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Old Forum This could also be titled: "What the strong do every day."

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Dan John

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Enjoy. Not my work, so don't give me the blame, but I thought this was great:

 

http://www.daveramsey.com/blog/20-things-the-rich-do-every-day
 
Yes, I think so. If you want to be successful at anything, listen to those who have had great success. Hey, discus throwing is lifting and throwing. But, to be GREAT, it takes all those other things. "Lead the Field," by Earl Nightingale did more for my career as, well, whatever I am and my athletic career than most books on strength and throwing.

Success leaves tracks. Follow the tracks.
 
And, like in strength training or "fitness" the poo-flingers come outta the woodwork in the comments section. Once you're wealty, or once you're strong, or once you're successful in your endeavor,  those who refuse to try take great offense when you offer them a ladder and say "Here, Buddy. Climb. I'll help you".

 

Which then inevitably brings us back to the Class Envy the Chief abhorred recently, bless him.
 
That article is BS.

It is confusing cause and effect.

The reality is:

1. The Poor eat food based on cost and longevity, as they often use government programs to get food, and thus, buy all their food at once based on cost and storage.

2. The Poor have to handle their entire life with minimal resources, the wealthy can afford to focus when they do not have to worry about everything.

3. The Poor often have tiring jobs and do not hire personal trainers like the wealthy.

4. Audio books require buying the file and having a device to play them on. It is not a poor man's method of literature.

5. The Poor know what needs to be done, and do not need a list. I bet the wealthy do not make a list of "buy more toilet paper", "find money to pay rent", and "struggle through work with the flu, because I cannot afford time off".

6. Too bad the Poor have to work and cannot be there for their kids. The parents are too busy working to get enough money, but don't worry...the companies for whom they work are profitable enough to make the owners rich.

7. Wealthy people can volunteer...but it is hard to do something for nothing when one is un-employed, under-employed, or in need of money.

8. I do not know what a "hbd call" is.

9. Funny how the "wealthy" always do things which require more resources...this is a "hint".

10. Reading does not cause one to be wealthy.

11. The Poor do not say what is on their mind, because their wealthy employer's do not like to hear it and nobody cares what the Poor say.

12. The Poor do not network, because they can only network with other people like themselves...wealth people are networking with other wealthy people.

13. TV is often cheap entertainment and it keeps kids quiet. When one is tired and cannot afford anything, it is often the default.

14. Reality TV is usually on the cheapest plans and does not require regular watching or keeping up with a story.

15. Wealthy people have different kinds of jobs.

16. The Poor do not have "good daily success habits" when they struggle to make ends meet.

17. Confirmation bias. Poor people are just wealthy people under different circumstances.

18. Confirmation bias. Poor people are just wealthy people under different circumstances.

19. Education costs money. A lot of money. Bucket loads of money. Education is for the wealthy, or it is for those who are in severe debt.

20. Environment. As noted earlier, the Poor do not read as much, so they will have less exposure. It is perfectly possible for the Poor to love reading throughout all ages, but it is just rarer. But the Poor who do read are still Poor.

 

This article is offensive and mistaken. Nothing it notes has anything to do with being wealthy or poor. It is noting the effects of wealth and poverty, not the causes.

The causes make the wealthy uncomfortable...being Poor or Wealthy is almost always a result of circumstances, being born to the right people, at the right time, meeting the right people, getting the right breaks. It is not really under one's control. That the children of wealthy people are usually wealthy and the children of poor people are usually poor is very important.
 
Or, "attributing everything to oneself" vs. "recognizing external factors outside of one's control".

The Wealthy love to think everybody can do it, that it is all their work, and that it is a matter of character, but it isn't. This leads to thinking the poor are not only poor because of their choices, but they somehow are lesser people.

In the current situation, the poor usually work for other people...other people whose mind is profit. The wealthy almost invariably make money off the labor of others. For example, kettlebells are made in iron foundries. Anybody here work in an iron foundry? Anybody own one? Books are printed, anybody work in the paper industry? When you get down to the "work" upon which other things are based, you see a lot of sweat and low pay. At the top, you see rich people pushing numbers around.

That is how capitalism works, but, that is only an economic system, not a moral one, and when the love of money takes over, and becomes the definition of the person, that is very bad.

Note: I am not wealthy or poor, but in the situation I have chosen, and I have none of the habits of "poor" people listed above, and many are health choices anybody can make, but the reality of life is that most people live according to the circumstances. The wealthy live a certain way because they are wealthy, not because those ways led to them being wealthy. While you can find certain decisions along the way, the opportunity has to be there. If it is not, then they cannot be wealthy. In America, it is often thought "anybody" can do it, because many rich people have poor beginnings, but even so, that is not for everybody and relies on a very particular set of circumstances.

