Author Topic: Money and Confidence are Interchangeable  (Read 31585 times)

Classical_Liberal

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Re: Money and Confidence are Interchangeable
« Reply #50 on: April 15, 2018, 02:56:10 PM »
The early 20 something may all the confidence in the world using their parents as a safety net, but they'll probably:
1- Not have much real world work experience and skills,
2- Not appreciate the difficulty/value in getting more money,
3- Not have capital to fund opportunities.

As a result, they'll have ton of confidence but they'll probably end up just traveling in hostels and fucking around. At least that's what seems to happen!

The thing is “confidence” doesn’t necessarily have universal definition.

I was always bold, but lacked a lot of genuine confidence. I’m only more confident now that I have experience and certainty about my abilities. My confidence actually comes from knowing my limits, not from my boldness about my abilities.

The difference between not knowing what you don't know and knowing what you don't know.  A young person often knows so little, they don't even know enough to understand that they don't know much. :)  OTOH a young person has time on their side.  Plenty of time for failures and learning from them, while an older, and perhaps, wiser person realizes there are only so many chances left.

I'm thinking of Apple Computer and HP here.  These big companies started in garages by folks who had a bit of time and expendable resources to do this.  With people working long hour weeks, I'll bet the inclination to innovate and tinker has been beat out of them by Gigacorp.  I just kind of wonder if the present times with Wall Street squeezing all they can out of Joe Employee if we are suffering from an innovation deficit>

Very interesting thought process. I wonder how we could test this hypothesis.






tooqk4u22

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Re: Money and Confidence are Interchangeable
« Reply #51 on: April 16, 2018, 08:27:42 AM »
@Malkynn & @pecunia

I've never bought the whole "attraction" thing because it seems like magical thinking to me, but I still agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying here.  I prefer to look at it as serendipity.  People with low confidence levels have likely not experienced much of it in their lives. The thing with serendipity is that it's more than just luck.  It's luck combined with a persons ability to see the gift-horse and take actions when it's within reach.

Folks who are mentally/physically exhausted tend to be unable to either see or act on the great opportunities when they come within reach.  Some also have personalities or even neuroses which inhibit their ability to see the serendipity in their lives.  I believe this whole "attraction" thing is just taking it to a new level.  Essentially you are actively training your serendipity-seeking muscles; hence are actively searching for these opportunities and are able to quickly and effectively respond when they appear. 

This becomes a habituated positive feedback loop.  The worlds not doing anything different for you, rather, you are looking and acting differently in the same world.

“Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity"

tooqk4u22

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Re: Money and Confidence are Interchangeable
« Reply #52 on: April 16, 2018, 08:42:11 AM »
The early 20 something may all the confidence in the world using their parents as a safety net, but they'll probably:
1- Not have much real world work experience and skills,
2- Not appreciate the difficulty/value in getting more money,
3- Not have capital to fund opportunities.

As a result, they'll have ton of confidence but they'll probably end up just traveling in hostels and fucking around. At least that's what seems to happen!

The thing is “confidence” doesn’t necessarily have universal definition.

I consider what a lot of inexperienced young people have to be “boldness” not necessarily confidence.
To me, confidence is earned through experience and is defined as the assured knowledge of capability.
That’s in contrast to untested boldness, arrogance, ignorance, or disregard of risk.

I was always bold, but lacked a lot of genuine confidence. I’m only more confident now that I have experience and certainty about my abilities. My confidence actually comes from knowing my limits, not from my boldness about my abilities.

This is my personal definition of confidence based on my experience and from realizing that many people who present themselves as “confident” through boldness are often deeply deeply insecure. To me, true confidence tends to make people calmer and more humble. Confident people are the kind of people who make me feel comfortable and safe, not intimidated or overshadowed.

