Well stated Brad. I never knew some of the about you, glad you made it! I am not rich here for sure, but there is always hope. 

I'm not rich, never will be.... and I sure as hell wasn't born lucky. 

If anything it's more the opposite, in both health and fortune.  Still, I'm still happy with my lot.

In fact, I don't want to be rich because I believe it would change me too much.  I'd have the money but I'd be much the poorer in other ways, with relationships potentially suffering because of money quarrels, etc. Nah, I'm happier the way I am.

I may at times struggle with making money stretch far enough, and I'll often have to go without stuff when I want or need some new tech, etc, but I'm not worried or complaining because I feel that I am rich in the relationships I have with friends and family. 

Sadly, though, my health is not the best and I'm in constant pain, so I may be a little envious there, but with the medications and physio I can manage and I do fare better than some.  There are others far worse off than I, so in that respect I do count myself as being fortunate.

Money does change things.  But in my experience, not quite in the way you describe.  It is both better and worse.  Money doesn't create happiness and I never set out to be rich, it just happened from me doing what I wanted to do in the first place which is make cool stuff.

I'm very sorry to hear about your health. You're a good man.

I consider myself lucky.

At the age of 56 I had heart bypass surgery.

On this day the 27th of February I celebrate my 70th birthday.

The grandkids now refer to me as being a stone age person.

I was born in 'The Lucky Country' ....so the rest was/is 'a given'...

....and there ain't nuthin' wrong with the smilies...

Australia has always been referred to as 'The Lucky Country'....sun....beaches...space...etc. "the land of plenty".

OK, so it's the second driest continent [Antarctica is first], is home to the world's deadliest anythings...including all top 10 snakes....

Melbourne [where I am] has been the World's most livable city for several years. [in spite of Real Estate prices - New York is cheaper].

I just got back from working Round 1 of the World Superbikes today....and we have a round of the MotoGP, and next month it's the Round 1 opener of Formula One ....The Melbourne Cup is the third biggest nag race in the world [if yer into them - I'm not].

But like Brad, I had to work to get what I've got...where I'm at.  Nothing is 'free'...

When it comes to 'fighting' Australia has fought....in pretty well every conflict anywhere....including not the '17-18' and '41 -45' wars...but the '14-18' and '39-45' wars..

Sure is....means I'm still alive and kicking...

Hi Jafo,

Melbourne!!!!

I am just down the road in Geelong

Cheers

Macca

Should catch up one day ....been eons since I hooked up with a local WC user...

I know that if I were to suddenly become wealthy there would be dozens of people with their hands out, and that would be my dilemma.  People don't remain rich if they give to everyone with a sob story or their hand out, and while I'd want to help those in need and who are deserving of it, there would be many I'd have to say no to, and that's where the problems would arise, with bitterness and resentment towards myself and those I had helped. 

So no, I'd rather not have it to begin with.  At least this way, everyone knows I don't have it to give and the status quo remains.  Having said that, I do help my daughter quite a bit.  She is doing it tough right now, and I don't have a lot, but I don't want my grandkids going without the necessities of life while she struggles to make ends meet.

Thanks for that, I appreciate it.  The thing is, I have better days than others where I'm high in spirits and feel like I can conquer the world.  Then there's the not so good days when I'm in pain and/or suffering with vertigo, but I try to remain positive and cheerful so as not to depress those around me.  It's at those time I think of the Monty Python song: "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life".

As for being a good man, well I try to be.  I mostly succeed, but then there are times when I look back in retrospect and feel I could have done better.  Oh well, it's the thought that counts.

Yeah, I had one of those... got run off the road and ended up in hospital [on and off] for 3 years.  I had a total of 136 fractures, which is probably why I suffer with arthritic pain nowadays, some 40+ years later.  Thing is, I was bulletproof and invincible back then, so once I was back on my feet I returned to the hard physical type of work I'd always known... and loved.  I tried office and factory work but never really liked it.  I hated being cooped up so I did some outdoor construction work before settling down to doing removals [shifting other peoples junk from a to B]

Unfortunately, however, with past injuries and such, my body eventually broke down and I got pensioned off a few years back... put out to pasture, if you will, to get fat in lieu of the required effort.  Oh well, it could have been worse....coulda been sent to the knacker yard and melted down for glue.

So in other words those who are rich have superior jeans and are thus worthy of being more prosperous?

That is not what Brad is saying.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  From what I read, Brad could very well have had the arse hanging out of his 'jeans', because he lived in poverty at one point in his life and likely couldn't afford to patch them, much less purchase new ones.  So no, it wasn't a rich gene... if ever there was such a thing.

I don't know that there's such a thing as being born lucky, either.  Brad may have been blessed with good health and have a few things go his way, but the fact is that he went from poverty to being a successful business man through hard work and dedication.  So if genes are  involved, it will be the ones that ensure the good health and stamina to work towards his goals.

As for rich jeans, I'd like some of those overpriced designer ones the Hollywood stars wear, quite frankly, not these cheap generic things I pick up at K-Mart for 10 bucks... 7.95 on special.

The post seems like an intentional contradiction to prove a point.

On one hand you were born lucky, but on the other hand you worked hard for what you've achieved.

Based on things you've said in the past on this forum, I'm waiting for the "gotcha" when you post again...

I see no contradiction... no on one hand and then the other.

I mean, why can't success be a combination of all those things?

An enterprise does not succeed on one aspect alone.  You can throw all the money in the world at it but if you're not prepared to work had it will fail regardless of the cash supporting it.. 

Good health is another important factor to building a business, because without it the energy and vitality to continue building just isn't there.

Oh, and then there's the product!  Do enough people want it to make it viable?

And then there's luck, or as I prefer to call it, good fortune, being on your side.... things going the way you need them to in order to make the steady progress to eventually turn a profit.  And therein lies the key word... PROFIT, because without that there is no business.

I wasn't implying anything about Capitalism vs. Socialism/Communism. It is possible to make a profit with or without hard work, and I have nothing against profit. It's the best motivator there is.

I just get this uneasy feeling that the OP is a lead in to the "47%", or welfare queens, no new taxes, anti-safety net and anti-regulation rhetoric, etc, etc.

And yes, this kind of thing has happened on this forum before, even though it's supposed to be restricted to Joe User.

I think there is definitely something to the notion of 'born lucky' - you have to have the health and intelligence to exploit opportunities that present themselves during your lifetime.  Being in the right place at the right time and playing the right gamble are the basic prerequisites to success in whatever you do - and you can't 'know' those conditions in advance, you just have to be able to recognize them.  Timing is also a component of 'born lucky' - had Brad been born in 1884, he'd have had nothing to do and his awesome software development skills would have been for naught.

Of course luck is a huge factor. Ask the guy born without any limbs, or that kid who died of cancer at the age of 4 and never learned to code. But I think it doesn't necessarily follow that because person X was lucky he has to share it with person Y just so it's fair. Imho, modern socialism is based on humanism rather than fairness. We have to be able to recognize that capitalism brings something good because it strives for people to excel. At the same time I think it is right to strive for a degree of socialism in order to ease the sufferings of our fellow humans who are so very much suffering. And that is not based on a moral obligation stemming from it being unfair that I got lucky, because had I been unlucky I would have felt no less sypmathy for those who suffer. I just wouldn't have been able to help as much.

I dunno.I've seen pictures.

No, you weren't!  I was just saying that it's several things that combine to make a successful business, and that Brad was/is fortunate to enjoy great health [not a rich gene or a lucky gene], and that's what enabled the continuous hard work Brad put in to get where he is today.