Society demands that the Poor outnumber the Wealthy, otherwise, it is bunch of wealthy people with nobody to do things for them.
 
1. The Poor eat food based on cost and longevity, as they often use government programs to get food, and thus, buy all their food at once based on cost and storage.
a common misconception that you have to buy expensive organic food from whole foods to be healthy. wrong. it's actually cheaper to eat healthy as healthy food is nutrient dense. when the body gets nutrients  it needs, appetite drops and you have to buy less food. eggs are cheap. peanut butter is cheap. hell, green beans are cheap (canned). We give all of these away at the food bank where i work. Further, I worked at Albertsons (supermarket) during sophomore year of college. People on food stamps bought far more expensive food than i could afford(shrimp, real crab) and food known by everyone to be complete junk (cookies, soda, chips). Really, there is not much true poverty in this country. Take a walk around Managua (not at night, please). That's poverty.



10. Reading does not cause one to be wealthy.

It's a correlation article, not a causation article. However, reading does help to be wealthy (if wealth is a priority for the reader). Check out Dr. Ben Carson's work.

-something just occurred to me. your name (or handle) makes me think you might live in a place where the poor are legitimately screwed. if that the case, your statements could carry more weight. either way, i'm losing steam here... gonna go read :)
 
Furthermore, there's a difference between "poor" and "broke". "Poor" is a state of mind nicely demonstrated in the comments under the original blogpost. "Broke" just means "I don't have any money right now". Attitudinally, "broke" is a place you're just passing through.  If I was a betting man, I'd wager Pavel was "broke" when he arrived in the U.S.  He dang sure wasn't "poor" by the Dave Ramsey definition I'm using.

 

The points about reading are often misunderstood. In order to make more money, you must increase your value in the market place. In order to increase your value, you must know something tomorrow you did not know today. You must BE someone tomorrow whom you are not today. Or you must be SOME THING tomorrow you are not today - an SFG, a CSCS, a college grad, a master electrician, a high school graduate, a commercial pilot, a Class III licencee. Collecting the knowledge to become "one of those" is what all the reading is about. It's why the TV needs to be off. What you put in your mind and dwell upon is what grows. Successful people know that a habit of life-long learning is what has led to their success, so they teach their children the same. And they teach them to control their money via a budget so they can always be saving, always be giving, always be spending inside a plan. They teach them Lotto is dumb, gambling is dumb, rent-to-own is dumb, Tote-The -Note is dumb, and Payday lending is dumb. How did they find out it was dumb? In some cases they did it, in others - they read about it after first reading how to analyze such things. The habits of "the rich" are what got them where they are, not some idle byproduct of having arrived there.
 
what is this one about?            "6% of wealthy say what’s on their mind vs. 69% for poor."
 
I find this an interesting discussion and I'm sure I'm in the minority by saying I agree with HerrMannelig. The article confuses cause and effect and is actually quite offensive.

I am pretty new to the "getting strong" movement and while taking up kettlebells and studying Pavel's writings has truly transformed my own life, I find this condescending attitude towards the "weak" and the "poor" a bit disturbing. I've been in both situations, i.e. being dirt poor and wondering where your next meal is coming from, to becoming being relatively well off, and similarly going from being weak and overweight to being fit, healthy and strong.

The ironic thing is sometimes I catch myself displaying that kind of arrogant attitude in my head when I walk around in my local supermarket and see the unhealthy food people put in their trolleys. It's easy to feel smug about making the right choices now that I have lost the weight and have become a lot stronger, but the reality is people are being brainwashed every day about what is right for them and it is very, very hard to take a different path. You have a whole system thriving on keeping people subdued, both in terms of health as economically (and yes, it is more expensive to eat well).

The idea that people become rich just because they work hard or follow some kind of lofty principles is laughable as it ignores the material basis of society. Wealth is created on the back of the ordinary working man. Nations acquired their wealth by subduing other nations. One cannot exist without the other. "Capital comes into the world dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt."

Anyway, rant over. What I'm trying to say is without the broader context it is impossible to truly grasp the problem at hand. It is the fundamental difference between the right and the left spectrum of politics. I'm on the left side myself, most people in the strength community probably on the right. C'est la vie, comrades...
 
taking responsibility vs blaming others…
This is the real gold. Everybody, whether financially well off or not so well off, has their problems and challenges, and its the decisions one makes in response to them that defines that individual.
The article itself is very simplistic.
 
The simple fact is the majority of the world's population now and throughout history is "poor" and it will always be that way.

To think that people who are rich are so because of their own selves is very foolish. One has to be in the right time and place for it to even be possible. There are over 7 billion people on this planet, only a minority of them even have access to wealth, and that is just today...history and the future are even bleaker.

