Sandra Newman @sannewman

THE SEVEN SECRETS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE

  1. Private school
  2. Legacy lvy admission
  3. Nepotism hire
  4. Seed capital from family
  5. Club memberships
  6. Personal assistant, nanny, ghost writer answer
  7. Journalists who ask, “What’s your secret?” and uncritically publish the
  • Jo Miran@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    11 months ago

    I came from dirt poor and I’m wealthy now. In my opinion the key to success comes down to a few things.

    1. Education
    2. Need
    3. Luck

    Education: My mother made $15k per year and my private school tuition was $375/month. This also provided me with friends that were not dirt poor (this also helps a lot). My wife received the best education the Soviet Union had to offer, which is better than anything we could even imagine stateside.

    Need: Hunger is s great motivator. It also gives you this every present fear that if you take your foot off the gas, you’ll be hungry again.

    Luck: This one is obvious. Plenty of people are hungry and plenty of people have good educations and still struggle.

    I think my wife and I did well because we teamed up early. Had we tried solo I think we would have failed.

    • enki@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      You seem to have neglected the most important one: privilege.

      Millions of Americans are stuck in a cycle of generational poverty. Really difficult to manage even the first one when you’re grinding to just put food on the table daily, and that’s the reality for 46 million Americans right now.

      This ultra-priviliged, ignorant “you just gotta grind for it” attitude is literally what this meme is making fun of. Congrats on being the butt of the joke and doubling down on it.

      Somehow I highly doubt your mom spent 1/3 of her pre-tax income to send you to private school. And based on how much she paid for it, I assume you went to private school in the 80s. The median family wage these days can’t afford rent, much less $15-20,000 a year private schools, which by the way is what they cost this century. And if my assumption is correct about you growing up in the 80s, that $15,000 a year is the equivalent of nearly $59,000 a year today - higher than the median family wage, so not quite dirt poor.