How to research method acting a present day wealthy person?
January 22, 2020 7:55 AM Subscribe
I want to get inside the mind of a wealthy and powerful person who is alive today.
I think the easiest way to do that is to choose someone most similar to myself. Maybe that means someone who speaks English.
What biography would I read to get an accurate picture of that person? What things can I do to help getting into the mind of this person? What can I do to genuinely /think/ like this person?
I haven't read it yet, but the reviews of the book on Jim Simons, The Man Who Solved the Market, is supposed to be pretty good.
posted by praemunire at 9:38 AM on January 22, 2020
posted by praemunire at 9:38 AM on January 22, 2020
how wealthy? by this i mean that there is a difference in lifestyles between someone having say $200,000, $1,000,000 and $1,000,000,000.
examples in differences outlined here: https://np.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_insanely_wealthy_people_buy_that_ordinary/cnnmca8/?context=3
posted by alchemist at 9:48 AM on January 22, 2020 [3 favorites]
examples in differences outlined here: https://np.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_insanely_wealthy_people_buy_that_ordinary/cnnmca8/?context=3
posted by alchemist at 9:48 AM on January 22, 2020 [3 favorites]
Here's a tip: The wealthy use money to avoid hassles. Don't want to clean? Get household help. Don't want to deal with your kids? Send them to boarding school. Don't like standing in line for first class? Get a private jet. Don't like to park? Get a car and driver. Have the hair stylish come to you. And your personal trainer, in your home gym.
Many years ago I read an interview with some rock group. One of the dudes was asked, what's changed now that you're rich? He said, "You know with pistachios how there's always a few stuck tight in their shells? Now I just throw those away."
posted by mono blanco at 10:02 AM on January 22, 2020 [9 favorites]
Many years ago I read an interview with some rock group. One of the dudes was asked, what's changed now that you're rich? He said, "You know with pistachios how there's always a few stuck tight in their shells? Now I just throw those away."
posted by mono blanco at 10:02 AM on January 22, 2020 [9 favorites]
The kind of advice people give says a lot about the way their mind works. Read Jia Tolentino's review of Ivanka Trump's self-help/business advice book and then, if you have the stomach for it, read the book itself. Choice tidbit from the review:
For anyone who still finds Ivanka to be a cipher, “The Trump Card” provides a surprisingly clear indication of her instincts, particularly when she discusses her childhood. She offers a story about being forced, by her mother, to fly coach to the south of France as the moment she realized she needed to make her own money. She has a sour sense of humor: she describes attending the élite prep school Choate Rosemary Hall as an opportunity “to look at the world from a whole new angle. Even if it meant living in a building named for someone else!”
When Ivanka was a kid, she got frustrated because she couldn’t set up a lemonade stand in Trump Tower. “We had no such advantages,” she writes, meaning, in this case, an ordinary home on an ordinary street. She and her brothers finally tried to sell lemonade at their summer place in Connecticut, but their neighborhood was so ritzy that there was no foot traffic. “As good fortune would have it, we had a bodyguard that summer,” she writes. They persuaded their bodyguard to buy lemonade, and then their driver, and then the maids, who “dug deep for their spare change.” The lesson, she says, is that the kids “made the best of a bad situation.”
posted by googly at 11:10 AM on January 22, 2020 [7 favorites]
For anyone who still finds Ivanka to be a cipher, “The Trump Card” provides a surprisingly clear indication of her instincts, particularly when she discusses her childhood. She offers a story about being forced, by her mother, to fly coach to the south of France as the moment she realized she needed to make her own money. She has a sour sense of humor: she describes attending the élite prep school Choate Rosemary Hall as an opportunity “to look at the world from a whole new angle. Even if it meant living in a building named for someone else!”
When Ivanka was a kid, she got frustrated because she couldn’t set up a lemonade stand in Trump Tower. “We had no such advantages,” she writes, meaning, in this case, an ordinary home on an ordinary street. She and her brothers finally tried to sell lemonade at their summer place in Connecticut, but their neighborhood was so ritzy that there was no foot traffic. “As good fortune would have it, we had a bodyguard that summer,” she writes. They persuaded their bodyguard to buy lemonade, and then their driver, and then the maids, who “dug deep for their spare change.” The lesson, she says, is that the kids “made the best of a bad situation.”
posted by googly at 11:10 AM on January 22, 2020 [7 favorites]
Rather than suggest movies to watch or any particular zeitgeist book, I'd like to suggest a basic notion or two - Watching the Kardashians will give you a perspective. Hell, Wall Street & Wolf of Wall Street even. Read Bill Gates biography. Etc. etc.
