

My 1st article for the New York Times -- the psychology of financial willpower - ramit
http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/how-to-improve-your-financial-willpower/

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BeachVentures
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
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
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.

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ramit
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
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
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.

~~~
jaybol
I think that you will have the willpower to finish all four :)

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jiganti
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...](http://news.softpedia.com/news/Willpower-Is-Not-a-Limited-
Resource-161127.shtml)

[2] [http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/10/25/willpower-can-be-
an-...](http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/10/25/willpower-can-be-an-unlimited-
resource-study-says/)

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deltaqueue
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".

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glen
Congrats!!!