I agree, the 20 something typically doesn't have real confidence which is gained through experience but has a false confidence otherwise known as naivety and/or a big case of having nothing to lose.   Don't get me wrong, these are very powerful as the completely alter the risk spectrum and permit the so called jumping off the ledge.  Actually, I think these can be more powerful because once a person gains true confidence then they may have lower risk tolerance, loss aversion as previously mentioned comes more into play, and so called knowing too much (ie smart people can talk themselves out of anything).   

a532942

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Re: Money and Confidence are Interchangeable
« Reply #53 on: April 16, 2018, 09:38:56 AM »
Quote
I agree, the 20 something typically doesn't have real confidence which is gained through experience but has a false confidence otherwise known as naivety and/or a big case of having nothing to lose.   Don't get me wrong, these are very powerful as the completely alter the risk spectrum and permit the so called jumping off the ledge.  Actually, I think these can be more powerful because once a person gains true confidence then they may have lower risk tolerance, loss aversion as previously mentioned comes more into play, and so called knowing too much (ie smart people can talk themselves out of anything).   

I am a 20 something that lacks confidence. And money (around 1.5 years of expenses) has given me some confidence. I jumped into the first position I got out of college. I could have waited a bit and maybe gotten something better, but I could not bear with the idea of rejecting a job (not really, but a funded PhD) for a possibility of another option. I don't really hate the job I have know, but I do dislike the place (the town is too small and I struggle with my social life). Now I am stuck here for two years more (because I need to finish my PhD). I think the money can give me some time to find a place that is good for me, and not jump at the first offer that comes.
Money is not the only thing that gives confidence; there is a term called identity capital which is all the intangible assets you have. MMM has a lot of those, which he probably does no realize other people have. He is young, fit, no health issues, extroverted (? he has a lot of friends that help him with his projects), he is a citizen of a country that provides social services (if he lose all his money and the healthcare costs skyrocket, he can go back to Canada), he was very skilled at his previous job (he mentioned several times that he got job offers after he retired).
Not everybody has that, and I don't want to be complainypants, but confidence alone will not give you a good outcome. What I did get from his article was that if you have a bit of money and all the identity capital he had before he FIRE'd he could have quit earlier. I think someone without any of those things, just confidence, would be misguided in retiring. But if you have a bit of a safety net, tons of ability, and are stuck at a job you hate, you should quit.

BookLoverL

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Re: Money and Confidence are Interchangeable
« Reply #54 on: April 16, 2018, 10:00:02 AM »
I think the main problem with this article was that MMM overestimates how easy it might be for people to just decide that they have confidence. Now, if they are genuinely a person who already has a wide range of skills at a competence level and more than one skill at mastery level, including competence in social skills, then, yes, it will be easy for them to be confident, because they actually do have the skills to excel in a bunch of different jobs and opportunities, to find those jobs and opportunities, and to convince people that they are the right person to pay the money to.

If somebody doesn't have the real skills to provide the foundation to their confidence, then either their confidence is actually hubris, or their confidence will vanish as soon as it comes to the time to actually do anything. I suspect this is where a lot of cases of people who say "Oh, I'd really love to do X!" but never seem to actually do it come from. Basically, they do genuinely want to do the thing, but they're not really actively looking at the opportunities because they're secretly not confident they're actually capable of doing the thing. For these people, the solution is not simply to tell them to "work on your confidence", but rather to get them to identify the actual skills they'd need to achieve their dream. Then they need to study those skills in their downtime, until they do have the skills, and they will then find the confidence has appeared. In conclusion, it's true to say that some level of money can be exchanged for some level of confidence, but it has to be true confidence, not false bravado.

The reason I say that social skills should be included in the skillset in order to achieve true confidence is that pretty much every money-making arrangement in modern society, other than inheritance and chance lottery wins, needs you to have some level of social skills. If you want a traditional job with an employer, you need to pass the interview and convince them to hire you instead of the 1000 other applicants. And if you want to break out of that and be self-employed or become an entrepreneur, well, now you are in charge of finding your own clients. So you definitely need social skills, because otherwise you're not going to have any clients, because you either won't meet anybody that you can even try to persuade to buy your service or product, or when you do meet people, you will accidentally put them off by being a jerk, or sounding unsure about your own service or product, or failing to bring up that you have a product and just rambling about something, or one of the many other social failures that can be committed by the socially inept. If you have mastery of some skills that people actually want to buy, then, and you want to have the option to do occasional consulting for money after you've retired, then if you don't already have social skills, you need to start working on them TODAY.

