Early on in my career, one of my mentors told me that “Success in your job is 10% education, 20% hard work, and 70% luck. But without the education, your hard work will be useless, and without the education and the hard work you will not get lucky.”
Good looks = luck. It is genetic lotto. Probably with less than 0.2% deviation or some infinitesimal factor. I agree the advantage will surely wear off after a while, but the time it can save you in terms of access to opportunity is non-trivial. This is not even counting skin color or age.
I used to color my hair grey. Because I was once blatantly told in a meeting "you sound too wise for your age" (when I was Director of Strategy in some Fortune 500 co, I pushed for conversion of our traditional network to VoIP and before cloud computing was known, I pushed the agenda of closing our data centers and migrating us to AWS, whilst providing my AWS sales rep 18 feature points I wanted to get implemented in the cloud to allow total migration to work). My CTO pulled me aside and struck a deal with me - I can get my ideas implemented and get some bonus, but I have to give it to him privately so he can present it as his idea (cause he is a CxO and had lost most of his hair). So that was it until when he suddenly passed away and I left (you can call it anything you want, but sometimes you need to know "when to fold").
So yes, people with a lot of money do not necessarily look better, but they can mitigate perception or reduce "objectionable features", especially when steps to be done require money. What is funny is that advancements in plastic surgery + cosmetics actually scare people that are reliant on their good looks. Could you imagine? In the real modern world, a good personality (high EQ) is quite important!
It is up to you if high EQ falls into education and hard work, but it is definitely not luck. And I bet it is part of the formula. Just have no clue who has done research on it.
It is a mistaken assumption that good looking people look good by luck, rather than through diligence, hard work, and intelligence. Like everything it requires luck, but it also requires the discipline to eat well and exercise properly, the wisdom to refrain from insalubrious pursuits, grooming habits in accordance with good taste, a refined sartorial judgment, and indeed much sacrifice in of time and opportunity cost.
Was your mentor, by any chance, Richie Benaud (the famous Australian cricketer)? He famously said “Captaincy is 90% luck and 10% skill. But don't try it without that 10%”.
I am a regular reader of your posts and love them.
Good looks = luck. It is genetic lotto. Probably with less than 0.2% deviation or some infinitesimal factor. I agree the advantage will surely wear off after a while, but the time it can save you in terms of access to opportunity is non-trivial. This is not even counting skin color or age.
I used to color my hair grey. Because I was once blatantly told in a meeting "you sound too wise for your age" (when I was Director of Strategy in some Fortune 500 co, I pushed for conversion of our traditional network to VoIP and before cloud computing was known, I pushed the agenda of closing our data centers and migrating us to AWS, whilst providing my AWS sales rep 18 feature points I wanted to get implemented in the cloud to allow total migration to work). My CTO pulled me aside and struck a deal with me - I can get my ideas implemented and get some bonus, but I have to give it to him privately so he can present it as his idea (cause he is a CxO and had lost most of his hair). So that was it until when he suddenly passed away and I left (you can call it anything you want, but sometimes you need to know "when to fold").
So yes, people with a lot of money do not necessarily look better, but they can mitigate perception or reduce "objectionable features", especially when steps to be done require money. What is funny is that advancements in plastic surgery + cosmetics actually scare people that are reliant on their good looks. Could you imagine? In the real modern world, a good personality (high EQ) is quite important!
It is up to you if high EQ falls into education and hard work, but it is definitely not luck. And I bet it is part of the formula. Just have no clue who has done research on it.
It is a mistaken assumption that good looking people look good by luck, rather than through diligence, hard work, and intelligence. Like everything it requires luck, but it also requires the discipline to eat well and exercise properly, the wisdom to refrain from insalubrious pursuits, grooming habits in accordance with good taste, a refined sartorial judgment, and indeed much sacrifice in of time and opportunity cost.
What about IQ and emotional inteligence?
Was your mentor, by any chance, Richie Benaud (the famous Australian cricketer)? He famously said “Captaincy is 90% luck and 10% skill. But don't try it without that 10%”.
I am a regular reader of your posts and love them.