How can we get rich?

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I don't know about you guys - we're all different I guess. But I've just about had it with people. The rejection, betrayal and abandonment I've suffered all my life and especially the past few years has not just broken my heart, but nearly crushed it.

I don't trust anyone anymore. I have no faith in people. Why make a new friend when a friend of more than 10 years can betray and abandon you? Why look for love when love seems to depend on hormones, and evaporates w/in the space of 3 years? Why trust ANYONE when your own brother can hate you, screw you over and abandon you?

The only thing I know of that is reliable is money. I know, even that can be lost, or inflated away, etc., but if you have enough of it, and diversify it among various asset classes and currencies, I guess you can feel very safe and secure.

So I need to get rich. I actually concluded this at a very early age.

But then comes the Catch-22 - generally, to get rich, you need to be good with people - you need to be able to lead them or at least sell them on yourself and your idea.

I know of only one guy who had Asperger's and got rich: Michael Burry - who taught himself how to successfully pick stocks, figured out that the housing bubble was about to crash and created a way to short (bet against) the housing bubble (you can search him - there are some threads about him here).

But there is one big difference between him and me - he apparently had tons of energy, so much so that he was mistakenly diagnosed as bi-polar, but knew he wasn't bi-polar because he never gets depressed. Wow - I'm the opposite - I never feel manic. I've suffered from depression my whole life and have very little energy. He apparently had a ton of energy, which he could use to teach himself, analyze financial statements and figure stuff out in his spare time *while also doing an medical internship at Stanford*!

So what can I do? What can any of us do?

One thing I can do is come up with ideas for businesses - either products or service businesses. This doesn't require much energy. I love to read (but I read slowly) and think and dream... and ideas just come to me. I'd like to think that at least some of them are valuable and could become huge businesses that could bring value and/or happiness to millions of people.

I've come up with many ideas already and wrote them down. But they just end up buried in piles of papers, because I don't know what to do with them. I guess I need a partner, someone who is extroverted, a born salesman, leader, entrepreneur - someone to actually take my idea and run with it. But how would I find such a person? And how would I know I can trust him?

The discouraging thing is I don't even think such "business concepts" are protect-able as intellectual property (patents, etc.). And even if they could be protected, and I found a partner to make something of my idea, I've read that such inventors almost always end up destitute and die in poverty, while the "born salesman" makes millions or billions.

Is there any justice in this world? Is it all just random, based on genes and luck?

Last edited by ThomasL on 20 Jul 2012, 5:29 am, edited 2 times in total.

Throughout history, fiat currencies have never survived too long after being separated from a metals based standard. So, I suggest having land that you can own outright and cultivate. That way, you can create a self-sustaining lifestyle where you can limit your contact with the outside world. The only problem is...where do you get the money for the initial investment? I have no real answer to that question as that seems to be a matter of knowledge that I lack.

@ outofplace - thanks for the reply.

I agree with you, and actually the investments that Michael Burry, Marc Faber and other really smart guys are recommending at the moment are gold and land - especially farmland.

Just be sure it is physical metal you hold and not paper certificates. I would also be wary of the miners as there has been a plague of nationalizations going on which have rendered many mining stocks worthless. Likewise, if you hold physical, be sure you can get access to it any time you wish and that you have allocated metal. I would hate to hear your metals got "rehypothecated" into JP Morgan's coffers in something like what happened with MF Global's account holders. I would also not purchase it in coins from the country you live in. It may be that the national bank of that nation decides to recall all of them at face value during a time of crisis. So, if you are in the US, get Krugerrands or Canadian Maples, etc. and NOT Eagles!

