Life is an integral
Niels Erik Andersen
Advisor, doer, and experienced board member. Making manufacturers more profitable and sustainable.
What makes people successful? I meet people who believe that success is an event that happens rapidly. My experience is exactly the opposite, success is the sum of many small steps, just like an integral.
I cringe when I see the advertisements for the lottery or for a casino. They portray that it is a viable option to play the lottery to become rich. Some even claim that this is a way to pay for your kids' education. In reality, the lottery is an extra tax for stupid people. I am sorry to put it so bluntly, but it is the truth. The statistical chances of winning are far less than the chances of losing. You are doomed to lose your money before the winner has been drawn.
Life is the same way. It starts even before you are born. You are lucky to get strong genes, have a caring mother who eats well during pregnancy, and have loving parents who feed you, teach you good habits, keep you healthy and inspire you to be educated. As life goes on, you start making more and more choices. Some of them will be good and some not-so-good.
Intelligence helps, but it is not everything. A study performed by Angela L. Duckworth and Martin E. P. Seligman shows that Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents. Self-Discipline is a significant part of the integral of life when we as individuals start making choices.
Self-discipline is important, but it is not enough either. You will likely not be highly successful if you eat your vegetables and go to work every day without being willing to take a chance. You may think that I am contradicting myself by now as I just told you that the lottery is an extra tax on stupid people, however this is not the case. Taking a right chance is the matter of understanding the risks and getting the odds right. First, your chance of winning should be more than one, this determines your odds. The impact of failure should not result in complete devastation. Some examples:
- Borrowing a lot of money and investing it in the stock market is not smart if you need to get the money out soon, whereas continually saving and investing 10% of your paycheck every month for 20 years is likely to be a very good decision.
- Betting the family inheritance to start a business in an area where you have no experience is not smart, whereas starting a business in an area where you have a lot of experience and the ability to fall back on a strong education is less risky and more likely to successful.
An integral is something that builds over a long time. The only way you are absolutely guaranteed to fail is if you give up. You must do something that you enjoy; life is long and you will give up if you have no fun.
So my recommendations to you all are: form good habits, get educated, stay curious, be a lifelong learner, be creative, start investing early, take smart risks, and have fun.
Advisor, doer, and experienced board member. Making manufacturers more profitable and sustainable.
9 年Joe Pimbley, thanks for your encouraging words. I looked you up and found your book "Simple Money" on Amazon, I'll add it to my reading list. Ric Edelman has also written an excellent book called "The Truth about Money" which I enjoyed reading about 10 years ago. It is very difficult to teach these subjects, I was in my late thirties when I finally got it, and I am still learning.
Senior Sales & Operations Management
9 年I agree with you for the most part, however the stock market is just as much of a gamble throughout ones life. You can save your money and earn one percent or take the chance that a stock will appreciate. We know that even those whom are top economists don't have it right most of the time. So, the take away addresses risk. All of life involves risk, should I invest in oil, because at some point it is finite? Should I invest in Gold? Obviously if one saves 10% of their paycheck and puts that money in the bank, they will lose year after year. You see, there is no real incentive to save. The Western economies are designed to depreciate money and to motivate spending, now. Notice all advertisements say, you can only win if you do this, NOW. If the United States government really wanted people to save for their futures. There would be a plan in place. We have CFP's and many companies whom profess to help with college savings and retirement, few deliver. So all throughout ones life, while I believe in the power of positive thinking, I will not beguile myself nor be so naive to believe that there is not a bigger plan, much bigger than I could ever fathom in play now, by those who move the chess pieces. So in the end, Life is about Luck, Choices and Risk, is my take-away :)
Medical/Medical Device Cybersecurity
9 年Well crafted . I like to make analogy to the fundamental algorithm of computer science - Divide and Conquer. Literally- its an integration but most of the time discrete instances, not a continuous processes. Thanks for sharing.
Principal of Maxwell Consulting, LLC
9 年Excellent, Niels! I had already adopted your title, word-for-word, as my pithy philosophy of life advice. All your supplemental discussion is profound. (I'd also written a money management book for young adults with your same thoughts.) Well done!
Global Life Sciences Business Development
9 年It recalls a conversation we had a while ago.