Who would you bet on? We do not need to know the name of the person, but instead, share why you would bet on that particular person. Explain the traits, characteristics, personality, actions that lead you to choose that person.
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Grand Challenges Forum 
The person that I would bet on would be extremely disciplined to the point where they do not even give themselves the slightest chance to be distracted or not do whatever it is they said they would do. In other words, I would pick someone who has the integrity to not only make the right decision in the first place, but the integrity to always follow through. At the end of the Ted Talk, he brings up examples like taking the batteries out of the remote so you can’t watch television, or putting your shoes by the door so that you’re more likely to go to the gym.
I try to implement these kinds of actions into my own life so that I may have the integrity he speaks of. Every day I have a to-do list with all the things I need to get done and do not end my day until all of it gets done, trying to emulate his matching up of the journal with your hours in the day. When it is study time, I put away my gaming systems, controllers and even my computer mouse into boxes where I can’t see them or even bring them home so there’s literally no way to play games anymore. Like when he was talking about buying chocolate and being able to not eat it. I make a grocery list and try my hardest every week to stick to the list, because I know if there’s a bag of chips or candy on my desk I’ll want to eat it.
In my opinion, the large majority of us know what we need to do to be successful and are probably smart enough to achieve it in some shape or form. The ones who are actually successful do the little things to actually get it done, and not just once but consistently, day in and day out.
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Hi Kendrick, I really enjoyed reading your post. I agree with you that it is important to be extremely disciplined to the point where they don’t distract themselves in anyway. Similar to you, I also try to implement things so that I stay disciplined in life. Good Job!!!
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Kendrick, I completely agree with your quality traits for choosing a person to bet on. Discipline, focus, and integrity are vital to completing a plan. In addition to your reasoning behind why you chose someone, we have similar habits for how we can implement the three things Neill talks about into our own lives. I like how you are able to relate it back to your daily routine.
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Hey Kendrick, very nicely put points, I agree with your conditions for a candidate. Consistency is something that a lot of people tend to leave of of their lives on a daily basis, mastery of that can be very valuable if you already have what it takes to be successful.
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I have a cousin who is probably one of the most unbearably cocky and stubborn person I had the pleasure of knowing, but I would probably pick him to receive 10% of his future income.
As someone who’s know my cousin all of my life, I always knew even when we were kids the kind of person he was going to be. He’d always make the most logical and well thought out choices that I didn’t always agree on. His personality is extremely laid back and casual, almost so much that you’d never think he graduated Valedictorian in a landslide and attended Yale for Financing. He’s also a very open and honest personality that even gets him into trouble at times. Its easy for him to make friends and get involved in crazy opportunities and social events and I think that will be crucial in the field of finance. We would always argue about anything and everything, more so now that we both have such different career paths, but I know in terms of average income, he will beat me by at least a few tax brackets. This is because aside from his outgoing personality, he is insanely ambitious. Enough to be mentors to 5 different freshman in his fraternity, which didn’t surprise me since he was always the type of person to help someone in need.
After seeing Conor Neil discuss the 3 things that Warren Buffet requires in an investment, I realize that the rarest quality was integrity. It’s a difficult trait to spot, especially when just meeting someone. I’m quiet sure that my cousin has integrity, but I won’t know for sure until he gets in the work force.
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Hi Andrew, I really enjoyed reading your post and I agree with the fact that integrity is the rarest quality and often challenging to spot. I enjoyed reading about how you would bet on you cousin to receive 10% of his future income. Good Job!!!
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You make an interesting connection between ambition and integrity. While ambition can tempt someone to go against their integrity, by Mr. Neil’s definition, having ambition to succeed in something really helps have commitment and integrity for that thing.
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I really enjoyed watching Mr. Neill’s Ted video. I learned a lot of new things from it. The person I would bet on would have the three things Mr. Neill talked about. The most important thing is to have integrity. I believe that it is really crucial to have integrity to be a person that can be bet on. If you aren’t honest or don’t have strong moral principles, it will be become challenging for you to succeed. It is morally and ethically important to do the right thing in all circumstances, even if you are not under surveillance. It is important to work when you are supposed to and save socializing, snacking, searching the Internet and personal phone calls for break time. Similar to what Mr. Neill talked about, it is important to have the courage to say no and face the truth. I also want the person to be self-disciplined because it is a really important aspect if you want to bet on them. I try to stay self-disciplined by following a strict meal plan which involves avoiding sugar, fatty and processed food, and consuming low salt level foods. The second trait is energy. I believe that it is important to have energy and the urgency to wake up everyday to learn something new. Mr. Neill said that energy is health and I couldn’t agree more with him. It is important to maintain your health and be wiling to invest positively in your body. This further helps you to become mentally stronger. If you have a healthy body, you can easily recover from illness and be back on track to whatever you are trying to achieve. Finally, the third criteria is intelligence. This not chess intelligence but the kind of intelligence you need is adaptive intelligence. These are the three things I would look for just like talked about in the video.
