October 20, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Id be interested to know if the violin virtuoso was rich. Probably not. There is a lot of evidence that says if you want to be an expert in any field the most important factor by far is time spent in productive practice. But I would disagree that being an expert is the best way to become rich, or even that earning a large income is the key. To be rich, you need both a large income and low expenditure and these are not that well correlated with expertise, or time spent on the job. A lot of DBA's would earn more if they had chosen to work in a different field, even if the quality of their efforts was the same. There are also plenty of wealthy people with large incomes, who do very little work - they just collect rent and dividends on the capital they own. I would recommend choosing a job in a field where there is lots of money flowing around, in a country that is wealthy, choose parents that can leave you an inheritance, spend little, and invest your cash in stocks with good dividends.
October 20, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Jeff Moden (10/20/2008)
Heh... which definition of "diatribe" do you mean here? 😛1 archaic : a prolonged discourse
2: a bitter and abusive speech or writing
3: ironic or satirical criticism
... 🙂
Heh, don't underestimate yourself, Jeff. I am sure that you can do all three.
[font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. [/font][font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]
October 20, 2008 at 11:12 pm
rbarryyoung (10/20/2008)
Jeff Moden (10/20/2008)
Heh... which definition of "diatribe" do you mean here? 😛1 archaic : a prolonged discourse
2: a bitter and abusive speech or writing
3: ironic or satirical criticism
... 🙂
Heh, don't underestimate yourself, Jeff. I am sure that you can do all three.
BWAHA! And, I can do it without wearing black tin foil and a Chevy grill on my head. :P:D:):hehe:
--Jeff Moden
October 20, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Jeff Moden (10/20/2008)
rbarryyoung (10/20/2008)
Jeff Moden (10/20/2008)
Heh... which definition of "diatribe" do you mean here? 😛1 archaic : a prolonged discourse
2: a bitter and abusive speech or writing
3: ironic or satirical criticism
... 🙂
Heh, don't underestimate yourself, Jeff. I am sure that you can do all three.
BWAHA! And, I can do it without wearing black tin foil and a Chevy grill on my head. :P:D:):hehe:
Yeah, but why not enjoy it? 😀
[font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. [/font][font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]
October 20, 2008 at 11:45 pm
See? What a rich man I am to have such good friends as Barry. We've had more darned fun on these forums.
Thanks for the laugh, Barry. 🙂
--Jeff Moden
October 21, 2008 at 12:26 am
My pleasure. I should get some sleep though, I've got a root canal tomorrow (seriously!).
[font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. [/font][font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]
October 21, 2008 at 8:20 am
Yikes! Get well soon, Barry, and I'll bring some tin foil to PASS for Jeff 🙂
Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/way0utwest
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October 21, 2008 at 8:29 am
Still trying to squeeze in some posts before I get my Happy Gas... :):):)
[font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. [/font][font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]
October 21, 2008 at 9:41 am
K. Brian Kelley (10/20/2008)
This link puts into perspective that sudden wealth isn't the answer. The problems which existed beforehand are still present and a whole host of new problems will likely beset us.http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/70165/winning_the_lottery_curse_or_a_blessing.html
The quote that one third of lottery winners are bankrupt within a few short years is something I've heard before. I know that a young man who win a lottery here in the midlands of SC within a few short days was already having issues. It's sad that a lot of folks see money as an answer to their problems when in reality it's not.
As for that violin virtuoso, I've been thinking about that and I would have to disagree with him. I spent many a year playing flute and piccolo. While I was a decent player for my years, I was no virtuoso. And I practiced... a lot. Especially during 7th-10th and then my first two years of college. 11th-12th was interrupted due to an academic magnet school where there wasn't a music program. I even picked up trumpet to play jazz gigs. But while I became technically sound in my playing (which is what all that practice amounts to), there's a talent gap I would never have been able to bridge. I saw it quite clearly my senior year in college when we had a freshman trumpet player come in who had certainly put in the time to be really good. But when he played, there was just no comparison. You became a part of his solos. He could feel and understand the music in ways others couldn't. Yes, you must practice diligently to reach the full measure of your talent. But to be a virtuoso means you have talent the average hack doesn't, no matter how hard he or she tries.
