A few years ago, a friend told me that if all the wealth in this world were redistributed equally right now, it would take only a few years for the top one percenters to go back to the top of the food chain! I disagreed and asked him to explain what he meant...#issathread
He said that people who have created genuine wealth – not the ones who inherited wealth from their parents or stole from government coffers – know a thing or two about wealth creation that the rest of us do not know...
He said these one percenters make incredible sacrifices, take crazy risks, and have mad talents that the average man could only dream of. This got me thinking deeply, and then I remembered this story:
So, one of my first gigs as a freshly minted immigrant in the United States was as a driver assistant with UPS. My driver and boss was Greg Malika, an immigrant from Fiji, a tiny island country in the South Pacific Ocean...
Our job was to load packages from the UPS facility onto our truck and deliver them to customers. He would drive, identify the addresses, and ask me to deliver the packages to the clients. It was normally a one-person job, but the number of packages increased tremendously during
the holiday season that the company requires driver assistants in order to meet delivery deadlines; otherwise, customers would miss their Christmas gifts, and in this culture, that is a huge problem. It was backbreaking work for sure; one that required promptness and timeliness.
Our route was the very affluent neighborhoods in the northern suburbs of Chicago. There, I saw houses that I had only previously seen on TV or on the pages of magazines. I saw structures that I never thought were possible to erect in real life. I met some of the most beautiful
human beings on the face of this planet; people whose appearances alone convey wealth and luxury. Sometimes, we were required to get signatures for some packages, and this meant going into some of these houses. My goodness!
I cannot even begin to describe the luxurious grandiosity that I witnessed. I would tell my boss “this is by far the grandest house we’ve seen.” He would laugh and tell me to wait until we get to the next one, and as it turned out, the next house was always more grand than the
previous one. One day, we went to this house with dogs. My boss, who would normally go with me into these houses, decided to stay back in the truck. I asked him why. He wouldn’t tell me right away; but he did look terrified! So I got down from the truck and went into the house
by myself. The security team had already seen our truck from their monitors so they opened the massive gate and called off the dogs into a secure area. I dropped off the packages and made my way back to the truck, constantly looking over my shoulders to make sure the dogs weren’t
following. That was the longest 30 feet walk of my life. 😂 😂
When I got back inside the truck, I asked Greg what that was about. That was when he told me his experience: Five years earlier, he had gone to a similar house with dogs, and as he made his way into the property,
When I got back inside the truck, I asked Greg what that was about. That was when he told me his experience: Five years earlier, he had gone to a similar house with dogs, and as he made his way into the property,
three of the dogs attacked him and caused him several injuries to his legs, hands and chest; he showed me some of the bite marks. Long story short, he sued and he was awarded $185,000 as well as free therapy for a year. He also couldn’t work for the duration of the therapy but
UPS did not stop his salary. So, he essentially got free money for a whole year! I had plenty of questions for him immediately!!
$185,000!?!?!? That is about N65M in naija money today! What did you do with all that money? How come you’re back to driving for UPS?
$185,000!?!?!? That is about N65M in naija money today! What did you do with all that money? How come you’re back to driving for UPS?
Why are you looking so scruffy and unkempt? Turns out, after the therapy, he took a 3 month extended leave from work and went back to Fiji, where he went on a spending spree, and bought everything for everyone in his entire village. He said he had over 30 giant travel bags filled
with stuffs on his flight back home. He also treated himself to some exotic niceties that I can’t mention here because of kids...😂! Dude blew the entire money away on nothingness! He said he came back to the US “broker” than when he first arrived as a young man 10 years before!
I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Maybe my friend was right afterall; wealth creation and retention is an art that very few people can actually master.
