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Isn’t the title enticing? Does it feel like it is encouraging you to break all rules to become a billionaire? Well, if it does, congratulate yourself; you are on the road to become a billionaire! For those of you who don’t, just dream of becoming one. (just kidding :p)

Humans by nature are rebellious. If they can live without rules, they will. Ironically, rules are created by humans for humans. Well, some rules are valid to enforce ethical boundaries, just like the Ten Commandments; some are crazy, such as Texas’ Castle Law; some are just guiding principles to help you navigate the world, and that was what Henry Ford broke.

Born to a prosperous family farm in Dearborn, Michigan, Ford was groomed to continue his family business as a farmer. At that time, agriculture was the main crop of the economy, so being a successful farmer sounded like a secure future. However, Ford disliked farm work, instead preferred to tinker with machineries. Not letting his comfort zone to deter him from pursuing his passion, at the age of 18, he left for Detroit to become an apprentice machinist. After working his way up to become a chief engineer at Thomas Edison’s Edison Illuminating Company, Ford decided to setup his own company. Despite of his innate engineering talents, Ford failed twice. On his third try, he finally managed to establish what is now known as Ford Motor Company.

In the course of his leadership and inventions, he broke many rules and made major contributions to humankind. He defied the popular belief that cars were only meant for the wealthy. By way of his vision, Ford evolved once a luxury item for the wealthy to become an essential transportation vehicle for ordinary citizens. For the first time in history, it was possible for one to go beyond their place of residence to look for new opportunities. Ford changed the urbanization landscape of many societies and indirectly helped to create the middle-class.

Furthermore, Ford stunned the world by paying his workers twice the prevailing minimum wage. As a consequence, he managed to improve workers’ morale and product quality, thus reducing employee turnovers and costs. Ford cultivated a new business mind-set to the importance of paying competitive wages to bring the best talents whose productivity gains far outweigh the initial cost.

Last but not least, being a pioneer in making cars readily available, Ford was instrumental in campaigning for the proliferation of gas stations and establishment of interstate highway systems. As a result, America’s infrastructure propelled it from being an agricultural country into an industrialized superpower. If Ford is still alive today, his net worth is believed to be around US$180 billion.

What can we learn from Ford? I would say Ford’s life exemplifies the rewarding byproduct when you

• Discover your talents
• Follow your heart
• Pursue your passion

For more information about Henry Ford:

• Henry Ford Today and Tomorrow – Special Edition of Ford’s 1926 Classic
• My Life and Work: An Autobiography of Henry Ford
• People and Discovery – Henry Ford
• The Time 100: Henry Ford
• Wikipedia: Henry Ford

Long before computers were ubiquitous as they are today, came along a man with a bold vision and tenacity to make it happen. And that man was William Henry Gates III or more commonly known as Bill Gates. Yesterday was his last day as a fulltime employee at Microsoft. For his next move, Gates is transitioning his role from becoming one of the greatest technopreneurs of all time to the greatest philanthropists in the history of mankind.

With so many media outlets covering his departure from Microsoft, I felt that it is pointless for me to reinvent the wheel to create another story. Instead, I have chosen to compile a list of articles to commemorate him and I would give my thoughts as a closing summary.

1. Microsoft Original Family in 30 years’ perspective
   
2. The Other Side of Bill Gates
   
3. Bill Gates’ Hits and Misses
4. Looking Back to Gates’ Good Old Days
5. Bill Gates’ Look-alike and a Brief History of his Haters
6. Bill Gates co-appearing with Steve Jobs at The D Conference
7. MIcrosoft Chronology
8. Bill Gates Now and the Future

Contrary to what many have claimed that Gates is an accidental billionaire, I would like to disagree. I think life does provide opportunity to become an accidental millionaire, but there’s certainly no coincidence in becoming a billionaire. Personally, I feel that Gates’ wealth is a byproduct of his hard-earned effort of building an obscure company based in Albuquerque, New Mexico to a Redmond, Washington-based company that have brought the world into computer age.

Being a human, Gates had done many good deeds as well as unpleasant ones. Instead of looking at someone’s achievement from blackened lens, I would like to share the five invaluable lessons we can learn from his achievements:

1. Gates was fortunate to discover his talent in computers and programming at a young age.
2. Instead of following the ordinary path pf graduating from one of the most prestigious universities in the world, Harvard University, Gates decided to dropout of college to pursue his passion.
3. He built his company based on a bold vision that one day computer would be available to every household or business.
4. Despite of the many ups and downs, he had successfully steered the company to remain competitive in an unfriendly and competitive landscape.
5. Unlike many leaders who hold on to power until their downfall, Gates releases his while he is still at his prime time. At the age of 52, he is secure enough to build a non-profit “Philansoft” to make a bigger legacy than he had already created.

so in layman’s terms:

1. Discover your talents
2. Pursue your passion
3. Visualize your big dreams
4. Never give up
5. Know when to move on

I wish him well and I hope he can execute successfully again in his next vision to improve the lives of millions of people.

Want to get wisdom from Bill Gates? Check out books written by him:

• Business @ the Speed of Thought: Succeeding in the Digital Economy
• The Road Ahead: Completely Revised and Up-to-Date

I am really surprised by the number of responses I received. Then again, I am even more surprised by the variety of guesses. (If you don’t understand what this means, check out this posting.) Without any analysis, this is really a democratic way of saying that nobody really knows which profile favors you to become a billionaire.

Without further ado, please allow me to reveal the name behind each profile. Let’s see how many of them you guess it right.

1. Breaking away from a successful family tradition
   Henry Ford
   Founder of Ford Motor Company

2. An adopted child and a college dropout
   Steve Jobs
   Co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc.

3. A poor immigrant and a high school dropout
   Li Ka Shing
   Chariman of Hutchison Whampoa Limited Company

4. A bitter childhood
   Oprah Winfrey
   Talk Host of “The Oprah Winfrey Show”

5. Born with a bad gene
   Richard Branson
   Founder and CEO of Virgin Group

6. Single parent living off welfare
   J.K. Rowling
   Author of Harry Potter Book Collection

7. Taking an unpopular vocation
   Guy Laliberté
   Co-founder and CEO of Cirque du Soleil

8. Son of an orthodontist and a money-manager
   Michael Dell
   Chariman and CEO of Dell Computers

9. Son of a local stock broker
   Warren Buffett
   Chariman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

10. Member of the royal family
    Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud
    Member of Saudi Royal Family

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!!! All of them are actually billionaires. Statistically speaking, the first seven candidates are lucky if they don’t become part of the statistics. Now, they are not only self-made billionaires, they are also life changing agents to millions of people around the world.

• How do they do it?
• Where do they come from?
• Why do systems misjudged them?
• Which major I need to take to join the billionaire club?
• What makes it possible for them when I can’t even make ten million bucks?
  ……..

I am sure many of similar types of questions start to linger around, which is what prompted me to start this series. After spending some time to study their life story, I learnt that they never actually plan to become a billionaire. In fact, during their period, being a millionaire is more than enough. Instead, what I observed is that they all understood three basic tenets of life; when they do master them, they achieve life success beyond their wildest dreams. In other words, each of us who reads this post today is a potential billionaire.

To avoid information overload, I will share their secret sauce in my next post. See you again soon.