I firmly believe there is no correlation between intelligence and wealth (I said success earlier). There are plenty of people who aren't that bright who are wealthy. There are plenty of intelligent people who are not well off financially. In some ways intelligence can help you to get a higher paying median income, but other than that I would say it is NOT the most important factor, not even close.


There are OTHER factors that make you wealthy. I would not put intelligence even close to the top of that list.

You want to call it idiotic? Fine. Think what you want. Its my opinion, I've always felt that way, and I've read plenty of articles and studies that have reinforced my opinion.

BTW, I know what correlate means. I think you should really research what you are disagreeing with me about. I haven't read extensively on the subject, because I really don't care about it much to go look it up. I know it, I don't have to go look it up. Its trivially obvious.

I know people who are borderline brilliant who couldnt' care less about money, and I know people who are stone cold morons who are obsessed with it, and they will stop at nothing to get more of it. If anything, the smarter people are more worried about the things that are important in life. The idiots are the ones chasing money.

yeah this is not true. (and it's not even close)

Trust me, you don't. Your entire post demonstrates it. It also tells me that trying explain to you exactly what you're wrong about is too painful for me to want to attempt it. Perhaps a more patient poster than I can take up that cause.

Correlation is a statistical term with a precise mathematical definition. Most of the studies that you have posted trying to support your point state that there is a positive correlation between wealth and intelligence. Whether it's the most important factor is not really relevant to your claim that intelligence and wealth aren't correlated.

Edit: this is directed at wil if that wasn't obvious

Good, pull the "walk away" move. Always works wonders. Seeya.

Maybe you should read the articles again.

And, I do have to admit maybe I shouldn't have said "no correlation", but maybe "not a strong correlation". Its definately not the defining factor of financial success, that much is sure.


I should have been more careful in how I worded it.

You have 153 posts in this forum, and it only took you 32 threads to do it. You are averaging almost 5 posts per thread you participate in.

I'm sure you could be more careful in how you word things. Probably more economical in your postings too.

Since KingGordy's short post seemed to turn you mostly in the right direction, I guess you weren't as hopeless as I thought.

Take the "maybes" out of your above post and you've got it right. "Not a strong correlation" is, at least, a defensible position. "No correlation" is absurd.

I'm at work. I'm bored, jeeze, cut me a break.

Definitely agree with this and don't agree with cheapskates seldom getting very rich.

Really depends on the type of business we're talking about. People who make a fortune in something speculative and cutting-edge like technology or the arts may tend not to be tightwads, but people who do really well in more traditional fields like retail may owe a lot to their ruthless thriftiness.

Fooled by Randomness ftw

Luck is one of those things that isn't so much a "trait". Obv any sample of people who're successful will have been more "lucky" than people who hadn't. I'm sure everyone who was successful at gambling ran atleast average initially, avoiding the dreaded runbad and pushing them into another career. But virtually everyone can analyze their experience in this sort of hindsight/narrative fallacy way.

Like the idea that Warren Buffett isn't lucky is asinine. But how much of his success is luck? If we replay this universe repeatedly, what is his median expectation? Low nine figure? High nine figure? You get this issue of trying to determine what is luck and what isn't. Are all the have nots... unlucky? Perhaps some, but doubtful.

I dunno. This is just rambling, but I don't think attributing predictive success to luck is useful in any way.

I like Henry's view of working as a form of process-oriented self actualization, while I don't agree with this continual gain for higher stds of living. Its a refreshing view from the absurdly miserly view that predominates discussions where people chime in on how absurd it would be that people can't live off a million dollars or wonder how people can spend over 100k a year or what not.

For non-luckboxes my #1 would be:

Actively trying to create wealth for themselves

Motivated. You have to want to be rich to become rich more often than not. Either because you desire all the fancy things, scoreboarding, ego etc.

There are many different ways to be motivated.

