A terrible weekend. This will be more of a rant post after forced interactions with regular people (partially self-inflicted for fun on Twitter). Spending time trying to volunteer was undeniably one of the worst decisions (0% ROI). The good news is a lot of conclusions were made in a short period of time including one startling one at the end. They involve thoughts on talent, how to make an impact, older vs. younger generations and funny enough, the size of our audience at this point. We knew we would spend a few days interacting with regular people and even took the time to troll people on twitter regarding some of these topics. No worries, we’re going to insulate ourselves again now that the few days have come to an end.
Talent: We’ve finally settled our own debate on hard work versus talent and concluded that talent wins. This of course refers to the area that matters: the elite. At the lower level or at the middle tier, hard work can beat talent because the difference isn’t that large. This is typically true in items that are complex such as basketball, football, soccer etc. Since the event requires more than just speed/strength, many areas can improve with hard work. This is in stark contrast to a single event. Since it is specialized, talent will take over at a younger age. In short, the 10,000 hour rule to become a master at something is simply false. Give a regular guy 10,000 hours and he won’t even make it to the top 10%.
We can scale this up to making money as well. Talent wins yet again. Businesses reward talent more than sports do (contrary to popular belief – look at serial entrepreneurs). A business with a competitive advantage or near monopoly can have a single person generating billions of dollars while doing literally nothing as his competition is eaten alive (see google search dominance, employees simply make sure the monopoly grows). While this seems depressing at first for any regular person who accidentally stumbles on this blog, the good news is that most people don’t even work hard. So you can still get ahead on pure grit alone, our estimate came in at around $150K. If someone worked 60 hours a week, that would be around $50/hour. A reasonable number as a single trade could earn this wage without a high IQ or specialized talent as of 2018.
How to Make an Impact: As you can see by the title, we think volunteering doesn’t make a difference. Instead it is better to try and make a micro-economic impact. The only way you can create an impact on a macro scale is if you’re ultra-rich (probably around the $100M marker). If you’re a well-off guy with under $10M or so, you should choose the people you help. Your time is limited and investing all of that time (R&D and SG&A costs) into someone with limited talents is not going to do the world any favors. Forcing Elon Musk to teach a class of kindergartners how to code is just not going to help society.
Instead, cast a net around the second or third sales funnel. Let the people with $100M+ in the bank try to throw out the massive net. You? You’ll deal with the people who survived the first 2-3 success hurdles. Trying to figure out where the person has talent is essentially a full time job. If you work in sales and realize that 2-3 people have a talent for this skill, then go ahead and help them. This will make you feel good when they succeed and you’re not trying to fix a completely run home. Think about it like a real estate project. If you’re relatively well off, taking in a few projects that need basic repairs is doable. Levering up and buying a broken down apartment complex with Section 8 housing… probably not a good idea. Be smart about how you’re going to make an impact.
Be Wary of the Generational Gap: A common thread between the old and the young. Older people believe the younger generation is privileged and lazy. No worries. The people who are 60 today, were in their 20’s during the 1980s/1970s and the same thing was said about them when they were in their 20s. Just take it as part of the game. Instead of trying to convince people who are older than you to turn things around in any way, put your effort into people who have the highest percentage chance of turning their lives around (people in their teens/20s/30s).
Similarly, younger people believe that older people are behind the times and are closed minded. This is exactly how a 20 year old thought back in the 70s and 80s as well (feel free to look into the free spirit/hippie movement, essentially the same thing as the EDM culture today). Since older people will unlikely ask you for help, all you need to do is find a source of rapport with a younger person that relates to the current culture. This isn’t difficult and you’re not going to bother with someone 20+ years younger anyway.
While the prior two paragraphs will seem obvious when we think about them, the conclusions are quite profound. First, we can see why generations tend to lose wealth over time. It is because the older generation passes on dated information on how to succeed in life. This type of information causes the younger generation to fail. The most obvious example would be education. Could you imagine telling your child to go study and get a job in accounting? Or to spend his time learning how to drive a car? You’d essentially waste a large portion of his time. Learning a skill that will be obsolete. Since we know that opinions become more engrained as we age, not only do they pass on this bad info… They force them to act on it! Unbelievable. It doesn’t end there. The people that pass on this information are likely unsuccessful as well since the average child is not being born into money/success.
The second item is just as interesting: don’t bother schmoozing with older guys. Instead of trying to fit in with an older generation you’re better off creating a product that forces people to reach out to you. This causes the social dynamic to change a lot. Smart older guys are always looking to stay on top of new technology and the way the world changes. So instead of trying to sell them on any sort of idea you’re better off creating something and having them come to you. Then you don’t have to sell them on anything. Why? Well the only time someone older than you will approach you is if they believe you already have something that will help them! Try and think of the last time you saw an older guy approach a younger guy for advice (it practically never happens) and when it does the sale is essentially done.
The third item is to skip new unknown topics. Since you’re trying to help the ~5% of people that have a shot at significant success, don’t bother with unknown topics. We do that here with our Q&As as a natural feature. But. It should be applied to life as well. Nothing is worse than advice from a 40-50 year old unsuccessful guy. Not only is the guy unsuccessful but he actually thinks his advice is worth something. Since younger people have a higher chance of being impressionable, they may mistake age for success… Not related.
Putting the Concepts Into Action: With the three main items out of the way: talent, micro and generational gaps, we can find a clean sweet spot to help if you’re feeling generous. It’s around 5-10 years. Going further than this makes it incredibly difficult to help since there is too much change to account for. The first step is to avoid helping people find a talent. If they can’t figure out where they have talent then you shouldn’t bother with them at all. If their talent is in a field where you’re extremely successful… you can proceed.
This alone has put you into a smile and nod position for about 95% of people. Instead of telling people what to do you simply smile and nod and say all of your success was pure luck. This makes it a lot easier. If you’re forced to, go ahead and tell them you inherited a million dollars from a dead relative. Anything to avoid further conversation on success with someone who has no talent. You’re not doing anything wrong. In fact, you are saving yourself time and they wouldn’t have a shot in the first place (saving them time as well).
