What would you like us to make a video on for Mental Health May? reply to this comment with your suggestions & upvote the ones you like

What separates the top 10% from the bottom 75%? Answer: 15%.

6:20 if you really think about it, procrastination is basically a focus on short-term compassion, except the target of the compassion is ourselves.

I have very high conscientiousness and neuroticism - very successful, worked my whole life, top performer in my career. What helped me from being burnt out is finding a good boss that appreciates me.

This is honestly the saddest Dr K comment section I’ve seen. High performer doesn’t mean billionaire or lucky. You have luck too, luck you can capitalize on. You don’t need to be ultra wealthy and a billionaire’s son to be successful. That view of success is a plague in society, find your own success, what makes you content. The first step is to begin action, however small. Complaining about luck is a trap that will separate you from actually being content. I’ve been down that road before and it only leads to misery. The fact that we can comment on a video full of knowledge makes us some of the luckiest people in the world. So what if someone is more lucky than you? They aren’t you so ignore them and do your own thing with your own luck. Edit: Yes I agree that Dr K framed high performance poorly and yes I explicitly acknowledge that there is unfairness. My point is that you need to live with what you have, you can fight the broken system because it is broken and it is unfair but complaining isn’t fighting anything nor does it bring any benefits to you. Edit round 2: Obviously luck plays a part in success I said that so many times in my comment. But also you can’t control luck, there’s literally nothing you can do about how you are born. I know this very well being born with a congenital condition. But since you can’t control it there’s no point in letting misfortune beat you up. My comment is saying that the only thing you can do is do the best with what you have. Edit round 3: In hindsight the original comment is not a proper response. I do disagree with the video that these traits are something that should be emulated for material success. My real intention was to address people who seemed to only attribute success to material value and luck which unfortunately the video does promote material success rather than a personal success that can be achieved despite luck. This misunderstanding is completely on me for failing to articulate my feelings about the video and the comments.

There is a boundary to being good. Don't get walked over. A lot of good people get taken advantage of. Being transactional with your time and effort is not a bad thing. Value yourself more!

I think the other thing that separates "successful" people from those who struggle to achieve their goals is that they know when to let go with radical acceptance and move on. Instead of dwelling on what didn't go the way they wanted it to, they focus on the next opportunity and spend their precious time and mental energy on the possibilities.

As an autistic 51 years old man that has spent my whole life helping others and never getting anything for it, often not even a thanks, this hit home. 8 months ago I removed everyone from my life except my best friend and my ex girlfriends autistic daughter and I am feeling well and happy for the first time in my life. I didn't decide to stop helping others but to do lectures and coaching where I get paid. If I don't get anything back I only help once now. I wish I knew how to do this before I spent 50 years in hell where my "No" never was accepted. I got a Schizoid Personality Disorder from it all so I don't even miss anyone at all, mostly living alone in the middle of the forest. Best thing I ever did, removing all leeches.

I’ve noticed when it comes to “helping” or “fixing” people, it’s more common that that you get dragged down to someone’s level then actually lift that person up. Realistically only help people who are already want change and are making action towards that change. Short term compassion will often end with both parties drowning in the end.

This remind me to the 7 deadly wins from Kevin Dutton’s books "The Wisdom of Psychopaths". 1.Fearlessness 2.Ruthlessness 3.Charm 4.Focus 5.Mental Toughness 6.Mindfulness 7.Action

I have worked with high success people in my medical career and honestly I have no desire to mold myself like them . In the moment, “ managing their resources” usually means BRUTUALLY taking advantage of others.

i think a lot of times we get wrapped up in “analysis paralysis”, or sort-of anxious freeze in decisions as well. we need to encourage more gumption & actionable goals in ourselves & loved ones!

The 3 traits top performers have: - Sociopathy: sacrifice short-term compassion for long-term results - Narcissism: know when to say no to others (which is equivalent to saying yes to yourself) - Neuroticism: use the negative emotions as toxic fuel to change your environment and improve your circumstances, instead of trying to get rid of the negative emotions with copes like substances/drugs

Summary - action focused coping (negative situations or feelings lead to you taking action incl working harder) - putting yourself above others + thinking long term

Hesitation is defeat. Absolutely correct. If we hesitate, we cannot move forward. I have struggled with this so much. I have been guilt-tripped way too many times, and its only just now I've begun to to fix my life.

