By Gene Simmons
Not that many people know that KISS's frontman and singer is a self-made millionaire and entrepreneur who has really good insights and advice regarding how to make money. His industry expertise includes restaurants, financial services, consumer goods and a whole array of things that you'd never consider before regarding an 80's rockstar.
Of course, not that many people will find some Simmons' comments on race and women in business easy to digest, but that is precisely his point; not to be politically correct about business and life; rather, to give the reader the facts in order for him/her to judge.
An entertaining and quick read. And I personally enjoy Simmons' writting style.
Amazon Page for details
My Rating: 6/10
Click Here to Read My Notes
Not that many people know that KISS's frontman and singer is a self-made millionaire and entrepreneur who has really good insights and advice regarding how to make money. His industry expertise includes restaurants, financial services, consumer goods and a whole array of things that you'd never consider before regarding an 80's rockstar.
Of course, not that many people will find some Simmons' comments on race and women in business easy to digest, but that is precisely his point; not to be politically correct about business and life; rather, to give the reader the facts in order for him/her to judge.
An entertaining and quick read. And I personally enjoy Simmons' writting style.
Amazon Page for details
My Rating: 6/10
Click Here to Read My Notes
My mother was always a proud, independent woman. Although her brothers George and Larry both offered housing and help, she decided that she and I would have to move and get our own place. She refused to accept loans and always insisted on earning her own way. She taught me to be that way. Never a borrower be.
My self-esteem grew. I felt like I was somebody. Because America gave me the right to be somebody.
What America had, was a “nothing is impossible” mind-set.
America taught me that no one is better than anyone else. And that, no matter the difference in your skin color, your accent, or your religious beliefs, no one has the right to make you feel less than what you are. No one.
“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
I devoured comic books. I still do. So does the rest of the world, apparently. Comics, once a relatively small underground movement, are now recognized as an influential cultural and commercial force.
I promised myself that I would educate myself, and that I would never stop educating myself. It was my responsibility to keep learning. I would spend hours at the library on the weekends and read everything I could get my hands on. Books on dinosaurs. Books on history. I almost read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica. And all for free.
What this really means is: spend as little as you can, and spend only for those things you can’t live without, in order to have money left over.
By this point, I understood the model: Spend little, earn more. Have the skills to earn myself more money. Know where to go to sell those skills. Educate myself. Learn people skills. Learn language skills.
If I ask you what your name is, chances are you’ll tell me. But I’m here to tell you it’s not your name. You had nothing to do with choosing it. It was likely chosen for you before you were even born. I decided I would have my own name. One that I would give myself.
The point: create your own hype. Whether you’re in a band, or you’re a mere salesman—make them believe in you. Make them believe they are the last to the party and it’s started without them. You don’t have to lie, but you do have to craft an image that makes people want what you have.
My point is that, in whatever field one chooses, it’s up to you to educate yourself to become an effective entrepreneur. And you can’t use a lack of formal training as an excuse not to pursue the success that you desire.
A lesson learned: get paid for what you do.
The lesson for you? Never let anyone or anything stop YOU, in your quest for success.
My real point here—with this story, and the critic-bashing—is that it’s important to know, if you’re going to be a success, that no one is better than you are. No one has the right to shake his finger in your face. No one is allowed to make you feel bad about yourself. No one is better or holier than you are. No one.
Every CEO starts out without any qualifications. Then they jump in the deep end, and start swimming. It’s the way I’ve always lived.
Incidentally, handling things myself is something that I invariably wind up doing. If you want something done right, do it yourself.
Sink or swim, you have to jump into the deep end. If you wait until you are ready, as the saying goes, you will wait forever.
The lesson, for business and for life, is to keep your priorities straight.
The real-life lesson for me here is that, although I take great personal pride in dreaming big and achieving big, the biggest achievement of all is to be able to help another human being.
I’m being straight with you—if you have any success in this life, you don’t have the right not to help someone else.
Wealth for its own sake is an empty shell.
This book is about how to be successful. I will tell you that I was not truly successful until I decided to also be charitable.
