Are You Preparing Yourself To Be Rich and Famous?

What if,...what if...by a massive stroke of good fortune you did become extremely rich tomorrow. What is you bought some Cryptocurrency that just became ‘hot to trot’. What if you won the lottery jackpot, the Premium Bonds, or that crazy invention actually found a ‘White Knight’ to promote you to the Billionaire club.

Have you ever thought how your life would change.

I often do. Then I come back to reality and look at my current situation. OK, so there’s no cleaner sprucing up my house and there’s no gardener manicuring the flower borders.

Although, would I become lazy if someone was doing this work for me, and really if you look after your possessions it’s appreciating all the things you have worked for in your life, or been given to you by a loved one.

But I’m damn lucky, why on earth do I feel like I need more? There seems to be this constant striving for More…More…More.

Have we been hypnotised by the Billionaires of this world to keep spending our hard earned money on ‘things’?

Jack Ma — Alibaba’s Founder

If you’re familiar with the story of Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma, you may be as amazed as I was. He was being interviewed by Barack Obama, no less, but came from very humble beginnings.

He learnt how to speak english by conversing with English-speakers escorting tourist around his home city of Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, who were staying at the Hangzhou International Hotel.

For nine years, Ma would ride 27 km (17 miles) on his bicycle to give tourists tours of the area to practice his English. He became a pen pal with one of those foreigners, who nicknamed him “Jack” because he found it hard to pronounce his Chinese name.

He also claims to have applied ten times to the Harvard Business School and got rejected each time. Jack Ma had more than his share of rejections, but that didn’t stop him. He has the attributes of a ‘Tiger’.

According to Ma’s autobiographical speech, after graduating from Hangzhou Normal University in 1988, Ma applied for 31 different odd jobs and was rejected by every one. “I went for a job with the police; they said, ‘you’re no good’”, Ma told interviewer Charlie Rose. “I even went to KFC when it came to my city. Twenty-four people went for the job. Twenty-three were accepted. I was the only guy rejected. Wikipedia

Alibaba Group

Jack Ma, did have financial help, quite a lot of it, so the story isn’t quite as amazing as it seemed.

In October 1999 and January 2000, Alibaba won a total of a $25 million foreign venture capital investment from Goldman Sachs and Softbank.

The program was expected to improve the domestic e-commerce market and perfect an e-commerce platform for Chinese enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to address World Trade Organization (WTO) challenges.

Alibaba became profitable three years later. Ma wanted to improve the global e-commerce system and from 2003 he founded Taobao Marketplace, Alipay, Ali Mama and Lynx. After the rapid rise of Taobao, eBay offered to purchase the company. However, Ma rejected their offer, instead gathering support from Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang with a $1 billion investment. Wikipedia

Jack Ma doesn’t mention any of the above in his interviews, and it would be quite easy for others to believe they could follow in his footsteps, I’m sure some will in future. Much of his story isn’t told on his inspirational videos, but then overnight success stories often leave out much of the detail.

Finding an Income Stream for the Future

I had a very interesting conversation with an old friend today, who had recently had a heart by-pass operation after collapsing with a Heart Attack.

He had finished refurbished a bungalow in the smallest town in England, Stockbridge in Hampshire.

Stockbridge is a very pretty town, and has been largely unspoilt by developers. It’s famous for it’s Trout Fishing, and a ‘Rod on the Test’ is a prized possession.

The wide picturesque Stockbridge High Street, in the Test Valley, reflects its early role as part of a drovers road where it was common to see flocks of sheep or herds of cattle being driven through the town on route from Wales.

My friend wanted to chat about the possibility of using this property as a holiday let on Air BnB. He has come to realise that he no longer has the stamina to convert property and all the hard work this entails. It comes to all of us eventually.

The woefully inadequate pension provision, not just here, but in many places around the world, should make us all sit up and think about how we will cope in later life with failing health.

You Can Be Young and Broke, But It’s Miserable Beyond Belief When You’re Old and Broke

My friend is a real entrepreneur. When he was younger he bought the lease on a run-down cafe, called the Caravan Cafe. As school children we used to joke that we wouldn’t buy anything from the Caravan Cafe unless it was in a wrapper — yes it was that grotty.

Anyway, he converted the Cafe into a ‘Fish and Chip’ shop and restaurant, offering take away meals. If you can imagine this is a very rural area in Hampshire (way out in the sticks). Many of the farm and estate workers would buy their lunch from the cafe. The Army Flying School of Middle Wallop is also very close by. Where Prince Harry completed his training as a Helicopter Pilot. He was awarded his Apache Flying Badge on 14 April 2011

Stockbridge was a great place for a pub crawl, as there were a total of seven public houses along this very wide street. The Cafe did well with the late night revellers too. He had lots of passing trade, parking was never a problem on the wide street and parking was free at all times.

…and yet my friend came from very humble beginnings, there was a time in his life when he was sleeping rough in a barn.

Sometimes we can’t see the Potential

It does take a huge amount of imagination to ‘break out of the mould’ like my friend did. He was amazingly successful. He made a lot of money selling the Lease of the cafe, that he turned around into an established, profitable business.

The Advantages of AirBnB

Actually, there were lots of advantages with letting through AirBnB.

Both parties leave feedback, but the results aren’t revealed until you have both had your say. What a genius plan to avoid ‘revenge’ attacks;

The owner is not obliged to accept any bookings, especially if the customer had negative comments or a bad record;

In this way, the owner can protect themselves from unsuitable clients, and if the visitors misbehave it can prevent them from any future holidays in other AirBnB accommodation;

AirBnB fees are much lower than the traditional holiday letting companies, enabling a discount to be passed onto the customer.

Feedback from customers is the Achilles heel of the hospitality sector, sometimes exploited by those who want a refund or a generous discount. It can do untold damage to your reputation.

AirBnB have got this disadvantage covered by not letting the customer have the upper hand and it protects the property owner.

After all, it’s someone’s livelihood they’re playing with. Many cottage owners, carry a huge amount of debt and a large risk.

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This story was also published on Medium.