In order to become rich, you need to be very focused on the goal. This means that you're either naturally very single-minded, or you've managed to prune other interests, doubts, thoughts from your head, and just executed mercilessly for years. In either case, this makes you a rather one-dimensional person. Additionally, successful people tend to be in always-be-selling mode, so it's super-hard to have an honest conversation with them.
In my experience this is fairly accurate. Most of the self made people I know (outside of Silicon Valley, of course) are just incredibly disciplined old men who almost exclusively care about money and their family.
Most rich people are skilled workers punching a clock, same as everyone else, but in better compensated fields. Monomaniacal focus on getting rich will make you an outcast in the societies you need to network with - everything is supposed to be about passion and impact.
> Monomaniacal focus on getting rich will make you an outcast in the societies you need to network with - everything is supposed to be about passion and impact.
I dunno, I work in a bank and here being semi-openly cynical and greedy is not seen as faux-pas.
Not to mention that part of being a successful person is being able to fake whatever needs to be faked in a given environment if necessary - be it passion, impact or whatever.