Money corrupts. To stratify people according to wealth is hateful, and it leads to conflict. While revolutions make the history books, the constant repression of the poor by the rich is something which is a constant background battle, and it starts with those thinking the worth of a person is in their money. How horrible  the communist revolutions have always been, yet, what inspired such brutality? The same brutality in a more subtle way towards the populations which rose up.

Now, financial issues aside, strength and fitness are something everyone who has sufficient means to live should have. The "poor" person a century ago was probably quite fit and strong, due to lack of luxurious food and labour. The "poor" today are exceptionally overweight and weak, due to lack of cheap healthy food and lack of suitable labour. It is just the circumstances...nobody chose that.

People who make choices against the circumstances are rare and always will be. I am a minimalist, religious person who does live according to choices I made, rather than what is around me, but that is very rare, as people who push themselves to be better than the circumstances alone would allow.
 
Anyway, rant over. What I’m trying to say is without the broader context it is impossible to truly grasp the problem at hand. It is the fundamental difference between the right and the left spectrum of politics. I’m on the left side myself, most people in the strength community probably on the right. C’est la vie, comrades…
I am not political in the sense I care about politics. I care about morality only, and any system which is not guided by clear and defined moral principles which are solidly held, everything is entirely corrupted.

Because of this, I see the materialism and immoral lives of both the rich and the poor, but the rich have more means, and thus, more responsibility. But how many times are the government's powers used to protect those who have the means, at the expense of those who do not? Is not the community of a nation best served by providing for those who cannot provide for themselves? The rich in lawless lands are usually in more secure position, regardless of government (unless it is an uprising specifically against the wealthy), but the poor are always at the mercy of the environment and of others.

Strong people are judged first according to themselves, not by others, except in certain competitive and performance demanding situations. To fetishize strength training is to condemn oneself, for one is always weaker than what one can be, and we are all on a slow march towards weakness and death, no matter what we do.

 

 
 
I agree with Herr on this one.  But I think the fault of the article is not what it points out, but how it portrays it.  As the poor are so often caught in socio-cultural negative feedback loops, it would be better to compare people in a similar income bracket/class and see what the savers do v. what those in debt do.

 
 
Fascinating thread. I hesitate to "rush in where wise men fear to tread" but since I have a strong interest in political "science" (my undergraduate major many years ago), economics, and philosophy, and as I studied biblical theology at the graduate level, I will wade gingerly into the waters.

We all have world views, that is, a lens of presuppositions through which we look at the world. These often unquestioned beliefs influence how we interpret everything, including the topic at hand.

I share that so that you understand the presuppositions behind what I am saying. My presupposition is that the Bible is objectively true, not just about "spiritual" things, but about the nature of reality itself.  At the extreme risk of over-simplification, it tells us that we are created in God's image, an amazingly wonderful thing, but that we are also fallen and our sin deeply and adversely affects everything we are and do. You are free to disagree with my presupposition, but honesty requires me to share it.

Thus, for me the bottom line is that the suffering in the world is ultimately not a matter of what economic or political system is in place at a given moment, but the result of our own sinful natures. We can point our fingers at either the "oppressive power structures" (the left) or at the "lazy poor" (the right), but where I need to focus is on my own heart, and how I can be a part of God's redemptive purpose for all of His creation.

Now see what you've done, Dan John, and all I was planning to do today was five get-ups! :)

Jim
 
I worked with many more rich people than me. I was never jealous or aggressive to them. Why? It is simple. They also have a problems. PROBLEMS but in different kind. And many times they were not as happy as me for example.

I will said it straight: everything begins in mind and everything ends in mind. Russell said it perfectly "blaming others vs responsibility".

I have contact with many people with "poor" minds. They always blame others - 'this guy got this money from grandparents, that got won in a lotterry". Cool story, but what that kind of stupid talk, change? I ask, what? If they don't have money, i guarantee that it is their fault. They are waiting for something from heaven. They should move assess to learn some new skill, increase a quality of their job, get some new qualification or just read a good book in interesting topic. I worked in some company, and i see many examples that people want more money for almost nothing, without any effort. That doesn't work in this way.

Any of us don't live in many of dangerous and poor countries. But if you can type, write and read stuff on internet, you have anything you need to get more wealth, it is simple fact.

And i don't live in Hawaii drinking some expensive drinks. I am living in Poland, and trust me, here is tough life, not easy! :)

Maybe i missed context of the topic, but this is my 50 cent opinion.
 
Taking responsibility for yourself is of course most important. Still, there are people who do just that and still are poore in the material sense. For some, more money doesn't make them feel richer. It's a matter of priorities.
 
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