“Where Do You Draw the Line Between Mindset and Reality?”

[Hardkill]

Responding to Leo's recent IG video on "The economy is never why you aren't wealthy":

I get the value of pushing people toward extreme personal responsibility.

But how do you avoid collapsing everything into “it’s just your mindset”?

At what point do you acknowledge that system-level constraints are the dominant factor—like during the Great Depression—

rather than individual psychology?

What’s your actual method for separating the two in real life?

[enchanted]

He says that because Mindset is the only variable factor whereas reality can't be changed. It's useless to focus on changing reality and so mindset becomes the only thing that really matters. 

But in truth success depends on a nebulous mixture of both. The less conducive reality is to success the more important mindset becomes but also success becomes less probable. 

Edited Sunday at 02:01 PM by enchanted

[Basman]

Mindset over matter because it's what you can control. Doomerism is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Doesn't mean you can't be pessimistic. Too much optimism minimizes risks too much. You can succeed the way you are, you just need to find what works for you. In general, you want to be tough with yourself when it comes to living your life. No excuses. If times are hard, you endure it and without too much whining and complaining.

That said, it's not that bad currently. Could've been a lot worse. Even politically it doesn't compare too how things where during the two world wars in terms of societal collapse. Even covid was child's play compared to tuberculosis or the plague. Mfs getting sad because they got nothing to do but play video games, Netflix and fap all day.

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

It is neither about mindset nor the "oppressive" system. There are always ways to create a shitload of value in this society (or at least perceived value), and make yourself rich in the process, however, to put it in the most simple and general terms, most people (which possibly includes us as well) just don't have what it takes. And that's mostly not really their fault actually. It's just how reality works. But then most people would rather like to bend or adjust this uncompromising reality with their socialist policies, which is understandable. But you can only do that to a certain reasonable degree until you get reminded how things really work

[Leo Gura]

I didn't say it was just your mindset. I said the economy is fucking enormous. My point was about the economy. Even a bad economy enables crazy individual wealth. The economy is always in your favor.

Edited 8 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Lyubov]

 I’ve done a lot of contemplation on this question and it’s a good one but first, be careful with all the questions. Asking questions is good but sometimes always ask sometimes hobbles you from other faculties that can lead you to some wisdom. 

Anyways, here’s the answer. You gotta be aligned spiritually and from your authentic flow just choose the immediate belief that you can reach for which is helpful towards your life. Wu Wei, the most authentic and true choice in the moment with the least amount of resistance. You ain’t gonna ever have a definitive answer on this because it’s arbitrary and there’s so many people with so many different foundations and unique selves, the list is 10,000 things long.

I’ll give you an example. I used to do pick up and I used to believe every single woman that I met secretly wanted to fuck me or be with me, especially if I was able to start a conversation with them. I literally believed this, I kid you not, and it felt good. I felt handsome, I walked with pride. Who wouldn’t if literally every hot girl wanted to fuck them? I was able to relax with this belief. I felt good taking action with this belief and I achieved what I set out to do which was to have sex with a several women and find a girlfriend, which I did all this and this belief even led me to meeting my now wife. 

In hindsight I was able to reflect on this period of my life and in fact, no, it was not completely accurate and true that every woman I spoke to wanted to fuck me. I’d say there were a lot of women who weren’t interested and many times dated didn’t work out (of course I had my own excuses to defend my belief). My point is that your beliefs are powerful and that you need to sometimes choose sometimes playful, sometimes inspiring beliefs even if they aren’t necessarily completely accurate from every perspective. If you’re poor, you are doing yourself no favors if for a moment you look to contemplate and blame outside circumstances for your life. Obviously we are not in control of everything, obviously yes we are all dealt different hands and cards to play. But you can’t function always from introspection trying to strip everything down, you gotta pith your tent on something so why not do it on something truthful that feels good and leads you to taking action. Cause while the truth is not every woman wanted to fuck me, many actually did when I believed this and I was able to achieve what I set out to do 

Believe in yourself like they always say. This will take you further than trying to understand every nuance about reality. 

Edited 5 hours ago by Lyubov

[Hardkill]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I didn't say it was just your mindset. I said the economy is fucking enormous. My point was about the economy. Even a bad economy enables crazy individual wealth. The economy is always in your favor.

Fair enough — I understand you’re not saying it’s “just mindset.”

But I still think there’s a difference between saying:

1. The economy is enormous and there are always opportunities somewhere, and
2. The economy is always “in your favor” in a practical or broadly accessible sense.

