Aspergers Syndrome is not a disease. It is way of thinking.
Famous People With Aspergers: Michael Burry
“Aspergers came into my life when I was forty years old…as I have gotten older, I have come to appreciate how my differences have turned out to include gifts that have set me apart.” John Elder Robison, Be Different
Background and Career
Michael Burry had a sense of being different as he grew up. When he was young, he developed cancer in one of his eyes, resulting in its removal.
Here are some quotes from a Vanity Fair article outlining some of the challenges he faced:
Eye Contact Difficulties
“It took all my energy to look someone in the eye,” he said. “If I am looking at you, that’s the one time I know I won’t be listening to you.”
Making Sense of Social Interactions
“He found it maddeningly difficult to read people’s nonverbal signals, and their verbal signals he often took more literally than they meant them. When trying his best, he was often at his worst.”
Friendships
“My nature is not to have friends,” he said. “I’m happy in my own head.”
Career and Success
Although Michael had challenges in his life, he persevered and went to Vanderbilt University, studying English, Economic, and pre-medicine. He graduated from medical school, and started his post med school residency in neurology at Stanford Hospital. While in medical school, he developed a fascination for the stock market. In fact, while working 12 hour shifts as a resident, he would work on his stock market blog from midnight to 3 am. Over time, corporations and independent investors took notice of his trading information and rationale and noted, amazed, that he was somehow doing all this analysis in his ‘off’ hours from being a neurology resident!
Eventually, Dr. Michael Burry figured out that, as much as he had enjoyed medicine, he did not feel passionate about dealing with the ‘people’ side of medicine. And his passion for numbers and analysis won out over his chosen career in medicine. So he decided to quit medicine and pursue his interests. Over a period of eight years, while the S&P500 Index was under-performing, Michael Burry earned almost $100 million for himself and $700 million for his investors.
Michael’s ability to focus and analyze may have been offset by the stress of dealing with the investor relations side of his business. He eventually shut down his investing firm to focus on his own personal investments.
At age 35, Michael Burry found out about his own diagnosis of Aspergers after his 4 year old son was diagnosed with the same condition. He wasn’t happy about it. Just as John Elder Robison points out in his book, Be Different, Aspergers is often called a disorder. In John’s words,
…to some of us, the phrase ‘Asperger’s’ is misleading because it makes Asperger’s sound like a disease or an injury. You say, ‘I have a cold’ or ‘I’ve got a broken leg.’ Saying you ‘have’ something implies that it’s temporary and undesirable. Asperger’s isn’t like that. you’ve been Aspergian as long as you can remember, and you’ll be that way all your life. It’s a way of being, not a disease.
Eventually, he accepted his diagnosis. He met with a psychologist to better understand Aspergers as well as the impact it had on him and his family.
What We Can Learn From Michael Burry
In his book, Be Different, John Elder Robison shared some “secrets” to his success in life as an Aspergian. We can find these same success guidelines when we review Michael Burry’s life story.
Find Your Strengths and Interests
Everything begins with finding our particular strengths and talents. Or merely acknowledging them and accepting them.
Michael Burry happened to have interests that people were willing to pay for: medicine and numbers.
Parents, honor your child’s particular interests. You may not see how they have any value currently, but there may be parallel strengths and interests that will later pay off.
Find Real-World Applications for Your Special Skills
One of the keys for career success, whether as an entrepreneur or employee, is to find a) what we’re passionate about; b) what we’re good at; and c) how what we’re both passionate about and good at can help solve problems for people who are willing to pay for our solutions.
Michael Burry solved the problem of how to make money during a recession for thousands of investors. He was passionate about numbers and the stock market; he knew he was good at what he was doing; and there were corporations and private investors willing to pay a great deal of money for the skills he offered.
If you’re a teen, young adult, or mid life adult Aspie, I encourage you to visit my other site, Personal Success Factors, where I explore themes of Discovering Your talents and purpose; Differentiating Yourself; and Developing a Plan to live your purpose and talents out in the world.