It’s up to you to educate yourself outside school. It’s up to you to make friends with people who are more successful than you are. Respectfully, get rid of your chip-dippin’, TV-watchin’, happy-with-my-life, don’t-wanna-do-anything-else friends.
The only thing holding you back from succeeding in America may be YOU.
If a bully comes up to you, do not show weakness. It will make it easier for him to beat you up. If you show enormous self-confidence and show no fear, the bully may, just may, back off. A small chance at greatness is better than giving up.
In the wild, if faced with a wolf that’s about to attack, your best chance for survival is to stand your ground, puff out your chest as large as it can go, wildly flail your arms in the air, make a lot of noise, and always look straight into the eyes of the predator. If you do that, you may survive. In other words, you will win.
It’s important to note that rock stars, politicians, and other people with position, power, and wealth weren’t born that way. They had to earn it. They worked for it. They had to make up their own rules. They had to sell themselves first, before their product. They had to educate themselves. School was over, and self-education began when they left school. And they were willing to work harder than you to get there. Do you have what it takes?
And the first step, even before you do your own due diligence (as you should), is to have an enormous, almost delusional sense of self-confidence.
There’s a very old platitude that goes “the love of money is the root of all evil.” The person who came up with that statement was, in my view, severely misguided, and missing a large—perhaps the largest—source of crime in the world.
There is a big difference between going to work and loving to work. It is important that you take this to heart.
I’m a today and tomorrow person.
he was relentless. Nothing and no one would stop him from achieving his objectives. That last sentence, with some variations, is something repeated at various points in this book. It’s worth repeating, because it’s important, and it’s something that you need to remember at all times.
“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Reckless spending, for example, doesn’t help anyone. Not even millionaires. Live well below your means. I still do.
Don’t buy a home until you have amassed four times the value of the home in your net worth. If you’re worth $1 million after tax, go ahead and buy a $250,000 home.
Don’t buy a car. Certainly not a new one. You may not even need a car. Take public transportation if you can. If you must, buy a secondhand car. But pay cash, don’t take out a loan. Buy a rent-a-wreck type car for $1,000–3,000. If you have the cash, pay cash. If you don’t have cash, don’t buy it.
Beyond matters of the heart, marriage costs money. Lots of it. Marriage—and divorce, which often follows—will be the biggest financial exposure you will ever have.
“We are all created equal” is simply not true. Never has been and never will be. Some of us are born smarter. Some are born faster, live longer, are stronger, and so on. Once you recognize and understand that, you’ll begin to see that the only way you’ll beat the smarter/better-looking/younger/more experienced guy is simply to work harder and longer and never give up.
Although we have a constitution that says that all people are created equal, that’s an ideal, not reality. Worth repeating: some people are born faster, some are smarter, some are shorter, some are fatter, some are thinner. We believe that our rights should supersede our inherent natures, supersede our DNA. Perhaps they should. But in the real world, they don’t. So we all have to fight for the rights we are guaranteed under the Constitution: to be treated equally under the law, and not to be profiled or incur prejudice and other notions, like being judged by what we look like and sound like.
For better or worse, banks and financial institutions are still a boys’ club, and you should promote yourself and your skills, not what you look like. Otherwise, you will not be treated seriously.
Like millions and millions of other Americans, I wasn’t born in America. I look like I come from somewhere else. And millions and millions of you do, too. The difference between myself and a lot of other people is that I decided long ago that I would adapt as best I could, and that I would conform, to the extent that I could, to the inferred rules of culture in these United States of America. Yes, you heard that right—I’m a conformist.
There are inferred social rules in every country, but in America, you have the choice to follow them or ignore them. But I contend, if you choose to ignore these rules, a much more difficult path to the Big Money lies ahead of you.
Another thing: Do not use slang in business situations. Using words like dude and man in front of business professionals will make them think that you’re an idiot.
“I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can’t help it. It’s the truth.” CHARLIE CHAPLIN
Another important point: learn to speak English. There’s nothing wrong with being proud to be Spanish or African-American or Albanian, but that in itself won’t help you amass a fortune in America. And bluntly speaking, English language skills can. Anywhere in the world.
