My 1st article for the New York Times -- the psychology of financial willpower

My 1st article for the New York Times -- the psychology of financial willpower(bucks.blogs.nytimes.com)

40 points by ramit 15 years ago | 10 comments

Ramit, I noticed a pattern in HN: people who are trying to make it share their work (articles, webapps, ideas), self-promote, and ask for help. While people, such as yourself, who already enjoy significant success, come to HN to help, mentor, offer jobs, etc. So I am wondering... How is it that most of your contributions here are about you and how well you are doing? You figure at this point, if the community was interested in your work, someone else would be posting it. I am mainly curious to know HN policy on self promoting and spamming, because I see it as detrimental to the quality of the site.

mikegreenberg 15 years ago | |

To his credit, Ramit knows business and finance to a tee, but I question his social marketing savvy. I've been following Ramit's work when his IWTYTBR blog was just starting and his bootcamp programs and Scrooge Strategy mailing lists were not yet released.

While his message is strong, I doubt he values individual readers very significantly. He runs multiple mailing lists which recycles his content between them, all of his output he turns into a commodity to be sold or leveraged to further his interests. He maximizes for the best results with the least amount of effort to achieve them. As for the content he's generated, his message hasn't changed in a long time and I haven't seen too many new thoughts from him in a while, though I've stopped paying attention, too. I'm not knocking his strategy. He's an excellent business man who has worked the 20-something niche for all its worth. I would guess he's finding that doesn't pay the bills and is simply broadcasting his message for a different demographic (seemingly ANY demographic that will listen).

Your point is appropriate, but to answer your question the policy is very ad hoc. Those with a personal agenda get noticed and drowned out by the community. It's up to the community to decide.

jaybol 15 years ago | | |

I also think that there are similarities here to the 'sister' Reddit community/mentality (especially r/programming which is cross-posted back and forth regularly), in that people are willing to support people that they personally identify with or like. I don't see that as detrimental to a community, but rather as a key element in fostering community (unless it gets too insular and discriminating in who is able to get that treatment). Any news about a Ycomb grad will rise to the top because of the tight-knit culture and identifying with each other from the early stages of their respective companies, so I don't see any issue with someone posting to the community with a transparent "this is my post" statement by someone from outside the group of grads.

Regardless of previous success, I think we can appreciate someone who is still excited by a new opportunity and sharing his content for anyone who might find value and/or support his quality content. Many financial fundamentals have been taught before, but can be repackaged and interesting and valuable to readers, especially those who haven't read his book (which I haven't). Like Mike says here, some overly promotional agendas get drowned out, but there is also a certain amount of community appreciation for people who just come out and say "this is something I made, what do you think?" Of course, in a social voting system, if people think "wow that sucks" then they downvote the content and leave a "that sucks" comment.

ramit 15 years ago |

This is the 1st of 4 posts I'll be doing for the New York Times (their Bucks blog) on the psychology of willpower, automation, and earning more. This one is about how people believe if they just "try harder," they can save more money...yet willpower fails repeatedly. I included research from social psychology and personal finance, and 3 tactics to overcome our failure of willpower. Hope you guys enjoy it.

maxklein 15 years ago | |

Have you written all four already? What happens if you write 3, then for the last one you have absolute writers block, or you end up writing stuff you are totally dissatisfied with?

ramit 15 years ago | | |

I haven't written all four yet, but I do have outlines of the ideas. I collect ideas/research/examples for a long time -- often years -- so when I go to write a post, I can sort through tons of stuff. That helps with writer's block.

jiganti 15 years ago |

I've read opinions that seem contradictory to your thesis (these both appear to be derived from the same study). [1] [2]

While they aren't addressing the same types of discipline, I'm wondering if this sort of self-fulfilling outlook they describe can be applied to the financial situations you address, or if you can explain where they might be misinformed.

[1] http://news.softpedia.com/news/Willpower-Is-Not-a-Limited-Re...

[2] http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/10/25/willpower-can-be-an-...

deltaqueue 15 years ago |

Interesting subject, but I felt like the suggestions lacked substance--cutting down discretionary expenses as generic as "eating out" ties into the question of willpower and the battle of "trying to save on everything". If willpower really is unlimited like the study jiganti referenced, how does one transfer the concept of something like Flow (which the Stanford article inadvertently focuses on) into financial willpower (which is more of a day-day decision-making process)?

Also, small typo in 8th paragraph - I think you meant to say "extraordinarily".

glen 15 years ago |

Congrats!!!