Focus and Work Hard
One of the blessings of Aspergers tends to be an ability to focus very well on areas of interest. Michael Burry exemplifies the obsessiveness and hard work that result in success. His ability to pore over reams of research to extract his own personal strategies for investing resulted in financial prosperity.
Resolve
Again, the autism spectrum often blesses individuals with confidence in logic and their personal perspective on the world. They are not easily swayed by the court of public opinion. This ability to believe in their own point of view can pay off. Michael Burry adopted a contrarian view of value investing when no one else believed him; in fact, may investors revolted against his single minded pursuit of investments that scared them. But it resulted in a huge payoff. He credits his ability to form his own opinions to his Aspergian way of thinking. He had done the research, and he was sure of his facts.
In the End
No, you are not Michael Burry. I’m not Michael Burry. We are each as different as the snowflakes that fall upon the earth. It’s up to you and me to discover our own personal vision, mission, and goals; our own personal talents, strengths, and interests. It’s up to you and me, with the right help, to identify what groups of people can profit from our knowledge/passion/talents, and then to pursue a path that will result in value to those people in the form of our solutions, and also result in monetary profit for us.
I look forward to hearing about how Michael Burry’s story inspires you to action!
References:
Michael Burry, Entrepreneur, Financial Analyst, Author, The Big Short
Michael Burry Wikipedia article
Here’s a great video of Michael Burry on how standing apart from the crowd helped him:
Stucky says:
The text in the graph below is Total Bullshit. The medical profession labels someone as “X”, and then forces you to prove “X” os wrong. Fuck you, why don’t you first prove “X” is right in the first place?
The point of the graph …….. notice that in 1970 Aspergers starts at around ZERO. hahaha. And now it’s a damn epidemic. Goddamn Boomers!!
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15th December 2012 at 12:29 pm
dd says:
i was deep in the entrails of the internet and i found a TBP post, where Admin was mocking those of us who question 9/11, i think it was an onion article.
Admin, the only thing that has ever bothered me about you is your arrogance.
i was 30 floors high, across the street, and i was dumb enough to stay in my office to watch in horror. until the 2nd “passenger plane” hit. then i ran.
about that second passenger plane. it was a dull gray, windowless fuselage. it was no sooner “UA 175″ than i am Peyton Manning.
i don’t profess to know what happened that day, but i do know what we are told is 100% fabricated. i saw what i saw, while Admin was riding in the 30 blocks of squalor to work.
but Admin always knows, just ask him.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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15th December 2012 at 12:30 pm
Stucky says:
The text in the graph is from some doofus at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). So, I went to NIMH to see what they had to say. Judge for yourself the Level of Silliness.
Q: Is there a known cause for ASD?
A: The cause of ASD, including Asperger syndrome, is not known.
Q: Is there a gene identified with this “disease”?
A: A specific gene for Asperger syndrome has never been identified.
Q: Is there a test for ASD?
A: The diagnosis of Asperger syndrome is complicated by the lack of a standardized diagnostic test.
Q: Is whatever tests may be available accurate?
A: In fact, because there are several screening instruments in current use, each with different criteria, the SAME CHILD COULD RECEIVE DIFFERENT DIAGNOSES, depending on the screening tool the doctor uses.
.
Stucky’s Silliness Meter reading: Off the fuckin’ charts!!
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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15th December 2012 at 12:37 pm
Administrator says:
dd
You’re a fucking nutjob. WTF does your assanine post have to do with Michael Burry and Asperger’s syndrome?
Blow me.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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15th December 2012 at 12:39 pm
Stucky says:
dd
Way to stay on topic!!
I think you have Aspergers.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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15th December 2012 at 12:39 pm
dd says:
actually i do have Aspergers.
i prefaced my comment with the reason i was off topic. i came across the article, and i’m too lazy to go back and find the originial post. if there was anything remotely interesting about Burry having Aspergers i’d comment on it. there’s not. that news is several years old. no one cares. so the CT shooter had Aspergers, so what.
