Me, Inc. Page 7

  As I write this, we’ve been together more than thirty years. And we have been married to each other for over a year and a half.

  Now that the show has stopped filming and I have some distance from it, I believe that our show helped me to confront myself about all sorts of things. As silly as it may sound, that damn reality show actually dug deep. My family. My shortcomings. Our show was also a diary of our kids and our family growing up together. When we first started shooting, Nick and Sophie were preteens. By the time we had finished, they were adults. And Shannon was more beautiful than ever. She still is.

  And I’m proud to say she’s my wife.

  They say reality shows break up families.

  In our case, Gene Simmons Family Jewels forced me to come clean, with the family and with myself.

  Gene Simmons Family Jewels saved our family.

  The lesson, for business and for life, is to keep your priorities straight. If you come across a zero-sum situation in a business endeavor, you must recognize what you simply cannot live without. I was made to pick from two available paths, and when faced with that, I had to go with the path that led to Shannon. So it is with business—when you take the world by the collar, you must understand why you are doing so. You have to know why it’s worth it. And when you come to a fork in the road, you must keep your eye trained on what is most important to you—whatever that happens to be. Your decision will become clear if you can do this well enough.

  11

  Philanthropy/Giving Back

  Once you make that Big Money and you succeed at climbing the ladder of success, I want to instill in you a quality that needs to be there—and one that you may be surprised to hear me endorse: giving back.

  Take your money and create new jobs. Take your money and invest in starting new ventures, which creates more jobs, and enables capitalism to keep on working on its own, without depending on handouts from the government. Government, as you may well have guessed by now, means well, but it doesn’t really know how to create jobs. And that’s because government is run by politicians, instead of businessmen and women. That should speak for itself.

  The above may suggest I support the idea of charity, as we have come to know it. But I do not.

  If someone is on their last monthly rent, and they’re about to be thrown out of their home, then yes. Loan them some money, so they can go out, get a job, and afford to keep paying rent. Notice I said “loan” them some money. The reason for that is that I believe charity makes the recipient feel beholden. A loan, on the other hand, allows the recipient to maintain a degree of self-respect. Especially when and if they can afford to pay the loan back.

  Personally, I have some concerns with some of our generally accepted ideas about charity, although I do a lot of philanthropic work myself. I’m proud that America’s capitalist system has allowed me to do well enough in life so that I can give something back.

  I haven’t called a press conference or issued a press release to announce to the world what a good guy I am, but perhaps it is time I do, so that others can do the same. It’s probably the only thing I haven’t bragged about extensively—I certainly love bragging about everything else.

  As I mentioned before, I support children, twelve hundred of them, in Zimbabwe in southern Africa. I initially did this through ChildFund (formerly Christian Children’s Fund), and now do it on my own. Most of these children had nothing and often go to sleep hungry. That will never happen again, if I can help it. I feed and clothe them, and buy books for them, but only if they attend school. At the school, they’re fed decent, fresh, hot meals.

  While we were in Zambia filming an episode of Gene Simmons Family Jewels, we were having breakfast at a hotel when Shannon pointed out a young guy who she said I should meet. Brendan Clark, it turned out, was twenty-seven and was from Perth, Australia. He had just gotten married and had his mother there with him. He was in Zambia on a humanitarian mission: he wanted to make a difference.

  Although I had been doing charity work in Africa through ChildFund for decades, I decided to join Brendan in doing charity work that directly improved children’s lives—I always like the direct approach, and the “do it yourself” approach. I paid for a young girl’s college education and paid to build a young man’s family a home.

  Brendan and I fund a food program that feeds more than one thousand Zambian children at school. The food is bought fresh daily and trucked to the schools. It is cooked and prepared at the schools (the reason the food has to be trucked in, incidentally, is that there are bandits who would rob the stockpiles if they were kept at the school overnight).

  The only hope of escaping poverty is education. If a child is willing to attend school—and sometimes that means walking ten miles on bare feet to school—there will be a fresh, hot meal waiting. Often, it’s the only meal the child will eat that day. Parents attend as well.

  The look of joy on a child’s face, enjoying a hot meal, is humbling beyond anything I could put into words. If that sounds a little bit like the boy you met in the first chapter, that’s because it is. The narrative is circular.

  We also purchased some ambulances, which we had shipped from Perth to Zambia. The ambulances are literally hospitals on wheels. They go to people in need, instead of assuming that people have the means to walk miles to a hospital, or have the money to pay for treatment.

