To think a lot of people earning 6 figures aren’t actually that smart, just lucky?

[SnarkyDenimFox]

I’ve met plenty of high earners and honestly, a lot of them don’t seem any sharper than the rest of us. Right place, right time, right connections. AIBU to think it’s often luck, not talent?

Of course it's luck. I'm intelligent, hardworking and have made good choices in life, but I don't delude myself into thinking that it's because I'm in some way special. Luck of the draw borne me into a well-educated middle class family. If I'd been born a peasant in rural China, or into dire poverty in the roughest areas of the UK, I obviously wouldn't be making the salary I do now

My DH and I are both teachers. Both academic high flyers in our school/uni days and both happily in our 39th year of teaching. DHS BIL and SIL both out earn us significantly. BIL lovely and good with people but struggled through a degree at a very low ranking uni and SIL similar. They both work in Sales/Marketing . Owing to our age we’ve been lucky with buying houses/childcare costs and sonhsve had a comfortable but not lavish life. If were their age we’d be struggling financially. Having said that I could have used my shiny oxbridge degree to massively out earn them if that had been my focus. It does seem to me that there are a lot of woolly and fairly unquantifiable jobs that pay very well.

30th not 39th!

Changing jobs every few years to get a bit further up the career ladder and gain much broader experience can be a real game changer. I changed jobs every 3-5 years, mostly to different employers, doing either different work or more senior same work, but always within accountancy, sometimes just moving from one dept to another within the same firm.

Sometimes when I moved to a new firm, I was working alongside people who'd been there since leaving school/uni who thought they "knew it all", but really they'd just been doing the same thing repeatedly for years/decades and had no breadth of knowledge/experience. Most were "silo'd" and couldn't do associated work which they had to pass over to others in other departments, who likewise had been there years doing the same limited work. I tended to do the "whole job", start to finish, and didn't pass work over to other depts as it was all within my skillset/experience. I trod on a few toes doing that, but overall it was more efficient. I also wasn't afraid of changing/shaking things up, with changing long established inefficient systems, etc.

After 20 years, I gave up my job, set up my own business and never looked back, which I've been doing for the past 20 years and now I'm downsizing toward retirement. I still know some of the people I used to work with and they're still doing the same job they did when they left school 40 years ago, still whining that they didn't get promotions, didn't get pay rises, etc. - some of those were every bit as intelligent/qualified as me, some better, but they just preferred their "comfortable" work life rather than taking risks and pushing themselves. Others I worked with pressed on, moved around, and got promotions, some started their own businesses, and did far better.

Sometimes you have to take that "leap of faith" if you want to get on.

This too, but you have to persist in the right direction so I'd say vision and persistence.

My DH and I fall into this category, BOTH of us have worked our arses off academically and professionally.
Me in Law and him in IT leading to his own consultancy. We are both intellectuals but also have people skills and the ability to connect with others.

I also spent my 20's ploughing my energy and whatever money I could into BTL's. I've got a small but lucrative portfolio now.

None of it was 'easy' or luck and it definitely took brain power.

What I can tell you is that I didn't have holidays, nice cars, salon trips, expensive clothes or anything of the sort from when I started working/building. I had a long term vision.

People I know who are probably earning 6 figures:

1. University professor - incredibly hard working and very intelligent, obviously. I don't believe there was much in the way of luck in getting to that position.

2 Consultant psychiatrist - same comment as above

1. Head teacher of a comprehensive school - very charismatic, very intelligent and very hard working.
2. Country Manager of a large well-know.n tech firm- very very charismatic. Intelligent and hard working too.

There was a big debate on twitter about this the other month. There was a graph. Basically, IQ has a very weak correlation with salary once you get to average intelligence and above. After a certain point (roughly an IQ of 120), the benefits of higher IQ for earnings level off so you get a plateau effect. Other traits (social skills, motivation, networking, risk-taking, emotional intelligence) become more important.

Very low IQ is however correlated very strongly with low salaries (for obvious reasons) but once you get to average IQ and higher, the correlation becomes much weaker. In the cases of extraordinary high IQ (like top 0.1% of the population) you even get a small reversal. Explains why you get people like Einstein and Newton and Curie doing work for little pay as pursuit of knowledge is the biggest driver for them. They’d do it for free.

Job type and industry is however much more strongly correlated with IQ than income (that’s why you get surgeons and barristers and MI6 agents and chemistry professors make peanuts compared to YouTube influencers or even your average corporate WFH laptop email graduate)

Every time I hear Trump speak, I wonder the same OP!

Most people getting established in their careers in their 20s don't have salon visits, fancy holidays, loads of new clothes etc etc though. I didn't - nor did anyone I knew, because paying rent in London in the late 90s/early 2000s didn't leave much left over from an average salary.

We're all still on pretty average salaries. All as hard-working and intelligent as anyone else.

