 101 version of it.

Fix your life (avoid debt). Identify goals. Learn. Plan. Make it the centerpiece of your life. Then Action.

You can be successful in ANY industry. There is no "get rich" idea. That's a fallacy that the cubicle warriors of America believe in. You become tops in what you do - and people throw money at you. It's that simple.

r

What you're saying is a truly decent person can become financially successful IF they start young enough, have enough ambition, are willing to work seriously hard, and are personable. Okay, I'll buy that.

As a follow up on that thought: Do you believe a person can be highly financially successful and have a very fulfilling personal life, i.e., happy marriage, good relationship with kids?

The person you're describing is going to be putting no less than 50+ hours a week in the office (or perhaps 80+). I do not believe you can have a good relationship with your kids or spouse if you're spending most of your awake hours at work. You can have a cordial relationship with your family, certainly, but happy? Happiness, particularly when it comes to kids, means spending relaxed quality time with them.

 

[Razorguns]

Age/looks/height are intangibles that are easily canceled out by simply having a talent and a nose for risk taking. Two of my wealthiest clients are under 5'8" and NOTHING to look at. Neither went to a top school or were particularly great in the classroom either. Another is maybe 5'10", but rather heavyset, and VERY jewish looking. A fourth is tall, but extremely unattractive. All four are in their 40's.

More important than anything on your list is having a TALENT for business and a nose for risk taking - when to jump all in and when not to. You need to be a salesman, no matter what your field. If you aren't selling a product, you're selling yourself, your ability to make things happen. Not only is it important to know how and when to take risks, it's important to be able to get other people to take risks on YOU. And yeah...luck has a lot to do with it.

Word

Skills Talent Risk -- all facets of being successful.

But for your typical middle aged American with mortgages, living paycheck to paycheck, debt, stress -- all this is a foreign language to them. They can't take financial risk, been doing the same monkey stuff for the last 10 years, so no unique skills, and talent - if they had any, it hasn't been exploited in years.

Hence the big market for 'get rich' schemes, dreaming in cubicles, lottery tickets, gambling, and the favorite - hating the rich.

Oh, and take care of your body. The 270lb gluttonous fat guy will always get the shaft everywhere he goes. Most leaders in America, if you look, were in good shape when they made their money. Making money is 'physically' exhausting. Don't expect to be in bed at 9 every night.

r

 

[Smurfy]

This question keeps cropping up in my mind. I honestly do not know anyone IRL who is really financially successful. Excluding something like a talent for investing, does a person who is REALLY making serious bank need to be at least a little ruthless?

Answer: No.

also, what do you consider "really financially successful"?

500,000 or more a year?

 

[nefertiti]

What you're saying is a truly decent person can become financially successful IF they start young enough, have enough ambition, are willing to work seriously hard, and are personable. Okay, I'll buy that.

As a follow up on that thought: Do you believe a person can be highly financially successful and have a very fulfilling personal life, i.e., happy marriage, good relationship with kids?

The person you're describing is going to be putting no less than 50+ hours a week in the office (or perhaps 80+). I do not believe you can have a good relationship with your kids or spouse if you're spending most of your awake hours at work. You can have a cordial relationship with your family, certainly, but happy? Happiness, particularly when it comes to kids, means spending relaxed quality time with them.

All four of the previously mentioned guys in my other post have kids. Two are divorced and the other two have girls (around my age) on the side, but one of the two swears he loves his wife (go figure, I'm not the morality police). All four seem to be very close with their kids, though.

 

[billfred]

What you're saying is a truly decent person can become financially successful IF they start young enough, have enough ambition, are willing to work seriously hard, and are personable. Okay, I'll buy that.

As a follow up on that thought: Do you believe a person can be highly financially successful and have a very fulfilling personal life, i.e., happy marriage, good relationship with kids?

The person you're describing is going to be putting no less than 50+ hours a week in the office (or perhaps 80+). I do not believe you can have a good relationship with your kids or spouse if you're spending most of your awake hours at work. You can have a cordial relationship with your family, certainly, but happy? Happiness, particularly when it comes to kids, means spending relaxed quality time with them.

Most really self made financial people are dicks and their kids are worse - it is a hard balance.

 

[Razorguns]

The person you're describing is going to be putting no less than 50+ hours a week in the office (or perhaps 80+). I do not believe you can have a good relationship with your kids or spouse if you're spending most of your awake hours at work. You can have a cordial relationship with your family, certainly, but happy? Happiness, particularly when it comes to kids, means spending relaxed quality time with them.

Life is give and take.

Being successful means going the extra mile, EXCELLING at something, being LEADER at what you do.

This requires

Intelligence. Luck. Time. Money.

If you subtract one, you have to make it up in the others.

