As I mentioned before, my dream as a kid was to be a professional musician or martial artist. I didn't need to be a rock star or to choreograph fight scenes along side Donnie yen. So no, money's not the ONLY thing on my mind.

All of them got lucky? You said yourself, and I'll quote again: "but if you are properly prepared and educated, then they aren't really risks, or at least they are reduced risks so it's for all intents and purposes a 'sure thing'." You make it seem like these people walked into a building, flipped a coin and bought it on the basis of the coin flip, or sneezed on a paper and bought whatever "lucky" stock the booger landed on. No, they had an idea in their heads of what a "good risk" was, most of them from proper education about the risks they chose to take, and found a risk that fit the "good risk model" they had in their heads. So they took it, and it payed off.

I asked a friend of mine once why he didn't invest his inheritance money into real estate, and said "it's too risky." When I asked him if he knew anything about something called "equity", he said "no". I asked him this after I asked if he knew anything about real estate, to which he replied "yes." So basically, he doesn't know what he means by "too risky". Probably never researched it, and his understanding of "too risky" was probably implanted him by someone or some people who themselves knew nothing of it. Last I checked, he bought a car, has most of the money in a back account, and a small portion invested in an unremarkable mutual fund. That last part may seem like a good idea, but agian, It's basically someone else having control of his cash.