(Thread moved from Autism discussion to Random)

Answering that: there is no objective justice; the world is not random, but certainly the result of unintentional choices. Indeed, human success is based mostly on genes and luck, with a supporting role for culture and the process of socialisation. Again, the culture you're raised in as compared to the culture you're supposed to function in is a result of luck.

if things deteriorate to the point where the gov't and currency are out of the picture, it will be survival of the smartest and toughest, you will need to defend everything you have of any value. there will be armies of maurauding rowdies foraging your farmland, you will have to be teamed with somebody else to constantly watch your land and equipment. if you lacked the social genes your life would not be worth a plugged nickel at that point. if you lack key skillsets [the ability to fix things and improvise, the ability to be resourceful] you won't live long, either. life won't be worth living at that point, IMHO, the living would envy the dead.

I'm not a therapist, so I can't give a qualified opinion here.... But honestly I have experience with what you're describing about how people betray as soon as you finally trust them, and when it turns out that they aren't your real friends, etc. It's probably not something I can explain very well here, but it's all about who you happen to click with, and who you have trusted to be friends. Everyone has a certain energy about them, and certain other people are attracted to befriend people with a certain energy. You can keep finding new people as long as you live, and no matter how much it feels like the latest ones are going to be real this time, they're going to stick it to you somehow sooner or later. And that's not paranoia; it's reality. And that's because if you put out the same energy to draw new people who are seeking that same old energy, that's who you're going to get. It took me over 35 adult years to figure this out! I was attracting the same backstabbers and users that you're describing, and they came in all shapes and kinds. And they all had one thing in common, that is a dead giveaway that they're one of "those people". They all had something negative to tell me about somebody else in the past, and about other people in their lives now. "Joe at work told Jim that I'm an idiot, and he hates me too, but I need the job", or whatever. Then the next day, they tell me somebody else is doing something awful, and sooner or later, it would be ME about whom they're telling someone a negative thing. If this is what's going on with the people you're winding up stuck with, you can change your energy by feeling differently about yourself, and having confidence in your own actions, and trusting your own decisions by learning from mistakes, and by not letting everybody else tell you how to avoid mistakes. Again, I can't possibly explain it all here, but I hope some of this might help. Nobody can do it for you, but it is an absolute proven fact that you can do it for yourself. Real friends who are emotionally healthy, will NOT start up a conversation about some awful person they know. And they'll cut you off if you tell them about an awful person in your life.

Now, when I meet new people, I almost have a warning siren that will blow in my head, if I pick up on any of those old energies from the new person, and I'll keep my distance. All of a sudden, when you start NOT having those backstabbers all around you in your life, a whole new kind of friends will be there. Those will be the ones who wouldn't have anything to do with you when you had the backstabbers around. And that's because the new ones will already have that "siren" I'm talking about, and they stayed away from you because they sensed that you had those other backstabbers, and they knew to avoid.

I'm not full of sh*t on this, even if sounds like it.

Oh, and about the rich thing, do that later. Chances are it will be much easier once the backstabbing friends are gone... You can't allow yourself to have any good luck or success with the kind of people you have in your life now, as they'll get mad at you for it. That's all part of the same energy thing.

Charles

it is regrettable that you feel that way.



money makes the world go around. it is interesting to see that everyone promotes themselves as forward and friendly and accepting until dollars get in the way. dollars rule the innermost thoughts of most people who are struggling.

there are 2 universal languages which are inherent. they are music and money.

if someone can not speak your language and has no idea what is going on, they will still pay attention to you if you show them dollars (or whatever their currencies are), and if you point to things and show how much you want to pay, then communication is established despite the fact they can not understand a word you say.

if one had a genius talent to play music (the piano would be best because of the simultaneous multiple chordal structures that can be played) they could go anywhere in the world with their piano and "wow" listeners.


that is too simplistic and does not compute.
well i do not control people anymore because i do not have the IT job i used to, and now i have customers rather than youngsters assigned to learn from me.
you seem to be talking about fulfilling a managerial position, and i think if you work for yourself, then you can control exactly the conduct of your business.
for example, i balance productivity with driver morale in my business, and if i get a new shop, i will only accept it if it is within a small radius from the drivers run path, and i will not accept any new shops that would exceed what i think my drivers would be happy to service.
happy drivers are much more valuable than a few scattered shops who's business i could have secured at the expense of my drivers morale.
whatever. i guess it really depends on your objectivity.




the best thing you can do (if you were me) would be to look at buying and selling things at a healthy positive margin. choose your domain and gather your market and then provide your goods in a steady and reliable way.

i have a frozen chip (fries) delivery business, but i had to buy it. i guess that is the drawback for you.

if you can wrangle deals from suppliers and then approach your potential markets to see if they will accept those deals, and if they do,, you may be able to build a quasi business that would come to life once a bank looks at the feasibility survey and approves a loan to get the process underway.


