People who struggle to succeed in some area are often friends with, and surrounded by, other people who also struggle in that area, they just swap stories and pat each other on the back.

They console each other with justifications for why they all suck at something—We’ve all got this, we’ve all been through this.

We’re all limited by our peer group, culture, and sometimes, of course, this even extends to national culture.

You get this in New Zealand, for example, with tall poppy syndrome—the belief that it’s somehow arrogant to succeed.

That kind of envy-driven belief: that you wouldn’t want to try and succeed because you’d have to be an arrogant prick who hurts other people to do it.

That belief permeates the entire culture.

You try to do well at anything, and people start giving you shit—as if you’ve harmed somebody.

You can grow up in this environment without even being aware that it’s not the only environment available.

I could see this in Czech Republic culture, where I now live—in the way people feel about doing well financially.

There’s this idea of snobbery, this assumption that you’ve done something unethical, and so on and so forth.

Now, none of these poor people go out to verify if that’s actually true—like, I’m going to find out. They just have a repulsion and it leads them to be too modest and humble about accepting money. They’ll do a lot of stuff for free when they should be paid.

To dive deeper into this topic, check out the original video here: