101 Things #35 - Easy Money

A bucket list can include tasks so easy they can be accomplished almost at once - The popular "Tell someone you love them" for example. Others take planning, such as exotic foreign holidays but are still straightforward to schedule. And now and then you find something so jaw-droppingly stupid as a bucket list item that it automatically goes straight into the anti-bucket list I am steadily compiling, 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die.

Today we make derisive comments about the suggestion on Tomas Lau's website that you should aim to

Build a multimillion dollar business empire.

You heard it right. A multimillion dollar business empire. From scratch, presumably as indicated by the word "build". With the same eagerness with which you will take a selfie at the Taj Mahal (tick), eat escargots in Paris (tick) or get sufficiently drunk to engage in a karaoke session (tick), you can wake up tomorrow and get down to it, building. It may take a little while to get there but it's on your bucket list so you're going to do it. Right?

I assume that the 'multimillion' refers to the value of the business rather than the turnover, that is, a business you could sell for at least two million dollars. A million dollars may not be what it used to be, but it's still a fair whack. Look at all the struggling would-be millionaires on Dragons' Den [A popular TV show for rich people to humiliate less rich people: Ed], for example. A tiny handful will make it, the rest are going to struggle to stay solvent let alone grow a substantial business. And when you hear their stories you realise that they work tirelessly and fully focussed on the business. Some have turned in good jobs to set up for themselves. They work all hours. They take low pay or none. They may mortgage their houses to provide working capital.

This is not a bucket-list whim - it is a total lifestyle. Obviously, I have reached the stage in life where I don't need to do this and I no longer have the energy or the mental strength required. Even if this were not the case, it still seems all wrong to have this is a bucket list item. The sort of person who might succeed and then say "Right, done it, the business is doing well, so I'll tick it off the list and jack it all in so I can start ticking off some other items" is not the sort of person who will ever build that business in the first place.