If somebody has the social skills but doesn't really have any other skills, I think that's when you get people like con-men and other smooth-talkers who somehow seem to get money without really providing much, and it comes across as unethical.

If somebody hasn't really got decent skills in anything AND has poor social skills, as is common with a lot of people fresh out of school or uni if they weren't in the popular crowd, didn't pick their subjects wisely or apply themselves properly, and didn't have any family members encouraging them to learn something actually useful as a hobby, then they should not only immediately start learning social skills, but also identify something they enjoy and have the potential to be good at that people will actually pay for (it's no good to be a master of watching Netflix unless you're planning on being a film critic), and start learning that too. Otherwise they will end up competing with everyone and their mother for unskilled minimum wage work, and possibly even failing at getting that. Often they know this and will therefore have quite a few gaping holes in their confidence.

TL;DR: If you have poor confidence, there's no point just trying to brainwash yourself into having confidence. First, look at whether you actually have skills, and if not, work on improving those instead, especially social skills,  and once you start improving, confidence should follow. If you have a lot of useful skills, including social skills, and still have poor confidence, that's when directly trying to improve confidence might become useful.

tooqk4u22

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Re: Money and Confidence are Interchangeable
« Reply #55 on: April 17, 2018, 07:12:18 AM »

Money is not the only thing that gives confidence; there is a term called identity capital which is all the intangible assets you have. MMM has a lot of those, which he probably does no realize other people have. He is young, fit, no health issues, extroverted (? he has a lot of friends that help him with his projects), he is a citizen of a country that provides social services (if he lose all his money and the healthcare costs skyrocket, he can go back to Canada), he was very skilled at his previous job (he mentioned several times that he got job offers after he retired).
Not everybody has that, and I don't want to be complainypants, but confidence alone will not give you a good outcome. What I did get from his article was that if you have a bit of money and all the identity capital he had before he FIRE'd he could have quit earlier. I think someone without any of those things, just confidence, would be misguided in retiring. But if you have a bit of a safety net, tons of ability, and are stuck at a job you hate, you should quit.

I agree that he may have those intangibles and not everyone does, but I think the part you may be setting aside is that the "identity capital" that you talk about is not unlike investing in stocks - people aren't born with it, at least not entirely, and it requires investing in education and networking, being curios and willing to try new things and meet new people, and affording the time necessary to gain enough experience and connectivity to fully develop that identity capital. 

The biggest issue with the blog post is that he is writing from the position of starting on third base (or having just hit a homer) instead of being up at bat where he first started.   Its a complete "hindsight is 20/20" post....which is fine but I am sure there are plenty of examples of people who had the "confidence" to take the next step and then life/murphy's law/bad timing/a bus came and knocked the crap out of them. So to me its a BS post, even if it is true.

gerardc

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Re: Money and Confidence are Interchangeable
« Reply #56 on: April 17, 2018, 08:33:55 PM »
The biggest issue with the blog post is that he is writing from the position of starting on third base (or having just hit a homer) instead of being up at bat where he first started.   Its a complete "hindsight is 20/20" post....which is fine but I am sure there are plenty of examples of people who had the "confidence" to take the next step and then life/murphy's law/bad timing/a bus came and knocked the crap out of them. So to me its a BS post, even if it is true.

Look at the graph again. The situations you describe are at the far lower right, in which case his model rightfully prescribes more money and less confidence. Again, this is not the target audience of the "increase confidence" advice.

The article is titled "Money and Confidence are Interchangeable", not "You don't need money, just get confidence". There is a sweet spot.

I agree that the feeling of increasing confidence, closing your eyes and hoping for the best does happen towards the end, at the time you're fully ready to quit, i.e. when you're already on third base. Why can't he give advice to people on 3rd base? and why are you complaining that the advice is different for people on 1st?

pecunia

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Re: Money and Confidence are Interchangeable
« Reply #57 on: April 20, 2018, 10:52:50 AM »
yeh - The social skills are almost always the most important.  I've worked with some technicians who were quite bright.  However, they could not explain what they were doing to people who asked.  They had plenty of confidence.

These types are best at niche jobs repairing / installing equipment at remote installations with limited social interaction.

This is where they wound up.  There are other things beyond confidence to help you find success in this world.