LegendaryLife.com Blog

You may have heard this common phrase growing up by just about everybody, “money doesn’t grow on trees”. Well, I am here to tell you it does.

Interpretations on a theme

Money is printed around the world on a substance we all call paper, paper comes from a mill that processes pulp that come from… you guessed it… trees! So, yes, money does indeed grow on trees. A lot of trees!

Beyond that, what it is trying to tell you is there is a finite amount of money in the world, the growth of your financial wealth is at the hindrance of another. This is also false, there is so much wealth in this world it is truly mind boggling… it is just that a select few people have figured out a way of taping into this tree with a lot of luck and some planning. Most of us live off the scraps left over by the big money tapers.

Another interpretation is that financial growth isn’t possible forever. All things die, so you may have a great streak of luck and build up a nice War Chest just to have it evaporate away. In my short life I have had this happen to me a number of times, I live off my wits and sometimes they get the better of me Each time I got hit hard, I learned a valuable lesson and new opportunities opened up that where once closed within my mind. Continual growth may not be possible, but each time it does occur, the growth only happens at a faster rate then before. This is why many millionaires who loose their fortunes gain it back repeatedly.

How to built your own money tree

History remembers the bold, if you want to achieve financial independence you must be willing to risk everything you have. There are two paths, one is through investing in others (stock market, savings account etc) and the other investing in yourself. If you want to play it safe, retire in 30 years etc, then investment in others is probably the way to go. If you have the guts and the sheer determination you could try as I have and invest in yourself.

…money isn’t everything!

Before you go out and banish everything that could possibly get in the way of your goal of financial security, keep in mind that the most valuable things in life are invaluable. The relationships you establish, the experiences you live… the places you visit and most importantly, who you are to yourself are all far more important then any financial wealth. The quote “you can’t take money with you when you die” is very true, so be sure to enjoy living life while trying to establish the wealth that you, and everybody on this planet, truly deserves.

How the wealthy got super wealthy!

Looking back, there are two ways most of the super wealthy, with a net well over a billion dollars, got there. The first is inheritance, sure, they are part of the “lucky sperm club” as Mr. Donald Trump coined but the other is an incredible amount of shier luck and hard work investing in THEMSELVES.

Millionaire Row

Let’s be honest, unless your first name starts with “Sultan” or last name “Gates”, “Rockefeller” or “Hussein”, the odds are stacked against you from becoming super billionaire wealthy. Before you go buy yourself a noose at the local liquor store, realize that the chances of you becoming a millionaire may times over are definitely not stacked against you. Not only that, you can actually work a 9-5 job and retire a millionaire, but I don’t have the patience nor time to work my ass off during my best years to enjoy them in my worst I decided long ago, invest in myself… and with a little luck, I will achieve this in a fraction the time. Of course, I may be on a path of poverty as well, but I am taking the chance and enjoying the path set before me each step of the way.

Here are some quick tips to remember on your ways to millions:

• invest in the stock market with money you can afford to loose, so far, if you bought Google on the initial IPO at 85$, within the past years, that money would now be worth north of 650$! Same goes with Apple, Microsoft and a host of other resource companies. Diversify and hold is the name of the game
• when opportunity knocks, answer the door, we are surrounded by opportunities but if you don’t open your eyes to them, you will find yourself left behind
• if you hate your job, quit, if you don’t like your spouse, get a divorce, if you don’t like your kids, tough luck! What I am trying to say is that you must work daily towards fulfilling your own happiness, money doesn’t bring along happiness if you are depressed, it just makes it worse!
• explore, educate and never stop pursuing your dreams, you see, money is the result of dreams that are made tangible, if you cannot imagine yourself wealthy, short of a lotto ticket win, you will never become wealthy. Financial wealth is as much a state of mind as it’s physical weight
• become a miser that even Scrooge would find cheep… easiest way to become wealthy is not to spend it in the first place and build up your savings!

You see, when you put yourself first, you will win more often the not.

