The Education of Millionaires - Michael Ellsberg [12]
Welcome to your own journey of self-education.
We’re about to dive headlong into the success skills. But before we take the plunge, I want to offer two minor disclaimers, in the interest of full disclosure and transparency.
■ DISCLAIMER #1: MY VIEWS ARE MY OWN! (AND PROBABLY NOT SHARED BY ALL OF MY INTERVIEWEES)
I should make something absolutely, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt clear: my opinions, controversial as some of them may be, are mine and mine alone; they are not necessarily shared by the people I interview or feature.
My interviewees all chose to share their amazing stories of self-made success for this book, for the benefit of us all. They chose to share these stories because they all believe that no matter where you are in your life, no matter what your age or your life circumstances, you can strive to achieve more in life, to make a greater impact, to aim for higher dreams.
This book would not exist without the generous participation of the many, many experts and self-educated people I interviewed. My interviewees are a diverse, brilliant, and cantankerous bunch, with a wide range of opinions on many topics, as well as a wide range of backgrounds. I am profoundly grateful for their participation, and am proud that I am able to share their cutting-edge insights and their moving stories.
I’m certain, however, that some of my interviewees will outright disagree with some of my own views, as well as some of the views expressed by other interviewees featured in this book. Thus, I want to emphasize that there is a gulf of difference between my interviewees, having agreed to share their personal stories here, and their agreeing with everything or anything anyone else (including me) says in this book.
The interviewees I feature in this book are responsible only for their own views, clearly delineated by quotation marks, and for my general paraphrases of their views, both of which I have submitted to them to check for accuracy. (I edited all interviews for flow, readability, and space.) I repeat: interviewees’ participation in this book should not be taken as endorsement for any other aspect of this book other than their own views in quotation marks.
I give a hearty thank-you to all my interviewees for their participation in this book.
■ DISCLAIMER #2: I INTERVIEW SEVERAL CLOSE FRIENDS AND BUSINESS CONNECTIONS
The vast majority of the people I interviewed in this book were strangers to me before I interviewed them. However, several of my key interviews come from people who are very close to me. For example, I interview my wife, Jena. Another major source, Eben Pagan, is engaged to my close friend Annie Lalla, and I played a large part in introducing them.
Bryan Franklin, whom you met in the Introduction and about whom I write more in the coming pages, is one of my best friends. He officiated at my wedding ceremony. And I’ve done business with him in the past, both as a client and a vendor, and probably will again in the future. (Another company I mention in one of the stories, the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, was a copywriting client of mine in the past, though is not at present.) Whenever I have a personal or business relationship with anyone else mentioned in this book, I will disclose that.
(One other thing: if over the course of interviews I’ve talked to someone enough that I would address them by their first name in conversation, I decided to use their first name here in the text; otherwise I use their last name to refer to them.)
In no case did I receive any financial or other specified benefit for featuring anyone in this book. No pay for play, ever.
(OK, enough caveats. Let the fun begin . . .)
SUCCESS SKILL #1
HOW TO MAKE YOUR WORK MEANINGFUL AND YOUR MEANING WORK
(or, How to Make a Difference in the World
Without Going Broke)
A twenty-one-year-old singer, songwriter, and guitarist named David found himself in a hospital in Paris one night, being treated for malnutrition, in 1967. The reason he was malnourished was that he was