But thoughts wise? This:
Understand that money ceases to have any meaning relative to your existence and is just a tool for a task.
Us non 1%'ers have bills to pay. We are governed - throttled - by our fiscalness. Everything we do revolves around how much we have don't have/need/want.
From a head space perspective, emulating this is, at rock-bottom, a matter of how much quality feigned arrogant nonchalance you can emit without erring into the 'too much' category - best way I can describe it is using the old adage that 'clothes maketh the man' - You can put a suit on, but if you can't wear the suit, you might as well not be wearing it. Don't matter if you're talking about finances or fast times, your ability to suit the circumstances comes from this skill set. It's why some people are treated differently to others - they give off the vibe, if you like.
Wealthy people have the ability to carry-off anything because it fundamentally does not matter to them. Not perspective, attitude, relativity, suitability, nothing. The subtext is 'Because I'm loaded. So, what'. (Not a character flaw necessarily)
Interestingly, language tells another story - English its' self has the class aspects involved, however global English is tempered by location; wealthy South Africans are waaaayyyy different to wealthy Indians. Think loaded Russians Vs. NY Wasps. But the arrogance, the arrogance is still there - whether it's super frosty Siberian oligarch or up-it's-own ass American or haughty snooty Brit or downright self entitled Indian doesn't matter. That unspoken language of communication by manner and tone is international. Ask a decent hotel concierge.
Getting inside the mind of this is the interior of that shell. And within, you will find all the usual gufff that is in *all* of our heads. Where I think you want to go is how you externalize being a wealthy person - in thought - so if you consider that money is not the object, (Unless it is, and you want a business curve, "how do I make more money / leverage this to that and so on) your thoughts revolve around choice because you don't have any of the limits fiscally imposed upon you. Want to pick up the phone and say i'd like a jet to Gstaad around midnight please? Turn up at Annabelles or Studio54 and breeze right in the door with bottles? Want to start a water charity for Ethiopians? Want to learn a skill? Ask, and answer.
The restrictions are the difficult things to imagine, because they do not stem from the same problems as those without wealth.
[Insert quote here] choose one from here
posted by DrtyBlvd at 11:28 AM on January 22, 2020
But thoughts wise? This:
Understand that money ceases to have any meaning relative to your existence and is just a tool for a task.
Us non 1%'ers have bills to pay. We are governed - throttled - by our fiscalness. Everything we do revolves around how much we have don't have/need/want.
From a head space perspective, emulating this is, at rock-bottom, a matter of how much quality feigned arrogant nonchalance you can emit without erring into the 'too much' category - best way I can describe it is using the old adage that 'clothes maketh the man' - You can put a suit on, but if you can't wear the suit, you might as well not be wearing it. Don't matter if you're talking about finances or fast times, your ability to suit the circumstances comes from this skill set. It's why some people are treated differently to others - they give off the vibe, if you like.
Wealthy people have the ability to carry-off anything because it fundamentally does not matter to them. Not perspective, attitude, relativity, suitability, nothing. The subtext is 'Because I'm loaded. So, what'. (Not a character flaw necessarily)
Interestingly, language tells another story - English its' self has the class aspects involved, however global English is tempered by location; wealthy South Africans are waaaayyyy different to wealthy Indians. Think loaded Russians Vs. NY Wasps. But the arrogance, the arrogance is still there - whether it's super frosty Siberian oligarch or up-it's-own ass American or haughty snooty Brit or downright self entitled Indian doesn't matter. That unspoken language of communication by manner and tone is international. Ask a decent hotel concierge.
Getting inside the mind of this is the interior of that shell. And within, you will find all the usual gufff that is in *all* of our heads. Where I think you want to go is how you externalize being a wealthy person - in thought - so if you consider that money is not the object, (Unless it is, and you want a business curve, "how do I make more money / leverage this to that and so on) your thoughts revolve around choice because you don't have any of the limits fiscally imposed upon you. Want to pick up the phone and say i'd like a jet to Gstaad around midnight please? Turn up at Annabelles or Studio54 and breeze right in the door with bottles? Want to start a water charity for Ethiopians? Want to learn a skill? Ask, and answer.
The restrictions are the difficult things to imagine, because they do not stem from the same problems as those without wealth.
