If chikout was a young athlete he would be the one sitting against the wall complaining that he would be a better hitter if less pitchers in his district through sliders not fastballs. You see because Chikout is a better slider hitter than a fastball hitter. He is thinking about switching schools so that he can play in a district were there are more slider pitchers. Chikout switches schools. He is still a shitty hitter. He gives up. The thing Chikout never realized is that it wasnt the pitches that were keeping him from being a bad hitter it was him and his shitty work ethic. You see while chikout was complaining another guy was working on his weakness and getting better. He's the one who made it.
I wasn't one of those kids. I played major college football in a BCS conference (scholarship, started 3+ years). I can assure you that the vast majority of my teammates were very hard working, and there was little correlation between those that rode the pine and those that played in the NFL when it comes to work ethic. Certainly hard work will get you to the upper range of your potential, but the fact remains that there have been millions of people with work ethics as strong as MJ and virtually none of those people could ever do a fraction of what he can do on a basketball court. because the genetic material is simply not there.
I agree with this philosophy. I began looking at success and failures in business, careers, life etc. in the 1980s. I talked with one man who made 25 million in a company and his cousin that was at the same party who lost his shirt on an equally large company. He thought his cousin was so smart. I pointed out to him that I think luck plays a much bigger part than most people realize in everything. He was happier for talking to me after my examples. A hardworking and persistent person fights through disappointment until luck swings in his favor along with his talent. Talent gets you in the top game, but luck and drive determines how far you go. My argument (for example) is that Bill Gates is talented, but if he had started his business a few months later or a few months earlier, someone else would have been the billionaire. There are those who argue for innate talent though. That is; Bill Gates would have ended up a billionaire under all possible circumstances. You know after decades, I still wonder what are the key success factors. They are not obvious and quite elusive. I can give you examples and counterexamples to pretty much every attribute one can propose. The study possibly had one addional side-effect. I have ended up pretty darn successful in my life. I am happy with that outcome.
I totally agree. Luck, timing, stumbling upon the right person/mentor, family that steers you in the right direction, personality traits you are born with. All of this stuff is massively important and is out of your control. What if I started trading in '01, joined a prop firm like echo and got hooked up with a group of guys willing to share some ideas and helped eachother. My trading career could be vastly different right now. Most people think what I just said is nonsense and excuses but they are fools. They are complete fools. Take some guy born and raised in the ghetto with a crackhead mom and tell him its all his fault he is where he is because he is not 'working hard enough' lol.