YOU ARE ALREADY WEALTHY!

How much did you pay to get that cell phone tower set-up in your neighborhood, how much did you spend to get your library card, how much did you invest into the internet to be able to read this web page? We all pay only a small fraction of what we truly get to use. You take a flight on a multi-million dollar plane for only a few hundred dollars, you are able to make global communications at only 40$ a month and even send packages around the world for only a few bucks. We all live heavily subsidized lives, million dollar lives, without even realizing it! Consider the misery Christopher Columbus went through “finding” North America, facing daily threats of mutiny, spending weeks trekking in deep jungles… you just hop in your car or take a cruise without a worry in the world! We even have flushing toilets and televisions standard in every home… something that was once considered an absolute luxury up until a few decades ago!

The Bottom Line

Money has no value but what you can do with it does.

Love him or hate him, Gene Simmons, the KISS front man, has had more success then the average band leader all while keeping his composure, staying away from drugs and successfully creating arguably the biggest merchandising machine of any band.

Who is Gene Simmons?

Gene Simmons is easily the Sir Richard Branson of the merchandising world with thousands of KISS related products from coffins to kids toys and everything in between. He was born in 1949 and raised as an Israeli-American and released his first album with KISS in 1974. He has appeared on a number of films, television shows, published author of three books and even released solo artist albums since his initial success. He doesn’t drink, smoke nor do drugs and that makes him that much more of a role model. By far, his greatest success has been in the field of marketing, first his band, KISS, and now himself. He’s an idea man with the ability of implementation.

Correspondence between a fan and Gene

Erik (Fan)

Dear Gene, I was wondering you policies on pitching a product to you in an untapped market. I have several ideas and would like to collaborate on them with someone . If you would like, I can have a non-disclosure agreement drawn up and we can possibly get started on this. Thank you for your time. Sincerly Erik

Response from Gene Simmons:

Ideas mean less than nothing. Sorry. “Ideas are a dime a dozen.” The only thing that counts is THE ABILITY to make things real. Just thinking about something doesn’t lead very far.

What are ideas?

Ideas are the first step along what can become a very long path towards turning something into reality. Even after an idea is fully implemented and working, that is still no guarantee of any type of success. As Gene Simmons said, ideas are a dime dozen and are the equivalent of nothing unless it follows a plan of implementation.

How to turn an idea into success?

Ask any top entrepreneur, from Sir Richard Branson to Bill Gates and what you will hear time and again is that they fail far more then they succeed. It can be said that the road of entrepreneurship is actually built on the bricks of failure more then success. Even Thomas Edison, Walt Disney and Henry Ford had incredible, mind blowing failures that ruined them many time but they eventually succeeded by shear will towards achievement. Are you willing to spend a decade or more in poverty to implement an idea? If you aren’t, find a 9-5 job and enjoy your life. Success is an incredibly difficult thing to achieve as it requires a mixture of opportunities and luck happening at just the right time.

The Bottom Line

Success is built on a road of failures.

Buzvia Gene Simmons Site

When you live paycheck to paycheck… there is no style nor life to your lifestyle. I am a student of life, and I wanted to experience first hand what life was like for far too many people on this planet.

Background

Business was slow over the holidays last year and so I figure I might as well use this opportunity to find out what it’s like to work at minimum wage for a change. I tried 3 different jobs, all though different job agencies. I substantially dumbed down my resume, removing anything that would show that I had achieved anything in life, otherwise there is no way I would have ever been considered. People are given minimum wage jobs because the employer knows they need the job, as soon as they are not needed – their power is gone. I wanted to guarantee I got the job, and I got one within 5 minutes of stepping into the first recruiting agency. They needed manpower for a quick project, I was at the right place at the right time… $8.25 was the wage without any negotiations!

