I agree. Learning respect for money and never wasting it at a personal level is a pre-condition to becoming consistently profitable in this business (in particular).
What you call a "gene" can also be defined as a "trait". And "Yes", I do think pple are born to be a "gatherer" or a "squanderer". BUT, as with all traits, that can be influenced to various degrees by factors like environment, upbringing,needs,education, etc...
No Genetic makeup.... My Mother always told me, if you think it, do it. Thats not genetic makeup. all she ever did was get a college degree. I never did, though I visited college for 2 years. I just heeded her advice. And by age 18, I was out-earning Miss Masters Degree... Remember children are impressionable. She taught me that and she taught me how to make mountains of debt buying unnecessary things. By Age 25 I was in deeper consumer debt than the avg 40 yr old, and I owned my own home "free and clear." I had to unlearn the dumb lesson and focus on the good lessons. Lossing almost everything I owned due to financial mismanagement (basically spending till I was blind... LOL) taught me the one important lessons Traders learn when they blow out their accounts. Thus I started the other side... Accumulating and KEEPING. I never thought money grew on trees, but I sure didnt respect that sometimes a famine comes in the land.
Another case for discipline. Making the correct choice and executing it is all about discipline. And this is true in any business. If you blow all the Income, what do you have when it's time to "advertise, R&D, make it through the slower months, etc...." Discipline.
I disagree.... These are not traits, these are lessons learned..... No more than Diabetes is a trait or a gene, it is a learned disease. If you eat the same garbage your diabetic parent ate that caused them to get the disease, then you will get it, however if you change your diet to one that will not cause your body to fail and allow diabetes to become a reality, well.... 'nuff said.
I think it boils down to intelligence and work ethic. You need enough of each to get the job done. I'll leave the debate of whether these are inherited traits or not to someone else. A friend of mine has a theory about this which I find to be true. Everyone has their own little glass ceiling over their head with regards to money, or more specifically, what a lot of money is. Once you reach your artificial goal, you start to coast. Now why do some people have lower goals than others? And the ones who seem to do the best never stop setting goals. If they made it to 1 MM, then they want 5 MM and so on.
Now that I can agree with. I had set goals for my life as a teen. By the time I was 27 I had accomplished everything I wanted... hence I became complacent. I had to find new goals and "higher heights" Well... 2 years later I met my last wife... That changed everything. All of a sudden 2K sq ft house wasnt enough. I had to have 10K. LOL. My goal became helping her accomplish her goals. And in doing so, my goals expanded. I was content with 100k / year income. Married her, and although she didnt push me to want more, Seeing her eyes light up when we drove by certain houses and land gave me higher heights. As one man said.... Women civilize men and men cultivate women. How many conquests were started and completed because of a mans desire to bring "the world" to the feet of his woman.
I think you picked the wrong examples. Diabetes, even certain types of Cancer, have been proven to be genetically linked. Once you got the genes, you can control the chances to acquire the disease to a certain degree, but the risk is always there.