Impossible to Misunderstand Implications: While the prior paragraphs are clear to us we’re going to utilize bullet points to drive home the rest of them. Despite the items making sense for successful people they will unlikely make sense unsuccessful people who accidentally read this article. So let’s begin:
- Talent is something where your potential could reach up to the 1% level and is not limited to physical speed, IQ tests or strength. It includes all of those items in a basket of goods. If someone is “pretty fast, pretty strong and incredibly accurate” they might make a good three point shooter for basketball. If this same person tried to compete in the Decathalon or 400 meter dash, he would be destroyed. Both of those events require extreme speed and extreme strength and does not reward accuracy. People who believe this is false can go teach Shaquille O’Neal to shoot three pointers, we’ll be waiting on the results (dexterity is without a doubt a talent that can only be learned to an extent – not rewarded in our society since the masses think it’s a learnable skill at the 1% level… Laughable).
- Talent is much worse for making money. We used sports since average IQ people will be able to understand the prior paragraph (low IQs, probably not). Talent in making money is largely around synthesis, numbers and sales. None of these can be “learned” to the top 1% level. If communication skills were possible at the 1% level, anyone could become a famous comedian. Instead the person has to figure out what level he comes in at for each of those items and figure out where they overlap.
- Talent for making money is by far the most annoying as well. Some people never get it and can’t make money online after 12 months of effort while others are profitable within a few months. Unsurprisingly the people who figure it out within a few months end up being successful. Instead of giving up entirely, if the task is failing, we’d look at *where* the task is failing. Perhaps the person simply can’t sell to the target audience (say women age 25-50). If the person fails at selling to all age groups, genders and ethnicities despite a wide array of products… we’re guessing there is a significant lack of talent.
- Hard work is still needed, it just depends on the result you’re getting. If it takes you thirty minutes to accomplish what someone else can accomplish in 1 hour… that’s solid but not great. It essentially means you’re twice as good as the average guy (which isn’t very good). If you get to a point where someone works all day long (8 hours) and you achieve more in 30 minutes…you’re absolutely talented. It means they can’t catch up to you even if they dedicated their life to that task. Hard work is only useful if it is applied to what you are talented at (Specialization). Otherwise the hard work is going to waste, digging a ditch with a spoon while everyone else works with John Deere equipment.
- Hard work should be effortless. This isn’t a contradiction. If you’re talented at something, it shouldn’t require a lot of effort to get the result. This is why we say talented people make things look “effortless”. Why? Because it is effortless… for them. Once you figure out the items that are effortless for you, you’ve found the item to work hard on. If you’re getting good results with little effort, the sky is the limit on the results you’ll get with significant effort. Don’t worry. When you get up the chain, there will be other people with the same level of talent working just as hard. You’ll find the competition to be fun
- Considering this blog has been around for around 6 years we have no doubt that all of our consistent readers understand these concepts. If you want to have some fun, try to describe these concepts to your peers and you’ll quickly realize how many average people there are in the world.
Encourage Hard Work and Know the Truth: People love stories about the underdog who overcomes all odds (unsurprisingly, we dislike these feel good movies as we think they encourage irrational behavior). They’ll read this article and find 1/1,000,000,000 who somehow succeeds despite their apparent lack of talent. That is great. They can spend their time betting on the 1/1 billion while you’ll spend your time betting on the guys with a 2.99/3 chance of success (Hello Mayweather McGregor!). The best way to do this is to encourage hard work. By doing this you’re telling everyone they have a chance (giving them hope) while saving yourself time (to look for talented people to help). It is not fun telling people they have no shot (it’s depressing actually if you decided to tell them the truth). So your best course of action is to tell them to work hard. It sounds a lot better and at least it gives them a shot at making $150K+ a year. Just remember… don’t invest your actual time in them. The return profile isn’t good and you’re not helping society advance. (Note: if any of your acquaintances always root for the “underdog” they are typically average people. This is because they associate with the underdog more “He’s kinda like me!” Psychological.)
If you find yourself in a situation where you’re forced to give advice to a large audience, we would go ahead and encourage you to lie. Bold face lie and promote hard work. Your downside is limited since it sounds good and your upside is positive since it simply tells people to try hard. From a micro level, you shouldn’t do this. Look for people with the correct skills and invest time here. In fact, this is exactly what companies do. They cast a relatively wide net with a basic filter for talent then hire the best talent they can get. In the public eye, they simply claim that they hire hard workers (the lie).
Impact on Your Life: This is really interesting. You’re essentially forced to live two lives. You’re forced to lie to regular people with the work hard myth and push talented people onto the right path.
Now… We’re going to tie two unrelated items together after a weekend of dealing with regular people. What we have learned is that communication with elite people does *not* improve your communication level with regular people. We just stated you’ll be communicating differently out of the gate depending on how talented the person is.
This was a big lightbulb moment. While we always wondered why there were rich people who had their lives run by their wives. And. We always wondered why some guys could be good with women and fail at sales… it all clicked. It is because they are different communication waves. To think this one through, take anyone you know who is good at being popular with regular people. Now ask yourself if he is able to generate a high income (typically not!). Similarly, find a guy who is good at making cash, but fails when it comes to dating. Now we see a trend… communication with regular people improves communication with women but does not improve communication skills with elite people.
This makes a lot of sense. If you’re meeting random women at a bar, restaurant, club, gym etc, it is much more likely that they are of normal intelligence. Similarly, if you generate a high income you’re generally forced to interact with high IQ and cunning individuals. This type of communication is just not the same at all.
Now this leads to an even bigger conclusion on the ideal way to sell – to the masses. Think about it like this. If you have a product that sells well to the masses, you’re improving your communication skills with regular people at the same time. This is a perfect cocktail. Your work causes your social skills to improve which also causes you to make more money! For once we settled a big debate: which market is better the high end or the masses? Our definitive answer is now the masses. In an ideal situation you run a business that sells to the masses since you can combine these skills with your regular social life. Eye opening conclusion for us and explains a lot about how the world operates. If your money making business targets the rich (that’s great!) just remember that the skills you learn there unlikely translate to communication with regular people. This explains why regular people view elite people as condescending as well.
This last section was a big leap but really helped us understand why the world view can be so different for talented people. It’s because the language doesn’t translate. If you decide to volunteer once (for fun), you’ll find that your communication dumbs down to bar/club level language. This is because it’s the easiest form of messaging. Similarly, that rich guy who has his life run by his wife… never learned the communication game. What happened exactly? He ended up finding a girl that dealt with his odd behaviors and he’s unwilling to lose her since it was so difficult to find a single girl in the first place! If it sounds far-fetched we’ll be on the look-out for guys in the same situation that are actually smooth in social environments outside of work (we went through our list and couldn’t find a single one).