The three jobs from hell (Canada)

I worked at 3 different spots, the first was through a temp agency, essentially working in a heavy metal stamping plant. I was paid 9$ per hour, I am sure the agency was sub-contracting me at about 14-15$ per hour based on what the others told me they where getting paid. The other was helping to cap wine bottles, yes, putting on one cap at a time after bottles where filled up with their expensive wine. The last job was doing inventory control with a Wizard.

Observations

• minimum wage jobs seem to be generational, I talked to many of the employees and it wasn’t rare when they stated their father, mother, brother or even husband was doing similar work
• minimum wage jobs are exploitive to the tilt! These job agencies where making a living off my efforts, day in and day out, taking away much needed money and putting it in their pocket. I met people working these jobs that where far smarter then the agencies but due to circumstances, stuck in the minimum wage rut
• people fear loosing their minimum wage jobs, this was the most surprising of discoveries, I told one boss I was heading to the bathrooms (it was a factory) and he told me to wait till break time, I told him “I don’t think so” after a lengthy discussion that was going nowhere then proceeded to the bathroom. When I got back, the employees who overheard me where shocked that I talked back to the boss and where worried my job was on the line as a result (???)
• there is a heck of a lot of turnover in these jobs, even during the short term I was working there, those who where smart where taking studies to get out and others where looking elsewhere
• you don’t know monotony until you have done the same damn thing like a robot day in and out, I don’t know how these people do this for years, after a week I felt myself loosing my sanity
• minimum wage people are among the toughest jobs out there and the people are tough both physically and mentally
• I never saw so many smokers in my life! Seems the rates of obesity, ill health and alcoholism are rampant within this segment of the population.
• I never saw such a bunch of unhappy people, who have lost hope in their lives, you see it in their eyes, they want more but are exploited from ever achieving any worthwhile goal in their lives
• you are not appreciated for your work or your creativity, you are but a body that must perform X task over and over and over again, without complaint, without thought and without hope of getting out as you are easily replaced

After doing the above for a little over a month, I proceeded to walk away from each job without even giving them notice, what is there to say when you no longer need to work for a slave master?

One Great Job from Hell (Australia)

In the above jobs, my average pay rate was $8.25 an hour and then there where government deductions so maybe I was lucky to net $7.00 an hour. Australia… wow… most minimum wage jobs started at $9.00 an hour but I was lucky enough to net a job that was union based for a large printing company. My minimum wage job? $23.00 an hour! I was doing the same monotonous jobs, saw just as many smokers and people who gave up on life but wow… $23.00 an hour was nothing to complain about. This job was incredibly boring, the company (other employees) where, for the most part, quite dull with substance abuse problems but I kept my mouth shut most of the time. Unlike the minimum wage jobs in Canada, this job actually had a way out if you worked long enough. During my short few months there, I received forklift training, was managing production for my manager and was becoming a valued member of the staff. I heard a few people complain behind my back, who had been there for YEARS (some 20+) who where not happy that I leapfrogged over them within the first month there!

Overall Observations

As a person who has no lack of self-esteem and self-confidence, minimum wage jobs and my personality just don’t jive. I have no problem telling somebody that they are wrong, standing my ground and even telling them off if needed. I have a very direct managing method, no bullshit, no stories, good or bad, just tell me what is going on. Office politics aside, if somebody stands in front of me, like they did in the factory in Canada, trying to tell me to go to the bathroom just for their own power trip, the best get out of the way. One more thing I noticed that came to me a few months later, just about everybody who worked minimum wage jobs had HORRIBLE ORAL HYGENE. I don’t mean bad, I mean HORRIBLE. Broken and missing teeth, gingivitis was rampant, my only guess is that alcohol, tobacco and poor diet along with a completely loss of hope of every achieving something in life had been made representational in their mouth. These people where branded for life, good luck getting a corporate job with a mouth that looks like it belongs in that of a wild animal!

The Bottom Line

There are many Hells on this Earth… minimum wage jobs is probably among the worst.

I read these two books a while back… here are a few quotes which stood out while reading them.