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Gundeep, I really like how you analyzed Neill Conor’s three criteria for betting on a person while relating it to your personal life. I agree that integrity is the most important thing out of the three because someone being true to their word and following through with a plan will lead to success. I would switch the order for intellegience and energy though because I think energy is easier to have than intelligence. Great job on thoroughly explaining your reasoning!
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Hey Gundeep, I enjoyed reading your post! I definitely agree with integrity as being most important. It’s hard to be true to yourself if you cannot follow through with promises and stick to high moral values.
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As Neil Conor would choose someone with integrity, energy, and intelligence, I would agree that these are the three most important things. In addition to Neil’s three criteria that he acquired from Warren Buffet; I would add that past experiences and personal relations should also play a vital role in choosing a person.
Someone with integrity wouldn’t try to cheat his/her way out of anything. They would pay their bills on time, have strong moral values, and be as truthful as possible. In terms of handling money, my person wouldn’t have outstanding debt or loans to pay off. He/she would be strong-minded and a well-trusted member of society. Anyone who is honest and has a good head on his/her shoulders will be able to take the money and put it to good could use.
My person would have lots of previous experiences working with large sums of money and should not be in any debt. I believe that people learn from their mistakes. Someone who has gone through financial crises and is stable now would show that they have perseverance and have learned lots of skills vital to putting good use to the new money. Someone young could feel as if they can take more risks with the money. If my person is older and wiser and has lived through different hardships, I think he/she will be the right candidate.
Along with these experiences would be intelligence. Would this person make a plan for what to do with the money? Will this person keep the money for him/her self? My person would make a realistic plan for what to do with the money and how he/she can give the money back to his/her community in a positive way.
Finally, the person that I’d bet on would be someone I’m not close with. This way I won’t interfere with decision making or have any bias towards how the money should be used. Although the things I’ve outlined are fairly specific, people such my previous mentors and employers would be able to be the person I bet on.
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I think you make a great point that personal relations are a big factor in a person’s success. A single person can only accomplish so much, and a person that is able to grow the people around themselves will be far more successful.
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I’ve been lucky to meet a few people during my time at UH that I would definitely bet on to be successful in life. I think the common trait that ties these people together is that they are all internally motivated to pursue something that they also have aptitude for. I think to be extremely successful, a person cannot be motivated by money or other external reasons. These external motivations can be enough to be good or even great, but not the best. As Mr. Neill discussed, successful people have integrity – in that they seriously invest their time and focus into the things that they know are important to them.
When someone has the internal drive to succeed at something, genuinely focus their lives on that goal, and have the necessary aptitude, it is really hard for anyone else to compete with them. These successful people are also naturally inclined to want to perform well and be the best at what they do. When that commitment is genuine, I think it is much easier, or at least much more natural, for the hard-work, discipline, and excellence that lead to success.
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Hey Eric, I’m glad that you mentioned aptitude in your comment because I think it’s something many people fail to see. I think that in order for someone to be truly successful at what they do, they have to have a natural aptitude for it, in addition to being hard-working and motivated. I think if someone is not particularly good at what they choose to dedicate their time to, they’ll be good at it but will never be great. It’s important for everyone to find what they’re passionate about and what they’re good at, because if you have one without the other, there’s less of a chance that you’ll be successful.
I will disagree with you about motivations, however. There is someone who I’ve personally worked with and he’s admitted that he’s almost solely motivated by money and other external factors. Those external factors drive him to work harder than I’ve seen most people work, and he’s excelled at what he does. His example leads me to believe that both external and internal motivation are good in their own right.
