The glass is full: In the mind of a millionaire

Do you know what I am thinking, do you have my background, my experiences, my habits, my mind? You can never put yourself in my shoes, and while you believe you might be able and say things like "If I were you I would have done differently", you are lying to yourself. If you were me, you would do exactly the same as I have done because, I have done it.

If I had a million dollars I would...

 
But you don't likely have a million dollars and probably never have done and until you are in the situation where you do, you can only presume to know what you would do. Like the people who sit in the stands watching a professional sport criticizing and saying things like, "If I had the ball"... You don't have the ball, you are in the stands- Watching those who do.

I remember hearing a story of the Formula One driver Nigel Mansell, being in the batting cages with a friend of his, a major League Baseball star. While never having swung a baseball bat before, he didn't miss getting contact on even one of the pitches, even as they upped the speed, higher, and higher. When asked how he was doing it, the answer surprised the star baseballer.

"It is easy, I just slow the ball down in my mind."

Can you do that?

Perhaps entering into a corner at 200 miles an hour teaches skills that a normal person doesn't have and while we might think we can sympathize and see through their eyes, what we are looking at can be altogether different.

If an eye doctor looked at a retinal photo, the chance of getting gender correct would be 50-50. But deep learning training led to an AUC of 0.97.
Eric Topol

They don't know what the AI is seeing, they don't know how it is doing it - "Magic".

Pretending that we can put ourselves in the shoes of others is quite dangerous in my opinion as it gives us the feedback of correctness, without the verification of accuracy.

"An investor wouldn't..."

 
Unless you are an investor, how do you know what they are looking at when making their evaluations? And the unfortunate reality is that there is likely a different mindset when investing 1000 dollars, or a million. Extrapolating out as if it is a straight line does not work. For example, if one is unable to get 1000 dollars together to invest (and potentially throw away) on Steem, what makes that same person believe they can get into the mind of a millionaire?

It is a failure of logic filled with assumption that all the factors that go into decision making including the perspectives and the processing of considerations are the same across individuals.

Content is highly important for the Steem ecosystem, as is distribution... but I wonder. How many times have you read a story or poem, looked at a great photo and thought - this makes me want to buy Steem and power up? While self-referential content might not be what should dominate the range, when it comes to stake, it likely has an effect.

I am not sure if you will read this @theycallmedan or want to answer, but as one of the few who didn't mine Steem but have bought in heavily, I have a couple questions.

At what point did you see the potential of Steem?
What kind of content do you consume on average?

We are products of our processing of inputs and if we surround ourselves with sale catalogues, we are much more likely to consume. If we surround ourselves with tabloid news, we are much more likely to spend our energy on talking about famous people and events that matter very little to our everyday lives.

The millionaires I do know surround themselves with the content that supports their interest area, finance, business and investment areas, as well as the topics that brought them their wealth. As well as new innovation, emerging industries and potential entry points to place their stake. Watch a few of Dan's videos and he speaks of this, he speaks of burying himself in the details of a project - and he bought Steem. But, he is looking at it as an investor, not a developer, not a contributor, not a consumer - yet he also has to consider these aspects, right?

I don't know... I am not him.

While there are plenty of people who see the glass as half full, or half empty - perhaps some of us see it as all full. There is the half of the content at the bottom, and the half that holds the potential to be filled. And while the half empty people fear losing what they have, and the half full people are content with what they have, some look to fulfill their potential.

While I can presume to know what other's may think and do and from there make predictions on the future, the perspective is always based on assumption that the knowledge I use is suitable and correct. The more experience I have with certain types in certain situations, the more accurate my predictions may be, but the further away from myself I predict, the more room for error is likely.

The belief that "I know what you are thinking" is highly unlikely and the, "I know what you will do" is even less so. When we speak about others and groups of others, what we are actually doing is projecting who we are and pretending that our imagination is an accurate representation. This also means that we have to be careful when we use our unverified imagination as tools for decision-making as our ego will tell us we are right - and we won't find out we are wrong until it is proven.

Everyone is making the best decision they can using the resources and conditions they have, but it doesn't mean that a different person with different resources would do the same, because just having the change in resources changes the conditions to be factored. You might fear losing a 100 dollars on a bet, another won't mind betting a million.

The choices you make in this life are your own, but we are what we eat and when we surround ourselves with FUD, our decisions and outcomes are likely to be influenced. Do you know where you want to be and what you need to do to get there?

Conditions of success.

Whether half-full, or half-empty - that is what you have to work with.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]