And try to speak English without an accent.
And your boss at your job, if you have one, will never tell you to your face that your thick accent may tinge or somehow affect his perception of you. That would not just be politically incorrect, but illegal, as well. Yet, sometimes, it’s the truth.
It just so happens that the business world in the United States is an English speaking environment.
The better you can communicate in English, the more money you stand to make.
Invest in the stock market Invest in your future. Invest in yourself.
Always live below your means.
And I apologize to any whose feelings I have hurt. But it’s called business, not friends. Friends tell you what you want to hear. And are kind. Business doesn’t care what you want to hear and doesn’t care if you think it’s kind.
My self-esteem grew. I felt like I was somebody. Because America gave me the right to be somebody.
What America had, was a “nothing is impossible” mind-set.
America taught me that no one is better than anyone else. And that, no matter the difference in your skin color, your accent, or your religious beliefs, no one has the right to make you feel less than what you are. No one.
“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
I devoured comic books. I still do. So does the rest of the world, apparently. Comics, once a relatively small underground movement, are now recognized as an influential cultural and commercial force.
I promised myself that I would educate myself, and that I would never stop educating myself. It was my responsibility to keep learning. I would spend hours at the library on the weekends and read everything I could get my hands on. Books on dinosaurs. Books on history. I almost read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica. And all for free.
What this really means is: spend as little as you can, and spend only for those things you can’t live without, in order to have money left over.
By this point, I understood the model: Spend little, earn more. Have the skills to earn myself more money. Know where to go to sell those skills. Educate myself. Learn people skills. Learn language skills.
If I ask you what your name is, chances are you’ll tell me. But I’m here to tell you it’s not your name. You had nothing to do with choosing it. It was likely chosen for you before you were even born. I decided I would have my own name. One that I would give myself.
The point: create your own hype. Whether you’re in a band, or you’re a mere salesman—make them believe in you. Make them believe they are the last to the party and it’s started without them. You don’t have to lie, but you do have to craft an image that makes people want what you have.
My point is that, in whatever field one chooses, it’s up to you to educate yourself to become an effective entrepreneur. And you can’t use a lack of formal training as an excuse not to pursue the success that you desire.
A lesson learned: get paid for what you do.
The lesson for you? Never let anyone or anything stop YOU, in your quest for success.
My real point here—with this story, and the critic-bashing—is that it’s important to know, if you’re going to be a success, that no one is better than you are. No one has the right to shake his finger in your face. No one is allowed to make you feel bad about yourself. No one is better or holier than you are. No one.
Every CEO starts out without any qualifications. Then they jump in the deep end, and start swimming. It’s the way I’ve always lived.
Incidentally, handling things myself is something that I invariably wind up doing. If you want something done right, do it yourself.
Sink or swim, you have to jump into the deep end. If you wait until you are ready, as the saying goes, you will wait forever.
The lesson, for business and for life, is to keep your priorities straight.
The real-life lesson for me here is that, although I take great personal pride in dreaming big and achieving big, the biggest achievement of all is to be able to help another human being.
I’m being straight with you—if you have any success in this life, you don’t have the right not to help someone else.
Wealth for its own sake is an empty shell.
This book is about how to be successful. I will tell you that I was not truly successful until I decided to also be charitable.
It’s up to you to educate yourself outside school. It’s up to you to make friends with people who are more successful than you are. Respectfully, get rid of your chip-dippin’, TV-watchin’, happy-with-my-life, don’t-wanna-do-anything-else friends.
The only thing holding you back from succeeding in America may be YOU.
If a bully comes up to you, do not show weakness. It will make it easier for him to beat you up. If you show enormous self-confidence and show no fear, the bully may, just may, back off. A small chance at greatness is better than giving up.
In the wild, if faced with a wolf that’s about to attack, your best chance for survival is to stand your ground, puff out your chest as large as it can go, wildly flail your arms in the air, make a lot of noise, and always look straight into the eyes of the predator. If you do that, you may survive. In other words, you will win.