[Insert quote here] choose one from here
posted by DrtyBlvd at 11:28 AM on January 22, 2020
googly, OH MY GOD, I have no words for that lemonade stand story, just, oh my god.
posted by MiraK at 11:47 AM on January 22, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by MiraK at 11:47 AM on January 22, 2020 [9 favorites]
You might try reading the leaked emails of the Ricketts family. To my knowledge that is a uniquely candid look at casual conversation within a very wealthy family.
posted by crazy with stars at 11:57 AM on January 22, 2020
posted by crazy with stars at 11:57 AM on January 22, 2020
I would think the biographies and internet writing about Peter Thiel and Elon Musk would be the closest to their actual personalities. Most of the books about contemporary wealthy people are polished to be presentable to middle America and don't really capture day-to-day interactions and their true personality.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:31 PM on January 22, 2020
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:31 PM on January 22, 2020
I've noticed that rich people have ...just... glowing skin. Not just face but hands, arms, legs. It's like they get facials for their whole body? Maybe it's using the sauna a lot? Maybe it's Gwenyth's goop diet? IDEK. But it's a low key halo, is what it looks like.
If you're doing method immersion, I'd say eat clean and go to the sauna and get a lot of indoor exercise.
posted by MiraK at 1:18 PM on January 22, 2020
If you're doing method immersion, I'd say eat clean and go to the sauna and get a lot of indoor exercise.
posted by MiraK at 1:18 PM on January 22, 2020
mono blanco's wealthy "use money to avoid hassles," but I've heard different reasoning for some of the items on their list: a cleaning service is a given, because paying the service double-digit dollars per hour frees up your far more valuable time (as you make quadruple-digit dollars per hour). Boarding school is worthwhile early social networking, and the prestige carries your not-especially-academically-gifted kid through to the 'right' colleges (keeping them safely within that social network). A personal driver means you can work remotely and multi-task during your commute, and make more money.
This mindset involves weighing specific efforts and jobs in all areas of your life, recognizing which tasks you alone can do, and delegating/outsourcing as much 'lower-level' stuff as possible. Because you're the one with the ability to really earn.
[agreed, MiraK -- every time I'm reminded of that lemonade stand story, my head pounds like there's a nosebleed in the works.]
Bear in mind that it's easier to feel wealthy if your peers, or the people in your immediate environment, clearly have less money; "high-earning New Yorkers feel poor" is a trope with many magazine articles and profiles propping it up. For more frame-of-mind ideas, see also Rachel Sherman's Sept. 2017 New York Times piece, "What the Rich Won’t Tell You" and the articles and opinion pieces in response.
Read up on Warren Buffett, if your present-day wealthy and powerful person is a practical Midwesterner who eschews ostentation.
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:35 PM on January 22, 2020 [3 favorites]
This mindset involves weighing specific efforts and jobs in all areas of your life, recognizing which tasks you alone can do, and delegating/outsourcing as much 'lower-level' stuff as possible. Because you're the one with the ability to really earn.
[agreed, MiraK -- every time I'm reminded of that lemonade stand story, my head pounds like there's a nosebleed in the works.]
Bear in mind that it's easier to feel wealthy if your peers, or the people in your immediate environment, clearly have less money; "high-earning New Yorkers feel poor" is a trope with many magazine articles and profiles propping it up. For more frame-of-mind ideas, see also Rachel Sherman's Sept. 2017 New York Times piece, "What the Rich Won’t Tell You" and the articles and opinion pieces in response.
Read up on Warren Buffett, if your present-day wealthy and powerful person is a practical Midwesterner who eschews ostentation.
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:35 PM on January 22, 2020 [3 favorites]
Oh, definitely How to talk to anyone. It’s for people wanting to fake being in a higher old money social class. I think you can easily find a PDF online.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:15 AM on January 23, 2020
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:15 AM on January 23, 2020
mono blanco's wealthy "use money to avoid hassles," but I've heard different reasoning for some of the items on their list: a cleaning service is a given, because paying the service double-digit dollars per hour frees up your far more valuable time (as you make quadruple-digit dollars per hour)
Of the wealthy I know, it's just not this deep. Their homes are relatively large, staff relatively cheap, so it's not about 'avoiding hassles' in any more sense that the cleaning staff in an office building or store are about 'avoiding hassles'. They are simply there in the background doing their jobs, even if they live on site. If you have ever worked in an office building and interacted with the cleaning staff or even managed them directly as office manager, it's almost exactly the same idea. Tons of middle class people have a 'lawn guy' who probably comes around while they are gone and they only see him to pay him. Same idea too.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:43 PM on January 23, 2020
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posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:25 AM on January 22, 2020 [2 favorites]