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Excellent way to illustrate an important concept. Keep in mind that what he is effectively saying is that not one person on this planet is self-made. Anyone w

by koliber 10y ago

Excellent way to illustrate an important concept. Keep in mind that what he is effectively saying is that not one person on this planet is self-made. Anyone who lives to an age to be able to express such sentiment is already indebted to their parents. They are indebted to anyone who has lent a help raising them. They are indebted to the society that provided the infrastructure that got them to where they are. People need to take the cards that they are dealt. You can't change the past. You must be humble and thankful and not let your ego get the best of you. That being said, the term "self-made" does have a meaning. It does not literally mean that someone is responsible for every piece of success. There is literally not one such person. Unfortunately, some people do take it to mean that. Pity and educate them. The meaning it has is that they worked hard to take them from where they started to where they are. It describes the relative effort they exerted to advance. There is always help and luck involved along the way. Most of the time though, external help and luck will not be enough to arrive at success. Hard work is required. Arnold is a self-made man. He did work hard to get where he is. I am happy he wrote this article to express gratitude for all those that helped him get there. The world would be a better place if more successful people realized that.

raverbashing 10y ago
> The meaning it has is that they worked hard to take them from where they started to where they are. It describes the relative effort they exerted to advance. There is always help and luck involved along the way. Most of the time though, external help and luck will not be enough to arrive at success. Hard work is required. This is a good description, and I agree with the paragraph below. The issue is how you compare with people who had the same opportunities (and which in the case of Arnold, were few, but he made the best he could of them, also had a lot of luck). Arnold did go to ballet classes, his competitors did not. Legend says he also did some unethical things to his competitors (like leading them to dead-ends, things like that - some of it might have been in jest)
- Evgeny 10y ago
  Legend says he also did some unethical things to his competitors He himself mentions some of this on Tim Ferriss' podcast: http://fourhourworkweek.com/arnold-schwarzenegger-transcript/ http://fourhourworkweek.com/arnold-schwarzenegger-transcript... By the time I came to America and started competing over here, it was very clear when I said to someone, “Let me ask you something, do you have any knee injuries or something like that?” Then they would look at me and say, “No, why? No. I have no knee injury at all. No, my knees feel great.” And they say, “Why are you asking?” I said, “Well because your thighs look a little slimmer to me. I thought maybe you can’t squat or maybe there’s some problem with leg extension.” ... People are vulnerable about those things. Naturally now when you have a competition, you use all this. ... It throws people off in an unbelievable way. Tim: And they get defensive. Arnold: They walk away like this didn’t bother them at all, but then you can see, you watch them as they walk around the pump up room, and when you warm up for the competition, and you can see them kind of thinking to themselves, kind of them going to the mirror and checking it out secretly and all that stuff.
andersonmvd 10y ago
Nonetheless "self-made" as obvious as it sounds put "self" first, thus any term associated with "self" is harmful IMHO. Self should be always secondary and we should really think first of the entire foundation that helped us to get where we are. It puts Gratitude first. There's a mindset change between using "self-made" and not using it. Actually I wanted to say the inverse term of self-made that hasn't self in the term, but I don't know what it is.
- koliber 10y ago
  You make an interesting point. It would be great if we could snap our fingers and introduce a term which means the same thing as "self-made" but without the word "self". Unfortunately, that's not the case. The second best thing we can do is spread the message about what self-made really means and what it definitely does not mean. I don't think all terms with the word "self" are bad. Self-defense and self-aware come to mind :)
  - andersonmvd 10y ago
    > I don't think all terms with the word "self" are bad. Self-defense and self-aware come to mind :) Indeed, but I was referring to a word that contains the meaning of "self-made" when it should be something like "together-made". The other words as you said is fine. Thanks for replying.
- throwaway2016a 10y ago
  It's interesting you say that because one of the normative positions in ethics is Ethical Egoism which is explicitly putting oneself first and it has had a number of proponents over the years. However, part of it assumes that it is against one's own interest to treat someone else in a way that could backfire and hurt you and it can often be in one's self interest to help others without expecting anything in immediate return.
whack 10y ago
