Ambition can't ever be too high...

I'm retiring at 40.

Whenever I say this to someone, they say (after letting out a howling laughter) "Yeah, so do I, so do I...." (followed by rolling of the eyes)

Now, I don't mean that I'm going to be sprawling on a yacht in the Mediterranian sipping on a mojito... I mean that by the time I'm 40, I won't have to dedicate majority of my time to work anymore. I want to be able to spend half the year taking care of business (flying around the world, etc etc), and with the other half, be able to take my family on a tour of Europe, help build schools in developing countries, that kind of stuff.

How am I going to do it?

Who knows.

What I do know.. is that by the time I'm 30, I'm going to own my own company of some sort. Whether it be a production company in media/television/film/IT/construction/music/advertising/whatever, or maybe a pimping agency... I know it's going to happen.
Then by the time I'm 35, I'll have expanded. Probably to another big city like New York, or maybe in Korea. Wherever the right opportunity at the time takes me, really.

With that, I'm going to develop the company to a point so that when I'm 40, it's standing alone with me watching over it. In a sense, I'll have made my money make money. Then that money will go out and make more money, which will make more money...

You never want to be the actual worker for the rest of your life. How will you ever have the time/energy/resource to get out there and expand?

Think of it like this. Ma and Pa own a restaurant. They, for the reasons of saving money or not trusting others or whatever, work at the restaurant night and day. The restaurant is very successful, best in town. But they can't make the restaurant bigger or get a second location because they're at the restaurant all day.

I've always been an entrepreneur. When I was 5, my brother was born. At that time, not a lot of kids in my kindergarten class had little siblings. So I would entice my classmates to take the schoolbus to my house after school, charge them 10 cents entrance fee into my house so they can observe my brother. (freak of a brother he was, since he was crawling on his stomach across the floor at 40km/h) I then took that money (all of $2.60), go out and buy a box of individually wrapped chocolates. Next day, sell the individual chocolate pieces for 20 cents each to my classmates, and double my money!

I got in trouble for it after a while... but alas, it was worth it. My entrepreneurial spirit was awakened.

Even now, I'm the youngest I know that is doing what I'm doing (in any of my jobs), with the amount of experience I have. I got here not because of school (never finished), not because of connections (not in the traditional sense), and not simply because of luck or hard work. It was smart work. While everybody else is out there working 12 hard hours, I'd rather be working 6 smart hours, then dedicate the other 6 into conjuring up other ways to make/invest money.

"Reach for the stars, so when you fall, you can land on the moon".

Naw... I'd rather reach for the outer universe -- so that when I have a setback, I can chill with the stars.


xoxo
koko