Stanzione - The millionaire dropout : fire your boss. do what you love. reclaim your life!

Cover design: Dave Collier - ShardDesign.com

Copyright 2013 by Vince Stanzione. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Stanzione, Vince.

The millionaire dropout: fire your boss. do what you love. reclaim your life! / Vince Stanzione.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-118-60948-4 (pbk.); ISBN 978-1-118-65283-1 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-65277-0 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-65268-8 (ebk)

1. Success. 2. Success in business. 3. Self-actualization (Psychology) 4. Job satisfaction. I. Title.

BF637.S8S687 2013

650.1dc23

2013001364

Acknowledgments

My thanks to:

Mark Anastasi ( http://www.laptopmillionaire.tv ) for some great advice and introductions.

Bill Myers ( http://www.bmyers.com ), the original free thinker who helped me realize life isn't all about making more money.

Ted Nicholas ( http://www.Tednicholas.com ) for teaching me the power of words and copywriting.

John Caples and David Ogilvy, whose books taught me the power of advertising and direct mail.

Susanna Quinn for editing this book and JLS for your honest opinions and priceless support.

Lastly, and most importantly, a big thank you to all the readers, clients, and business partners who made everything possible over the last 28 years.

Preface

If you're reading this online, or flipping pages in a bookshop, thinking Why should I buy this book? , then let me tell you. I can help you have an amazing life. I haven't written this book to impress you, but to impress upon you what a nonacademic, near bankrupt, occasionally homeless social dropout can achieve in a relatively short period of time.

I haven't written this book to make money. I'm already a multimillionaire, and have been for many years.

This is a school of hard knocks how-to manual, and there is no exam or fancy degree at the end. But if you follow my advice and take action, you can live a lifestyle others only dream about. You can join the new richand I don't mean only rich in money. I mean rich in time and fulfillment.

But let's go back a few years...I didn't come from a privileged or well-educated background. My father came to the United Kingdom from a small, poor town in South Italy. He was escaping the mafia, and had nothing but a battered case and a few shillings. He couldn't speak a word of English.

By working as a hairdresser by day and a waiter by night (I know...all Italians are hairdressers or waiters!), he made enough to start his own hairdressing salon and built up a successful chain.

He then retired and dropped dead a few years later, at the relatively young age of 55. I had no interest in joining the family business, but I did share the family ethos of hard work.

At the age of 12, I was doing payroll for the hair salons, washing hair, and cleaning. However, I knew I wanted a business of my own.

I set up my first mail-order business at that age, selling computer games stored on tapes. Remember the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum?

I was the fairly quiet kid who never fit in. We moved around a lot, so I was always the new kid at school. I was badly bullied for years, and teased for being overweight and having the wrong accent.

I had about every illness you could think ofincluding serious asthma, eczema so bad that I struggled to hold a pen, and sight problems that meant I couldn't see the board at school.

The only thing I liked about school was selling stuff to other kids (and a few teachers too).

At 16, I landed my first jobas a junior in a Foreign Exchange Dealing Room. This paid 100 ($150) a week, and was an awful job.

I was treated like dirt by the dealers (many of whom took drugs and smoked 60 cigarettes a day), but because I didn't want to become a hairdresser I stuck it out. I learned how to trade financial markets and read everything I could at the local library.

I ate the dealer's leftovers in the staff canteen, and owned one cheap Marks & Spencer gray polyester suit that stank of smoke.

Within six months I was promoted, and within two years I was dealing multimillion-dollar positions. I then moved into equities, and traded for others and myself.

Life was good. I was living the Thatcher dreamor so I thought. Then the 1987 crash wiped me out, and I lost everything. In fact, more than everything. I was ready to be declared bankrupt by my ex-employer, who wanted to claw back commission. Luckily, the judge felt sorry for me and threw the case out on the grounds that I had no money to pay.

I then worked various commission-only jobs to get a bit of income. I started my own business selling car phones, and then mobile phones.

Working from a studio apartment, I built that business up from one newspaper ad, merged it with another dealership, and sold my share for a substantial sum a few years later.

The truth is, it was worth a lot more than I sold it for, but considering I was only 21 and had nearly been declared bankrupt not so long ago, it felt like an amazing sum of money.

I bought my first Rolex watch, which I still own todaynot to show off, but because I knew if I was ever hard up and needed to start again, I could pawn it. Fortunately, I never had to.

So what can you learn from a millionaire dropout? I don't claim to have all the answers. I don't claim that every business or every investment I've made has been successful. However, I do know that if I share my secrets, you will be successful and avoid many of my mistakes.