According to wikipedia, a "self-made man" is a person who was born poor or otherwise disadvantaged, but who achieved success thanks to their own hard work and ingenuity rather than because of any inherited fortune, family connections, or other privileges In his article, he credited the huge influence that his parents had on him. He credits the role that athletics played in his success, and clearly, he was endowed with greater athletic ability than the vast majority. He credits the role that coaches, sponsors and other well-wishers had played in giving him opportunities; opportunities that other less charismatic individuals were likely denied. Clearly Arnold lived life enjoying some privileges. Was he as privileged than someone like George W Bush or Donald Trump? Definitely not. Was he more privileged than a kid who grew up in a slum, in a broken home? Definitely. And compared to the 1-2 billion people who grew up in a developing nation without access to good schooling/nutrition, he's positively a trust fund baby. Perhaps it's time we let go of binary classifications such as "self-made" and "privileged". Everyone in the world enjoys certain amounts of privilege, and the precise amount varies on a sliding scale. Whether or not someone is "self-made" can only be determined in comparison to someone else, and never as an absolute fact.
- branchless 10y ago
  Isn't the main thing that if a person derives wealth it's because they created it and took a fair share? My main beef is between people adding real value and people using the system to appropriate value added by others. I think if we fixed the above most of the inequality of opportunity would melt away. It's the rentiers who are the problem. That rentier activity could be being a large-scale landlord and extracting labour due to a monopoly on housing. It could be by being a banker and having the state build a system where if you win you win and if you lose everyone else pays (and let you build a system for the landlords). It could be by making an incremental improvement to a technology and then claiming a monopoly via patents over all knowledge since Faraday. Let the rich kid who became a dentist and works for 50 years fixing people's teeth do his thing. Rentier activity is what is hurting poor people.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    The problem is that wealth is socially generated, e.g. when people work in a factory, profit is created because it's more efficient for people to work in a factory than in their own homes. The fair division of that profit is a deeply political question. One could argue that the workers generated the value, because without them the factory would not run. One could also argue that the owners generated the value, because they paid to have that factory built. In practice though, all the generated value goes to the party with the most bargaining power, which usually happens to be the owners of capital, because wealth and power beget wealth and power. Just look at all the rhetoric of the campaign and the right wing -- corporations and the wealthy are 'job creators' and so they deserve all the credit for people having jobs, even though capitalists need labor in order to exist.
acjohnson55 10y ago
But let's be clear, exceptionally hard work is neither necessary nor sufficient. Many people achieve success without working particularly hard. Maybe they worked "smart" instead. Or maybe the path was cleared for them and they were competent enough not to totally blow it. Conversely, there are countless people who work harder than many of us will ever dream, and will never sniff success on a level that most of us take for granted. Of course, as an individual, you've only really got control over your mindset and actions. So, from that perspective, hard work is good advice. I just think that culturally, we often go beyond advising, to the point of making moral judgments of a person's work ethic based on their career outcome. If you weren't particularly successful, you just must not have been "self-made".
- SonicSoul 10y ago
  what are some examples of people that achieved success without working hard?
  - lordnacho 10y ago
    Anyone born into a royal family. They get a lot of positive attention, they don't have to work, and they can do things most people cannot afford. Whether they're succesful is also judged on a different scale to everyone else. Same goes for people born into very wealthy families.
  - dota_fanatic 10y ago
    I've met people who I would say are 100-1000x better at doing and understanding technical problems than others I've met. They can and do achieve in a decade what would take the others a lifetime, if at all. These gifted people have a much easier time when it comes to survival because they are able to accomplish things that society values. (Happiness, personal meaning, feeling of community, etc is another ball game). Furthermore, the grandparent was pointing out too that even gifted-ness aside, what family / community one comes from also has a huge impact on what possibilities are afforded them. The odds may be stacked against / for oneself before they even lift a finger.
  - acjohnson55 10y ago
ebbv 10y ago
Arnold: I am not a self made man. Don't call me that. Nobody is. You: Good article. Arnold is a self made man. /facepalm
sp332 10y ago
I think the problem is in judging people who didn't get to the very top. Why didn't every Austrian in his position become a movie star and a millionaire? They must not have worked as hard, clearly they're just lazy and could have had success if they worked like Arnold did.

