Pavel featured a post a while back called, "Greatness, an Obsession", by Dr. Judd Biasiotto, who detailed the utter obsessiveness needed to really create greatness.
From the blog:
"He noted that the story of two-time Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie was about great triumph over adversity, but it was also an account of how loneliness, depression, and isolation (even from her children) was the price she paid for her greatness. "
Further:
"This is not going to be pretty. If there is a common thread that tends to run through world class athletes and elite individuals, especially the “stars of stars”…the greatest of the great, it is extreme obsession with their field of endeavor. In fact, obsession just might be the most critical variable required to achieve greatness. Even the most gifted individuals who achieve greatness, guys like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Eddie Coan, and Bill Gates, tend to exhibit passionate career behavior that hinges on total fixation."
Dan John wrote in post #3, that "success leaves clues". 20% controls 85% of the wealth in this country. The top 1% controls about a third of the pie, this is stable over generations. So let's consider some of the clues to success along this obsessive path to greatness in the financial field:
1. Being born into money is the first, best option. This will ensure the best private schools, the best higher education, and guaranteed "employment". If this is not possible, then you may have to grind your way to the top. In which case:
2. Work insane hours, and utterly neglect your family.
3. Be ruthlessly ambitious, and coldly calculating as you climb the career ladder. If you are a woman, don't get pregnant.
4. If you are really motivated, play the American housing market as a casino, fraudulently writing loans and then betting against them as credit default swaps. This may have global ramifications, and cause incredible heartbreak as "those people" struggle with the economy. You, on the other hand, should be OK, and run no risk of prosecution. Plus the US govt. will handle any muss and fuss with your financial problems. They're good like that. Don't worry, you will also most certainly still get a large bonus. You are an executive after all!
5. Leverage companies and use them as your personal ATM machine, before dumping them like a bad habit.
6. Keep company and personal funds tucked away in offshore accounts to avoid the greedy government that is probably just going to bail out lazy poor folk, and I don't know, build roads and stuff. Try not to dwell on the irony that your company just got a total bailout. That was different! Details!
7. Whenever possible, export manufacturing to poverty ridden countries where pesky labor laws, and living wage requirements don't come into play. This may hit some working folk in various towns across the country very hard. Tough. Guess they didn't want it badly enough. They are not winners like you are!
8. Whenever possible hire undocumented workers.
9. If this is not possible due to PR concerns and such, then simply contract out to private service companies, who can then hire their own "independent contractors", who may or may not be illegal, and most certainly won't be paid a wage with benefits. Indirect cheap labor, and plausible deniability! Win, win! Most importantly, keep BARRIERS between you and liability.
10. If either of these steps can't be avoided, then make sure to hire part time employees, rather than full time employees wherever possible. This will save you loads of $ on health benefits, and social security contributions, etc. That money can better be spent on your children's exclusive private schools, and more reading time!
11. Bribe, er.."lobby" elected government officials to take a "business friendly" approach.
12. Circumvent environmental restrictions wherever possible. This is just more of that liberal, p@#$y stuff that shouldn't get in the way of you building up your pot of gold. Besides, you'll be long gone if there really is some vague chance that 99% of the world's scientists are right. Stupid eggheads.
13. Purchase your own media companies. This is tricky to do, but using successful clue #11, you should be OK to start churning out your own message. Make sure and use religious and social issues to divide and conquer those salt of the Earth simpletons. Anything to do with homosexuality or race is ideal. For example, decry the use of illegal immigrants for labor, while using tips #7 and #8 to conceal how you derive benefits from said labor. When people start raising these issues, divert them with fear of "the other". Works like a charm.
14. Make sure to complain about the liberal higher education systems, (while making sure your kids get the best education possible). These irritating liberal colleges have an annoying way of raising thorny questions in impressionable young minds.
I'll stop there, b/c I realize that it doesn't matter what I say. I'm sure that everyone has their mind made up, and if you don't like the way this sounds, somebody will put it more to your liking. It's the beauty of the internet. There is truth for everybody.
One thing I'm almost certain: The top wealthy people are not the ones banging out theological and philosophical debates about wealth and character on strength training sites.