I relate to neuroticism heavily. In college I made some very poor decisions which threatened my future success. I took that fear of failure and make immense progress in my life through hard work, but that hard work was based on fear and caused constant suffering. Now, I can look at my life and say that I'm objectively much more successful, but internally I still feel the same. Even now, I only move forward when I channel fear, anger, etc. But actions caused by these emotions don't lead to a happier future. It's not sustainable to always be running away from something you don't want, rather than running towards something you do want. With the first option, you may end up someone you never wanted to be.

Dr K you are so insightful and good at conveying complicated concepts. What's frustrating about listening to you is I didn't have anyone to tell me this stuff, I had to figure it out through a lifetime of suffering and failure. And here you are, just saying it. I love you for that, I don't want anyone else to go through what I have, but AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Holy Shit. I don’t know how to explain this, but I used to be this person and, somehow, worked myself out of it. - which was incredible for my mental health, but it’s honestly kind of stalled/nose dived my life. I literally said it to my friend a while back. I explained it as my “dark side” that I was able to tap into, but rather than “tapping into” it, I kind of lived there, but I THRIVED so hard on being hated/disliked and “proving people wrong” and that drove me to incredible places, but, I was also not as healthy mentally as I wanted to be and I guess worked on myself. That said, now, without that, I feel kind of dead inside. Like I have no driving force and have no idea how to even get that part of me back if I wanted to. - I never had to try to make that happen, it just naturally occurred. I never really knew why I was like that. I never really understood how I got out of it, and I really wish I knew how to kind of jump back and forth, but man, it just kind of feels like my drive is gone without it.

One of those "CEOs" fascinate me the most is Steve Job. In fact, this guy was a hippy and he embraced oriental philosophies in his private life. But in his business and corporate organization management life, he's a pure sociopath and certified as first class as$0Ie

This is the BEST healthy gamer video ive ever seen. It totally made sense of soooo many things in my life. I am in the top 10%. I have been called many names throughout my life due to having stiffer boundaries and more neuroticsm than others. In recent years, i let that talk get to me and totally gave in to helping everyone to try to be a good person and to manage the guilt i felt about my success. It led me down a very dangerous path bc it was never enough and i was suicidal. With all the money and success I just couldnt be this endless spring of live compassion and resources for everyone. And this seemed to be all my family and friends wanted from me. This video made me look at my younger, scrappy, sociopathic, neurotic self with sooooo much love. She got me here. She protected me for a long time and actually was way more balanced and healthy than i am now. I used to think she was a bad person. Thank you so much for this.

What I like about this channel is that what I think he might talk about is rarely the case. You make me think at things from the different perspective. Thank you.

This is by far one of the best Dr.K videos I've watched in a long time. Literally was about to call a crisis line to just vent about all these problems, but this really helps me figure out where they're coming from. I used to be so ambitious and successful but burnt myself out, and got so incredibly lonely I got sucked into some really bad relationships. Here's hoping I can take back some of those helpful mindsets from my past ambitious happy self when I go back to school this fall!

What a revelation, this is exactly what my problem has been. I can think of so many examples in my life when I gave into short term compassion and made sacrifices for the sake of another. This has really opened my eyes

i literally gave the screen an applause the moment you touched upon the neuroticism point... fixing the environment to fix the internal feelings, wow, I am mind-blown 🤯

incredible advice. If someone sincerely tries to emulate these behaviours and leverage these powerful attitudes and motivators success is the natural outcome. But everything comes at a cost. To pay that cost is most often the hard part but once your desire and obsession is strong enough to pay the cost of being focused and cutting out distractions and enjoyments then u go on a upward trajectory.

I don't want to be successful anymore. I just want to be happy.

Folks, please don't use sociopathy in every aspect of your life just because you want to be a "high performer." You'll just fuck up your existing relationships and your life. It's more like a tool, I think. It's only handy for some situations.

Thank you for describing who I am and why I have been the way I have been. Too much suffering caused me not able to enjoy my life, and finally gave up on giving myself so much pressure. I realized that it was trauma that turned on neuroticism, narcissism, and even a bit of sociopathy in me. After so much suffering, I feel like I finally found myself the child, who I once was. I feel balanced, have joy, and be able to get along with people like how I used to when I was a child. Society can crush you and change you deeply. It seems that the cost of embracing the three traits you mentioned is that I lost some abilities that I used to have as a child like being more intuitive and naturally more connected with people by just going with flow in exchange for the new abilities that I got, which have protected me from unwanted relationships and achieved goals I wanted. It's interesting that I forgot that feeling of getting along with people for so long, and now it starts to come back. I feel like life is karmic lesson.

