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Comment by palerdot | Hacker News Reader

>I have a very strong impression that what defines how much money or income anyone has is almost completely defined by their limiting beliefs.

This one really struck me. Repeatedly this point comes up in all the new age money related philosophies, and I'm kind of starting to agree with it. Nice write up.

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Try telling that to the homeless guys I pass on my way to work every morning. Especially the one guy who can barely talk; I don't think what he believes matters at this point in his life. Maybe, if he believes in his ability to overcome being homeless and unable to speak, one day he'll find that his life is turning around. But to suggest that the amount of money he "has" is limited only by his belief is absurd.

Huh. Actually, I would bet money on that kinda working, if you could actually convince him?

Remember when that one guy in New York, I think it was, gave a homeless guy a deal: money now, or programming lessons - and they made an app, and the app made money... that the guy couldn't collect because he couldn't get a bank account because he couldn't Deal with going into the government offices to get an identity?

Or that thing that happens when you give someone who's been homeless for awhile an apartment and they camp out in the apartment like they were still on the street?

It's like... min(x, y, z). It makes sense that belief does not get you money, but it also makes sense the lack of belief leads to lack of money.

I'm not saying that everyone is in that boat. That is definitely not the case. But I would say that most people are in that boat.

There's also a big difference in if the boat has three off-board motors and a Jacuzzi, or paddle... But if you don't believe there's someplace worth going that you can get to...?

I would take your bet, and you would lose.

The things you aren't describing are "lack of belief." They're "serious emotional problems brought on by seriously hard life situations."

Do people still really believe in this pull-yourseful-up-by-the-bootstraps stuff?

some years ago they called it the "american dream", just believe in yourself and everyone can make it. I hope everyone knows that it's utter crap, don't fall for the same package with another slogan every time. If you want to find answers and raise questions for yourself, start reading philosophy books, they work on that topic for centuries. Example: https://www.amazon.com/Have-Be-Bloomsbury-Revelations/dp/178...

>Repeatedly this point comes up in all the new age money related philosophies

And that is not a huge red flag right there?

Hmm ... maybe not. This is more or less similar to people like Musk, Jobs dreaming of doing something which might look like impossible for others (like starting a rocket company). In those cases, the central belief of people like Musk, Jobs is the prime reason for things happening, and the belief itself might be a limiting factor for other similar capable people in achieving what these guys have achieved.

Belief is by no means a sufficient condition, though. You either need money, or people willing to give you money. The latter of which generally requires education and connections, or more luck than most people have.

Belief spurns action. Otherwise we are just relying on luck for money to end up in our hands. At least, that is the way I'm interpreting the above point. We can use both conviction and day-dreaming as a substitute of belief. I think former is what he means in the article. The latter just leads to more and more delusion.

There are probably millions of people who had just as strong belief as musk, or jobs and failed. You just don't hear about them.

> new age money related philosophies

Do you have any links relating to this?

I was having something like "The 4 hour workweek" in my mind when I was referring that. You can see this same point in different forms in that book.

Edit: Another tangential stuff is Paul Graham's essay on wealth - http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html. There he specifically mentions that money is not wealth, but something used to move wealth. But the point about there is no fixed wealth and we can always create more wealth, also looks similar to the above mentioned point to me.

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