"whatever" to the rest.....

I wish I could help, but I can't.

i sure wish i could comprehend how rich and successful people are rich and successful, but it is akin to a cat trying to understand that mysterious thing called a doorknob.

Bill Gates has aspergers, or so I've read.

It's so hard to make money, and when you make it, you have to be able to save it and budget wisely.
Being rich doesn't simply mean coming into a huge sum of money, it's about how to deal with your money to make more money.

I like the saying that goes something like: Money doesn't buy happiness, but I'd much rather cry in a mansion, haha.

I think in aspie cases, it probably could buy a percentage of happiness, since some special interests cost a lot of money.
Money also relieves the stress of financial troubles, which provides comfort, which for some people provides happiness.

Me comfy = happy

Gosh, I would love to be rich. I would then not have to rely on anyone.

Some are rich & successful because they are born into, they lucked out, they have something special about them like the way they look or the way they sing, have some kind of charm or some kind of talent, had a great idea, figured out what education & employment field was very successful that they could do well, or they met someone who put them on a reality TV show or some combination of all this

thank you for expressing that in a nutshell for me unfortunately i seem to lack any of those gifts of circumstance and constitution. but i can dream dreams still.

but that is not an answer to the question "how does one get rich" (which implies making the money rather than inheriting it).
i can only assume that you mean "they were lucky" i agree that luck is an element that may prevent success, but i do not agree that luck is an element in in achieving success. i will talk about that at the end of the post.

that sounds like you are bitter and jealous.

well then they deserve to be rewarded
i think you have a streak of bitterness in you that is hostile toward the notion of success but i am often incorrect.

anyway, i think that "luck" can certainly destroy the prospects for prosperity.
when i used to work full time in an office, i used to go to a tavern inn for dinner, and i became friends with a smart old man (who was rather coarse in his manner (irrelevant)) who told me a story about 2 brothers he used to know who suffered seriously bad luck (but in my opinion it was mismanagement).

they invested everything they had into a frozen prawn (shrimp?) import business, and they only had a modest amount to invest, so they did their homework and sourced a cheap supply and also found buyers in australia that were eager to purchase them.
their mistake was to skimp in the transport costs by assigning their shipment of prawns to a 2nd rate taiwanese ship who's engine broke down, and their shipment went off in the noon day sun in a taiwanese dock.

they lost so much money that they had to go back to 9-5 jobs for about 10 years before they saved enough money to invest in a new idea they had.

their new idea was that they would buy a barge and use it as a waste disposal vehicle.
there are many houses being built on islands or in areas where land access is impossible, and they planned to take the waste products to a depository using their craft.

they secured a contract to remove the rubble of a demolished house (to make way for a new dwelling) from a peninsula that was not accessible by road.

they had a little bobcat type of thing that they used to load their barge with the rubble.

on their first barge load, they struck disaster because they loaded so much rubble on board the barge that the hull of the barge became stuck in the sea bed, and they did not perceive it until the tide came in and the barge failed to float. they were not able to rescue the situation in time, and water spilled into the barge and rendered it sunk.
they had to pay a lot of money for the cleanup process i was told.

they did have a third venture but i forget what it was and the old man who told me what i just told you is dead, so i can not ask him.

unfortunately i feel the same way about not wanting to trust anyone since my own family except my mother has abandoned me and i have been rejected and ignored my whole life. i wish i could give you advice about how we can get rich but i wouldn't know the first thing about that. i have tried to start my own business and it's not getting anywhere.