Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Confidence, Success, Privledge, and Subsidy

Why is it that successful people are successful? What separates Gates, Buffett and Bezos from anyone else? Books have been written, studies have been done. Here's my theory:

#1 - they had the requisites (more about this later)
#2 - they had extremely unusual levels of natural self-confidence in certain areas spurred by an irrational belief in something
#3 - they had a void somewhere deep down inside they could never quite fill up. It feels like hunger they can't satisfy. They run from it and try to hide it, but they desperately fear that everyone can see it. They believe that pursuing their "cause" is the only way to relieve the gnawing self-doubt and gain acceptance in the world.
#4 - whereas they have a strong desire to be accepted, they have a low desire for social interaction (this, incidentally, causes many of them to have family/relationship/friendship problems)
# 5 - they had a certain stroke of luck. Often, that luck was being born of privledge, but there are other lucky turns of events which can give people the opportunity to shine.

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