“The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.” Thomas Edison

People sometimes ask me how I have the time and money to do the things on my bucket list. With Labor Day approaching, I’d like to share one of my earliest bucket list goals, though the term Bucket List wasn’t even invented then. When I was 18 years old in 1984, I wrote down on a piece of paper the goal of being “Completely self-employed by 30.” I believe that there’s power in writing down your goals, because I cashed my last paycheck at age 24 and have been self-employed ever since.
I’ve been troubled over the past number of years at our countries economic conditions, people’s willingness to rely on government programs, politicians undermining the hard won successes of others, and what seems like many people’s fading belief in the American Dream.
Last week I was refreshed and invigorated to hear actor Ashton Kutcher speaking about his own work experiences and the philosophy of Steve Jobs to the impressionable kids watching the Teen Choice Awards. He spoke of hard work, opportunity, intelligence, thoughtfulness and generosity. Through the screaming of teenage girls, Kutcher said, “I believe that opportunity looks a lot like hard work. I’ve never had a job in my life that I was better than. I was always just lucky to have a job. And every job I had was a steppingstone to my next job.”
I completely agree. I began building my investment “seed money” at 12 years old delivering the Fullerton News Tribune on my bike. I been a pool lifeguard, a delivery driver, and a grocery store bag boy. I’ve fried taco shells at Taco Bell, bussed tables at Disneyland, and swept walkways at Knott’s Berry Farm. Sometimes I worked two jobs at the same time and I never made much more than the hourly minimum wage. I don’t write this to say “look at me, aren’t I great?!“ I write it because I truly believe that anyone can achieve financial success in this country. I’ve found that the recipe for financial success is really quite simple: work hard and smart, make more than you spend, delay gratification, increase your financial knowledge, take calculated investment risks, and focus on the main goal.
By the time I was 18 I had saved up enough money to put a down payment on a fixer-upper four-plex apartment house. Through “sweaty equity” and the money I was making at my other jobs, that property was repaired and rented. For the next 25 years I re-invested nearly all of the profits into acquiring other properties. I hope to one day write a book called “I Was A Teenage Landlord” which will detail my experiences and my multiple mistakes along the way of owning rental property before I could even legally buy a beer.
I believe that through hard work the American Dream is still possible, and working towards it should be at the top of everybody’s bucket list!