I don't believe that success or failure is random. If that were the case then it would not make any difference what we do. Based upon random selection we are either successful or failures. I am familiar with this concept. It isn't new. The problem with the theory is that it is unproven. If you look at those who have achieved a high level of success in any field there are common threads, but randomness isn't one of them. There are some people who seem determined to fail. It is their actions or how they handle obstacles that determine whether they are successful or fail.

There are some proven paths to success. Just take this industry. One way to help insure your success is to save your money until you can pay cash or at least have a good down payment with a cash reserve. They get a job, take notes and learn. That will not insure your success but it will go a long way toward being successful. On the other side are those who want the illusion of being an owner operator, so they become involved a lease purchase with a carrier. They have little or no experience, credit or money. Those who seem to be successful owner operators put their desires aside to achieve their goal. They will start with a truck they can afford rather than one that they want. They look at this as a business first. Those who succeed keep costs down. Those who fail start with a truck they cannot afford, buy all the toys they cannot afford and are surprised when they lose everything.

This is true in any industry, not just trucking. There are some who have made it on a shoe string. Those are few and far between. Success comes from planning and following your plan. They learn from their failures. Those who fail and continue to fail don't bother to plan and operate by the seat of their pants. They are surprised when success eludes them.

Success or failure are neither random. It comes from planning and hard work or lack thereof. Those who fail do not learn from previous failures. Nor do they learn from mistakes. They continue making the same mistakes over and over again expecting a different outcome. Nearly every previous owner operator who has worked for me knew more than I did about running a trucking company, yet they are out of business and are likely still struggling. They blame me or anyone or anything for their failures but themselves and their actions. I have managed to stay in business for many decades. It hasn't always been easy. There have been many challenges along the way. Surviving in this environment has been one of the most challenging. What is the difference? Whatever the reason it isn't random.

 

Why don't you read the book before you comment on it? Are you frightened that some of your precious sanctimonious assumptions might challenged?

You sound just like I imagine some of the Wall Street traders that Taleb describes must sound. Assuming that their success is a result of their hard work and superior intelligence, when in fact they have merely been lucky enough to be trading in a time interval in which tthe behavior of the market matches whatever their strategy happens to be. When the market forces shift they are unable to recognize the change and protect or modify their strategy. They blow up & lose everything.

One of the most successful people I know is someone I consider to be a complete azzhole. But when we were talking one day he told me this; You know, I've made a lot of money, and I worked really hard to do it. but I've been lucky too"

I'd say he gets it, you obviously don't. He probably doesn't need to read the book, you should.

 

I have no need to be frightened about ideas. As I stated earlier, this is not new. I read about it several decades ago. Feel free to challege any of my ideas or assumptions.


Making money in the stock market isn't rocket science. Those who make money trading do so by watching trends and taking advantage of those trends or cycles. Stocks have cycles. All of them have cycles. All it takes is a little money, a plan and patience. For everyone who makes money in the market someone will lose money. Those who lose money in the market usually do so by getting greedy. They don't follow those things which worked for them in the past. It is not random.



What some people call luck is preparation. You can get "lucky" if you are prepared. You prepare for success. When opportunities come along you are prepared and get "lucky." People who fail, usually do so by not preparing. Again, it isn't random. It has nothing to do with genetics. You either prepare for success of failure. It is a choice. I am not sure what good it would do for me to read a book about random success. If I am to be successful or fail then there is nothing that I can to to effect the outcome since everything is random.

We all have setbacks in our life. Einstein, Edison and others had many setbacks over their lifetime. Some would have called them failures. A failure would have given up. They learned by their failures and persevered. That was not random.

 

Ive read Black Swan.....very interesting and a scary book at the same time which pretty much says that a failure of one single institution can bring about the collapse of all other....No one believed that there were black swans just like no one believed in the observation above.

 

I think that success can breed more success just as failure can breed more failure. When you are surrounded by successful people or have successful role models in your life then you are more likely to take on those same traits. The same could be said about failure. When you see your role models as drug dealers or living off the government then you are likely to mimic the same behavior. Just as there will be some who will blow their chance at success even though they had every opportunity, including good role models, there will also be those who grow up in poverty who break out from their surroundings to achieve great success.