Thank you so much for making these videos! ❤

Yes. This is a wonderful explanation of what I try to encourage with my friends. I moved a little ways out of poverty, but they didn't. They people please in short term help that doesn't provide long term results.

It amazes me to learn of things I started doing by instinct to better myself. Experienced an extremely traumatizing event that ruined my life. While trying to crawl out of that hole, I began doing a bunch of changes to myself to never have someone do what they did again. Resulting in a lot of self improvement and awareness at a lot of failings in myself. It’s nice when I then learn the very things I do/did were the correct ones. Now I can have the proper terminology for it, and more consciously improve upon.

I just got to a point in my life where i feel like financially, i am on par with my peers. Your channel has helped me drastically navigate my adhd and Improve my self awareness. I appreciate all that you do!

Just quit my sidejob to focus on expanding my other carreer path. Really needed to hear this today!

I know a handful of people with these exact traits and whilst they are indeed very successful and high achieving, they are not the sort of people who you can truly and deeply bond or connect with. There is almost always some kind of defence barrier/facade that they put up and you never really see their true authentic self. Many of them focus so much on external/action oriented “fixing” that they become completely disconnected from their core internal self. Yes it’s bad also to focus on your internal emotions so much that you just vent and/or never get anything done, but ignoring the present internal realm completely and only focusing on the future external is just as bad. It can lead to poor EQ, alexithymia, relationship and friendship problems and lacking a sense of human connection.

This is one of my favorite videos of HGGG. Maybe even my top favorite, since it's so relevant to me.

This is some of the most useful and actionable advice that you have ever shared on this channel. S tier video 🙌

The part about restraining empathy is incredibly valuable. We tend to assume that doing the empathetic thing, giving of yourself and helping is always better than the alternative, and you've shown that is not always the case. However I have to say that there are some points that would need to be expanded upon. For instance the bit about toxic fuel. When you're working for a boss who does not appreciate you and disrespects you - you could work harder, but the is absolutely no guarantee that you will rise in the ranks - if anything, the boss is going to want to keep you where you are, to exploit you, and if you keep at this, you'll get burnt out.

if successful people actually leaned into long term compassion, wouldn't they stop exploiting workers?

best advice dr k ever said was to give into the emotion of stress and run as fast as I can when im stressed or anxious. Changed my life, works so well to get rid of it.

Great advices. One thing that helps me a lot is not saying no, but actually doing what I want, feel like or find better. There's a saying: Better apologize than ask for permission.

34 yr old man, growing up with a family that never had their finances in order. I finally found a woman here in town that moved from another state. In short she has an amazing career path in Milwaukee. I am reluctant to move since i have always been in “survival mode” with my family. I know leaving them is going to hurt me (and them) but the Hospital is willing to pay for my college if i work at the hospital she works at. The vid was the push i needed to propose to her and better my life. Wish me luck

Absolute quality content once more, thank you for all your work Dr. K. Keep it up!

Finally someone qualified talking about the correlation of personality disorders and performance/results. Professionals are afraid of saying this, but in the studies of crime scenes it gives me anger to see how many people get away with a lot of stuff. This can't be a coincidence. It shouldn't be advised, but certainly we can learn something from it in a healthy way.

Great content man! Spot on with observations

You get to define your own success, and you should define it before someone else defines it for you.

Hey Dr. K, We would love to have a separate video on all 3 types of Coping Mechanism from you. Great stuff, as always!

Thanks so much for this video Dr K, really helped me

This is probably my favourite video. I am saving this video now.

The thing with the 2 examples that you gave is that is fine and dandy to plan for 10 years ahead, but you have to make it to tomorrow first!

I thought this was an interesting video-especially the portions of the video where you talk about empathic shielding and short v. long term compassion and the ability of high performers to be more strategic in saying no. Thank you for posting!

Thankyou for all the help over the years. I’m making the decision to find peace and move on from this life. You’ve been a wonderful help to me over the years and I wish I could pay it back. I’ve accepted that my death doesn’t need to be a sad thing, and that it truly is better this way. For the remainder of my time here I am going to be as positive and joyous as I can be, and try to experience as much as possible

Thank you for your work bro

As a person who's finally living his dream, I feel targeted because I just finally got skilled to say no to other people to the point of cutting them off 😅now I'm just assessing (been months still cooking) whether cutting off the toxic part is correlated to my sustained performance or just pure luck, who knows? time can only tell, but one thing I figured out is I'm far too emotionally fragile to handle being sandbagged and keep my dream at the same time (psychological state is a huge factor), especially if its daily exposure (desensitized) and coming from a long-time friend which is hard-earned as an introvert, thanks dr.k really put some things to perspective.

