Do You Have to be Ruthless to be Financially Successful?

[chazk]

Does Green Day do a cover of that song now? I've heard it a few times and it sounds like them until the last line "If you want to be a hero then just follow me" that sounds like Lennon or either a damn good impersonation of him.

yes green day did a cover, of lennon's working class hero.
watch the orginal , The orginal song is mind blowing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njG7p6CSbCU

 

[GoldenDelicious]

ruthless has a lot of negative connotations ie that you fuck people over. personally i think that its more important to be competent, able, calculated, and mostly AWARE.

 

[Bikini Mod]

It has nothing to do with luck. You want something, get it. Go get it. Do whatever it takes. Get what you want. That's how I think about it.

Exactly.

"Success is going from one failure to the next without losing your enthusiasm." - Sir Winston Churchill

Yea the guy was a drunk, but damn he said some smart shtuff.

Being in the right place at the right time, having the balls to sieze the moment and take some risk... what people don't realize is how many times you got fucked by having the opposite occur.

Nobody ever talks about their failures, which is a shame I think. Because EVERYBODY makes mistakes and everybody has their less than successfull moments.

Even my Old Grump hates it when I tell people that I married him when he had NOTHING... well monetarily, that is. No cash, no assets and he was in a TERRIBLE spot (will withhold specifics because I respect his privacy). But what he DID HAVE was his mind and his character and my God - you wanna talk BALLZ... Everyone who knows my husband and what he went through can not get over his 10 ton kohonez... and me for sticking by him through all of it, kicking his ass when he needed it and holding his hand when he needed that. I was fukkin hard on him, no doubt. Sometimes, I think... maybe too hard. I can't take back the past. He was hard on me too sometimes, but generally he let me find my own way, in my own time.

We balance each other out quite make and make a helluva team. Every project that we have tackled together has had SOME positive result, if only just the connections that we made and the experience that we gained to get us to "the next level".

But yes, we had to make some very tough decisions along the way. <--- therein lies the "ruthless" part. Once you have the money then you can afford to be less so.... but still it is generally your benefit or not. The "or not" part sometimes means that someone else will NOT benefit.

 

[wlmcrae]

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?

Define "ruthless". If it means making the hard decisions (like you said "we don't want to give up his current job" - that is a decision), then yes, absolutely, a person HAS to be willing to change, move out of the comfort zone, try new things, follow the dream/plan/goal, MAKE the dream/plan/goal, take risks within reason, learn enough (not usually school) to do a proper risk/reward analysis on any decision, etc, etc.

If "ruthless" is defined as "user", then no, this person may achieve short-term success, but wastes the capital necessary to really achieve in life.

As far as sacrificing family - I believe I read in a study at one point that the top 5% of people are usually (over 90%) with their first spouse, happily married with children. (It was a study of corporate CEO's.)

For your friend with the grade 8 education and the moving company - admittedly, the decision the company made hurt her. Is she "ruthless" enough with herself to move on? To move out of the mindset she is in, to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to get to where she needs to be? A woman in good health at 55 has a very strong statistical chance of living to 90+. She has over half of her working life left! Sandra Day O'Connor - she was HOW old when she went back to school - and went on to the Supreme Court in the course of her career?

So "ruthless" - yes, absolutely, WITH YOURSELF.

 

[the_alcatraz]

Exactly.

"Success is going from one failure to the next without losing your enthusiasm." - Sir Winston Churchill

Yea the guy was a drunk, but damn he said some smart shtuff.

Being in the right place at the right time, having the balls to sieze the moment and take some risk... what people don't realize is how many times you got fucked by having the opposite occur.

Nobody ever talks about their failures, which is a shame I think. Because EVERYBODY makes mistakes and everybody has their less than successfull moments.

Even my Old Grump hates it when I tell people that I married him when he had NOTHING... well monetarily, that is. No cash, no assets and he was in a TERRIBLE spot (will withhold specifics because I respect his privacy). But what he DID HAVE was his mind and his character and my God - you wanna talk BALLZ... Everyone who knows my husband and what he went through can not get over his 10 ton kohonez... and me for sticking by him through all of it, kicking his ass when he needed it and holding his hand when he needed that. I was fukkin hard on him, no doubt. Sometimes, I think... maybe too hard. I can't take back the past. He was hard on me too sometimes, but generally he let me find my own way, in my own time.

We balance each other out quite make and make a helluva team. Every project that we have tackled together has had SOME positive result, if only just the connections that we made and the experience that we gained to get us to "the next level".

But yes, we had to make some very tough decisions along the way. <--- therein lies the "ruthless" part. Once you have the money then you can afford to be less so.... but still it is generally your benefit or not. The "or not" part sometimes means that someone else will NOT benefit.

You make some very strong points.

 

[Bikini Mod]

Define "ruthless". If it means making the hard decisions (like you said "we don't want to give up his current job" - that is a decision), then yes, absolutely, a person HAS to be willing to change, move out of the comfort zone, try new things, follow the dream/plan/goal, MAKE the dream/plan/goal, take risks within reason, learn enough (not usually school) to do a proper risk/reward analysis on any decision, etc, etc.

If "ruthless" is defined as "user", then no, this person may achieve short-term success, but wastes the capital necessary to really achieve in life.

As far as sacrificing family - I believe I read in a study at one point that the top 5% of people are usually (over 90%) with their first spouse, happily married with children. (It was a study of corporate CEO's.)

For your friend with the grade 8 education and the moving company - admittedly, the decision the company made hurt her. Is she "ruthless" enough with herself to move on? To move out of the mindset she is in, to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to get to where she needs to be? A woman in good health at 55 has a very strong statistical chance of living to 90+. She has over half of her working life left! Sandra Day O'Connor - she was HOW old when she went back to school - and went on to the Supreme Court in the course of her career?

So "ruthless" - yes, absolutely, WITH YOURSELF.

EXCELLENT POST AND 100% DEAD ON.

... and that ain't stuff I read in some book somewhere or learned in college. I HAVE LIVED IT.