I know a few-self made, "rich" people in the 3 million+ range that started with literally nothing and they all have 2 things in common 1) timing/right-place-right-time and they acted with great aggression once a unique opportunity presented itself and 2) they are extremely resourceful - somehow, magically gaining access to people that can help them achieve their goals.

These people are not necessarily honest, trust-worthy, loyal, hard working or nice people. In fact they are pretty much the opposite. They are manipulative liars for the most part but highly intelligent yet they are very short term thinkers. I think they would of made more money if they weren't so shallow in their thinking but they have this gypsy type attitude to people and situations that allows them to let go of experiences and people quickly but at the same time makes it impossible for them to stay committed to anything for very long.

The other thing they have in common is they are weak-willed in the women department. They both would go bonkers if they were to lose their significant others yet aren't opposed to cheating but will often attribute much of their success to the women in their lives, even though it's not remotely true and I don't think they really believe it.

Another trait they share is an inability to show remorse and a lack of empathy; but they are smart enough to understand they are supposed to have these things so they will pretend like they do when they think they are supposed to (sometimes anyway).

It's really, really weird but I know at least 3 people like this and they all share these same qualities. Since they are wizards at exploiting people and circumstances, their first instinct is to prevaricate. They would all rather lie to someone than tell them the truth but hardly anyone that knows them knows they are basically pathological liars. These people lie about stupid, meaningless **** because it either keeps them in practice or it is part of their protocol, or something. They seem to have everyone around them fooled like a master politician and are all in complete self-denial even though their closest friends know the truth and would all pretty much agree on this summation. It is truly fascinating to watch.

That list, at least from my experience, is a joke.

Your acquaintances are apparently psychopaths. Not sure if you realize that. Not joking.

I'm actually really fascinated by this and would like to know more details, maybe by PM if you don't want to post more here.

Either way I really don't think they are typical examples of rich people, but then again that kind of brings us back to why this thread is silly. There are not all that many useful generalizations you can make about rich people or how they got rich.

Anyone who doesn't think luck is the #1 factor for success should Google "The Ovarian Theory." For whatever positive personal trait that you have: work ethic, competitiveness, desire to be the best, etc, imagine if you were born in Africa (or any third world country where you aren't allowed to do anything that change the status quo) and see how far those positive traits get you. That's not to say you didn't earn whatever success you have achieved. You did. You outwork others. You out-smart them. You were at the place at the right time and you capitalize your chance. No one is denying what you did. But to not acknowledge that luck plays the biggest role in any human life is laughable. Here's a decent article: http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2009/02/...arian-lottery/

As for financial freedom, I think it is within the mind. I don't have millions in the bank but I do feel I have reached financial freedom. I can do whatever I want to do. I'm happy with my life. I love what I do. I don't feel as if I don't reach X amount, I'll be sad. A few years ago, I definitely would have a different answer.

Of course, when it comes to the subject about money, you can't say that money isn't important if you don't have any. It's like saying banging hot girls isn't that fun if you haven't bang any 10s. So one day, I'll have millions in the bank. I know I will. And the only reason I'm doing it is for the scorecard and shut off anyone who likes to brag about their wealth. Also, I live a very frugal lifestyle with the occasional splurges so I don't need much else.

I think the thread title should be "What are the top 5 most common traits of people who have a lot of money in the bank?" That's way different than "financial freedom."

Link 1: not on point.

Link 2:
Link 3:
a few things:
- obviously relationship b/w intelligence and success depends highly upon how you define success.
- if you define success as 'income' (i.e. the ability to earn more money as your intelligence increases), then clearly intelligence has a large positive impact on success.
- if you define success as 'wealth' (i.e. the ability to increase your net worth as your intelligence increases), then the waters are murkier...it helps to a point but the most intelligent people may have some issues converting income into wealth (they may make poor spending/lending etc. decisions).
- i don't see any further SEM type analyses apart from the Link 3 moderator note where they investigated the model relating intelligence to age and success (finding that when the relationship b/w intelligence and success is moderated by age, there is a statistically significantly different result). further investigation here is clearly needed.

this discussion clearly can go on as i doubt there are studies that:
a) define success in a clearcut/firm/unassailable manner, and
b) show a definitive statistical relationship between intelligence and success with similarly unassailable modeling procedures used and the best data used as well.

that said, it should be very clear (and there are gagillions of studies to show this, i'd wager) that intelligence is quite positively related to lifetime earnings and current income. this relationship i'd further wager persists even when controlling for non-intelligence related factors that have been shown to statistically be related to increased income (i.e. isolating intelligence).