This was a standout excellent video! Definitely want more content like this!

Thank you for putting out such a video all things you mentioned is what I am dealing with Thank you 🙏🏽

With all respect, I think that your channel helped a lot of people and still continues to do so. And I agree with a lot of your opinions. I must go against you here and say that going to college is the wrong move for a lot of people. A lot of the high paying jobs are locked behind that degree, but colleges have become institutes that do not have the best wishes for students in mind. I would go as far as to say that they are taking advantage of young people. A lot of people: drop out; learn useless things; do not/can not use their degree after they graduated. I never expected you to get to this level of clickbait with the CEO bulls*** which promotes the wrong things, such as sociopathic behaviour or leaving your family behind for the wrong things. I am not saying that you should not strive for things, such as becoming a CEO or opening a business, but people should know that the ones who get there are the ones who have a path open for them from birth, and the rest of them are the exception and not the rule. I really wonder if you are helping anyone in this video, other than yourself. Who cares about CEO's if they make a very small percentaje of the population. Does that mean we have to be like them? F No

Thank goodness you brought this up! Truly, investing has changed my perspective on how one can succeed in life; working multiple jobs isn't the optimal way to attain financial freedom and unfortunately, we discover this later in life. Currently earn as much as 10 grand weekly and this has improved my financial life. Great piece!…

This video really spoke to me. I sacrificed my time and hours to support my family because of an absent parent, but I always felt some resentment towards them. My peers are successful with Bachelor's degrees and with good jobs, whereas I am working a menial job to support my family and put myself through Uni. I envied my peers and hated my life. This video was a wake-up call to change for the better. I need to value myself more and work on what I want from life. This life is all I get, so I'm going to try to make the most of it. Not always thinking about present situation (which sucks), but about the future I want to have. Thanks Dr. K

I really hope Dr. K doesn’t go down the path of full monetization before I become my best self all thanks to his videos that I watch.

Looking forward to hearing about cognitive reframing

patrick bateman tutorial

I had a lot of momentum towards my goals, having that sort of suitably inflated narcissism, neuroticism to propel towards success. Moving out of my parents place, getting sick with something I though would kill me and then watching the world turn upside down with covid, this new cold war et.c. really put a dent in my self-confidence. I did learn much compassion which I'm very grateful for and I did gain a much more holistic view of the world. But toxic fuel was what I'd been using for survival and success for all my life, so I was stuck in a complete rut. Only now slowly learning motivation through means which aren't just a cocktail of fear and self-aggrandizement. It hasn't been easy, but I reckon that now if I reach that success I pursue I'll actually be truly able to kick back and enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Love the distinction between short term compassion and long term compassion. I saw that a lot in the unhoused community. Would give you the shirt off their back. But could never differentiate what the best long-term thing would be to do. (obviously that's not all homeless, but it was definitely a trend I noticed)

Maybe there's a philosophical point also applicable to real life in there but I just wanna say as a hobbyist gardener, a lot of dead and screwed up plants lie in the shadow of most "green thumbs" 😅

I wouldn't exactly call CEO's or managers high performers though. Most companies i worked at they usually are narcissistic short-sighted wipes with nothing more then their own gain in mind. I have seen wild animals have more compassion for serious stuff surrounding their personnel or even tactical business decisions. And how do they keep that position? Someone higher up with the same mentality that goes full nepotism on the company. Trying your best is cool and all, but let's be real, 90% depends on the family you are born in and the money/friends they have. A college degree or university degree isn't a sign of intelligence, it's a sign of wealth and a free check to a lot of jobs.

Love the video! Made me realize similar problems I've been facing in my personal life. For example I have a tendency to not be able to say no because I don't want the person I care to think that I don't. I think this in turn sacrifices my time and effort and the other person starts to depend on me for everything. Which probably in the end doesn't help both parties.

Hearing this makes me realize how many people rationalize or "cope" away action-oriented coping so that they can allow themselves to avoid short-term suffering, & wallow in self-satisfied misery instead of fixing anything about their life

Would love to see what Dr. K thinks about Outliers and how to behave if you are not one but want to be successful.