Because if the economy were always naturally in people’s favor, then why did America need the early 1900s Progressive Era reforms, the New Deal, the Great Society, the governance reforms after the stagflation crisis of the 1970s/early 1980s, and later economic interventions under Clinton, Obama, and Biden?

Those reforms existed because markets and economies do not automatically give the greatest number of people a free and fair shot at becoming economically or financially successful.

They required political governance, regulation, public investment, labor protections, social insurance, anti-poverty programs, and crisis management to make broad-based prosperity more realistic.

So I agree that highly resourceful individuals can still find opportunity in almost any economy.

But that’s different from saying the economy is “always in your favor.”

Maybe the better distinction is:

The economy always contains opportunities.
But whether the economy is actually in your favor depends on how it is governed, structured, and accessed.

[Hardkill]

On 5/2/2026 at 8:09 PM, enchanted said:

He says that because Mindset is the only variable factor whereas reality can't be changed. It's useless to focus on changing reality and so mindset becomes the only thing that really matters. 

But in truth success depends on a nebulous mixture of both. The less conducive reality is to success the more important mindset becomes but also success becomes less probable. 

 

8 hours ago, Basman said:

Mindset over matter because it's what you can control. Doomerism is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Doesn't mean you can't be pessimistic. Too much optimism minimizes risks too much. You can succeed the way you are, you just need to find what works for you. In general, you want to be tough with yourself when it comes to living your life. No excuses. If times are hard, you endure it and without too much whining and complaining.

That said, it's not that bad currently. Could've been a lot worse. Even politically it doesn't compare too how things where during the two world wars in terms of societal collapse. Even covid was child's play compared to tuberculosis or the plague. Mfs getting sad because they got nothing to do but play video games, Netflix and fap all day.

 

8 hours ago, NewKidOnTheBlock said:

It is neither about mindset nor the "oppressive" system. There are always ways to create a shitload of value in this society (or at least perceived value), and make yourself rich in the process, however, to put it in the most simple and general terms, most people (which possibly includes us as well) just don't have what it takes. And that's mostly not really their fault actually. It's just how reality works. But then most people would rather like to bend or adjust this uncompromising reality with their socialist policies, which is understandable. But you can only do that to a certain reasonable degree until you get reminded how things really work

But what about those who can't or couldn't succeed from no fault of their own despite their best efforts?

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

8 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

 

 

But what about those who can't or couldn't succeed from no fault of their own despite their best efforts?

Those are the people who clean their rooms (bucko), and get a job. The rest of us become millionaires

[Hardkill]

3 minutes ago, NewKidOnTheBlock said:

Those are the people who clean their rooms (bucko), and get a job. The rest of us become millionaires

How do you tell that to a homeless person who can get food only from bread lines, sickly, and may or may not be able to survive?

How do you tell that to a working-class person or family who is or are constantly living on edge and may not be able to make rent or struggling to pay off their mortgage despite their best efforts?

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

1 hour ago, Hardkill said:

How do you tell that to a homeless person who can get food only from bread lines, sickly, and may or may not be able to survive?

How do you tell that to a working-class person or family who is or are constantly living on edge and may not be able to make rent or struggling to pay off their mortgage despite their best efforts?

I'm not looking at this from a political lense like you are, so I have no qualms about not appeasing the masses. You need to be inteligent about life and make sound financial decisions which most people are not doing, especially the homeless people and financially struggling people. I'm not saying there shouldn't be any social welfare programs which is what this highly corrupt Trump administration wants to achieve, but they shouldn't be devised in a way in which they're suppose to save you from your own bad life decisions, or attempt to raise people's living standards across the board just because they exist

[Basman]

1 hour ago, Hardkill said:

How do you tell that to a homeless person who can get food only from bread lines, sickly, and may or may not be able to survive?

How do you tell that to a working-class person or family who is or are constantly living on edge and may not be able to make rent or struggling to pay off their mortgage despite their best efforts?

At least where I'm from, most homelessness is lk by choice. You have so many opportunities to stay off the streets. Usually these people are homeless because they are mentally ill drug addicts who threw their life away.

2 hours ago, Hardkill said:

But what about those who can't or couldn't succeed from no fault of their own despite their best efforts?

I know people with chronic illnesses that can only work for a couple of hours a day, but they still to manage to survive just fine and live relatively comfortable. 

There are degrees of bad luck. Bad luck to the degree where it ruins your life is quiet rare.