Trump! Surviving at the top

What separates the winner from the loosers… is how a person reacts to each twist of fate… life is a series of struggles.

I know that, whatever happens, I’m a survivor, a survivor of success, which is a very rare thing indeed

What’s Luck got to do with it?

If you make a mistake, admit it and it will be OK. If you don’t admit a mistake and try to cover it up… then you’re going to have real problems.
-Ted Waitt, Founder of Gateway 2000

The real key to success is the contact economy. Humans crave connections and anything you do to boost that connection, those units of social intimacy, is going to be wildly successful.
-Jim McCann, Founder of 1-800-FLOWER

…in business you have only 2 ways of surviving: Either your product is better than your competitor’s or it’s cheaper
-Jim Koch, Founder of Boston Beer Company

When you appeal to the highest level of thinking, you get the highest level of performance.
-Jack Stack, Founder of Sprinfield ReManufacturing Corporation

Let’s push for more discussion, not less – everywhere. Let’s seek common ground wherever we can find it.
-Gary Hirshberg, Founder of Stonyfield Farms

As far as an entrepreneur is concerned, I think the successful entrepreneur never feels that the game is over
-Steven Hamerslag, Founder of MTI Technology Corporation

Although a large segment of the worlds population has self-esteem issues, only a fraction of them have enough money to make changes to their physical image in order to try to improve them. Luckily, we also have positive role models in the area of self-esteem.

What is Self-Esteem?

Well, self-esteem is how you view yourself, your accomplishments and overall quality of yourself. Self-esteem peaks when you feel on top of the world without a care in the world and dives when you are worried everybody will see something that hardly anybody will notice about you. Self-esteem is essentially how you perceive the outside world feels about you.

Negative Self-Esteem

Money, fame and even good looks have little to do with how a person feels about themselves, and here are a few examples of the effects of negative self-esteem.

Micheal Jackson

Regardless of his media stunts, he has achieved INCREDIBLE success that I feel is what is leading towards his downfall. He achieved so much at such a young age and, being a perfectionist, has struggled to reach again with little traction compared to his incredibly high stratus at a younger age. He was once worth north of 200 million dollars, with fans all around the world and basically the King of Pop while today, he is relegated to the back pages of the Inquire or People Magazines. For all his accomplishments, he hasn’t been able to master the most important of all, himself. No amount of children, fame, fortune nor media attention has changed the fact that he has a chip on his shoulder that will probably haunt him until his final days. He was once a great role model for millions of aspiring fans around the world but I feel, in his present state, he is unable to fill those shoes even with his own shadow.

Jocelyne Wildenstein

A once very beautiful Swedish woman, Jocelyne was born in a middle class family but upped her way in the social elite by marrying Alec Wildenstein, whose family is worth about 10 billion dollars. She had two great kids, incredibly luxurious houses on just about every continent, a loving husband and more money then she could spend. When the marriage fell apart, it seems, so did she. Her escape was, like Micheal Jacksons, plastic surgery. Sadly, she put so much of her self-esteem deposits in her husbands bank account that she forever changed her look simply to try to win his heart back. It failed… and she has been living with the consequences ever since.

Anna Nicole Smith

She had more beauty then brains but all throughout her short live, she suffered from drug abuse of every kind. She had no personality, self-esteem of her own. She invested all her time and energy into getting the most out of life at the detriment of her own life. From cosmetic surgery to failed relationships, businesses and you name it, she, like the two celebrities above, suffered greatly psychologically. I am sure, before the fame and fortune came, she had some self-esteem within her but it seems as if it evaporated rather quickly.

Positive Self-Esteem

For some, their success seems almost based on the ability to either turn around personal self-esteem issues or simply continually building upon an already strong foundation.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

I have to admit, he is one of my many role models in life, he has the almost inhuman ability to write his own script for life, turning his predictions into reality with uncanny accuracy. If you look at Arnold’s life, one thing becomes very clear, his nick name “the Oak” is an impossibly strong foundation for where his self-esteem stands. He wants something, he makes it happen, no matter how impossible, how treacherous the path nor how many people doubt him. He is one of the ultimate go-getters who easily has earned every bit of luck and success he has fought so hard to achieve.