The timing of this post is mind blowing. I’m literally working on this right now, not trying to be seem like a victim but actually just a flat dumbass- after helping so many people when they’re down then they don’t return the favor, actually quite the opposite, they get more conservative and pretend they did it all on their own; is starting to really jade me and make me very resentful. Especially when I see there are areas I’ve helped, and they ( my “friends” or better yet “ex girlfriends”) can say no to. It’s like they’re looking after themselves and that’s it. I kinda admire it and am going to start doing that myself. You have no idea how angry it has made me, trying to save up for a goal, but using my money to help FEED and shelter someone, and they can’t return the favor, actually they steal your idea and move on it faster, and since they aren’t even contributing to the group effort, they can save much faster. Because it easy when you only have to pay for yourself, and not babysit another grown fucking adult.

This is so helpful thank you.

Please dr k, expand upon this idea more in a stream.

Notes for myself: Sociopathy - ability to restrain empathy and not let people's feelings and reaction to suck them in. for example: bad family situation you need to support them : person a - > focusing on the now by finding job and forfeiting their studies which results culture of survival. Sacrificing yourself in short term which fucks you up in long term. person b - > Decides to focus on his own improvement by going to collage, going to get more money and now it also serves as positive role model. here the issue : person (a) : short span compassion fucks him up in long term because he lets his emotions to push his needs on the side. person (b): long term prosperity by putting himself first, despite there is a chance of feeling judged or guilty. Narcissism - a feature of it : Successful people are very used to say NO to other people. it does not mean their quantity of saying no is higher. They just know when to say no. and to what to say no. Self esteem is connected to how other people receive you and happy to have you . They would usually help to someone new rather then helping the same person several times. Let's say with your boss - he always asks you to fill out hours but you always say yes it just screws you up. You just gonna say no. Successful people say yes to newer and newer opportunities. Rather then saying yes to new people over and over and over again. Nurotism : coping mechanism 1. cognitive refraining. 2. action oriented. 3. emotion coping. what they usually do - is working on enviorment and in the end they are TRADING SUFFERING FOR SUCCESS. ✨ SELF AWARENESS TIME ✨ questions to ask myself: 1. am I a victim of short term compassion? 2.let's say if I say yes to this person - will I need to say yes to this person tomorrow? 3. How am I using emotional coping - for examples do I play games? go out with friends? vent? 4. How can I corporate action framing coping in my life?

So I need to be more sociopathic. Gotcha

Amazing video. Thank you!

Nice one, I didn't understand the last point. Seems like patience is what he is speaking about

This is honestly such a good video, less about being a high performer and more about not capitulating to cry bully or victim mentality individuals. If you constantly enable someone by helping you will learn the same traits. Look at the people that we idolize, they are not enablers, they are leaders. Leaders lead my example. Something something teach a man how to fish analogy also comes to mind.

100% on long-term vs short-term compassion. Also on being proficient at which asks/tasks to reject.

GOD WORKS WONDER. I needed to hear this, so simple yet so breakthrough in my head. Thank you so much 🙏

Thats kind of interesting Feels like this is a psychology take on time preference, which is very helpful imo

to people saying success is all about luck: I started a business with 0 confidence, 0 dollars and 0 connections on Oct 2023 (more than a year ago). This month i reached almost 300 usd of passive income (big number where i live) and it helps me pay for some expanses while i study full time (STEM major). Sure 300 is not much, but it's great for me. Don't ever give up and don't ever say you can't. there is always a way

I was immediately intrigued by this video because I paid for JBP’s 5 Aspects test several years ago and scored in the ~40th percentile in Conscientiousness (not that great…) and an insane 99th percentile in Neuroticism, which I found baffling and always took it to be such a negative trait of mine. I don’t think it’s ever good to lie in the extremes of anything, whether it’s politics or a trait of the Big 5 Personality Aspects/Factor Model. I need Part 2 for this video regarding cognitive reframing as I’m not doing too great in life these days. I believe my propensity for neuroticism allowed me to thrive in the startup scene a few years ago, but I’ve long left that field behind because I needed to take care of my ailing mother and greataunt. Listening to this video now has me seriously second-guessing the years I’ve potentially “wasted” with short-term compassion by directly helping my family instead of climbing up some corporate ladder to make the big bucks so that I could pay someone else to take care of them instead. Sigh…

you have perfectly described 3 Gunas of Nature: Sattva(as cognitive reframing), Rajas(as the second*) and Tamas (as coping emotions)

I’ll be honest this is something I struggled with a lot. I enjoy helping people, but often it would be at the expense of myself. To some degree I’ve overcome it, but it definitely caused a lot of issues for me early on in my life.