 

[QUOTE=GMAN;460098]I have no need to be frightened about ideas. As I stated earlier, this is not new. I read about it several decades ago. Feel free to challege any of my ideas or assumptions.

Where did you read about "it"? Please describe what you claim to have read.

Making money in the stock market isn't rocket science. Those who make money trading do so by watching trends and taking advantage of those trends or cycles. Stocks have cycles. All of them have cycles. All it takes is a little money, a plan and patience. For everyone who makes money in the market someone will lose money. Those who lose money in the market usually do so by getting greedy. They don't follow those things which worked for them in the past. It is not random.

This whole paragraph demonstrates your ignorance. Tell the guys writing the automatic trading algorithms that it's not rocket science. How many Nobel laureates did Long Term Capital have on their Board of Directors? Read "The (Mis)Behavior of Markets" by Benoit Mandelbrot and then make the above statement. Outliers exist and they will frock up every distribution they can. Markets, and indeed the universe as we know it, may well be fractal in nature.

What some people call luck is preparation. You can get "lucky" if you are prepared. You prepare for success. When opportunities come along you are prepared and get "lucky." People who fail, usually do so by not preparing. Again, it isn't random. It has nothing to do with genetics. You either prepare for success of failure. It is a choice. I am not sure what good it would do for me to read a book about random success. If I am to be successful or fail then there is nothing that I can to to effect the outcome since everything is random.

CAN YOU PLEASE READ THE BOOK BEFORE YOU START TO COMMENT ON IT?
In one of his books Taleb talks about someone who did a study of successful entrepreneurs and decided that the largest quality they had in common was a willingness to take risks and thus decided that to be successful a person needed that ability. Taleb pointed out that if they had done a study of FAILED entrepreneurs they probably would have found an equal, if not greater, willingness. Sometimes the very qualities that get you to a certain point in life keep you from going any further.

We all have setbacks in our life. Einstein, Edison and others had many setbacks over their lifetime. Some would have called them failures. A failure would have given up. They learned by their failures and persevered. That was not random

[I]What does that statement have to do with anything we are discussing here? What I read into it is that you will only get lucky if you keep gambling. I agree that randomness can't strike you if you quit. That's why I keep going, someday I will get another opportunity. I will also say that people like Einstein and Edison appear to pretty randomly distributed..[/QUOTE

 

That is a BIG 10-4!!!


If anybody lets anybody else treat them poorly, or lets anybody else "screw them over", without correcting the wrong done, this contributes to the problem.

Standing up for yourself, and doing so in a straight forward and intellectual manner, puts an individual yards ahead of those whom sit on their hands and cry "Poor me"!!

 

That's why Long Term Capital Management was bailed out. It was the excuse given for bailing out AIG.

I say any business "Too big to fail" is actually too big to be allowed to exist to begin with. Of course if you want to stop companies from reaching such cancerous proportions you will need regulations and heaven knows we can't have that.

I think Taleb gave the mathematical odds of the 1987 Wall Street meltdown as somewhere in the quadrillions. But it still happened. How random is random? I was predicting a housing market correction in 2003. But I never imagined it would melt down like it has. I thought there would still be credit and that the demand for rentals would mushroom. Wrong on both counts. I'm not sure you could calculate the odds of the housing market behaving like it is, but it feels highly random to me.

 

I have followed Nasseb for quite a while, but one that i think i like the best is Marc Fiber as well as Jim Rogers

Only reason why we have not collapsed as a country is because of foreign capital...I strongly believe that sooner or later VERY hard times will come and they will come with a vengeance making the 30's look like a walk in a park. Back then our dollar was sound and tied to gold, government was small and we didnt have deficits and debt of these proportion that we have now......

I am afraid what will happen when foreign capital looses its trust in ours and our dollar which is steadly declining in its value..

We will see....

 

Rogers isn't as much fun for me to read. I will check out the other guy, I've never heard of him. Did Rogers work for George Soros? Both Taleb and Soros reference Carl Popper in their writings so I have him on my list of books to read.

I agree with you on our dependence on foreign capital. I think the best we can hope for is decades of slogging it out. The alternatives could be very, very scary.