Hopefully a lot of these points have stirred up some real life examples in your mind. If so, we think it is safe to say you should avoid the pain of dealing with regular people in the first place. Instead it is a lot easier to make an impact by making sure talent does not go to waste. Wasted talent is a tragedy, wasted time on helping un-talented people is also a tragedy and keep both of those thoughts in your mind (no need to say them out-loud… the regulars will yell at you since they want hope or an excuse for their current life position). With that said, we’ll go back to more positive posts and money related activities. We thought it was important to share all of this since we think we’ve finally solved the riddle (rich guys with overbearing wives) after watching regular day to day communication take place.
Hard work beats talent, but when talent works hard…
Only beats mediocre talent, top tier talent destroys hard working regulars. Could probably beat them while high on shrooms to be honest
Comment made me lol as it reminds me of 2nd year university when the (top) talent beats hard work ideology came to fruition.
In my 2nd year business class we had the notoriously dreaded finance exam which people were preparing weeks for… to put a long story short, I was had no sleep for about 60 hours leading up to the exam while under the influence of narcotics and alcohol and scored 60%. The class average was 57%.
Literally while being high on narcotics and being sleep deprived I (talent) have better judgments in an cognitively challenging evaluation than the average student (hard working regulars).
Jesus
“Avoid country-club talking” writes Victor O Schwab in How To Write A Good Advertisement, a book recommended to me by this very blog. I also believe I read somewhere in the past on this blogg about KIS – Keep It Stupid.
Taking into account language complications as I’m not a native English speaker, I find volunteering/charity events rewarding as I am forced to dumb down to Joe Blow level, interacting with the masses, hence picking up material for copywriting headlines to the very same people.
But we may be talking about different methods of volunteering.
I agree with your volunteering comment. I don’t go volunteering to make a difference, I go volunteering to meet regular people and learn how to relate to them. Being exposed to regular people from time to time helps you become the multidimensional person as well as giving you constant perspective on how good you have it.
The first selling point for me on this idea was the data point of dexterity.
This is the difference between guys who are able to play video games and get “headshots” at blisteringly high rates, that seems like they are “hacking”, and the average JoeShmo who is playing leisurely. I’ve seen this first hand playing a video game against exceptional competition, it’s just not the same.
Secondly mentioning your point regarding high IQ speak, this is very true. I’ve noticed this, I call it SD talk, (standard deviation talk), as people within 1 SD of each other can understand each other, and speak very well to each other.
I’ve noticed that each SD level has it’s usual implications layered within communicates. 145IQ+ (my range) have conceptual implications that must be understood at a certain high level of functional practicality to even enter.
115-130, is the same, to a lesser degree, as it’s more accessible with more of a lack of understanding, like people who don’t understand math but can do the math “don’t know how to do it, just can do it.”
Example of this is Mathematics actually – Exceptionally high IQ guys are able to utilize their mathematical comfort to have very extensive conversations within layers of implication within Math.
Guys who have lower IQ, are able to listen on in (115-130), but are unable to provide the value, and the depth, they will be listening and be “maxxed out”.
Of course 100~ IQ people will think the 145er’s are talking nuts or just label them “geniuses” and check out completely.
A good abstract relationship would be a mid level basketball player “semi-pro” will be able to notice the subtle nuance of a 1%er basketball player, a highschooler will not be able to notice any nuance, but a 1%er is the only one that can provide viable competition to the 1%er.
The part about different communication wavelengths explains a lot about my predicament!
I’m really effective at swaying massive audiences but it takes immense preparation for me to persuade someone who is high IQ (execs and managers of companies I sell to). I always assumed that if I’m good at public speaking then surely I should be good at sales.
This is such a bummer because I invested so much in getting into sales, I’m not sure where to go from here. I’ll try and build something on the side based on my public speaking skill while improving sales skills. Thank you for this info.
You guys sold me within aspect of dexterity. Extrapolated that to everything and I realized the full extent of the point you’ve made.
I had to relate this to my personal experience, but I realize as I open up to your view point that I’ve been very lucky in my life in dealing with people who possess high cognitive talents, therefore they are able to learn and develop at a high rate.
My idealism really had me sold on the aspect that anyone who truly puts effort into attempting to understand the underlying mechanics of what they are developing has an opportunity to get into development.
But.
Development of dexterity is bar none far to difficult to go from 0 “talent” to 1%. Great evidence of this lays within video games. If you’ve ever played any video game at a high level (5-0.01% range) you’ll see a significant difference each percentage point you go up. I grew up around high IQ kids who had this talent as well as myself, and once you get up there.. well it’s just different. Incredibly difficult to go further per day of effort put in to improve.
I got sold on that as some people are just not able to produce that type of dexterity at all, so I can’t disagree, therefore I have to agree.
Secondly on basis of IQ relationship communication waves, I agree while heartedly. I’ve found that each SD range of IQ has its competence within ability to comprehensively communicate in any domain.
145+ is a league of it’s own it seems. This is where me and my family reside. It is impossible to communicate to the fullest extent of me and my family’s expression without making people give us confused faces, but we are able to communicate fine.
I think it lays within an concept of implications on level of SD. 100-110 has 0 ability to comprehend what a 110-130 is able to say to full extent. 115-130 has a tough time understanding what a 130-145 is saying. 145 is barely understandable due to multitude of implications you need to get in. Too many threads of information, it’s like a high school er trying to be competitive with a 0.05% level basketball player. Or a average league of legends player trying to compete with a 0.05% league of legends player.
Though higher IQ can develop ability to communicate with lower, as evident by my family, the inverse is impossible. It’s like trying to teach a retard what a function is in precalucus. It’s not a mean thing, it’s just a case in point.
Which is why I subscribe to the aspect that society has degraded due to having buffers to system of removing trash from the gene pool, by them dying at birth or as they come to maturation.
I now realize the irony of that position with the embracing of a idealistic view in regards to hard work in relation to development of skill.