EDIT: fixed typo
I have to disagree - and hear me out, I was a jazz trombonist. The violinist was correct, anyone can become as good as anybody else, given enough time and effort. But there's a missing ingredient, the passion for the skill being sought, that drives some folks to reach greater heights than others. Coltrane only recorded Giant Steps after a year+ in practice by himself, before that he was a solid player, but not the giant he became.
I gave up playing for a livelihood because I didn't have that burning passion to play that would keep me going in Columbus, Ohio. Perhaps if I lived in Kansas City, NY NY or Chicago, that would have been different, but I didn't want to move, either. So I switched my focus to something else, and although I still enjoy listening to jazz and am starting to brush up my piano chops to entertain myself, I don't think I'll ever go back to gigging.
anyway, that's just my two cents.
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"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
October 21, 2008 at 9:44 am
Well, first of all, everyone's opinion of rich differs. Making 150 K per year is far from rich. I do know that there are a couple of things that anyone who wants to become financially independent needs to consider. First, those in the top few percent didn't get there by accident. Like musicians and athletes, they purposed to be there by planning out their course. Too many folks today are just caught up in the work-to-home rut. They are not planning for their future; they are just simply working and living. Second, you'll never become financially independent working a job. People that have been able to build very large incomes do so by leveraging their time and money. When you work a job, you have no leverage; you simply trade your time for money and you are limited to how much time you can trade. The wealth people in this country got that way by creating passive income that comes in whether or not they are sitting at their desk.
The traditional advice of go to school, get a job, work hard, spend little, save lots, and invest in mutual funds doesn't work. The mere fact that the vast majority of folks that are following this pattern fully expect to retire on much less money than they are already making should tell you something. If you really want to get ahead, you need to find out how you can duplicate your time and money and remove the time=$$ trade that a job provides. You need to be in business for yourself whether it is franchises, rental property, or something where your income is not tied to your time. BTW, just to drive the nail a bit deeper, if you are in business for yourself and your income is still tied to how much time you personally can invest, you've done nothing more than purchase your own job....you need to remove yourself from the equation!!
Sorry for the rant....that's just my $.02.
October 21, 2008 at 9:44 am
Andy Warren (10/20/2008)
No one going to pick on the violinist? Hard not to understand his point, but no points for gracefully accepting a little adulation.
lol good point, but what do you expect when the world caters to his ego. You're the greatest violinist in the world! You play that dead guy's music from 700 years ago so well . . . what have you written and performed yourself?
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How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
October 21, 2008 at 9:48 am
John Rowan (10/21/2008)
Well, first of all, everyone's opinion of rich differs. Making 150 K per year is far from rich. I do know that there are a couple of things that anyone who wants to become financially independent needs to consider. First, those in the top few percent didn't get there by accident. Like musicians and athletes, they purposed to be there by planning out their course. Too many folks today are just caught up in the work-to-home rut. They are not planning for their future; they are just simply working and living. Second, you'll never become financially independent working a job. People that have been able to build very large incomes do so by leveraging their time and money. When you work a job, you have no leverage; you simply trade your time for money and you are limited to how much time you can trade. The wealth people in this country got that way by creating passive income that comes in whether or not they are sitting at their desk.The traditional advice of go to school, get a job, work hard, spend little, save lots, and invest in mutual funds doesn't work. The mere fact that the vast majority of folks that are following this pattern fully expect to retire on much less money than they are already making should tell you something. If you really want to get ahead, you need to find out how you can duplicate your time and money and remove the time=$$ trade that a job provides. You need to be in business for yourself whether it is franchises, rental property, or something where your income is not tied to your time. BTW, just to drive the nail a bit deeper, if you are in business for yourself and your income is still tied to how much time you personally can invest, you've done nothing more than purchase your own job....you need to remove yourself from the equation!!
