The ability to stick around for a long time - without wiping out or being forced to give up is what makes the biggest difference ; not growth , not brains ,not insight;
This should be the cornerstone of your strategy , whether its investing or career or business of your own!
pg.58 : The Psychology of Money - Morgan Housel
I am reminded of the quote : " Survival of fittest" - in the Evolution theory by Charles Darwin :
the natural process by which organisms best adjusted to their environment are most successful in surviving and reproducing :
as you can see , its not the smartest, strongest or the most talented - its the fittest that survive - its the ones that can avoid the ruins!
To be fit, you got to stay away from ruins - breakdown - and kaput - to sustain the song
To give the personal finance example, you need to have at least 6 months of cache in case you run into a paycheck issue - to stay fiscally fit! otherwise its going to be a meltdown!
Charlie Munger says : "Tell me where death is ; I shall never go there!" (looks like he is successful in dodging death as he is 99 years and active!)
Munger's idea is : Problem avoidance => Stick around for long time => Compounding effect!
Being smart and talent is good and necessary - but not sufficient ;
one way to avoid troubles is using the margin of safety principle ; this is the approach that rocket scientists use in their designs; They don't design necessarily the strongest nozzle - rather they make it strong enough to avoid failure!
Margin of Safety (M.S) = Allowed Load - 1
Actual Load
As long as margin of safety is > 0 , you are good!
a similar approach you can to take to life as well:
M.S = Allowed Risk - 1
Actual Risk
As long you are acting with positive M.S. you are good!
and you will be one of those last (Wo)man standing - no need for willpower and all that crap!
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