I can relate to this, I used to play Starcraft competitively on the ladder growing up and while I did decent, my performance never got to professional or elite level. In regards to dexterity I’m sure you’re well familiar with APM (Actions Per Minute). In the Starcraft community, the apex talent (highest APM/dexterity rates) were stereotypically the South Korean players due to the sheer prominence of elite professional players coming from there in tournaments, etc. And everyone knew APM was just something you either had, or didn’t have (to be top 1%) – and it would only marginally get better if you weren’t elite.
I switched to playing World of Warcraft PvP Arena ladder competitively instead (where I spent most of my time during my high school years) and found myself with naturally higher aptitude from the get-go, however it is a differently domain entirely since I essentially switched over from a strategy game to an MMORPG. Funny enough, WoW was technically the first time I ever made money online, a decent sum of it too (and semi-passive) – gold botting.
I guess this “talent” carried over when I started Affiliate Marketing since I did well from the start almost effortlessly – capitalizing on exploits, gray-area loopholes, cloaking/proxies, etc.
I was always fond of breaking the rules, having no concerns for scruples, and doing whatever it takes to WIN.
On another tangent, I wonder how common it is for individuals on the SD range of 130-145+ IQ to have or be on the high-end of the [High-Functioning] Autistic spectrum. It seems to be a recurring pattern in my personal experience with very-high IQ individuals, including myself and my family. All my cousins from my father’s side (my dad was on the spectrum) have high-functioning Autism and they’re all computer engineers. My brother is majoring in Comp Sci and he’s more autistic than me. I’m the only one not in a Quant field – instead I’m a serial entrepreneur in Online Sales/AM with an intelligence in Synthesis/Intent.
Absolutely, you 100% understand where I’m coming from. I played something much more strategically/tactically complicated in relation to Starcraft, so the skill was dex/apm + raw processing ability, due to the nature of the complexity. It is a very challenging game, due to these complications.
The nationality that dominates this game is actually scattered all over the world, with the top players being from America, Russia, Germany, and Korea, but APM contributes entirely to this talent pool, as well as the IQ portion, as raw APM could be countered by highly creative moves.
I never broke out into the elite category of this game, but I did break into the semi-professional fields of play, for brief moments, only to be defeated by the APM aspect. To pull off the highly creative plays, you needed a large developable talent, and as you know, APM is something you either have or don’t have, and I definitely don’t posses this talent in any considerable margin. The reiteration of me not possessing this talent is found once again in my guitar playing.
I have played guitar for a many number of years, edging my way into developing the ability to compose highly melodic and technically creative pieces, pulling on my raw IQ/creative relationship, but ultimately completely unable to develop into higher dexterity composition (look up Greg Howe + Guthrie Govan to understand they possess both highly creative talent cross matched with dexterity that is extremely high level).
(Reason why I know I’m talented within guitar is due to people coming up to me and complimenting my guitar playing satisfying the “stranger saying you’re very good” parameter WSPB pointed out)
Frustrated, I would work tirelessly to develop, which showed marginal development, but ultimately, I’m still unable to pull off the amazing feats that these men + professionals in the game were able to pull off. Really frustrating, but talent is 100% correct, and these memories were pulled and analyzed once I realized the full extent of what WSPB sold me on. Talent 110% matters. I was sold on the idea of hard work, because throughout my life, I’ve had little difficulty developing many things, but dexterity is just one of those things I don’t possess. It’s funny because I’ve raced cars, and I have high levels of talent there, which is something I’ve always thought was a dexterous type of talent, which lead me to believe I could pull that string, but they are unrelated.
The reason I thought that was because I’d drift a fully stock BMW 2009 M3, on a full scale drift track, and be able to drift it just as well as a fully decked out drift car, with everyone doing the regular guy assumption, “He’s lucky” type of shit. I drifted that car to troll the shit out of the “regular” dudes, without actually realizing what I was doing, trolling untalented people with my talents.
(Reason why I knew I was talented with driving/drifting/racing cars is the parameter checked off for that talent with people thinking I was using some sort of car technology/vehicle trick to pull off maneuvers + people complimenting me at various drift events. I’d built the skill from 2 months of practice).
Massive irony here. Massive Irony. Like I said, due to the nature of me having many talents I always thought that anything I applied myself to I’d be good at, but that APM thing is a true sticking point.
To answer your question from my experience, having a number of friends who ranged from 130 IQ (haven’t met anyone who has a IQ similar to mine besides my father and mother, I think Jordan Peterson has a IQ similar to my parents and I, he talks and has a countenance similar to us), the social ineptitude, which is probably what I assume you’re communicating with the autism point is quite common.
When I was young, I had 0 relatability to anyone around me. I was a class clown, and made friends by proxy of my joking and disruption of class, as I got older (moved into public school), I lost all my friends, and effectively became a social outcast. I couldn’t even relate to my family besides my father and mother, who strategically didn’t relate to me much due to implications on parenting.
My only saving grace within Sales/Synthesis intelligence was constant observation and repulling on my humor ability, which only developed in my very late adolescent (20-24), where I had a lot of opportunities to observe, which help me understand the animalistic nature of human kind in regards to social bonding + development of relations.
The interesting thing is my mother has all 3 solidly – (She fully understands intent + synthesis + numerics to a very very very high level), and my father who is a very odd man, has a very very very high level developed intent + artistic.
My father is social outcast fully (hates regulars), and my mother is reputable with regulars, but of course, does this in act + character to maintain benefit of reputability.
Ironic part is, they are both idealistic, and love people, but hate being around regulars, which is where I get my idealistic but ruthless nature from.
To substantiate my synthesis talent, I am able to predict how relationships fall apart and when they fall apart, as well as who will work together and who will not work together well to a very high level of accuracy. Extrapolating this to a more functional use, I am ability to accurately assess a person’s skill set and level of competence, and put them into a position where they will flourish as well as in relation to their demeanor and personality composition to put them in a political position where they will be happy.
The intent portion is my ability to accurately assess people’s motives.
Key point is my ability with women was always decently good, as although I was a social outcast when I was young I always had a uncharacteristic to my nature, ability to pull women, and understand their “intent” to utilize for advancing relations and getting them to strip naked for me, fall in love, blah blah blah. The usual inklings of a natural salesman.
As I read more books, it’s just evident. (Able to get a woman to invest a ton into me without displaying any status/value, only on the merits of the emotional investment game/chess game).