Sorry for the rant....that's just my $.02.
Hear, hear! To follow that up, for those who want a little non-casual reading, www.fourhourworkweek.com
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How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
October 22, 2008 at 12:43 pm
I think it's interesting that nobody (in this thread) has focused on the things that one needs to do to "get rich". Typical DBA "rich kids" going on about how "happyness" is more important than money. Heh.
Can't remember where the study was, but I heard Ben Stein list them recently:
1. Graduate from high school.
2. Get married and stay married to the same person.
3. Spend less money than you make.
College wasn't high on the list at all... and neither was liking your job.
:hehe:
August 15, 2013 at 6:56 am
I disagree with the article, or at least, I think it's overly simplistic. As a contracting developer I earn very well and I'm pretty sure most of my freinds would call me rich. I certainly earn more money than just about all my freinds by a factor of 3 to 4 times. I think that's probably pretty common in this industry.
It would be easy for me to sit here and smugly pat myself on the back and tell myself it's all down to my hard work. I decided to do a degree to imporve my life and worked hard when I was doing it. I had a student loan but didn't get any support from my parents (well, not much anyway - I got money for birthdays and christmas) so I can surely say I stood on my own two feet. I've worked hard in all the jobs I've had since and have generally impressed my way up the greasy ladder. I was brave and fearless when I decided to give up my permanent position and risk the potential unemployment of the contracting lifestyle. I've always got my on on the way technology's progressing and I frequently self train on a new tech. Yep, I can safely puff my chest out and portray myself as a paragon of hard working success.
Except that when I read the above I'm forced to admit that it doesn't actually describe me at all. Actually, my life has been a sequence happy co-incidences and snap decisions that just happened to turn out right for me despite my own self destructive tendancies. I did that degree because I'd been sacked under "dubious circumstances" from my previous job (don't ask, I was young and they assured me it would all be in good taste) and couldn't get a reference. I figured that students got more in grants than I was going to get on benefits so I might as well sign up for something. Once I was there I found I quite enjoyed programming so the hard work didn't feel like work at all. I didn't need the support of my parents because a couple of years previously I'd managed to blag free rent from a landlord if I helped him get tenants for the house I was living in and acted as a sort of "on the spot" agent for him (which was really no effort at all). I didn't really work that hard in most of the jobs I've had, I just had a nack for development and knew how to make my stuff look good. And I wasn't being brave when I decided to become contractor, I was just sick to the eye-teeth of the management politics I was increasingly finding myself embroiled in as I moved up the chain. Yes, I self train... but only on the stuff that looks fun and interesting.
Meanwhile most of my freinds have worked just as hard as me if not harder but the rewards just didn't fall right for them. They're mostly talented and intelligent people who have every bit as much right to success as I do. It's just that folks don't want to pay them as much for the things they're talented at as folks do for developers. Or they just never worked out how to monetize them, I'm not sure. In truth, the fact that I'm doing so much better than my freinds comes down to a buch of small co-incidences and three big ones:-
1. I found the think I enjoy
2. It turns out I'm pretty good at that thing
3. It turns out people are happy to pay for that thing
I can't claim credit for any of that... I just got lucky.
August 15, 2013 at 7:35 am
I had lunch with Mark Cuban back in the Web 1.0 days, before he sold AudioNet/Broadcast.com. When I mention that streaming audio was going to be standard and that a single AM station of the time could reach more people than all the Real Audio streams, he said, "Chris, we don't sell the steak, we sell the sizzle..."
Cuban is a real hard worker and smart, but he also had the luck of being at the right place in time to capitalize on his fortunes and make a larger fortune. And that's the story, put the work in, be smart, be prepared for opportunity.
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