by koliber 10y ago

raverbashing 10y ago

> The meaning it has is that they worked hard to take them from where they started to where they are. It describes the relative effort they exerted to advance. There is always help and luck involved along the way. Most of the time though, external help and luck will not be enough to arrive at success. Hard work is required. This is a good description, and I agree with the paragraph below. The issue is how you compare with people who had the same opportunities (and which in the case of Arnold, were few, but he made the best he could of them, also had a lot of luck). Arnold did go to ballet classes, his competitors did not. Legend says he also did some unethical things to his competitors (like leading them to dead-ends, things like that - some of it might have been in jest)

Evgeny 10y ago
Legend says he also did some unethical things to his competitors He himself mentions some of this on Tim Ferriss' podcast: http://fourhourworkweek.com/arnold-schwarzenegger-transcript/ http://fourhourworkweek.com/arnold-schwarzenegger-transcript... By the time I came to America and started competing over here, it was very clear when I said to someone, “Let me ask you something, do you have any knee injuries or something like that?” Then they would look at me and say, “No, why? No. I have no knee injury at all. No, my knees feel great.” And they say, “Why are you asking?” I said, “Well because your thighs look a little slimmer to me. I thought maybe you can’t squat or maybe there’s some problem with leg extension.” ... People are vulnerable about those things. Naturally now when you have a competition, you use all this. ... It throws people off in an unbelievable way. Tim: And they get defensive. Arnold: They walk away like this didn’t bother them at all, but then you can see, you watch them as they walk around the pump up room, and when you warm up for the competition, and you can see them kind of thinking to themselves, kind of them going to the mirror and checking it out secretly and all that stuff.

andersonmvd 10y ago

Nonetheless "self-made" as obvious as it sounds put "self" first, thus any term associated with "self" is harmful IMHO. Self should be always secondary and we should really think first of the entire foundation that helped us to get where we are. It puts Gratitude first. There's a mindset change between using "self-made" and not using it. Actually I wanted to say the inverse term of self-made that hasn't self in the term, but I don't know what it is.

koliber 10y ago
You make an interesting point. It would be great if we could snap our fingers and introduce a term which means the same thing as "self-made" but without the word "self". Unfortunately, that's not the case. The second best thing we can do is spread the message about what self-made really means and what it definitely does not mean. I don't think all terms with the word "self" are bad. Self-defense and self-aware come to mind :)
- andersonmvd 10y ago
  > I don't think all terms with the word "self" are bad. Self-defense and self-aware come to mind :) Indeed, but I was referring to a word that contains the meaning of "self-made" when it should be something like "together-made". The other words as you said is fine. Thanks for replying.
throwaway2016a 10y ago
It's interesting you say that because one of the normative positions in ethics is Ethical Egoism which is explicitly putting oneself first and it has had a number of proponents over the years. However, part of it assumes that it is against one's own interest to treat someone else in a way that could backfire and hurt you and it can often be in one's self interest to help others without expecting anything in immediate return.