I still chose to *not* socialize with regulars though, due to the nature of it just being dreadfully boring and awful. Talking about reality shows and shit. Fuck that.
*Edit*: Proof for intent, as any guy who has the natural salesmanship/intent skill… I’ve had my fair share of STD scares, from dealing with those women that only mess with the “players” and have that “nice guy boyfriend” who they cry back to when the player fucks them and leaves them.
Always use a condom with them. You never know, those girls will take the strangest dick because the game is sweet.
We are so similar it is uncanny. So far I’ve met all my closest friends and future winners only on forum-boards in my metropolitan area pertaining to shared common interests and niche Type-A interests ie. Bodybuilding/Entrepreneurial Online Sales/Affiliate Marketing (only ones I associate with to this day; no time for losers and regulars).
Same situation as you, I was decent in the APM category but never broke into the elite category (a talent you have or you don’t). However like you, I was also flabbergasted by the dexterity discrepancy. Because I excelled in WoW Arena ladder and performed much better – I had very quick reaction times on the keyboard, and could out-wit opposing players on merit of Intent (predicting his next move and scheming the proper contingency move or plan to counter) – so I attributed this talent to Dexterity. There were also creative problem-solving maneuvers you could utilize to your advantage over your opponents, so you can see the connection how it wasn’t solely based on APM talent, but more versatile vs traditional strategy games like Starcraft in comparison.
I actually tried guitar briefly in high-school but I was horrible, dropped it quickly. And again funnily enough, I also share a talent with you in sport cars. It’s one of my oldest hobbies and I was always into cars since a toddler, the passion never went away. I currently drive an 05 C55 AMG and have an above-average talent in street racing however I have not tried drifting yet (haven’t driven on a track yet) – but I’ve taken friends as passengers to go for spirited drives in the canyons – and they’re all impressed at my ability to maneuver the car around corners at high speeds. As a dark triad I call these antisocial hobbies, and being stoic in a Zen-like state under such intense-stimulus comes natural to me (in fact, I love it, it truly makes me feel alive in the moment). So I can understand your perspective on the irony of the dexterity talent.
Yeah for the longest time in my childhood up to late-adolescence, I thought I was an introvert. But as I got older and finally met friends who weren’t normie regulars, but also talented dark triads and future winners like me, I realized I just didn’t like talking to regulars, at all – in fact it’s physically draining and soul-crushing to hear them talk about complete bullshit, pisses me off. It’s like a different language communicating with lower-consciousness subspecies (mean but true). I could talk to my current eccentric friends belligerently (camaderie-style) for hours-end and never stop. In fact, we intimidate all the regulars around us if we having a conversation at a restaurant bahaha. But yeah, I used to go out for a year every weekend doing blow and drinking hard gaming chicks, and there were times where I’d just be leaning in the back of a patio of a club/bar and observing people (and reading body language in a very analytic manner) like I was Dr. Manhattan and thinking, look at all these monkeys socializing with each other, as if I was from a different planet.
Your mother having all 3 makes sense, women always have a greater need to conform and seek the social approval of the tribe due to evolutionary reasons and is downright crucial for survival. But they are naturally tuned to the Machiavellian social and political game of maintaining a positive reputation (they guard it with their life) and wearing several facades to meet their ends – being the physically weaker sex afterall. But I know a few outlier women like your mother (funny enough one is an Ashkenazi Jew), and they’re the only ones where I can have a male-type relationship and discuss the abstract with no sexual attraction whatsoever, they’re simply more in control of their emotions/stoic vs the average woman – IQ/intelligence is the sole equalizer.
I feel the same way, I used to be idealistic trying to help the masses – but the older I get, the more I realized the truth – they can’t be helped and the moment you try to, they turn on you like bloodthirsty hyenas for exposing bitter red pills. Sad, such emotional simpleton savages. It’s this reason why I’ve banished all old regular friends from my life and gone complete ghost on them.
The rabbit hole can get pretty dark; Hemingway’s quote is the most astute on this topic: “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” As a result, I have learned to maintain a façade with a ruthless nature (wolf in sheep clothing) and now go by the following motto towards regulars: “Fuck you pay me”.
The funny thing about IQ is that, IIRC, in order to be at the top in any decent profession, like higher tier sales, engineering, math, law or medicine, you have to have IQ of AT LEAST 120. If you wanna be at the top, you’re looking at 125-130 minimum.
Doesn’t sound like much, it’s not that high after all. Then you pull out the IQ percentile table and realize that 90% of the population has IQ lower than 120. Yeah, you read that right, only person 1 in 10 has the cognitive capacity to not be a regular and just 2 persons in a hundred can actually accomplish something worthwhile.
Incredibly bitter pill, but that’s just the truth.
“Of course 100~ IQ people will think the 145er’s are talking nuts or just label them “geniuses” and check out completely.” Worse, half of the country (assuming a Western nation) has less than 100 IQ. Let *that* sink in.
Smile, nod, agree and encourage hard work.
““Of course 100~ IQ people will think the 145er’s are talking nuts or just label them “geniuses” and check out completely.” Worse, half of the country (assuming a Western nation) has less than 100 IQ. Let *that* sink in.”
This is 200% true. My family has developed a method to communicate, as stated previously, via building characters, and detaching from the character.
Like an actor develops a facade for the movie, we do the same.
The funny part is, in school, didn’t know that, and people did look at me weird.
“Why do you talk like that?”
“What are you saying?” (When spoken clearly and articulate, with fluent usage of words)
“Do you even know what that word means?”
“Why do you do that?”
“Why are you so interested in that?”
“Do you spend forever looking at random stuff?”
“Too much movies.”
Mix and match different words, and iterate, and this is exactly how the “normie” regular dude/female will understand the 130+.
130+ are able to speak highly technical, which is where a lot of the jargon communication barrier approaches.
145+ is not localized to jargon, but purely structure of articulation, and methodology of implication within the threads of conversation. It’s another level, like I said, the communication of “geniuses” has a barrier of entry localized to what is implied upon each thread.
“As a dark triad I call these antisocial hobbies, and being stoic in a Zen-like state under such intense-stimulus comes natural to me (in fact, I love it, it truly makes me feel alive in the moment). So I can understand your perspective on the irony of the dexterity talent.”