Hard work does not equal a massive salary or a huge brain. The massive salary CAN be the result of hard work or a big brain, but in a lot - I'd hazard a guess at most - cases, it's the result of having the right connections, background and a face that fits. There are sooooo many (mainly male) senior managers who've been over-promoted because of this.

It's always a mixture of many things. The ability to do the job, the work ethic to get things done, the personality to impress people, being in the right place at the right time and, yes, a large sprinkle of luck.

Like everything in life, one different decision along the way could have completely changed how things worked out.

I know some high earners who just never stop working, never stop trying to get what they want. I equally know some who openly laugh about the fact they're the boss, don't seem to do very much all day, and let other people on lower wages do everything for them. It really is a mixture!

This attitude right there shows that you don’t understand what literally every other PP has been saying.

Trump is successful because he understands and taps into what people want. If that makes him rich that means he understands the game and plays it well. That is what being smart is.

If you stand on the sidelines making comments like these thinking your are morally superior, than don’t be surprised that you are not in the league of those earning big bucks.

Don't think its pure luck, no. I think its down to personality perhaps more than pure intelligence.

On paper I'm quite intelligent but never been a high earner.

There is a really interesting study done about the factors that make people hit the senior civil service and there is a lot in there about ‘knowing the code’, excellent communication and soft skills etc, having done the right ‘accelerator’ jobs to get noticed and profile. I suspect there is a lot they will be applicable to lots of industries. It’s not really about working the hardest or being the brightest but some of the other things that are often unsaid.

I’m in a position where I could have taken more senior positions but haven’t because I don’t want the extra work or hours. I am fully aware the next rung up is more stress than my current level. My husband is in a high earning board role. The stress of the role isn’t really worth the salary or the damage to his health. He has got there through some good fortune but a lot of hard work and can’t continue for much longer. As you get more senior you do less ‘work’ as such but have much more accountability and a different sort of stress.

They can go from management upwards though.

Really? Elon's dad is well alive, what inheritance? Elon would be super rich even if his parents were dirty poor. (I hate the man and wish him successful one way flight to Mars but let's just agree that he's visionary genius).

Ten richest man in the world are all self made. Not saying they were born in abject poverty, but pretty ordinary backgrounds.

the other factor is how machivellian would you be willing to be and what opportunities would be available that you then need the machivellian skills for

I’ve worked hard and had a bit of luck but like others have said I also really wanted to be financially secure (brought up by single parent, first generation to go to Uni, house repossessed in the early 90s) and have always prioritised that.

High earning jobs very rarely come from “following your dream” or trying to find a job that makes you happy/gives you satisfaction. About 5 years into my career I was desperately unhappy and looked at retraining. Even then the financial hit I would take plus the earnings potential of my desired career (not great) meant it would have been very difficult financially. So I persevered and here I am 20 years later, having taken 2 x 9 month maternity leaves and only worked PT (4 days) when I had pre-schoolers.

Other people I know work harder than me, but made other choices (had kids early, gave up work/worked fewer than 4 days, pursued a dream job not a well paid one). These are all valid choices, but generally they don’t lead to 6 figure salaries.

This is part of the reason why I think my ex is a sociopath because he doesn’t feel stress in the job. I’ve known him a very long time (in the same company at one point) and he never feels stressed professionally even when everyone else is running around like headless chickens. I think it’s that more than any other aspect of him that makes him sought after (and a sociopath 😕).

This is simply not true.

It's phycological trick - "you need to be MachiAvellian to earn well, I'm a good person hence will never be a high earner".

I met some super high earners (£1m+ packages) who are absolutely fantastic people and didn't have to destroy anyone to get to their positions.

The rate of psychopathy is higher is certain high earring sectors that the general population though. That doesn't mean all surgeons or CEOs are psychopaths, but they are more likely to be 👀

I think as many have said, it's putting in the groundwork, having a clear plan and making smart choices. I'm paid 60k for a 3 day week, a choice I make to be there for my children when young, as that's my priority. And that's not saying full time high earning mums aren't putting their children first, I'm sure they also are, through being able to fund the best private schools etc.

I had an element of privilege in that I'm reasonably academic and my parents were emotionally supportive of my education, but my secondary school was shockingly bad, parents couldnt support me financially, there were no connections to fall back on. Most of my friends growing up had our shocking school, plus very unsupportive parents, got pretty average grades and worked their way up through sheer slog and smart choices and several are now on 6 figure salaries. They look at me with my straight A's and wonder why I'm not, but that's just choices - maybe I didn't have their almost primal desire to do much better than their upbringing, as mine was decent. A tough start can create challenges but can also be a fantastic motivator.

Link please? any research?

Or you just think so based on your sample of how many?

Some careers are higher paying than others however hard you work …… eg different specialties in medicine

I don't have a link. I've read two books on it which quoted sources (which I also can't recall the names off, one was maybe the psychopath test, can't remember the other (which is a shame as it was better/ more scientific) and I don't care enough about this side discussion to go dig them out and find the relevant passages.