There is no need to be in a top percent,just live your life and do what you can and want.say no if its too much or purposeless.the end

as a man that follows buddhism, why the need for success? Doesn't this limit your goal to achieve nirvana? Why is it necessary to desire more in this world with limited resources? Why speak of it in a positive way?

This is so good! This was always on my mind and kind of knew it deep down inside, observing how other successful people operate. My journey towards development brought this up in me more and more and I didn’t realise it. Also heard the concepts in two different places: Owen Cook And Andrew Tate. I’m not saying that they are the best models but heck, always make connections and suck in very carefully the information that is valuable and in a way that is best for you!

Wow, I didn't know my behavior called neurotisim .. I love this video so much. It is realistic not just happy positive shit and hey love above everything and all that blah blah. I need to calculate more when helping people and when to say no.. than you thank youuu❤❤❤

Lol, if aspiring to be a CEO is your idea of success, get ready for a depraved, disconnected life. I hope, Dr. K, that this video is more of a warning than a guide (I say this as someone who worked for Goldman for 7 years).

Realistically we live in a competitive world, with a limited amount of high paying jobs, a limited numbers of investors and business opportunities, a limited number of slots in high end colleges, etc. We cannot all go from the bottom 75 to the top 10, that math simply doesn't work out. Without significant societal economic reforms there will always be a majority of people in lower paying, less satisfying "lower performing" jobs. So maybe rather than compare ourselves based on performance we should be looking at ways to improve our lives on an individual level without emulating the neurotic sociopaths that make them worse.

Thank you for clarifying this issue. I have been thinking about it for some time and my actions are also heading in this direction. That's why I got a good degree in programming at 40. The biggest inner blockage was/is now and then the doubt of being too selfish, which was instilled in me as a child by my mother, who is very selfish herself. She did it so that I would serve her. But hey, it's getting better and I trust my own inner voice more and more.

There is so much CRAP on KZfaq today, people offering “advice”. You bring a lot of value to this platform, never stop!

I don't necessarily agree. If you remain in a toxic work environment where your manager is basically creating a hostile work environment, then it's only going to hinder your performance over time and end up with you terminated from the position. This idea of sticking it out only works if your boss is actually knowledgeable and well respected among their peers. Taking the medical student perspective, if your boss is this narcissistic sociopath and has literally no publications and hasn't practiced medicine in over a decade, you probably shouldn't 'stick it out'. I don't necessarily believe in this masochistic perspective but feel there is merit to thinking the best performers are individuals who had some struggle and persevered. Again, going back to this horrible boss, if they slam you with poor performance review, I 100% guarantee that will not accelerate your ascent into your career.

The “middle way” is somewhat manipulative, in my opinion. You change your behavior and actions in order to get people to respect you/get them to do what you want in the future. This is a thought I always battle with

The description about emotion coping hitted hard. Descibes exactly how awfuly i managed my thesis

I feel called out. I think it’s a good thing

I have a kinda shaky friendship with a guy who is all of those things and I have no doubt he will be a successful person. But I would trade success with being a compassionate human being any time. I have high neuroticism which led me to push myself to success at expense of suffering and I am okay with that, it is my driving force. But his outlook on life and what he is capable of doing in order to achieve success, I do not think its worth it. I would rather live a peaceful life with the people I love and achievements I am proud of. But I have all these external forces telling me that's not enough. It's just hard to tell what is me and what is society at this point.

Studies have shown that the highest earning people are actually just really lucky. People can take the same paths through life and have extremely different outcomes. For a few examples: Three people go to college and graduate with the same everything in the same field. One gets a high paying job in the degree they went for and says this is an example of what hard work brings you. One gets a job in the degree they went for a bit higher than jobs you'd get not going to college except they have student debt on top of it so they never benefit from college. One doesn't get a job in the degree they went for and has student debt plus never makes it back. There are also some people who are just born in wealth or born in poverty. Money breeds more money so it's simply easier to get more if you already have money as they have many more opportunities than ones who don't. Now, this isn't to say that there aren't decisions one can make to improve things. But you won't reach the top percent just by making the most optimal decisions because others are also making optimal decisions across all earning levels. A person in poverty who makes a good decision with their money may get an extra thousand while a person who is rich that makes a good decision may get a billion. It's just not even close and no amount of decision making can change that as you either get lucky or not.

Thank you for putting out into the world everything I am look to impart as a therapist to my caseload

I hope one day you do a video on the psychology behind quotes that are often times misused or even abused. For example, "actions speak louder than words" and how that can be used to invalidate others.

I'm a noob at life, hope this helps a little lol