I've come to a conclusion that there exists exactly 3 ways on how to become an high net worth individual. The 3 alternative ways in getting rich are the following (excluding the so called "Gold-diggers"):
- Play the Eurojackpot.
- Invest
- Become an entrepreneur
The first thing I want to address you is the point that the wealthiest men and women alive have gotten their fortune through entrepreneurship: Microsoft and Bill Gates, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, Zara and Amancio Ortega, Oprah Winfrey... you name it! Even the greatest men in the American history made their fortune and wrote history through entrepreneurship: John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Henry Ford. Even the richest men in your hometown are entrepreneurs!
I found a good example. I'm currently reading the biography of the eccentric billionaire Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance. We talk about a guy who has had a couple of business ideas. Zip2, his and his brother's first idea back in the 1990's was an early predecessor of a combination of Google Maps and Yelp. The purpose of the webpage was to gather basically The Yellow Pages accessible to the early internet. The result? Acquisition by Compaq Computers and profit for the Musk brothers by over 20 million dollars each. After that, ventures of Elon Musk with PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity, Neuralink and Boring Company are trying to make history and affect the mankind.
So we managed to establish two ultimate goals you can reach as an entrepreneur. In the best-case scenario it introduces you lots of cash and probably your name on the history books for the mankind to read and dream. Personally I can't figure out a more flamboyant achievement in life than to be remembered by history.
But let's start small. Many of you are probably thinking at this point that "What is this nonsense? It's cool that Mark Zuckerberg made millions with entrepreneurship but that doesn't mean that I'm going to make it". That's where you're wrong. None of the greatest billionaires in the planet saw their success coming. What was common for them were the ideas, the dreams and the passion towards their own business (and they probably were freemasons). That is what put them in their current place. If you've already accepted the mindset that your ideas are worth nothing, you have no point to even try to establish your own business. If you can't believe in yourself, who else will?
The first step is to believe in yourself. Believe in you and to your ideas. Believe that you are the greatest motherf*cker in the planet. After that it is possible to sell those ideas profitably to others as well, when you've performed the hard sell to yourself. Recognize your passion and dreams and see how you could achieve them. That's what life is all about in my opinion! Following your passion and reaching for the dreams. Some people achieve these similar things through art and music, for instance, but entrepreneurship is also a good long-term option.
But then again, how to develop the killer idea that would suit for your business and hopefully make you money? There's a concept called creative loitering. It describes that perhaps all loitering, chilling and being unemployed isn't unnecessary. In fact, the theory suggests that when people have more time with their hands to be and think, innovations and business ideas are more propable to come up for people. This suggests that unemployment and loitering might in some cases be even economically efficient. Just see what the young coders in Silicon Valley are doing with their lives....
As Brooks Halden put it in Shawshank Redemption, "The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry." Nowadays seems that people can't find the time for themselves, their ideas and not to mention their loved ones. You are always online and everybody is assuming you to be reachable 24/7.
Everyone should try to unplug themselves for a while, do absolutely nothing for a couple of days and ask themselves: "What is my passion? What I want to do with my life?". Go to a summer cottage, a beach or to your leather sofa to ask these things. In more extreme scenarios, the employers could help with this. Not necessarily weeks, but days or hours off just to give the smart people of our society time to innovate and be with themselves. That not only stimulates business ideas, but allows everyone of us to learn from ourselves.
If you decide to start a business, that must be something that you have a passion for. Your own business and entrepreneurship are going to take quite a bit of your time in life, so you must be sure that it is exactly what you want. Establish the business to your passion and to the matters that give you as a person the advantage over the competitors. As long as you believe in your business and passion more than everyone else, it is possible to pass on that passion for your peer groups, thus making your business successful.
The competition in the business world is fierce and sometimes you may fail. You may fail big time and it may become costly in terms of time and money and you have to accept that. If it fails, you need to develop your ideas perhaps a bit more so the success would be guaranteed later. But still remember that the advantages of being successful mostly cancel the risks of failure. If you have the possibility of creating your dream through your own business, why should you be constantly fearing the risks? You just have to think how much you want it. As Steve Jobs said once: "Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose."
The goal of any business is to produce value for its shareholders. If you are the shareholder of a company through investments or ownership, the business is going to produce value and wealth for you. Working for yourself gives you the opportunity to get all the revenue and profits you have created for yourself.
And it doesn't have to be anything radical or life-changing. My dad established his own car-shop because that was one of his greatest dreams. To work for himself and for no-one else. The revenue wasn't astronomical but at least he know what he wanted from his life. And that's what it's all about.
A brief motivational blog for all of you who are considering entrepreneurship. Me, couple of my friends and my girlfriend have all been thinking possible business ideas of our own already and developing them constantly. Why shouldn't you? In the best case you are going to make a fortune and writing history. In the worst case you fail and you have to try again.
Text: SW
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