Sylvester Stallone

He isn’t the most handsome, isn’t the tallest (compared to the above two) nor did his speech impediment help him on the road to extreme success… but he did it! Talk about a strong foundation, he was broke in Hollywood but even when a studio exec offered him hundreds of thousands of dollars for his first Rocky movie script, he said no! He so much believed in himself that no matter how much somebody thought he was worth, he knew his value and dreams were worth so much more. Since then, he has achieved one fantastic success after another in various fields such as art, entertainment and even in his entrepreneurial activities.

Anthony Robbins

He began his career broke, obese and feeling like a truck ran him over and over a few years, turned himself around into the foundation that people around the world pay big bucks to try to emulate. He has his own island in Fiji, no lack of money and even though he went through a tough divorce at the peak of his success, was able to overcome those obstacles and re-invent himself. How did he do it? He did it by himself for himself, and that is why he has achieved the incredible success he so well deserves.

Self-Esteem: YOU

So, how do you feel about yourself? Do you feel like shit? Well, if you do, no matter what else is going on in your life, you need to get these issues resolved first and foremost. As you can see from the above examples, fame and fortune only seem to make things WORSE, not better. Self-esteem is the inner relationship with yourself, if you cannot make peace with it, it will quickly spiral into absolute dysfunctionality. Before you seek fame, fortune and the life you feel you deserve, you need to focus on making sure the foundation upon which YOU are built is sturdy enough to weather any earthquake that will come as you pursuit a path of success.

The Bottom Line

Wealth has huge responsibilities attached with it, are your self-esteem able to handle such weight?

I believe to truly become successful, there must be some altruism involved. What is the point of being a billionaire if you cannot enjoy your success helping others achieve their personal goals?

What is Altruism?

Altruism at its core is simply the selfless regard for or devotion for the welfare of others, it usually involves behaviors or decisions that are not beneficial and may even be harmful but it helps the general well-being of those around them. A great example of altruist behavior in the business world is Warren Buffet giving away his billions of dollars to the betterment of humanity through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. How is this altruistic? Well, the selfish response would be to keep that in trusts so that every Buffet for the next thousand years or more can live the life of a GOD, which would dramatically increase their reproductive success in this world given the right circumstances. He could also just cash in all his stocks and build a base on the moon if he so desired! I believe this is also a fantastic act of altruism because he is giving to a cause that will benefit millions of people around the world. His legacy won’t be a moon base but allowing people to get surgeries so they can see again, giving opportunity to those born in the worst of circumstances and best of all, he is still alive to see how his vast wealth benefits others!

Another great example of altruist behavior is Mother Teresa who gave every part of her being to fulfilling her mission to help those less fortunate then her even while she had great doubts about the existence of God throughout her career. She was giving back to the human race even though she suffered severe bouts of depression, gave up on her reproductive success to pass on her genes and lived a rather difficult life.

Are only humans capable of Altruism?

The strict definition of altruism is giving of oneself to better your species (reading between the lines: this is only a human trait) but I believe this is too narrow a definition, as we all share this planet with one another,. Altruism, to me indicates giving of oneself for the betterment of our entire ecosystem. I found this great example to illustrate this case, a baby duck feeding carp! You can’t get more altruist then that… the baby duck is giving food to a fish! I am sure it isn’t a conscious decision to give away food but regardless, putting a human emotion onto non-human species can’t be ignored, even if it’s a big no-no to the scientifically educated.

Altruism as a business model

Of course, there is also non-profit foundations and organizations all around the world where the business model is to HELP mankind instead of trying to derive a profit from it. Great examples are UNICEF (a United Nations Organization), Mozilla Foundation (firefox, thunderbird), Craiglist (run by Craig Newmark who has refused too many buyout opportunities to count), NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations)that work where even governments won’t step foot in. I could list probably hundreds of thousands of these type of organizations but suffice it to say, altruism as a business model is alive and doing very well!