  The real-life lesson for me here is that, although I take great personal pride in dreaming big and achieving big, the biggest achievement of all is to be able to help another human being. I know this sounds like I’m trying to convince you how great I am. And usually, I do like talking about how great I am. But whether or not you like me, or think I’m a braggart, not everyone is fortunate enough to be born in America and enjoy the benefits it provides. I know that well. Children living in countries like Zambia typically don’t even own a pair of shoes, and sometimes eat nothing the entire day. The infrastructure in those countries is bare-bones, and the lack of health care is shocking. I’m not running for Miss America. I’m not asking you to think of me as charitable, or as a good person, and I’m not trying to bombard you with clichés. Pretend it’s not me telling you this—pretend it’s someone else. I’m being straight with you—if you have any success in this life, you don’t have the right not to help someone else. Dying with the most money will bring you a certain level of satisfaction—but you will forever be denied the full measure of your satisfaction as a successful human being if you do not embark on charitable ventures like this. Your empire of dirt won’t have any reason to stand.

  I sleep better at night, knowing I have made a small difference in children’s lives.

  I also do work for the Wounded Warrior Project, and helped to raise millions of dollars for our volunteer military. And I continue to work on behalf of our men and women in uniform.

  I have helped to raise millions for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. It breaks my heart when a child is born with hardships it had no hand in creating. On my guest stints on the TV game show Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?, I won $500,000 and donated all of it to the foundation.

  I have helped Shannon and Sophie raise millions for SickKids Hospital in Toronto. And Sophie started her own charity, called Sophie’s Place, in Vancouver, which treats thousands of abused children every year. A second Sophie’s Place is about to open.

  There are many more examples, but I’m sure that you get the idea.

  Mostly, I make an effort to give to those who have no other option.

  I’m in favor of giving people a sense of self-determination, and not letting them feel as if they owe anyone anything. Charity is a wonderful thing, if you can do it.

  However, some charity organizations are also a quicksand of corruption. Running a business is fine. Pretending you are doing it for charitable reasons, when really you are profiting immensely from abusing people’s empathy, is another thing entirely.

  Don’t give people fish. Teach them how to fish for themselves, fo
r the sake of sustainability.

  The welfare system, in my estimation, should be based on simple tasks that would pay recipients for the work they do, instead of simply handing funds out for free. Clean up the graffiti in your neighborhood. Clean up the garbage in your neighborhood. Be a good neighbor. Report any suspicious, potential criminal activity in your neighborhood to the police. And get paid for it.

  Not handouts.

  Work.

  Give a person dignity. Let them feel that they’ve earned the money they got.

  Every Christmas, we all run around buying gifts for everyone. Which is terrific. Christmas is a great time of giving, and we are blessed to be able to do so. We buy all sorts of gifts for family members and friends, as well as for people we barely know. How many of those gifts wind up in piles shoved into closets and quickly forgotten?

  I stopped doing all of that almost ten years ago. Now, every year, I send a card to everyone on my Christmas list. The card says something along the lines of “I have made a donation in your name to help change someone’s life dramatically. Please go to sleep tonight knowing that you have helped to make the world a better place.” And, yes, as you may have concluded by now, I guilt people into giving back. The social awkwardness of pressuring someone to do the right thing is worth the result. If someone as selfish as I am feels obligated to do these things, you must do them, too. It’s not a choice—it is an obligation. You must give back.

  I also send cash to Kiva (kiva.org) in other people’s names. Kiva is a micro bank with a very practical and effective charitable model. It makes interest-free loans, some as small as $25, to people living in Africa, Southeast Asia, and other places of need. For example, a $1,000 loan to a single mother living close to the Kalahari Desert in Africa means that she can afford to buy a few cows and dig a well for water. Overnight, her world is changed. She can feed her children, and earn a little bit selling milk to her neighbors. It also means her small village will now have water.

  Once she pays back the loan, Kiva loans out that amount to another family in need. In that way, it’s a gift that keeps on giving.

  I wish our government system functioned more like Kiva and other micro banks.

  Many of us, in this age of entitlement, look to the government to do all sorts of things for us. I contend that we should be able to do for ourselves.

  One of the real benefits of making Big Money is that you can be philanthropic and create new jobs for people. The problem you ultimately want to have, as an entrepreneur, is deciding who to help, not deciding who can help you. Work your way to this level. And when you do, fulfill your obligation.

  Before I ever had success, I was motivated by selfish motives. I wanted to become successful and make lots of money. I could then buy my mother a house and give myself a better lifestyle. Mostly though, I was motivated to become successful as a goal. Once I achieved what people consider “wealth,” humanitarian notions simply came at me, big and strong. Not everyone in the world is as fortunate, or lives in a luxurious country like America.

  So, in my late twenties, I started to contribute to charities. And, so did the band. It made me feel good. I thought of that very first CARE package we received so long ago in Israel, with the can of peaches, and the torn sweater and the American children’s books with Bugs Bunny. It was time to give back.

  Of course, my story isn’t unique. The most successful entrepreneurs give to charities, start foundations, fund scholarships, and so on. And what you’ll find, if you work hard enough, are at the right place at the right time with the right thing and end up wealthy, is that you, too, will want to give back.

  Wealth for its own sake is an empty shell. Wealth that includes making other people’s lives better will reward you even more than the beautiful mansion you live in. It does for me. It will for you. And, like me, your charity may inspire yet another entrepreneur to rise up.

