MarkFord
2.- Welcome to My Path
Let’s stop here, before we move through this thick wood, and think for a moment. What is it that you are looking for? Where do you want to go?
You say that you want to get rich. And as quickly as possible.
I say you are mistaken. But at this point, at the beginning of our journey, you can’t be expected to know that.
“If not getting rich, then what?” you want to know.
“You want to build wealth,” I say.
“What’s the difference?”
“There is a big difference,” I say. “It’s the difference between wanting and possessing, between anxiety and serenity, between having now and forever lacking.”
“Sounds like a lot of horseshit,” you reply.
“Follow me down this path and you’ll see,” I say with a wink and a smile.
“And why should I let you guide me?”
“It is my path. The one I cut. The one I know.”
Before I found my path
As a boy, I never had any goals or specific ambitions. I wanted only to be different from how I saw myself: weak, lonely, poor, and insignificant.
I dreamed – actually dreamed – of being rich and popular. I had a specific dream repeatedly for years. It took place in the parking lot “schoolyard” where we played during lunch break. All my classmates are there. A white limousine rides by slowly and stops. A chauffer jumps out, prances around the car, and opens the door. Little me, in white tails and brandishing a diamond-tipped walking stick, steps out. My classmates ooh and ah. I am loved.
I was earning money – or having a side hustle as they say now – ever since I could ride a bike.
I had the usual childhood jobs: delivering papers, cleaning neighbors’ kitchens, cutting grass, stocking groceries in the back of Al’s Deli, working in the Rockville Center Carwash, etc.
Before we graduated from high school, my friend Peter and I had a business painting the houses of the rich people that lived on Long Island’s north shore.
To pay for college and graduate school, I generally worked three jobs, including writing essays for my fellow students. (I offered them a guaranteed grade of B or better.)
Through it all, I never had a clear view of what I was doing. I had no money. I needed money. So I did whatever I could to make ends meet. Some weeks I made more money than I needed. When I did, I found a way to spend that money on something that pleased me for a few hours or, if I was smart, a few days.
I was walking but I wasn’t on a path.
I think I found my path in 1983.
The thing about having many goals…
