I realized how I just spent 4 straight hours reading about success stories of people who were broken and got to be millionaires through some risky ventures and creative thinking. People who left school at 16, and got no major graduation whatsoever.

This type of reading, trully makes me believe than anyone can be a millionaire, and keep climbing the stairs and adding numbers. If you don't mind getting out of your confort zone, you work hard even without knowing you're getting any major results, and you are a creative person with an open mind to ideas that other people may label as "crazy" or "unpractical", then maybe you can be the next person to come up with something that will set you for life in big style and live like you always wanted to.

Just take a look at Brett Walton...  Who??

Well, the VGChartz owner. The very same website you're lurking. As far as I know, Brett started collecting publicly available data back in the summer of 2005, and putting it together under a sub division of a website named - everythingandnothing.org.uk - he created himself.

Fast forward almost a decade, you're looking at a pretty decent stand alone videogame and hardware sales website, which income is an unknown number to the majority here, but you could guess you're not looking at your average annual wage for a starbucks employee. While Mr. Brett may not be a millionaire (yet), he may be on the right track. With some straightforward thinking, he could turn what he already has into something even bigger. Or maybe that's what he's working on right now.

Doesn't this economic crisis worries you ? What if you can't find a job anymore ? What if your boss lays you off to get his company back on profitability record ?

I was forced to quit my engineering degree because I simply had no money to carry on, and my family isn't properly wealthy. I've been an emigrant working on construction, been at a slaughterhouse, and doing temporary jobs at pretty much everywhere. Now I am unemployed, and even in mcdonalds, they are not hiring people because there's no need for it with a weak demand. 

Yeah I guess having a restaurant at a sinking country, one amongst the Club of Shittiest European Countries, doesn't help. Not having a college degree isn't getting you anywhere either. Heck, having it gets you to be a more fancy unemployed person in here.

I am very inspired by the many stories I've read, by the examples I have around me. I don't mind taking risks, I may have some ideas in the oven, my motivation may be waiting to be propelled by some extreme situation. But I know I'm not afraid to try.

What about you ? What do this stories tell you ?  Do you want to be an employee or an employer ? Do you have what it takes to be a millionaire?

And I have a special request for everyone.

When replying, please avoid quoting trees. Just 1 or 2 quotes inside a single quotation rectangle is enough to the reader to get to the point of discussion.

I'm already a millionaire. I have several million yen.

But seriously, no, I don't have what it takes. Mainly because I don't want to put any effort into being a millionaire, I have a comfortable but exciting life and I'm more than happy at the moment. I'm not the kind of guy who risks anything or goes any length for money.

I took risks in my life like leaving my country suddenly (I took the decission to leave and booked a flight five days before I left and I left with €500. My friends and family though I was nuts), applying for university abroad before I was sure I had mastered the language, and then leaving again to a country with a totally different culture and with practically no grasp of the language. I do these for pleasure and for change, but not for money.

Of course, if I got loads of money that'd be nice, but I feel the effort is not worth the result, I don't see such a big difference from being a comfortable middle-class to being rich, the loads of extra money would only add a little extra pleasure. Right now I can choose my own schedule at work and I find myself having a lot of free time instead of earning a lot more. I don't need it. I don't spend much either, bar gaming and going out.

share more of your story. Where are you and what do you do for a living. How did you get there. The premise of this thread is inspiration. Inspire us.

all I know is, If I had a million dollars I could probably live off of it for the rest of my life.

I like this thread. I was literally going through a quarter life crisis as I read this. I have been reading a book called "Founders at Work" and it is very inspiring.

It's not really a story of success. Perhaps a story of less suckiness, because if I were in Spain now I don't know what I'd be doing. Anyway:

I'm 25. When I was 18 I was bored of my life in Spain (and Spain in general) so I left in an Easyjet flight to London. I managed to find start a job in 10 days and by my first paymen I had £7 left, lol. I was living in a room, sharing a flat, so pretty shitty, but boy was I happy to be independent and break from my old life totally. I was lucky to have the foresight to leave a few years before the crisis started. Going from Spain to the UK is not hard (bar the language barrier) because we're part of the EU though, so no major effort other than will and getting used to the language (I had a grasp from school, games and series which I liked watching in the OV).

When I felt my English was good I applied for university in London, but I was still a little scared to compete with native speakers. But my mentality is usually "what the hell, I can always quit any time so whatever". I did more than fine. Actually, I though going to uni in the UK was pretty easy, perhaps even too much. But it beats universities in mainland Europe where to learn journalism you have to learn language, history and unrelated shit like that, at least this was practical. I worked full time while studying full time in order to be able to pay for my studies, so I had no days off which sucked ass, but I managed to even save money.

During this, I met a Japanese girl who became my girlfriend, and after three years when her visa was expiring and we saw the only way to stay together was marrying we did just that. After seven years in London I was pretty sick of the city and I thought it was pretty exciting to live in Japan, so I came here a couple of months ago.

Now, this is not exactly working my ass off to come here because I got a marriage visa, so... Later I discovered that it's not that hard getting a working visa here as a native or very fluent English speaker, but I would never have found that out before.

Now I'm a one-to-one English instructor and I love my job. I sit down, have conversation with mostly interesting people, have fun, and go back home. I can work when I want which is nice. It's fun and not stressing at all. I spend my free time meeting friends (which I stole from my wife who's not very outgoing, lol) and getting pissed in izakayas and in kabukicho, so right now I'm having a blast, perhaps in 7 years I'll be bored again.

Money-wise, as I said I have a few million yen, so nothing spectacular, but enough to be comfortable. We'll be saving money though because one of our salaries is enough to pay all expenses in one month, so the extra salary is pure savings. Enough to buy whatever I need, probably because I don't have so many needs. If I did this for the rest of my life I'd be "rich" by the time I retire I guess, lol. But I doubt I'll stick to this forever.

Not a success story really or very inspirational. I usually try not to worry about middle term future and just do what I feel like without thinking too much about it. I'm too lazy to worry. It generally turns out good. Maybe I was lucky, I don't know. There you go.

@ Troll_Whisperer

you got married at a very young age and had the balls to go to Japan.

There is people afraid of leaving their hometown. That is a nice backstory you've got there. Also working and studying full time is quite a feat. I'm trying to pull that off too, but Portugal isn't properly the UK. Also, things in Spain are in a downwards spiral. I've got a friend who was hired in Barcelona as an engineer, and she makes 1000€ a month lol... pathetic.

A million bucks really ain't much.

Some very modest investing if you get a job early and invest young can make you a millionaire.

Ever since birth I have always seen myself becoming a billionaire. In the op you talk about hard work but at least for me hard work=fun work. No way am I even close to having oodles of money but I actually enjoy working towards it. Right now I have a fair amount of projects I'm working on and a few I've been working on for 7+ years. For example way back in 5th grade I came up with a concept for 3D TVs without glasses. I remember making many sketches and mockups out of construction paper and flashlights to try and explain my idea but being 10 it didn't really work. Freshman year in high school I finally had the resources and built a functioning proof of concept. Unfortunately as I refined my system and created higher quality prototypes I was beat to the market. Probably the hardest part about "going for gold" is accepting defeat and starting anew. The sans glasses 3D screen is now just a fun thing for me to dink around with.

Right now my most rewarding project is designing unique variations of Rubik's cubes. Currently I'm working with Chinese producers and will hopefully bring these toys to mass market soon.

Some other projects I feel like mentioning are an environmentally safe gold extraction process and an alternative way to render 3D graphics in real-time. Feel free to message me if you have questions about that one.

I'm not a millionaire, but I'm doing my best to become one.