whack 10y ago

According to wikipedia, a "self-made man" is a person who was born poor or otherwise disadvantaged, but who achieved success thanks to their own hard work and ingenuity rather than because of any inherited fortune, family connections, or other privileges In his article, he credited the huge influence that his parents had on him. He credits the role that athletics played in his success, and clearly, he was endowed with greater athletic ability than the vast majority. He credits the role that coaches, sponsors and other well-wishers had played in giving him opportunities; opportunities that other less charismatic individuals were likely denied. Clearly Arnold lived life enjoying some privileges. Was he as privileged than someone like George W Bush or Donald Trump? Definitely not. Was he more privileged than a kid who grew up in a slum, in a broken home? Definitely. And compared to the 1-2 billion people who grew up in a developing nation without access to good schooling/nutrition, he's positively a trust fund baby. Perhaps it's time we let go of binary classifications such as "self-made" and "privileged". Everyone in the world enjoys certain amounts of privilege, and the precise amount varies on a sliding scale. Whether or not someone is "self-made" can only be determined in comparison to someone else, and never as an absolute fact.

branchless 10y ago
Isn't the main thing that if a person derives wealth it's because they created it and took a fair share? My main beef is between people adding real value and people using the system to appropriate value added by others. I think if we fixed the above most of the inequality of opportunity would melt away. It's the rentiers who are the problem. That rentier activity could be being a large-scale landlord and extracting labour due to a monopoly on housing. It could be by being a banker and having the state build a system where if you win you win and if you lose everyone else pays (and let you build a system for the landlords). It could be by making an incremental improvement to a technology and then claiming a monopoly via patents over all knowledge since Faraday. Let the rich kid who became a dentist and works for 50 years fixing people's teeth do his thing. Rentier activity is what is hurting poor people.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  The problem is that wealth is socially generated, e.g. when people work in a factory, profit is created because it's more efficient for people to work in a factory than in their own homes. The fair division of that profit is a deeply political question. One could argue that the workers generated the value, because without them the factory would not run. One could also argue that the owners generated the value, because they paid to have that factory built. In practice though, all the generated value goes to the party with the most bargaining power, which usually happens to be the owners of capital, because wealth and power beget wealth and power. Just look at all the rhetoric of the campaign and the right wing -- corporations and the wealthy are 'job creators' and so they deserve all the credit for people having jobs, even though capitalists need labor in order to exist.

acjohnson55 10y ago

But let's be clear, exceptionally hard work is neither necessary nor sufficient. Many people achieve success without working particularly hard. Maybe they worked "smart" instead. Or maybe the path was cleared for them and they were competent enough not to totally blow it. Conversely, there are countless people who work harder than many of us will ever dream, and will never sniff success on a level that most of us take for granted. Of course, as an individual, you've only really got control over your mindset and actions. So, from that perspective, hard work is good advice. I just think that culturally, we often go beyond advising, to the point of making moral judgments of a person's work ethic based on their career outcome. If you weren't particularly successful, you just must not have been "self-made".

SonicSoul 10y ago
what are some examples of people that achieved success without working hard?
- lordnacho 10y ago
  Anyone born into a royal family. They get a lot of positive attention, they don't have to work, and they can do things most people cannot afford. Whether they're succesful is also judged on a different scale to everyone else. Same goes for people born into very wealthy families.
- dota_fanatic 10y ago
  I've met people who I would say are 100-1000x better at doing and understanding technical problems than others I've met. They can and do achieve in a decade what would take the others a lifetime, if at all. These gifted people have a much easier time when it comes to survival because they are able to accomplish things that society values. (Happiness, personal meaning, feeling of community, etc is another ball game). Furthermore, the grandparent was pointing out too that even gifted-ness aside, what family / community one comes from also has a huge impact on what possibilities are afforded them. The odds may be stacked against / for oneself before they even lift a finger.
- acjohnson55 10y ago

ebbv 10y ago

Arnold: I am not a self made man. Don't call me that. Nobody is. You: Good article. Arnold is a self made man. /facepalm

sp332 10y ago

I think the problem is in judging people who didn't get to the very top. Why didn't every Austrian in his position become a movie star and a millionaire? They must not have worked as hard, clearly they're just lazy and could have had success if they worked like Arnold did.