Becoming a millionaire
Welcome back to the newsletter that makes you groan “Ugh, why didn’t I think of that?”.
I heard today’s exercise as a kid and was thrilled to come across it a few days ago. You’ll see why soon.
A man buys enormous quantities of rice for $1 a pound, sells it to the poor for 10 cents a pound, and becomes a millionaire.
What was his strategy?
An answer, as usual, at the end.
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Talent vs. Grit
When you’re great at something, people presume you’re talented at it.
When you’re lacking, they presume you’re just not working hard enough.
I find that insulting, but in fairness it’s easier for most to attribute someone else’s success to the genetic lottery (“talent”) rather than saying that person is just more diligent than them.
Talent means having a head start, which is obviously useful. It’s like wearing the perfect shoes when running - which some athletes do. In certain scenarios, they might make a huge difference.
But in order to get there, you still need to put in the work and get to the point where the difference between 1st and 2nd place is a measly 4%.
Give me the perfect shoes and I still won’t outrun an athlete.
Give an athlete shitty shoes and they’ll still smoke me.
That’s the core difference between talent and grit - or just plain hard work.
Talent will either help you when you’re starting off (because you’ll learn faster) or when you’re fighting for 1st place in a hyper competitive environment (because it’ll give you that extra 1-5% that you need).
Reality is you can become good enough at almost anything, regardless of your talent.
Answer: the man was a billionaire when he started off.
On the topic of talent vs. grit, it's recommended to encourage people (children and adults alike) when they succeed on a task or a project not for their talent, but for their hard work.
Emphasizing the talent required to successfully perform a certain task will demotivate them in the future, as they will feel their *own* contribution is next to nothing compared with the contribution of the genes they received. While emphasizing the labor they put to into the task will encourage them to better themselves.
Now, where did I read that? I hope it was not the corporate communist manifesto, because it sure sounds like Jeff Lenin.