So having kids - is a give and take. That is life. Do you want kids, or do you want to be successful? We all only have 24 hours a day. Less if you still have a day job.

The "spend 2 hours a day and make on ebay and still have time for soccer practice!" is what unsavory men on late night TV sell to the masses. And they just buy it right up. They "dream".

This is why I advocate nomarriage.com. Focus first on your goals, your dreams, fulfill them first, THEN marry. I'm not married. No kids. Got lots to do first.

For you: I'd go for time. Subtract from that. That means no instant success - but if you set a goal, and give yourself 5 years to do it -- you can still achieve the same success, a single person could in 1/2 year. And you still have time for your kids.

Give and Take. Life 101.

r

 

[musclemom]

Answer: No.

also, what do you consider "really financially successful"?

500,000 or more a year?

I was having a hard time defining that myself, actually, which is why I left it sort of open.

But I guess, for the purposes of debate, I'd say cash compensation (not counting company cars, or pensions or other benefits) of no less than $250K, I think it's a safe bet many doctors and lawyers make that kind of money and I already know how many hours they put in and what most of their personal lives are like.

 

[all the whey]

Age/looks/height are intangibles that are easily canceled out by simply having a talent and a nose for risk taking. Two of my wealthiest clients are under 5'8" and NOTHING to look at. Neither went to a top school or were particularly great in the classroom either. Another is maybe 5'10", but rather heavyset, and VERY jewish looking. A fourth is tall, but extremely unattractive. All four are in their 40's.

More important than anything on your list is having a TALENT for business and a nose for risk taking - when to jump all in and when not to. You need to be a salesman, no matter what your field. If you aren't selling a product, you're selling yourself, your ability to make things happen. Not only is it important to know how and when to take risks, it's important to be able to get other people to take risks on YOU. And yeah...luck has a lot to do with it.

It effects women more.


Women's weight found to affect job, income
Study indicates bias in marriage, career

By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff | May 28, 2005

Weight can have startling consequences for women's financial well-being, careers, and marriage prospects, according to research that found that women -- but not men -- suffer economic harm from being overweight.

The first-of-its-kind study found that the heavier the woman, the worse her financial situation will be 13 to 15 years in the future.

In fact, the effect of weight on women's fortunes was so strong, that women with high school diplomas will have the same future household income as women with a four-year college degree but who weigh twice as much, according to the study.

For men, extra weight had no impact on their earnings, careers, or marriage prospects.

Much of the economic effect of weight on women's fortunes, the study found, occurs not because of job discrimination but marriage discrimination: Heavier women are more likely to end up marrying lower-income men or to be single. In addition, the heavier the woman, the less prestigious her job is likely to be.

The data appear to underscore what social scientists and many women themselves have long asserted -- a double-standard when it comes to weight. The study for the first time gives the economic costs of this phenomenon, showing heavy women can pay a steep personal and financial price for their weight, in addition to the more widely publicized health effects.

''This is one of the core fundamental bases of gender inequality in the United States. Women are held to standards of objectified physical appearance that men are not," said New York University sociologist Dalton Conley, the study's lead author. He explained that weight worked against women as they competed to get married and secure their financial futures.

''The marriage market is where physical capital, if you want to call it that, gets converted into economic capital," said Conley. ''Marriage is an exchange relationship where men provide income, and women, in addition to child rearing, provide sexual status."



Conley and a graduate student, Rebecca Glauber, crunched data that tracked about 1,300 women and 1,100 men for up to 15 years. It is the first study to look at the socio-economic effects of body mass index, a ratio of weight to height that is the standard measure of obesity, over such duration. They looked at subjects' BMI in 1986, and then how those people fared as of 1999 and 2001.

They were able to compute that each 1 percent increase in women's BMI means a .6 percent decrease in future family income. So, a 60-pound weight difference between two 5-foot-4 women would account for a 30 percent difference in their future family incomes, such as $100,000 annually compared with $70,000. Much of this income difference occurs because the heavier women are, the poorer their spouses are likely to be, the research found. Also at work is the fact that heavier women are less likely to marry: For each 1 percent BMI increase, the prospects of matrimony decrease .35 percent. Single women tend to have lower incomes.

Basically, an overweight female will make less at her job. But, her FAMILY INCOME will be even more less than a healthy women's. The main reason is the hotter chick can get a man that makes more money, and the fat chicks can only get guys with low paying jobs.

Stay in school boys!

 

[Razorguns]

I have never seen a fat female VP at any company i've worked at.

They're great for those low paying monkey jobs and government jobs.

They're also extremely lazy. I once had to spend 3 weeks fighting HR, full of heifers, trying to get a damn check replaced. They were too busy yappin' away about last night's sex in the city. Way to keep up stereotypes.

r