Are you sure? Don't stay with the same approach all the time and wonder why "the world" doesn't discover your brilliance. Learn, change, adapt, and adjust. You should be able to be independently wealthy within ten years of devotion and sacrifice.
That seems a bit like begging the question. If you work hard/smart enough, you should be able to be independently wealthy within ten years. Therefore, if you're not independently wealthy within ten years, you didn't work hard/smart enough. In the end, you haven't proved anything.
It's a motivational message, sure, but completely void of any substance or practical advice.
You can work as hard/smart as someone who achieved independent wealth and if, after ten years, you're not independently wealthy someone can say "well, you didn't truly work hard/smart". An objective definition of what hard/smart is would lead to a testable hypothesis.
I'm sorry you didn't find any practical advice in this article. Please allow me to share some of the backstory to this.
When I write my articles for The Startup Foundry, I try to focus on what will help startups succeed. I've gotten some pretty sad emails from startups that think they're failures for not being huge in 6 months or less. I wrote this to make a point that it takes time for most startups.
But that doesn't disprove the grandparent's post in any way. It doesn't explain why people have trouble working hard or smart enough. It doesn't explain why some (many) people may work hard, or smart, or both, and not get rich. All it really says is "if you do all the things necessary to get rich, you'll get rich", without really adding any information.
That's a gutsy thing to say. Not everyone has the potential like you and me, both who were born in the US. Not everyone can use their best learning, changing, adapting, and adjusting to get out of the place they were born into. Not everyone who tries can be wealthy in ten years.