Admin, there is nothing assinine about what i saw, i can assure you of that. in between people leaping from an inferno to their death, and losing 2 dear friends, i saw what i saw.
your weakness is your stubborn inability to consider what you may not know. you’re not as bright as you think. your writing style is that of a kid who was bullied growing up, with which i empathize.
i have struggled for a decade to reconcile all of this. did i imagine it? was i too overcome with fear and emotion to be objective? the answer is no, because i entered that frame of mind with not only an unbiased view, but now view at all. it was not consciobable at the time. never did i suspect that it was not a passenger plane, except for the image i saw with 20-15 vision. and it took me a few years to even consider it.
you are so arrogant, Admin. and very hypocritical given the nature of your site.
i’ll leave you ignorant fools back to yourselves, i’m sure you are all doing great in life.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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15th December 2012 at 1:01 pm
sangell says:
Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN this morning said Asbergers is no longer recognized as a ‘condition’. It was ‘taken off’ this year.
Apparently mental conditions are like clothing. They go in and out of style. No one was ‘bi-polar’ when I was growing up. Moody maybe but you can’t get SSDI for being moody because you need a clinical term for your problem, or at least have it named after somebody, before it becomes marketable.
Reading Stucky’s post on ASD last night I thought it could also be called acute nerdism or Munchausen Dork Syndrome if we wanted to be real fancy. That is the person would seem to be able to function at a very high level as Dr. Michael Burry does but just have what were once known as hang ups.
OTOH I have read some really chilling stories about autism. Mothers are at great risk as their autistic child grows older as the tantrums can develop into murderous rages. I don’t think we have to worry about a Dr. Burry bursting into a classroom and opening fire so whatever this Adam
Lanz was suffering from it was much more severe than some feeling of inadequecy of lack of social polish.
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15th December 2012 at 1:02 pm
Administrator says:
dd
Hit the fucking road. You’re an asshole and a nutjob.
There is TV footage of the planes hitting the towers. They were jets. You need to increase your fucking medication.
Buy some Pets.com
Hot debate. What do you think?
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15th December 2012 at 1:07 pm
dd says:
and i never said “inside job.” unlike you morons, i know my limitations. i’ll never know what happened that day, but between UA 175 and then the way WTC 7 fell, which i also saw, well good for you assholes making judgments from the cheap seats.
if you tough guys had seen what i saw, from point blank range, you’d be ashamed of your mockery of me.
you’re all a bunch of lemmings. maybe Admin will drop his sack for you. you all think you are thinkers, but you’re not, and worse you don’t even know it.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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15th December 2012 at 1:07 pm
dd says:
thanks for making my point for Admin. fat boy.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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15th December 2012 at 1:08 pm
Administrator says:
I thought you were leaving us to ourselves you jackoff. Get the fuck off this site and go to your 9/11 Truther convention.
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15th December 2012 at 1:09 pm
Administrator says:
dd’s hobby
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15th December 2012 at 1:11 pm
Administrator says:
dd having a conversation with himself. He denies saying it was an inside job when there was no one commenting about it being an inside job.
I truly think you are candidate to go off the handle and slaughter people.
Take those meds.
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15th December 2012 at 1:14 pm
Stucky says:
dd
So you were across the street from the twin towers. And from your height restricted vantage point (a mere 30 floors), and from your restricted viewpoint (there a lot of tall buildings in NYC), you just so happened to look outside the window and in that exact split second (the plane was traveling at 500+ mph) you saw it was dull gray, and windowless. That’s what you want us to believe?? And, oh, you have Asperger’s.
I hope you’re still here cuz I gots sumthin’ to say to yeew —- YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT !!!
But thanks for playing.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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15th December 2012 at 1:17 pm
dd says:
ok, i’m intrigued. Admin, that is a seriously funny picture! good stuff.
