ARTICLE: So You're Smart, But You're Not Rich? This Eye-Opening New Scientific Study Tells You Why BY Chris Matyszczyk

Could there be a reason? Yes, it seems there could.

Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.

Don't you look at rich people and find too many of them, well, dull?

Don't you listen to rich people and think: "What have they got that I haven't? Other than money."?

In fact, doesn't it astonish you a little that you know so much, see so much and can do so much, yet you really don't have much money at all?

A new study offers you a reason for your lack of wealth.

It's one that's going to hurt.

The study, entitled Talent vs Luck: the role of randomness in success and failure looked at people over a 40-year period.

Alessandro Pluchino of the University of Catania in Italy and his colleagues created a computer model of talent.

I can't imagine that was easy or, to every mind, entirely satisfying.

After all, one person's idea of talent is another person's idea of Simon Cowell.

Still, Pluchino and friends mapped such apparent basics as intelligence, skill and ability in various fields.

They then looked at people over a 40-year period, discerned what sort of things had happened to them, and compared that with how wealthy they had become.

They discovered that the conventional distribution of wealth -- 20 percent of humanity enjoys 80 percent of the wealth -- held true.

But then they offered painful words.

They still hurt, even though we know they're true: "The maximum success never coincides with the maximum talent, and vice-versa."

Never.

It's galling, isn't it, to look at some of the relatively talentless quarterwits who bathe in untold piles of lucre?

"So what is it that makes the difference?," I hear you pant, with an agonious grimace.

Are you ready for this?

"Our simulation clearly shows that such a factor is just pure luck," say the researchers.

The researchers actually looked at different events that had happened in people's lives and ranked them according to how lucky or unlucky these events were.

"It is evident that the most successful individuals are also the luckiest ones. And the less successful individuals are also the unluckiest ones," they said.

The danger here is that such a conclusion offers a blessed excuse to many who have chosen not to use their talents in ways that might have brought them fortunes.

But there are those, too, who actively don't seek to be wealthy, but prefer a life that makes them, well, happier.

The scientists, though, offer some rude awakenings to those who prefer to imagine that the wealthy have some special talent.

"If it is true that some degree of talent is necessary to be successful in life, almost never the most talented people reach the highest peaks of success, being overtaken by mediocre but sensibly luckier individuals," they say.

This leads them to suggest that their research "sheds new light on the effectiveness of assessing merit on the basis of the reached level of success and underlines the risks of distributing excessive honors or resources to people who, at the end of the day, could have been simply luckier than others."

I admit -- perhaps you will too -- that when I look at the likes of, say, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg or, well, other prominent types who enjoy unseemly wealth, I wonder just how talented they really are.

Indeed, I've worked over the years with one or two colossally wealthy types and come away, in more than one case, thinking, in the words of the great Los Lobos: "Is this all there is?"

Perhaps, if this study is to be believed, the wealthy sorts simply couldn't believe their luck and managed to be level-headed enough to capitalize on it and intelligent enough to realize just how much power it gave them.

On the other hand, I meet so many wonderful, talented, fascinating people who never made much money at all.

In the end, my test is very simple: "With whom would I rather have dinner? With whom would there be glorious laughter?"

I will leave you, though, with the researchers' words, ones that may say so much about our current world: "Our results are a warning against the risks of what we call the 'naive meritocracy' which, underestimating the role of randomness among the determinants of success, often fail to give honors and rewards to the most competent people."

They're talking about you, aren't they?

DATINGl DO YOU KEEP LOOKING FOREVER FOR THE PERFECT COMBINATION OF LOOKS AND PERSONALITY?

If you want something for one night or a fling, it’s easy to meet people. Something more that is a different story. Because everybody thinks that they can do better. They think they can find someone better looking or who has more money or whatever.  People who are scared to be absolute in promising themselves to a person (committing) because they worry that if they say that this is it, that out there might be a better opportunity and then they’ll be kicking themselves, even though if they were genuinely committed to someone, they fail to realise that they wouldn’t be looking around because they’d be too busy with the person they’re with

Wondering if you can do better all the time, is a bit like when you sit down to watch TV but instead of choosing a programme, watching it and engaging in it, you spend the time surfing around on the off chance that there’s something better to watch.

It’s like you hate the idea that you might have missed out on viewing something better that would have left you as satisfied as you expect. Next thing the whole evening has gone by and you’ve not really watched anything. Then you think, Ah…I should have watched X…” something that you skipped over earlier and then you end up feeling dissatisfied about not choosing that as well.

The trouble with being perennially dissatisfied and shopping around for a better deal, is that not only does it get far too superficial but you’re just never really in anything to have truly enjoyed it. Ever tried to have a conversation with someone or do something where your mind is elsewhere, or you’re constantly looking over your shoulder, or evaluating and analysing things? Your mind isn’t where it’s supposed to be – in the present.

Striving to be with someone with bigger breasts, or more hair, or who has more money, more status, who gives you eight orgasms a week instead of five isn’t really going to lead to relationship satisfaction. No doubt when you do find these things, you start wondering if you can improve upon these too

If you’re asking yourself if you can do better than a relationship that isn’t mutually fulfilling and lacks love, care, trust, and respect as well as shared values and other landmarks? Yeah you can.

If you’re asking if you can do better and find someone who is more satisfying on secondary values like appearance, or how much money they have, or how much more IQ they can have, or whatever, you might want to consider whether it’s time to look a bit deeper and make sure you’re actually living your life congruent with your values and seeking partners who you can actually forge a future with.

 How does one choose a person with whom to spend any time? The answer is probably something in your preference for a physical type. Part of any decision you make needs to be whether sex with love is the best sex ever for you vs. sex with someone whose physical type just makes it more intense, whatever the relationship.

So what is one to do?  Keep looking forever for the perfect combination of looks and personality?

I don't think so