It’s important to note that rock stars, politicians, and other people with position, power, and wealth weren’t born that way. They had to earn it. They worked for it. They had to make up their own rules. They had to sell themselves first, before their product. They had to educate themselves. School was over, and self-education began when they left school. And they were willing to work harder than you to get there. Do you have what it takes?
And the first step, even before you do your own due diligence (as you should), is to have an enormous, almost delusional sense of self-confidence.
There’s a very old platitude that goes “the love of money is the root of all evil.” The person who came up with that statement was, in my view, severely misguided, and missing a large—perhaps the largest—source of crime in the world.
There is a big difference between going to work and loving to work. It is important that you take this to heart.
I’m a today and tomorrow person.
he was relentless. Nothing and no one would stop him from achieving his objectives. That last sentence, with some variations, is something repeated at various points in this book. It’s worth repeating, because it’s important, and it’s something that you need to remember at all times.
“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Reckless spending, for example, doesn’t help anyone. Not even millionaires. Live well below your means. I still do.
Don’t buy a home until you have amassed four times the value of the home in your net worth. If you’re worth $1 million after tax, go ahead and buy a $250,000 home.
Don’t buy a car. Certainly not a new one. You may not even need a car. Take public transportation if you can. If you must, buy a secondhand car. But pay cash, don’t take out a loan. Buy a rent-a-wreck type car for $1,000–3,000. If you have the cash, pay cash. If you don’t have cash, don’t buy it.
Beyond matters of the heart, marriage costs money. Lots of it. Marriage—and divorce, which often follows—will be the biggest financial exposure you will ever have.
“We are all created equal” is simply not true. Never has been and never will be. Some of us are born smarter. Some are born faster, live longer, are stronger, and so on. Once you recognize and understand that, you’ll begin to see that the only way you’ll beat the smarter/better-looking/younger/more experienced guy is simply to work harder and longer and never give up.
Although we have a constitution that says that all people are created equal, that’s an ideal, not reality. Worth repeating: some people are born faster, some are smarter, some are shorter, some are fatter, some are thinner. We believe that our rights should supersede our inherent natures, supersede our DNA. Perhaps they should. But in the real world, they don’t. So we all have to fight for the rights we are guaranteed under the Constitution: to be treated equally under the law, and not to be profiled or incur prejudice and other notions, like being judged by what we look like and sound like.
For better or worse, banks and financial institutions are still a boys’ club, and you should promote yourself and your skills, not what you look like. Otherwise, you will not be treated seriously.
Like millions and millions of other Americans, I wasn’t born in America. I look like I come from somewhere else. And millions and millions of you do, too. The difference between myself and a lot of other people is that I decided long ago that I would adapt as best I could, and that I would conform, to the extent that I could, to the inferred rules of culture in these United States of America. Yes, you heard that right—I’m a conformist.
There are inferred social rules in every country, but in America, you have the choice to follow them or ignore them. But I contend, if you choose to ignore these rules, a much more difficult path to the Big Money lies ahead of you.
Another thing: Do not use slang in business situations. Using words like dude and man in front of business professionals will make them think that you’re an idiot.
“I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can’t help it. It’s the truth.” CHARLIE CHAPLIN
Another important point: learn to speak English. There’s nothing wrong with being proud to be Spanish or African-American or Albanian, but that in itself won’t help you amass a fortune in America. And bluntly speaking, English language skills can. Anywhere in the world.
And try to speak English without an accent.
And your boss at your job, if you have one, will never tell you to your face that your thick accent may tinge or somehow affect his perception of you. That would not just be politically incorrect, but illegal, as well. Yet, sometimes, it’s the truth.
It just so happens that the business world in the United States is an English speaking environment.
The better you can communicate in English, the more money you stand to make.
Invest in the stock market Invest in your future. Invest in yourself.
Always live below your means.
And I apologize to any whose feelings I have hurt. But it’s called business, not friends. Friends tell you what you want to hear. And are kind. Business doesn’t care what you want to hear and doesn’t care if you think it’s kind.