personal success

Not Everyone Gets Lucky

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My interviews with Howard Marks, Chairman of Oaktree Capital, and famed for his “Chairman’s Memos,” were instructive.1 The first time he mentioned his good fortune, I pushed back, asking, “What about intelligence, hard work, and perseverance?”

His answer:

“Everybody in my MBA class at the University of Chicago was very smart and very hard working. But hard work and intelligence are mere table stakes. Not everybody has fortune smile on them; not everybody gets lucky.”


Serendipity: The Role of Luck in Your Life and Career – https://ritholtz.com/2026/06/recognize-the-role-of-luck-in-your-life-and-career/

The older you get you do develop a better understanding of luck and random events. Interesting article.

Not everyone gets lucky.

Quote for Today – 09.22.22

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Charlie Munger, the billionaire partner to Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway, describes his friend’s day as 80 percent reading—often five hundred pages. Before he invests his client’s money in a company, Buffett puts the odds in his favor by reading everything he possibly can about the company itself and the broader industry. He is not always right, but he is always informed. We might imagine him flying around on private jets, wheeling and dealing, when in fact he is more likely sitting at his desk, reading everything from the great books to technical analysis.

Mr. Buffett’s reading habit provides a powerful lesson for all of us. But most Americans read almost nothing. A friend who teaches at a large public university thinks less than half of his incoming freshmen have ever read a single book in full.

Jeff Deist President of the Mises Institute. Five Keys to Professional and Personal Development accessed online 9/22/22 — https://mises.org/wire/five-keys-professional-and-personal-development

Some good advice, no matter what stage in life you find yourself. This talk was delivered on September 2, 2022, to a student workshop at the Ron Paul Institute conference in northern Virginia.

  1. Sift
  2. Read
  3. Learn Continuously
  4. Avoid Arguments
  5. Promote People, Not Just Ideas

I Decided Not to be a Writer – I’m OK With That

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Nearly half of Americans would have trouble finding $400 to pay for an emergency. I’m one of them.

Source: Many Middle-Class Americans Are Living Paycheck to Paycheck – The Atlantic

Neal Gabler is a visiting professor in the MFA Creative Writing and Literature Program at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He is the author of a forthcoming biography of Edward Kennedy and five other books.

Ever since my undergraduate days I’ve dreamed of being a writer.  Not only do I love to write but I have to write.  I write almost every day.  I just don’t get paid to write.  Having just read Neal Gabler’s article I feel the decision to pursue a different line of work and become a non-writer was a good decision.  I just never thought that 40 years later I would be doing what I did for a living as a 22 year old kid fresh out of college.

No regrets.

Why Millennials Will Never Grow Up – MarketWatch

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“Fully 56% of millennials (compared with 43% of adults overall) with current or past student loans have delayed at least one major life event because of student loan debt, according to a survey of 1,000 adults released Wednesday by Bankrate.com. And a survey of 1,000 current and former students released last year by Citizens Bank came to similar conclusions: Roughly 90% of people ages 18 to 40 (most of this age group is made up of millennials) with student loans say that paying these loans has impacted their day-to-day life, including the achievement of some major life milestones.”

via This is why millennials will never grow up – MarketWatch.

Hint:  student loan debt.

Writing Wednesdays: “I’m On A Mission”

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Writing Wednesdays: “I’m On A Mission”.

“The mission devours you, but it feeds you too. It endows you with focus. It lends your actions meaning. You define it and it defines you.

If you’re reading this blog, my guess is that you’re on a mission too. Don’t tell me. I don’t need to know what it is. I respect you just for having it. I salute you. If we pass in the street, I will see that mission in your eyes and I’ll silently honor it and honor you.

You had no choice in your mission, did you? You didn’t pick it. It picked you, just like it picked Jake and Elwood Blues.

That’s not bad company to be in.”

Steven Pressfield

Have LinkedIn and Medium Killed the Old-Fashioned Blog? – HBR

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Have LinkedIn and Medium Killed the Old-Fashioned Blog? – HBR.

Publishing exclusively on LinkedIn or Medium is indeed the right choice for some people, particular if you are a new or intermittent writer. If you’ve already invested time in building a LinkedIn network, you’re going to find an audience a lot more quickly than if you start a site from scratch. And unlike an independent blog, there’s no need to commit to a regular posting frequency on LinkedIn: you can write a post whenever you have something to share or say, and even if that’s only a few times a year, you’re extending your professional credibility and voice in a context where it can be discovered. It’s also a great way to try out posting without investing in setup or making a long-term commitment: you can write a few posts, develop your own voice, and then decide if you want to commit to running your own site.