You’ve found this attributed to the DT? I’ve always wondered where this came from in myself.
My sentiment is inline with yours, absolutely love a high stakes thrill. Near death type of thing, is my thing.
“It’s like a different language communicating with lower-consciousness subspecies (mean but true).”
I agree, mean but true, 100%. But, as been said many times…
Very valuable to talk to regular folks, as they provide invaluable *FREE* market insights and data, and honestly, how hard would it be to sell to a bunch of intellectuals.
Every sales letter would have to be mutli-layered with value in many different avenues of proposition for the more shrewd and savvy people.
Now a days sadly I don’t talk to many intellectual types, as I immerse myself very much into cultural items to keep a solid tap into the trends and data of where culture is.
We’ve talked about that before within the idea of memes many times.
“Your mother having all 3 makes sense, women always have a greater need to conform and seek the social approval of the tribe due to evolutionary reasons and is downright crucial for survival.”
Yes, she was a full potentiality woman I’d say, as women I think have a much larger degree of being able to sell, and appeal to people and systems.
Have you ever noticed how fluidly a woman can decipher the inner mechanics of the rhetoric going on within a conversation? It’s quite uncanny, especially in a very sharp woman, they are truly masters of emotion and manipulation of words.
“The rabbit hole can get pretty dark; Hemingway’s quote is the most astute on this topic: “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” As a result, I have learned to maintain a façade with a ruthless nature (wolf in sheep clothing) and now go by the following motto towards regulars: “Fuck you pay me”.”
Agreed. Honestly, as I age I’m getting less and less idealistic.
Lot of my regular friends hit me up about stupid questions regarding how to make money, and questions like day trading I get often. The amount of lack of consideration for anything is just baffling. It annoys the living fuck out of me. I might have to explore that for a bit.
The only thing is, I understand the nature of reputation, and pleasantries, and how far they can go with the personal brand. I’ve been heeding a lot to the smile and nod philosophy the gents that run this forum have, it’s been good, but people still come to you for the stupidest shit. very annoying.
Paragraphs about communication hit home hard.
Always wondered why I couldn’t do both at the same time,
Wholeheartedly agree. Very interesting. I have noticed how my language becomes more simple when hanging around family/people at work/friends/too much social media rather than reading high level material. Having volunteered hundreds of hours as part of applying to medical school, I agree that it can “feel good” to help someone but what real impact can you make one person at a time without special resources or skill? Makes me think, what really is important? A doctor can help people and change lives in a special way, while having money can also help people on a larger scale. My aim is to do both. Still figuring out where my talent lies, so far has been in memorizing/taking exams (also sales/EQ).
Excellent post. Smart people will immediately recognize this to be true.
This explains the dichotomy between what successful people *say* made them successful, and what they actually did.
The masses still believe the fairy tales told to them about the “Law of Attraction” and “Hard work beats talent blah blah blah” means everyone is equal and can achieve *anything*.
They desperately cling to those beliefs, yet they never seem work for them. Why? Because they’re lies.
All purchases are based on making life easier for individuals/helping them become more successful.
Why tell the people you’re selling to that chances are they’ll never make it anyway due to genetics? Smart and/or successful people know this, and either unconsciously or intentionally ignore it when asked.
It’s true. I’ve been trying to make money online for 9 years. I never really made anything. I failed at sales too. I just bite the bullet and acknowledge I have Low IQ and try at least do something. Well I do, I’m a cleaner. Probably the least successful reader of your blog, but at least I see reality now. I’ll try stay positive and (work hard) Maybe I’ll clear over 40k a year lololol.
Finally a dumb person here. I’m also dumb (IQ 92) but somehow I got into Medical School. I guess I’m one of those hard working stupid people that can make 150k dollars a year.
Astute observation in regards to: “why regular people view elite people as condescending.”
Being a dark triad individual with already low levels of empathy (highly-competitive, highly-ambitious Type-A personality who only knew how to talk to other boring Type-A’s) – I was always oblivious in regards to my intense, unpleasant demeanor – to which I later found out I simply just did not understand how to talk to most people “Regulars” (always hated small talk too). Being frustrated, I ended up disliking “most people” as a result, which gave me an antisocial upbringing. Consequently this translated to being uncomfortable with Sales.
My saving grace was being dragged to my first ever rave/music festival by a friend (met from gym who’s also Type-A).
Did MDMA and the rest was history.
Ended up having a party phase of just going to raves, raging, and doing massive drug binges (from LSD to Cocaine). Funny enough this eventually taught me how to communicate with (and later sell to) – the Masses – thanks to the fun reference experiences I had of raging with ‘Regulars’ (and actually enjoying their company for once) in party environments while high on psychedelic drugs and empathogens. Seems like the only time I can tolerate regulars is when I’m drunk, fucked up on substances, or not sober lol.
But – from those reference experiences I applied it to my business with great success, like – relating (speaking similarly) to the target audience (in terms of branding/copywriting) or utilizing emotional angles like pop-culture references and memes in my ad creatives when launching campaigns. I never gave a shit about pop-culture, trends, or what’s popular now, but using it as tactics to get your audience relating or engaging with your Brand or product works too well it’s dumb for you NOT to use.
Nikola Tesla is a perfect example of what happens when you don’t understand the communication game and become a social outcast. No matter how talented or elite the guy was, he was overshadowed and had his work stolen by: Edison. Better to wear a mask and maintain a façade.
Everything really clicked once I understood regular people really are just like a herd of sheep completely swayed by their emotions, while the other group are complete opposite: stoics who see everything as a calculated chess move.
Soundsssss aboutttt rightttt hahaha
I think this is the best comment in WSP history.
This is the best comment since ages
I also find that when drunk more people like me and I like more people too. Maybe it’s because alcohol reduces the activity in our brain among other things, so we become more like them.
Hm, maybe most people are like rational people but constantly drunk.
“Being a dark triad individual with already low levels of empathy (highly-competitive, highly-ambitious Type-A personality who only knew how to talk to other boring Type-A’s) – I was always oblivious in regards to my intense, unpleasant demeanor – to which I later found out I simply just did not understand how to talk to most people “Regulars” (always hated small talk too). Being frustrated, I ended up disliking “most people” as a result, which gave me an antisocial upbringing. Consequently this translated to being uncomfortable with Sales.”