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Hi Eric, I think your post was great! I think it’s so important that people find something that motivated them aside from money. Finding a job that you love is so much more important in my mind than finding a job that may pay better. I think this also applies to hobbies as well. Things like working out shouldn’t be motivated by wanting likes on your photos or to look better for other people, but rather for your own health, fitness, and self-improvement
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I got a lot out of watching this TEDx video. At first I wasn’t sure about the way he equated success with money, but I did genuinely learn some valuable life lessons from Conor Neill. I think he was quite clear that the person he wants us to bet on is ourselves, even though I personally am not quite comfortable doing so.
The thing that made me most uncomfortable, I believe, was his advice to write everything down. I was uncomfortable because I used to do this, but stopped. I stopped after writing everything down became too strange and uncomfortable- whenever I wasn’t 100% happy with how I spent my day, I didn’t like writing that down. I also didn’t like the idea of reading back over what I wrote, and I was self-conscious about how my future self would judge me. After listening to Neill talk about the athletes though, I realized that I can start by writing down something small every day, like a quote or an observation, and gradually become more comfortable with reading my own thoughts. Fifteen minutes at a time, so to speak.
I think Neill shares his tips and advice so that we can become more comfortable betting on ourselves. Of course, no person can ever be 100% perfect, but I do think it’s important to at least be comfortable with ourselves and comfortable with our life’s direction. Once a person bets on themselves, how can the direction of their life go anywhere but up?
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Hey Hannah, I really enjoyed reading your comment. I used to write everything down as well, but stopped when I realized just how much time I wasn’t spending on the things I truly cared about and was spiraling down a hole of apathy. After watching Neill’s video however, I came to the conclusion that it’s natural for people to be unhappy with some of the decisions that they make, and it doesn’t mean that they’re failures, just that they fail to make a good decisions some of the time. The solution isn’t to blind ourselves to the bad choices that we make, but to accept them and try to understand why we made those choices, then try to make better ones in the future. I agree with you about the fact that money does not truly equal success, but I think Neill had a better definition of success and failure later in the video. He says that success means repeatedly making good choices, while failure means repeatedly making bad ones and I think most of us lie somewhere in the middle, and we should all try to strive for good choices all the time, not just some of the time.
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The person I’d bet on is (and I mean this in the best way possible) unequivocally and undeniably lazy. What I mean by this is that he is particular about which tasks are worth doing and which ones aren’t. He solely focuses on the most pressing concerns, making sure that there are no other distractions in his way. He does not go out of his way to create tasks and busywork for himself, instead choosing to rest and recover for the challenges ahead. Conor Neill touched on this in the video, but the most successful people aren’t the ones who are able to ignore temptation, they’re the ones that set their environment up for success (I’m specifically referring to his diet example). What that means is getting rid of distractions and making sure that your work area is solely focused around your work, nothing else. The person that I have in mind can do that extremely well, making sure that his workspace is distraction-free, which enables him to maximize the use of his time and be as efficient as possible. Going off track a little bit, I have problems with this myself (some of which aren’t entirely my fault) and get easily distracted in the middle of doing important work, which is the reason I value this ability so highly. The person I have in mind is also able to delay gratification (referring to the marshmallow example Conor Neill gave). He’s able to consider what kind of reward he’ll get in the short term, and what type of reward he’ll get if he delays that short-term gratification, instead choosing to wait for the second marshmallow. Delaying gratification is something that many people struggle with, and I’m disappointed to say that I also struggle with this. While we are all logical and realize what consequences our immediate actions have, only a moment of weakness is needed to become distracted and fall into the trap of instant gratification. I think that’s the reason it is so important to set up an environment where there is no instant gratification, no marshmallow to be found in the room. Obviously not all marshmallows can be eliminated, but for example if someone is an avid user of Instagram, maybe when working on something they should put their phone away in another room until they finish their work. Like Conor Neill said in his talk however, the best person to bet on is always yourself. I will continue to work on my own weaknesses and eventually when I am able to overcome them, I’d bet on myself.
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Hi Mehmood, I really enjoyed reading your post! I think you make a great point about prioritizing what is important and focusing purely on those things. Many people are driven and willing to work extremely hard and yet devote energy to the wrong things ultimately resulting in less success. I also think your point about working for the long term is extremely important to achieve a larger goal, but I think it is also necessary to set shorter goals along the way towards this bigger goal in order to keep yourself motivated and make it feel more realistic.
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Your post reminded me of Mr. Neill’s discussion of the importance of being able to say no to things that would otherwise distract you from the things you have deemed important. Having this focus and being able to fully commit to it is definitely a rare quality.
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