Love of Altruism

If you love to help others, and derive great pleasure from it… is it still altruism? Why the heck not? I say, if you can create a profitable business that help better the lives of those around the world, why not. Just because you derive great pleasure from doing these types of activities doesn’t lessen the selflessness of an act.

The Bottom Line

Altruism is contagious among the right people, why not begin with yourself?

Forbes has released it’s list of the top 400 billionaires and just to join the club, they had to have a net worth above 1.3 billion dollars US.

Interesting Numbers

The top eight spots on the list was made up of entrepreneurs who, they themselves, accounted for 15% of the total value of the top 400 billionaires in the world. That’s a lot of dough considering the net value of all 400 combined is over a trillion dollars which is in excess of many countries GDP!

The Secrets

Here are a few secrets / lessons that the worlds wealthiest had to share with those of us who aren’t so lucky (yes, luck has a heck of a lot to do with this type of extreme success).

• Mr. Kenny Troutt, with a reported value of 1.3 billion dollars, said that he learned money cannot buy happiness.
• Mr. Richard Rainwater, with a value of 3.5 billion dollars, said that he learned leaving too much money to kids (50 million in this case) isn’t a good thing.
• Mr. Kenneth Hendricks, with a value of 3.5 billion dollars stated that he learned the hard way that not everybody is created equal in the world.
• Mr. Sanford Weill, with a value of 1.8 billion dollars, said the biggest lesson he learned while accumulating his wealth was to learn to deal with problems when they where small before they snowball into major headaches.
• Mr. Burton Smith, with a reported value of 1.5 billion dollars, said that hard work can overcome a lot of incompetence and negatives that are pushed upon a person.
• Mr. Ronald Perelman, with a reported vale of 10 billion dollars stated tthat being at the right place at the right time is what lead to his enormous wealth.
• Mr. James Sorenson, with a value of 4.5 billion dollars, said that investing in yourself is the best way to succeed in life.
• Mr. Donald Trump, with a value estimated to be 3 billion dollars stated that he learned to nail people to the wall if they tried to screw him.
• Mr. Michael Heisley, with a value of 1.3 billion dollars stated that simply being wealthy has been the most corrupting influence in his life.
• Mr. Ken Fisher, with a value of 1.8 billion dollars, said the hardest lesson he learned is that others don’t perceive you the same way you perceive you.
• Mr. Eli Broad, with a reported value of 7 billion dollars, said that he believes the harder you work, the luckier you get in life.
• Mr. John Catsimatidis, with a value of 2.1 billion dollars stated that he learned that some people just rub each other the wrong way for no particular reason.
• Mr. Tim Blixseth, with a value of 1.3 billion dollars said he trusted people too much and it got him in trouble sometimes.
• Sir Richard Branson (not on the list?), his best advice for getting super wealthy is saying “screw it” and follow through!

Where is Sir Richard Branson?

What I found odd about this list is that Forbes left out Sir Richard Branson, of all the billionaires who never call me, he is probably the one that this pains me the most! I really look up to this guy, he takes extreme risks with his businesses, fails a lot but his successes more then make up for it. He is incredibly diversified, from sub-orbital flights to renting out his own homes and overall, a fantastic personality who has almost cult status in the UK. His net worth is estimated to be between 2 and 8 billion dollars yet, he is completely absent from the Forbes 400 list which I find puzzling. Another thing as to why I admire him so much is that he is incredibly honest, he says straight-out without an over-inflated ego that luck got him to where he is now.

The Bottom Line

Being a billionaire has as much to do about luck as it does hard work, but who knows… invest in yourself and the world is open to allowing you to join this very exclusive club.

Buzvia: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/09/19/richest-americans-forbes-lists-richlist07-cx_mm_0920rich_land.html