  This book is about how to be successful. I will tell you that I was not truly successful until I decided to also be charitable.

  PART II

  YOU

  12

  Who Are You?

  “Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build THEIRS.”

  FARRAH GRAY

  businessman, investor, philanthropist, author, and motivational speaker

  Where did I learn what I know? How did I become me? Did school and college prepare me for the real world? I went through the school system and graduated from college with a bachelor of arts in education degree that qualified me to teach, or write books. But did all that prepare me for how I made the Big Money? No.

  And I suspect the same is true with you. Unless you took courses in architecture, engineering, or pre-med, the rest of your liberal arts education hardly prepares you for life as the business warrior and champion you envision yourself to be.

  Oh, you’ll be the hit of the cocktail party with your liberal arts college degree. You’ll be able to quote Kant and Kierkegaard, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But you won’t be able to pay off your car loan or your first home mortgage with that information.

  In other words, grade school education, high school education, and liberal arts college degrees generally won’t prepare you for how you’re going to make a living, let alone how you’re going to make the Big Money.

  You’ll notice that I keep using the term Big Money. That’s because none of us (including yours truly) wants to just make money. We all want to make BIG Money.

  You can go to a “directional” education program, that is, study to be an architect, or a dentist, or a lawyer. Those degrees will certainly help you earn a living, but they’ll cost a lot of money and take many more years of study.

  What I’m about to tell you is not politically correct. In fact, it may come as a shock to you. But here it is: you don’t need a lot of systemized education to achieve great things and make lots of money.

  Education is important, and I urge you to get one. But if you can’t afford to go to college or vocational school, it’s important to understand what the word entrepreneur means.

  Merriam-Webster defines entrepreneur as “one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.” What being an entrepreneur means is that you have to think and do for yourself.

  It is important to keep this phrase in mind: “You have an inferred fiduciary duty to yourself.” It means that it’s up to YOU.

  It’s up to you to educate yourself outside school. It’s up to you to make friends with people who are more successful than you are. Respectfully, get rid of your chip-dippin’, TV-watchin’, happy-with-my-life, don’t-wanna-do-anything-else friends. They won’t help you. Surround yourself with people who are more successful than yourself.

  It’s up to you what you do with your free time. Do you goof around and take vacations, or do nothing after work? Do you do nothing on your weekends? Do you go to ball games or bars with your drinking buddies? Get rid of those guys immediately. They won’t help you.

  Or do you spend your evenings and leisure time devoted to YOU? To your dreams. To your aspirations. To making Big Money.

  Does your significant other ask, “What’s more important, me or your career?” If he or she uses that line on you, you may want to be honest and say, “It’s my career first, and then you. Without earning a good living, I can’t provide us both with the life we want.”

  If that doesn’t resonate with them, you may want to consider dumping that person from your life. They may be the biggest psychological hurdle in your quest for the Big Money.

  I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. You can’t have it both ways.

  There have been books written about the “10,000-hour rule,” which claims that the key to becoming a success in any field is getting 10,000 hours of experience in what you want to be successful at, or the theory that you need to put in that much time to become any good at something. As it happens, the Beatles spent 10,000 hours playing together in clubs in Germany in the early sixties before
starting their recording career, and Bill Gates spent that amount of time programming his high school’s computers in 1968.

  You can’t devote equal amounts of time to your beloved girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife and your career. If you want to succeed faster and bigger, you will have to choose YOU first, then everyone else. Or, as I like to put it, ME!!!

  Be selfish. Be committed to yourself first.

  Remember, YOU first.

  Girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband/friends second.

  The giving back comes later.

  An important point to remember: no matter what you read, and no matter what anyone tells you, there is no such thing as “the Ten Secret Rules for Becoming Enormously Rich.” If it were that simple, then everyone would be rich already.

  The journey that you must make to become a real estate mogul and have your name become a brand, like Lefrak or Trump, is not the same road that a comic-book geek (and I am one) has to travel to launch his comic book company (like my Simmons Comics) and get production companies to develop his comic-book creations into TV shows and films.

  So what does all of this mean? It means YOU will have to figure it out for yourself.

  That’s what entrepreneur really means.

  YOU make up your own rules. And YOU have to educate yourself and learn whatever you need to learn to have the tools to go out there and be the business warrior and champion that’s inside you, yearning to get out.

  They don’t teach that stuff in school.

  The reason this book is called ME, Inc. is that I AM THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN MY PRIVATE AND BUSINESS LIFE.

  That’s right, ME first. Maybe it’s not politically correct, but it’s necessary, if you want to increase your chances of success big-time.

  Take a hint from the airline industry. If there is turbulence on your flight, the crew will tell you to take the life-sustaining oxygen mask that just fell in front of your face and put it on YOUR face first. Not your child’s face. On the surface, it sounds cruel, but it makes pragmatic sense, because if you can’t help yourself first, you will not be able to help anyone else. Not your child, not your family, not your friends, not anyone.