1) i’m not a truther, my point on the “inside job” comment was to say i’m no a truther. i just smell a rat. not sure what that rat is, but i can’t get what i saw out of my head.
2) Stucky: brilliant deduction. “there are a lot of tall buildings in NYC.” wow, 12 years living there i never noticed. FYI, the WFC and WTC were separated by the west side highway and zero buildings. i can do the math for you on my distance for you but i don’t think you’d understand. butt out, you’re a dimbulb, let me just spar with Admin in peace.
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15th December 2012 at 1:42 pm
Administrator says:
dd’s Commuter Plane – it must be a holigram
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15th December 2012 at 1:53 pm
Stucky says:
dd
Fine. I don’t give a fuck about the distance between WFC and WTC …. you were in a DIFFERENT building, you weren’t high enough to see the whole thing, and your view was OBSTRUCTED. Again, you are totally full of shit and no one believes your story.
Leave you in peace? No problem!!
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15th December 2012 at 2:00 pm
Stucky says:
Actual picture of dd the moment he saw a gray windowless fuselage
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15th December 2012 at 2:02 pm
dd says:
Stucky, shut up. my view was not obstructed. what part of no buildings between me and the 2nd crash do you not understand. scratch that, don’t answer, the list is too long.
laughable Admin. you post a picture to combat what i saw close-up, real time. you don’t believe any gov’t stats (neither do i), but you believe an undocumented phote and the news feeds. same news feeds like the BBC who reported the WTC 7 collapse 17 minutes before it happened.
it’s all about borrow/spend (as you know). what enables that? the petro-dollar. iraq, iran (and their military ally syria), libya never did a think to anyone for 2 decades and they were all bombed for attempting to exit the dollar as their reserve currency for oil transactions. when did all this start? post dot.com blowup, right there around 2001.
wow, you’re in worse shape than i thought.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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15th December 2012 at 2:32 pm
Administrator says:
Buy Facebook
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15th December 2012 at 3:07 pm
JIMSKI says:
I was glued to the tv like a lot of guys that day. While we watched the first tower burn I saw the second plane hit on live tv.
Live.
Television.
The newscaster actually shut up for over 30 seconds, a record that stands to this day.
DD you were not there. You saw nothing. You are an internet troll looking for attention. You had ours and got your 5 minutes of fame.
Now go away.
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15th December 2012 at 5:03 pm
Kill Bill says:
dd. Lookit, Over there. Up in the sky.
Chemtrails!!
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15th December 2012 at 6:02 pm
dd says:
JIMSKI, you are exactly the kind of broken rubber that made me leave the TBP the last time.
i get it, no one likes me or no one believes me. not before, not now. fine, why would i care?
here’s the thing little Jimmer, while you were glued to the TV, i was in the WFC glued to the real thing. you’re an idiot. it’s not like it’s something special, there were hundreds of thousands within a square mile.
what is with people like you? at least Admin argues points that he thinks he knows something about, rather than something even his arrogant self knows he cannot argue: whether or not i was there.
the two things i’ll never forget are the bodies and the smell. that smell was awful, and it hung around for months.
trust me dimwit, i’m not looking for your anonymous attention.
Kill Bill: i’ve read about chemtrails, i’m not a believer.
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15th December 2012 at 7:23 pm
dd says:
oh Admin, good one. buy pets.com and Facebook. you know damn well i was short the former to zero, and you know damn well i never owned FB. now i lost that bet to you, fair and square, on the hypothetical. you won. i congratulated you on the victory. i bet you didn’t short it though. i didn’t. are you short JCP? puts? do you talk (yes), but do you act? i’m not sure.
JIMSKI says i wasn’t in the WFC. Admin says i’m a piker. ok.
Admin, aside from being a know-it-all, the other main reason you’ll always be JV is you are petty. you have the potential and the drive to be a really serious force, but you’re so emotional and such a child at times.