You and I would have got along very very very well when we were both younger.
Literal same exact way.
Though I haven’t had the drug induced binges, I have had alcohol induced binges. Really want to try out the other drugs though. Just looks like a great time, for invested money. Never did them because always thought it’s not worth my health investment, as I’ve seen dudes just go dumb.. but never realized, they were always dumb.
“Nikola Tesla is a perfect example of what happens when you don’t understand the communication game and become a social outcast. No matter how talented or elite the guy was, he was overshadowed and had his work stolen by: Edison. Better to wear a mask and maintain a façade.”
Exactly. He outsourced intent/synthesis within Westinghouse. Pure Numerics, with slightly developed intent/synthesis.
I have a question for you though, have you ever fully tried to develop numerics?
I was never interested in numbers, and always thought I didn’t have the talent, and then I took a few days and started trying out multiplication problems in my head, up to large numbers.
Potentially you might have it, you just might not have ever dabbled with it, like the drug induced epiphany to the intent/synthesis talent.
You might be surprised. Try cracking open a calculus book and having a crack at trying to understand and do everything.
My only fall back with large scale numbers is the meticulosity in regards to doing it, I am not a quant by any means, but I might have ability to be that way. Haven’t really ever dabbled heavily in math besides doing large scale simple operation math in my head.
I do enjoy math though, I have cracked open a few calculus books just for the fun of figuring it out.
You and I would get along very well indeed, you seem a lot older and mature than me however – I just recently hit my mid-20s. I’ll definitely keep you in mind as I get older. Still making it and in the process of completing my pyramid.
One drug you should try that would net a positive ROI would be without a doubt LSD. Perhaps shrooms (but LSD is better for productive, problem-solving purposes since you’re not in control on shrooms and feel too loopy). And definitely DMT before you die (end-game). Make sure you do it (LSD) at a house party with some very close friends for your first time – preferably one who tripped before and has prior experience. My first time was in the University Dorms next to the campus Arboretum (beautiful, scenic setting) with some regular Frat friends. Words can’t describe the experience except you feel like Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen, particularly true for high-IQ individuals (ie. Steve Jobs & iPhones vs 95 IQ moron on psychedelics found naked and crying hysterically at Coachella from a “bad trip”). Or maybe it’s my narcissism acting because I’ve never felt an “ego death” on acid, if anything the opposite – I felt like a Transcended God on a higher-consciousness plane walking among a sea of masses (think Kanye).
P.S. if you mix Cocaine and LSD, that’s called God-Flipping. Self-explanatory.
Jokes aside, it allows you to see the world objectively “outside-the-box” in a very unorthodox way (this is the problem-solving aspect made notorious from the Silicon Valley microdosing fad). Not only that, but experiencing life while tripping is akin to being a child again – everything feels novel and new, the perception of time is MUCH slower and the trip feels like it’ll never end. You can see how you can essentially hack time with your consciousness; you can be processing tons of thoughts and epiphanies not in real life; perception of time is completely warped like you’ve gamed the pagan deity Chronos himself. One thing to conclude is: it’s a high you don’t really come down from. I still get lucid LSD flashbacks from time-to-time when I’m dead sober, and I just can’t help but smile like an idiot, Serotonergic Psychedelics will do that.
You also develop a type of snake radar where you can subconsciously detect fake malicious people vs. genuine people; those who have transcended (people who have also tripped on psychedelics and you’re both on the same wavelength). The WSPBs post: “Using Art to Make Decisions With a 100% Success Rate” comes to mind here. It’s honestly like an US vs. THEM dynamic (those who tripped vs. those who haven’t) and you can see it in their eyes. It has helped my professional life more times than I can count. And I believe psychedelics might be in fact a cure for those quirky social outcasts (geniuses, autists, aspies, etc.) who have a problem with reading body language and deciphering emotional intelligence (understanding regulars and women).
Off-topic: I still microdose LSD irregularly on my off-days (out running game or doing hobbies) instead of drinking, or to augment and enhance my experiences while performing hobbies. Lately I’ve been microdosing a tab then going for a spirited drive in the canyons solo in my weekend car – recently picked up an C55 AMG and I’ve been a hedonist driving the shit out of that n/a V8 motor and the glorious exhaust sound.
Numerics – I have not. Throughout high school I was in AP English classes all 4 years and AP US History – and I aced them all with flying colors. However I was in Honors Chemistry and had to drop out to the regular class. I never got past Pre-Calculus either, so I was never interested in numerics either as I didn’t see my talent there. Or maybe I was just too interested in wrestling or playing video games at the time (high school) instead. I’ve also noticed that I can do decently well in almost any subject that I become genuinely focused or obsessed in anyway.
However now that I’m older, I have a renewed interest in chemistry only to synthesize my own drugs. Funny story – my lawyer recommended me to read PiHKAL after we discussed talking about psychedelics and amphetamines. Well turns out, it’s a fucking cookbook for every Tryptamine compound, including its psychoactive Phenethylamine chemical derivatives. Not particularly interested in breaking bad at my current stage of life though (growing my business is), but I may dive into someday as a side-hobby.
I can see the appeal though, pretty sure I’m high on the spectrum of high-functioning autism, and one of the perks I’ve noticed is an extremely Photographic (Eidetic) Memory. To put it another way, I have significantly much more RAM/memory in my brain than the average person (this explains my Synthesis-dominance intelligence talent). The autistic quirk of solving jigsaw puzzles and connecting the dots together on an intricate subject, topic, or problem.
Had a bunch of regular friends that I’d take in my nice car I had (09 M3), and I’d drift and race in the streets.
Got in trouble a lot, didn’t want to pay tickets anymore, so I reasoned that instead of doing shitty roi event, I’d leverage the cars performance to bring roi from a net negative in a large aspect to just usual wear and tear net negative while getting returns within dopamine hit and learning my friends behaviors.
Needless to say, if anyone wants to indulge in this wonderful activity, here are some tips:
1. A 09 M3 can hit 165mph very fast, and be very steady at speed.
2. It takes around 20 seconds to hit top speed, and outrun a 2008 Chevy Suburban.
3. Night time is the best time to outrun the cops
4. Never outrun the cops in rain. You’ll spin tire entire time getting to top speed.
5. You can talk yourself out of a bad spot, with some fake water works, and leverage everything you’ve got in terms of appearance. Cops will think you’re a drug dealer. You can turn a month in jail to a day in jail just by what you say when they get you.
