Be a millionaire

So I read the autobiographies of empire-builders like Ray Kroc (McDonalds) and Harold Schultz (Starbucks) and one thing was very certain: I am not those guys and I am never going to be. I am not the person who’s going to forgo sleep and work my butt off every single day and risk everything to take my business to the top. I am, in fact, pretty lazy.

So, basically, my wealth building model is not to be a Ray Kroc, but to hopefully work with a few Ray Krocs and get a piece of their action. This year I managed to finagle 2% ownership of a startup beverage company in exchange for doing all their branding. If I could continue to make deals like this, I’m sure I could do pretty well for myself.

I almost don’t like the term “be a millionaire.” I feel like the phrase is tainted as being some desperate pipe dream that hucksters use to fleece poor schmoes. It’s sad. It makes me think of people losing their shirts selling Amway or going to no-money-down real estate seminars or actually believing that Robert Kiyosaki knows what the hell he’s talking about.

I always feel like I need to separate myself. Say “Oh no, no! I’m not like THAT! I actually CAN become a millionaire!” And, really, maybe it’s snobbery or self-delusion, but I have never in my life, even when I was a child living in a house with no indoor plumbing, thought that I would not be rich eventually. There was a time when I didn’t buy lottery tickets based on the logic “I have the skills, intelligence and connections to make money on my own merits. The lottery should be for people who have no other hope of ever getting rich.” Of course, then I read that 3 out of 5 lotto jackpot winners spend all their winnings within 3 years and started buying tickets again, saying “better the money goes to someone who knows how to manage it than some chump who’s going to blow it all.”

My rationale for believing I can be a millionare is: It is not unusual for people like me to become millionaires. People in my city, in my industry, in my social circle. I know millionaires. I know what they’re like and how they live (which is not nearly as lavishly as 3 out of 5 lotto winners seem to think). Come to think of it, I think my Dad was even a millionaire briefly before his stock holdings dipped. Give me a few years and my condo might be worth a million, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be sipping Dom Perignon in a hot tub on a yacht.

So I guess the thing is, I feel a little weird about the term “be a millionaire” used as some kind of superlative implying fabulous, undreamt-of wealth. Simply “being a millionaire” is not that big of a deal. I want the level of comfort and security that comes with having a few mil socked away and I still believe it’s totally attainable.

From my own personal experience, the greatest enemy of luck is indecision. Once I decide I want something and, accordingly, adjust my mind to the idea of getting it, that’s when I start getting lucky.

Case in point: less than two years ago, on a lark, I went to look at a new condo building that went up in my neighborhood. The topmost condo was two floors with a roomy layout, high ceilings, wood floors, and a terrace with a partial manhattan view. The price: One million dollars. Nonetheless, I decided right then and there that I wanted a condo like that. I started working out how much I’d have to save and how much I’d have to improve my credit rating to get a mortgage and started making steps in that direction.

Today, I am living in a top-level condo which is two floors with a roomy layout, high ceilings, wood floors, and TWO terraces with FULL manhattan views which cost considerably less than one million dollars…and my savings and credit rating didn’t even come into play. I basically lucked into it.

The same thing happened years ago when I decided I wanted a professional job. I met some random people, and within six months I had a senior position in a design department in spite of having no degree, no resume and very little experience.

And so, back in 2004, when I decided I was going to make a million dollars, I just started stumbling into things that kept me making greater and greater amounts of money each year…until last year.

Sometime last year I lost my confidence and motivation and didn’t know what I wanted to do anymore. Since I had money to coast off of, I decided that I would coast and wait until I decided…which only made me more indecisive…and thus, there was no luck.

Since the new year, I’ve been cracking down on myself and I’ve come to feel a sense of decisiveness and forward-motion returning. Already, I’m starting to see luck coming back: Sales going up for no aparrent reason and new opportunities presenting themselves out of the blue.

I just need to get the luck rolling well enough to get a million dollars by 11/22/2008!

Wow, looking at the other entries I’m starting to become discouraged. I hate pyramid schemes and get-rich-quick seminars and I know how to spell and write sentences with punctuation. Maybe I’m not millionaire material?

But seriously, I’d ideally like 10 million and ideally before I’m 40. My original plan was one million by 35. I’ve managed to break the six-figure mark, but I’ll need something more bold to make millions. I figure the right ideas will come to me eventually. I’m pretty clever.