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in personal finance this seems to manifest as an obsession with increasing passive income and reducing passive drains like starbucks coffee

just like with sports, this initial thought that comes up is often not the actual “secret” but a sort of distracting thought that’s only useful as something actionable and legible

the “secret” is that there is no one secret. a good forehand (in w/e sport) is a result of many many movements. the specific thought that comes up often acts like a statue or painting in a home. it is a focal point like a capstone but not the bulk of the support

not-buying-starbucks and similar is a focal point for the feeling of self-denial which does help compounding but even with this, the self denial can be a red herring for what the “real” trick was. e.g. leveraging with real estate, unexpectedly great at social media, etc..

it’s very difficult to tease out why exactly anyone (inc self) is successful at something. ask every harvard student how they got in and they’ll say “studied hard” as if no one else did that ask an artist/musician/etc.. and it’s “follow passion”

part of this is inability to condense a unique life story some of it lack of understanding (e.g. leveraging for real estate and lucky bc economic cycle) sometimes it’s also intentional misdirection since “steroids, adderall, and sleep with harvey weinstein” sounds weird

the specific thing someone appears to be successful at also often is just the nearest socially accepted label for what the individual really is good at

“rhythm sense and hand eye motor coordination gooder” isn’t an actual job or identity but tennis player, pianist, starcraft pro, etc… are

the life story of success is compressed into some form of “hard work and passion” and the life story of lack-of-success is compressed into some variation of “trauma” this is like having only two temperatures “hot” and “cold”

real life goes through both bc the sensations are relative. the above stories of “passion” and “trauma” are actually the SAME story. the hard work is at its heart an endeavor to conquer the trauma via “passion of christ” dynamics

one can let the trauma “win” and identify with the static and non-chaotic stable identity of a victim, or constantly “deny Self” and maintain the non-identity of an identity in flux that must always be in the state of overcoming the trauma of simply existing

this is the real secret to every success. it’s an individual’s specific flavor of trauma that guides their movement through life. it’s not particularly useful for anyone else just like batman or spiderman’s origin stories aren’t helpful in real life