6. Make sure you have good tires, and they are warm before you do a outrun. They should be warm from the activity you’ve done to gain attention from cops.
7. Outrunning cops will expose who is a regular wimp, and who is cool calm and collected in “intense” situations.
8. You can outrun and outsmart a helicopter
9. Outrunning cops makes a great story
10. Outrunning cops is very fun. But costly!
11. Make sure you have a car that blends into environment very well. A M3 fits the ticket. Can park on side of street and no one will know who you are, plus cops.
12. Cops are mostly very dumb. If in a crowded metropolitan area, you can leverage superior acceleration and turning ability within cross streets to outrun them.
13. No ticket is better than a ticket
14. Never outrun with a buddy in a buddy car.
*15*. Most importantly, make sure you have the skill to do so. Do lots of racing to train the skill!
This is targeted for any of those stoics out there looking for a fun thrill. Very very fun!!
Made me spit my water out. Jesus Christ.
Impatient Bastard you’ve changed man
Shit man. LSD sounds dope. I’ve been looking into doing drugs.
Thanks for the total prognosis on em.
What is DMT about? Why is that the end game one?
“I can see the appeal though, pretty sure I’m high on the spectrum of high-functioning autism, and one of the perks I’ve noticed is an extremely Photographic (Eidetic) Memory. To put it another way, I have significantly much more RAM/memory in my brain than the average person (this explains my Synthesis-dominance intelligence talent). The autistic quirk of solving jigsaw puzzles and connecting the dots together on an intricate subject, topic, or problem.”
I think this is the issue with all high IQ folks.
Yeah we’d get along good. Sometime we’ll have to link up and talk shit & biz.
Lol.
Now I see why twitter frequency went up last days.
Please make a recording next time.
But stay anon.
Fantastic comment SCHADENFREUDIAN (love the name). WSPs post here was a mouthful of truth and in many ways eye-opening, but the section on improving social skills via selling to the masses was a bit unclear.
i.e. how can writing excellent headlines for skincare products targeted at aging women make you a slayer at the bar/club? Now I see though! Pop-culture/trends/dumbed down conversations.
I think it was a very insightful post, maybe you should do these type of posts every now and then when you have new insights on how the world operates.
In my 20something when I first learned that most people rooted for Peggy (the underdog) in Mad Men I was watching at the time, I just couldn’t believe it, it was eye-opening.
Now I just gotta figure out how to only hire these top 1% of people lol. That’s the hardest part in a business.
Finally someone gets this right! I skipped class in college, a lot, but I understood the material. My GPA was average but my grasp of chemical engineering was very uncommon and while I was/am extremely lazy I blew past all my disciplined hard working competition and got the jobs I wanted, the promotions and the compensation. It felt a little unfair because I managed to work just over 40 hours a week my entire career surrounded by people working 60 hours, and they eventually were all working for me. I loved this post, it rings so true. I think people deny this because it feels wrong, unfair and unjust. But it is undeniable that talent wins where talent matters the most.
“But it is undeniable that talent wins where talent matters the most.” this is exactly what it is.
Always tell people to work hard though, gives hope + maximizes someone’s talent essentially.
My experience as an older reader (39).
Different audience, different communication skills set. It goes deeper, different perception.
Masses:
– What can I buy?
– Problems solve themselves (or someone else solves them like wellfare state/parents/..*insert*)
– What can you do for me?
– I will start tomorrow / now is not a good time
– Comfort is my friend
– No critical thinking, fact checking, loves story telling
– No understanding of risk, probabilities, stats, maths
– Settle for average partner
– Always comparing to others, never to self
– Afraid to fail
– Passive – have time
…
Not masses:
– What and how can I sell?
– Problems have to be solved, they do not solve themselves
– What can I do (to add value, for others, ultimately for yourself)?
– Comfort is not my friend
– Now is always the right time
– Focus on facts, structure, motives
– Understands probabilities, use to take and manage risk
– Understands psychology, can control own ego
– Knows how to learn and apply (empirical method, trial and failure)
– Never settle, only high quality partner that adds value
– Active – time is scarce
….
Would you speak to the above in the same language? No. You need different models for these groups, different languages. Different pitches.
To all IQ 145 guys, clearly the same holds for any 3 std deviation knowledge/ skill.
Maths, physics…sports (Roger Federer has a different view on footwork than Mr. Average Slice), business (average corporate dude vs successful business owner) etc. etc. etc… Difference is that Roger Feder and business owner make a lot more money than average tennis player/corporate dude. Not sure that is true about IQ 145 brigade.
Regarding mentoring, difficult. My own filter is the ‘execution’ filter. If the person has executed somewhere with success (sports, video games, whatever ..not school as that is a ‘passive’ artificial environment –> not reality), they will have the ability to use a mentor. Otherwise, waste of time.
“To all IQ 145 guys, clearly the same holds for any 3 std deviation knowledge/ skill.
Maths, physics…sports (Roger Federer has a different view on footwork than Mr. Average Slice), business (average corporate dude vs successful business owner) etc. etc. etc… Difference is that Roger Feder and business owner make a lot more money than average tennis player/corporate dude. Not sure that is true about IQ 145 brigade. ”
My father didn’t do much with his IQ.
He is extremely talented, but he didn’t have the *drive*, which is smart on you I’d comment in regards to your execution filter i.e. is an abstracted way to screen for drive.
He has many upon many skills, but chooses not to utilize them in regards to monetization. Is happy with very “bubble” life, and talking to family, because only people he can truly talk to and indulge in various communication pleasures of letting full brunt of IQ/verbal skill shine, and spark through the creative processes of what a average genius embarks upon in his/her daydreams.
He does make standard 6 figure income tho, in an undisclosed industry.
My mother is very high earner, and is highly driven, being successful in a number of different industries.
WSPS touches on this aspect and nature in regards to their comments with the concept of “lazy talented guy vs average & hard working talent vs average (complete paving)”.
Looks and political skills trump hard work AND talent. Yes, in sports, sales… talent matters. But lets be honest, most situations are just people filling space.
By the way, hate older men much?