#SelfMade #CollegeAdmissionsScandal #FameFromBirth
“What does it mean to be a ‘self-made’ person of great wealth?”
Mary Sanchez, columnist for the Kansas City Star, posed that question in a recent column, also published March 12, 2019, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Sanchez was referring to Kylie Jenner, whom Forbes magazine proclaimed to be the world’s youngest “self-made” billionaire, at age 21, from her cosmetics business.
Jenner is a member of the Kardashian-Jenner blended family. She didn’t exactly launch her business from her garage at night after working a full-time job all day, Sanchez points out.
Actually, she’s been quite savvy at leveraging her birthright fame, Sanchez says.
Alas, most of us aren’t blessed with the gift of fame from birth.
For most of us, if we want to achieve success, we have to do it gradually, over time, and many never get there.
Many of us don’t have the discipline to build wealth over time by saving more, spending less and investing properly.
Many of us never get introduced to a program that would allow us to build wealth by spending a few part-time hours off work – not unlike the folks who build a company in their garages. But, unlike the companies that start in a garage, you can build wealth by helping others do the same.
How? There are many such vehicles out there to allow you build wealth by leveraging your off-work time without taking a second, W-2 job. To check out one of the best such programs, message me.
Sanchez ‘s column was also published at a time when famous people are paying to get their children into prestigious colleges. They are not doing it by donating money to those schools. They are bribing coaches to “recruit” students to their teams who have not played the sport in question.
They are also paying others to take college entrance exams on behalf of their children – in other words, helping the children cheat their way to success. In turn, that means hard-working students who do things the right way are deprived of admission to those schools.
The whole scandal brings to mind how one defines success.
A big part of a successful life is doing everything the right way. That usually means hard work and tenacity. It also means either innovating – filling a need no one else has filled – or following a system that has created success for many others. To put that another way, it means duplicating what other successful people have done.
The college admission scandal has also brought to mind another axiom: if you cheat your way to the top, you will eventually get caught.
So how do you define success? Different people may see success in different forms. Part of defining success is knowing why you are doing something.
Good whys motivate the wise.
And when the wise are motivated, regardless of what they are doing, success will come. When success comes, wealth usually follows.
Success doesn’t come just to the lucky, though any successful person undoubtedly would say he or she has been blessed. One must put himself in the position for good fortune to come.
Kylie Jenner was helped by who she is. Most of us don’t have that advantage. But we all can put ourselves in position for success to strike. It may take some out-of-the-box thinking, but anyone can do it.
Peter