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15th December 2012 at 7:39 pm
dd says:
hey JIMSKI, i bet when you’re getting your tiny nuts fondled by the TSA you stand talljjjjjjjm, salute, and thank them for saving you from the “Underwear” bomber. like OBL was in the 1980s, he was a CIA asset.
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15th December 2012 at 7:56 pm
Administrator says:
dd
Go fuck yourself you loser.
Cordially
Admin
PS When you leave this time, don’t come back.
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15th December 2012 at 7:56 pm
Delaware Valley Sally says:
You guys have really devolved here. I guess someone had to tae Smokeys place, but really now?
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15th December 2012 at 9:44 pm
Kill Bill says:
i get it, no one likes me or no one believes me -dd
I didnt ever say that I didnt like you. You stated you were on the 30th floor. The second plane impacted around the 80th floor up to the 94th floor because it banked to the right before impact.
I doubt you could have seen if the fuselage had windows from your POV
Clearly the aircrafts underside is painted blue
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cG8SWbrihc4/Tmvzz5Uu0GI/AAAAAAAAGgw/vX9hxdfbmdE/s1600/WTC%2C+Second+Plane.jpg
And here is pieces showing it did have passenger windows
But lets say the plane didnt have passenger windows. What does that mean to you?
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15th December 2012 at 9:56 pm
Kill Bill says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WtcUA175debris.jpg
UA175 debris
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15th December 2012 at 10:10 pm
Kill Bill says:
Because of the color scheme of the UA 767 it, the grey color makes the windows hard to see. But they are there.
And I am done.
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15th December 2012 at 10:17 pm
AspieNH says:
It would be nice if people did not give such incomplete information, in order to try to make “a point” that will obviously be proven to be not true, especially when such evidence existed at the time of their writing such falsehood. The “AS” is simply being placed under the appropriate umbrella, with the diagnosis being renamed to, “High Functioning Autism, Verbal”.
If I recall this correctly, weren’t women, at one point, diagnosed for “hysteria”, with the corresponding treatment being the receiving of a “medicinal dildo”? What do people think would happen to one’s medical license these days, if the doctor gave a female patient, presenting with symptoms of hysteria, a dildo?
For those stating that aspies aren’t autistic, you have ZERO CLUE. Explain why I was able to sit at the front of an accounting class, easily adding columns of numbers in my head, then blurting out the correct combined totals, without fail. But, was constantly reprimanded for no common sense. Further, I could not believe how many circumstances that I didn’t realize at the time, were coeds or other women making a sexual advance at me! So, calculus at 11 years old, I suppose that was good. Not realizing that a coed I took out to dinner, who took off a shoe, then rubbed her toes over my crotch, while speaking differenly in tone to me, was looking for something that was not obvious to me at the time. So, photographic memory – check. Can do big math problems in my head – check. Knowing that a coed with her toes in my crotch, asking a question about a creamy desert, and knowing what to do at the time – FAILURE!
Have a daughter in elementary school now. She says some things that my wife finds so very hurtful, but asks these questions so innocently AND unfiltered. Then, I tell my wife that I made such comments when younger, too. Math lessons, easy. Not commenting on an “innocent” observation about mommy’s hair color or the size of her butt – my daughter has problems there! Of course, I discovered patterns of statements which lead up to less “adult activities”. I am learning, just not as fast as other things in life.
The FBI and other agencies, already have software that could be used to more closely monitor people who might use violence. Why they haven’t used i2 to work better on both mass shooting AND serial killer issues, along with other violent crimes, is very perplexing to me. In fact, even more effective use of other common databases, could be employed. Simulation models of various cases, run in a “gaming” environment, should help bring clarity to what seems unexplainably obvious to some.
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15th December 2012 at 8:55 pm
Read This: Aspergirls - My So-Called Geek Girl Life says:
[...] Michael Burry Has Aspergers [...]
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15th December 2012 at 12:50 am