The door to the American Millionaire’s Club is not locked. Contrary to popular modern belief, it is still quite possible for the successful individual to make his million—and more. There will always be room for the man with energy and imagination, the man who can successfully implement new ideas into new products and services.
Young men who want to start making a million today have a wide variety of business fields from which to choose when selecting their careers. The one an individual selects will, of course, depend largely on his particular talents, interest, background, training and experience. The alert manufacturer knows that there is a great demand for new and improved products of all kinds. The man with a flair for merchandising will see the great potentials in wholesaling or retailing. Other men will realize they can make their fortunes by providing new and better services to industry or the public at large. Simply stated, it all adds up to this: The man who comes up with a means for doing or producing almost anything better, faster or more economically has his future and his fortune at his fingertips. It is not easy to build a business and make a million. It takes hard—extremely hard—work. There are no nine-to-five hours and no five-day weeks for the boss.
To be truly rich, regardless of his fortune or lack of it, a man must live by his own values. If those values are not personally meaningful, then no amount of money gained can hide the emptiness of a life without them.
Each individual has to establish his own standards of values, and that these are largely subjective. They are based on what the individual considers most important to him and what he is willing to give for a certain thing or in order to achieve a certain aim.
An individual who can be relied upon to be himself and to be honest unto himself can be relied upon in every other way. He places value—not a price—on himself and his principles. And that, in the final analysis, is the measure of anyone’s sense of values—and of the true worth of any man.
The successful executive—the leader, the innovator—is the exceptional man. He is not a conformist, except in his adherence to his own ideals and beliefs.
No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or “get rich” in business by being a conformist. A businessman who wants to be successful cannot afford to imitate others or to squeeze his thoughts and actions into trite and shopworn molds. He must be very much of an individualist who can think and act independently. He must be an original, imaginative, resourceful and entirely self-reliant entrepreneur.
The truly successful businessman is essentially a dissenter, a rebel who is seldom if ever satisfied with the status quo. He creates his success and wealth by constantly seeking—and often finding—new and better ways to do and make things.
Words such as millionaire, multimillionaire and billionaire carry a magic and compelling ring. Understandably enough, many people are mesmerized by those words, by what they think those words imply—and by the thought of piling up a personal fortune as an end in itself.
These people seem to believe that every millionaire has his millions in ready cash, stored in strongboxes beneath his bed or in a handy wall safe in his library, to hold or squander according to his whim. They also apparently believe that money can buy them everything and solve all their problems.
In the case of a “working” millionaire—a wealthy individual actively engaged in business—nothing could be further from the truth. In the first place, although a businessman may be “worthy” many millions of dollars, precious little of his wealth is in fluid, spendable cash. His fortune is invested—tied up—in land, buildings, machinery, equipment, raw materials, finished-product inventories, in all the things which make up his business and keep it in operation.
The fundamentals of art collecting are not difficult to master. Obviously, the average person is not financially able to go on a shopping spree for Rembrandts, Fragonards, Gauguins or other paintings that—when and if available—run into the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.
But even the individual who has only a very few hundred dollars to spend can buy good works of art—objects that are of high quality and that will retain or increase their value.
What to buy? This depends on two factors. The first is the individual’s taste—and, if he is to buy wisely, it must be assumed that he has fairly good taste. The second factor is the individual’s wallet. Whatever the price range he can afford, the art collector must always strive to buy the best he can within that range. One good item is worth a dozen—or even a hundred—bad ones.
A prospective investor must always bear in mind that while real estate can be a highly profitable form of investment, it can also prove quite risky. Often there are many variable factors which affect the value of a property, and these factors are not always obvious even to experienced eyes. It is sometimes difficult to appraise the value of a given property accurately, and mistakes in appraisal can be costly. Another potential drawback to investing heavily in real estate is that an individual who ties a large amount of his capital up in real property and then has a sudden need for cash may well find it difficult to sell and realize cash quickly without incurring considerable losses.
There are some general rules and pointers which provide a valuable checklist of things to do—and not to do—for anyone who is thinking of making an investment in any kind of real estate.
1. Make a thorough study of the real estate market and its prospects in your area before you buy. Naturally, you should seek to buy when prices are low and the indications are that values will rise. Always take into consideration such factors as the rate of population increase and the general prospects of business in the area. There is no quicker way to lose money in real estate than by investing it in property located in declining areas.
The investor must know as much as he possibly can about the corporation in which he buys stock. The following are some of the questions for which he should get satisfactory answers before he invests his money:
1. What is the company’s history: Is it a solid and reputable firm, and does it have able, efficient and seasoned management?
2. Is the company producing or dealing in goods or services for which there will be a continuing demand in the foreseeable future?
3. Is the company in a field that is not dangerously overcrowded, and is it in a good competitive position?
4. Are company policies and operations farsighted and aggressive without calling for unjustified and dangerous overexpansion?
5. Will the corporate balance sheet stand up under the close scrutiny of a critical and impartial auditor?
Good judgment and imaginative foresight are two qualities which, working together, can make the “impossible” possible. The valuable habits of healthy skepticism and individual confidence can, and often do, help a determined individual refute the discouragement of the crowd. The executive must develop the ability to rationally and knowledgeably reach decisions and then go ahead—regardless of the “impossibility” of his goal.
One of the most valuable assets a businessman or executive can possess is the ability to study and weigh all the factors in a given situation and determine what is feasible and what is not—in short, to distinguish between the possible and the impossible. The ability is seldom innate; rather, it is acquired and developed. With it, an individual’s chances of achieving success are greatly enhanced. Without it, he can go only so far—or fail altogether. Many an otherwise capable—or even great—man has failed because he lacked this capacity.
