When I was young, my mom would bring me to a fortune teller where they can analysed your future by examining the year that they are born and the palms of their hands. The fortune teller will look up the almanac and recite about the experiences that I am having and whether or not I will be successful one day. As I grow older, I started to believe less in those things as I believe that my fate lies in my hands.  Until a while ago I was reading a book by Malcolm Gladwell called Outliers: The story of success. It’s telling a story about how the success of a person is determined by the month or year that you are born. As an example: hockey player in Canada is born in the months of January, February or March. The reason is because hockey players are recruited during the age of 11, where those who are born in earlier year would have a bigger body size compare to those who are born on the later years. There are other examples in the book including how IT billionaires are born in the months which are similar to each other.

Nevertheless the most interesting thing that I found in the book is about this 2 lawyers:

Maurice Janklow and Mort Janklow. Maurice is the father and Mort is the son. Maurice went to a law school in 1919 and once he graduated he set up a practice on Court Street in downtown Brooklyn. He married the very beautiful Lillian Levantin, who was the daughter of a prominent Talmudist. He drove big car. He moved to Queens. He and a partner then took over a writing-paper business that gave every indication of making a fortune.

Here’s a man with every indication shows that he’s going to be successful. He’s well educated, he married a prominent wife. He took risks to build up a business, however, Maurice’s career didn’t take off as it should. As a matter of fact he floundered.

Maurice got a son with the name of Mort who happened to study law as well. He went to the same school as his dad and built a law firm from scratch. He then put together one of the earliest cable television franchises and sold it for a fortune to Cox Broadcasting. He has his own plane and every dream that eluded by his father was now fulfilled by the son.

Looking in the story, both approach the same steps, however, the most crucial difference is apparently the year that they are born. Maurice was born before 1911, where after graduation, there are 3 significant world event that kill him economically. Firstly is the great depression and secondly is the second world war and thirdly is the 1918 flu epidemic. Most lawyer’s career during that time is a dignified road to starvation because very rarely lawyers are needed during those period.  In contrast, Mort is born in the 1930s, where the population is smaller and the economic is booming. Every single business that he got his hands on turned into a success. Today, Mort has offices high above Park Avenue filled with gorgeous works of modern art. The year that you are born does affect you.

History Repeats Itself.

Now applying this to my current life situation. I am born in 1984. I graduated with Computer Science degree in 2004. During that time there are many significant world event that happened. The dot com bubble burst shortly after I graduate. All of the computer science graduate are jobless for months and some even could not start a career in IT. The swine flu and chicken flu outbreak takes over the world by storm. And yes, finally the great depression repeats itself: the subprime mortgage crisis. When I looked at this, this is a sad reality of Maurice’s fate that he was born at the wrong year fall onto me.

So knowing this … what should those born in 1984 do?

In my opinion, search for the role models who has survived the great depression in the 1930s successfully and mimic his steps. After countless of research, I have found Macau Casino Mogul Stanley Ho as one of the very few person who survived the depression and thrived. He initially stayed in Hong Kong for his study but fled to Macau when the Japanese invaded Hong Kong. Even though he is very poor when he came to Macau, he’s able to build up his business. he married Clementina Leitao, a macanese belle and daughter of Macau’s wealthiest man. And it was through the Leitao family connection that he can establish his gambling businesses. During a recent video interview, the interviewer asks him what makes him so successful. He mentioned about three things: education, hard working and willing to sacrifice. However looking into his life history: seemed like ‘change’ is the biggest factor.  So Darwinian theory still holds: adaptability – key to human survival.

2010

As early in 2010 I have written up my new year resolution to tackle what are the things that I am going to change this year. Look forward to completing them at the end of the year

Here is a video of Stanley Ho: