The Middle Man

This post isn't what you think it's about to be about. It's not about the legions of "middle men" who scalp money from others, sometimes providing a valuable service but often not. Nor is this a title of a new book describing essentially 95% of Wall Street (which would more aptly be titled "The Ultimate Revenge of the Nerds")

What I refer to as a Middle Man in this post is a person who, by a combinations of choice, behavioral traitis, or by pure chance in life, might be categorized as an "average" person. I noticed that LinkedIn has been been promoting articles by what they call "Influencers," and the latest set of articles try to highlight what jobs Influencers first held. Are we supposed to relate to the fact that people who eventually made it big started from the bottom? People might ask, "how many people who are forced to wash dishes at Red Lobster really turn into the next Chris Rock?" Also, how many people really find the drive to become the next Richard Branson?

The question I'd pose is, "how many people who aren't forced to find rock bottom eventually find the motivation to make it big"? Those of us in the Middle can relate to this - enough comfort in life to get us by, and not enough true hardship for us to risk everything for a passion. Arguably, those who hit rock bottom or in otherwise challenging situations in life are actually more likely to spring back to higher levels than the rest of those in the Middle. This is of course assuming certain personal qualities- but the crux of this argument is that many regular people possess these same qualities (often latent), but circumstances will often dictate whether those qualities ever get fully utilized.

There is another school of thought, which I also find fascinating and believable, that says that we basically choose our own situations in life. If we find ourselves in a risky situation that might sacrifice all that we've worked to accomplish, this wasn't by chance. You chose to put yourself in that position. There could be a million different examples of this - from losing money in the markets by using too much leverage, to finding yourself with the wrong crowd of people on a Friday night (and winding up in jail). On the flipside, losing money could teach you valuable lessons to becoming financially secure in the future, and that one night in jail could be enough to prevent you from even remotely slipping again.

If we are to believe that we play a large part in finding ourselves in holes from which we then have to dig ourselves out (or catapult out of), in a sense, we guide our own destiny to unlocking our true potential. In other words, it might be possible for that otherwise average guy to go on to do great things. Whether it's a choice to go to the gym to partake in some physical resistance training or placing yourself in situations where you risk emotional, physical, or financial harm, we do have a choice. It just may not be a clear and straight path.