Thomas Birke

Since I was little, I dreamed of becoming a millionaire. I always fancied the lifestyle and the carefree living as seen on TV. Despite that I grew up in modest circumstances and seldom experienced luxury first hand.

In the last 15 Years I thought about countless ways to fulfill that goal. I studied countless biographies of the Richard Bransons and Donald Trumps of the world. Some of the people that became rich and famous really started with zero. That fascinated me and is proof enogh that it should be possible by hard work and commitment and something else that is hard to grasp. I mean there are enough janitors out there that work their asses off and have every inch of commitment that is necessary to clean that building. But do they become rich? No! So I tried to sum up the factors of success:

• hard work - that’s what really everybody that did it brags about, and I am quite inclined to believe that
• dedication and commitment - If you want something, you have to hold on to it, never loose your goal, your true goal and don’t let you talk out of it, don’t care about what others think, just do your thing
• Don’t count on luck or lotteries - the chances are just out of proportion and you can never control luck
• Your first goal is never to become rich in the first place - this is something like a central theme in biographies, it’s always about getting succesful with your thing and make people like it, not getting rich - getting rich as an end in itself is like playing lotteries and will probably not succeed
• Don’t be an employee - to become an employed millionaire, you have to do a gazillion things you won’t like. I am an employee right now, and among the 20.000 colleagues in my country there are only a handful of millionaires, and they don’t have any life besides the company that employs us all - it’s just not your thing, because you are a hired gun and have to live someone elses dream
• Have a dream and do what you love - this is the true common denominator that combines all people that got rich from nothing legally

So, I know all about that stuff, and regardless I still don’t follow each and every piece of advice I would give to someone else. That is going to change now and forever.

I’ll keep you posted, Thomas.

Today I will start my blog on urban photography.