Barron

Serious answer:

They all got lucky at one point or another. This is the trait that most people who have financial freedom achieved. I browsed the thread quickly and saw at least one poser (2 above me) that understands! Very happy to see that.

Survivorship Bias

Fooled By Randomness is a great book for anyone who hasn't read it.

If you had a sample of 10,000 people who were 22 years old who played Russian Roulette once a year every year for 15 million dollars you would have a handful of people that survived to be 70 and extremely wealthy. LUCK I TELL YOU! LUCK! hahaha I'm just bitter.

To say that Apple/Google etc etc survive until now is talent or skill is just plain wrong. What happens if the idea of the iPod doesn't catch on? What is Apple then? I remember a time growing up when NOBODY knew what a Macintosh computer was. Everyone thought it was an apple that you ate!

Yes. Its not very cut and dried, especially due to the fact that we didn't define "success" and there is a difference between income and wealth.

I understand your point, I really do. I almost agree with it, but a nagging part is bothering me. Let me ask you a question...

I work with a bunch of people who all pretty much got into a startup type situation. It worked out really well and wound up making a large chunk of millionaires.

Which part is luck? The fact that the job wound up paying a LOT more than similiar positions in other companies? If not, what about the people who were offered the positions first, but turned the job down due to being happy in their current jobs? Was that luck, that some people were willing to take a risk and jump into a startup-type situation and it turned out being great for them? If so, are the people who turned it down unlucky?

Is the #1 factor *really* luck? I'm lucky I'm born in the US, but wouldn't I be lucky if I was a billionaire in Russia? Aren't you just unlucky if you are born in an economically depressed place with no opportunities?

If you get a large group of people (300 million us residents) we know that an opportunity is going to arise for someone to be, say, CEO of Goldman Sachs. Of those 300 million people, we know that it is not a random draw, I'm not going to be the CEO of Goldman, neither are 99.9999 percent of the rest of the country.

Of, say, maybe the 2,000 people or less in the country qualified to be CEO of Goldman Sachs, is Larry Blankfein the lucky one? They all had an equal shot, but Larry got it? Of the 10 people. Of the 5. Between Larry and lets say, Tom. They were the two guys qualified. Was Larry the lucky one, and Tom was unlucky?

See what I'm getting at? I'm having a lot of trouble with expressing what I'm trying to say here, that's why I'm having this very long drawn out example. I hope it makes sense. Very interesting.

People who believe luck is a significant factor are just trying to rationalize their own lack of success by attributing success to a force that is not under their agency.

With respect to winning the natural lottery and being either born in the western world or even just being born to privilege that is a straw man argument. Being born to privilege just means that we measure success relative to your starting point rather than in an absolute sense. With respect to being born in Africa we just change the definition of success where we substitute local alternatives such as access to fresh food, a car, a bigger mud hut whatever.

The claim that the IPod catching on was a matter of luck is funny. The reason the IPod caught on is because it was the best product. It was the best product because of appealing design and a new great interface. Those were all deliberate decisions and have nothing to do with luck.

The problem with the luck reasoning is that people always point to well if event X didn't happen so-and-so would never have become whatever as X was the defining moment that set everything in motion. What they fail to realize is that in the vast majority of cases if X had not happened Y would have happened and had the same role. Success is based on your choices -- the truly successful people I know if stripped of everything would be able to restart from nothing and establish themselves in a matter of years.

Let me guess, you are a Republican?

Luck is useless as a predictive tool to determine what behaviors/traits will bring about success.