I was a millionaire by age 23. And you can be too (at any age) if you follow these three steps.

​I was going nowhere. To say I was broke is an understatement. I’d graduated college with a degree in Contemporary Issues Management, and when people asked me what that was, I couldn’t even tell them. To this day, I have very little idea what I studied.
 
With few job prospects, I moved back in with my parents. It was humiliating. I had to ask them for what could only be described as an “adult allowance,” which they paid me each week, by leaving an envelope full of money on the dresser of my boyhood room.
 
I’d take that money and blow it all on alcohol and strippers. That’s the kind of dark place I lived in. Rolling in at three a.m. one morning, I noticed my father was still awake in his office. I stumbled in and asked him what he was doing. 
 
He explained that since he was a multi-gazillionaire, he was adjusting some things in his will and also creating a “trust fund” for me. Apparently, this fund was a way for him to give me millions of dollars. But there was a catch. I couldn’t spend it all at once and I needed to consult with some lawyer before I made large purchases.
 
Before I go on, I want to say that dads can be dicks sometimes, but they mean well. I think that my father, in his own, misguided way, was trying to make sure I didn’t burn through a lot of money so quickly that there was none left. And in many ways he was right. If he had let me control that trust fund, I would have almost immediately spent it on a yacht I’d been eyeing.
 
Still, I was angry that he didn’t “trust” me with the trust fund.  I explained to him that if he couldn’t see me as man enough to handle money, then I could never become a man. For weeks afterwards, I’d repeat this statement, again and again, till he finally relented and said, “O.K. I’ll just give you the money, but I’m trusting you not to spend it all at once.”
 
About a month later, I was on my new yacht, but since there was no money left in my fund, I couldn’t afford a captain or crew. So I became the captain and the crew were some of my buddies. We took the boat out, but it was way more complicated than we imagined. We ended up running into a marina and causing millions of dollars of damages not only to my yacht, but to other people’s property. 
 
So there I was, a twenty-three year old who had gone from being a millionaire to having nothing. In fact, I owed money. Lots of it. I thought back to what my dad had said about not spending all the cash at once, and I couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t just given me more, so that the accident had never occurred. It was one of those moments when you realize that your parent has become older, disengaged, and maybe a little senile. 
 
I seriously considered having my dad committed to a home where he could live out his last decades after handing me over the rest of his money. But then he came through for me and settled all the lawsuits and paid off my debts. 
 
After seeing this, I came up with a brilliant idea. I simply told my dad, again and again, that I was in deep financial shit (which wasn’t a lie, usually). I’d say I was in trouble with a drug cartel (true), that some hookers were blackmailing me (kind of true), and that I had organized a major rock concert to benefit pediatric AIDS (total bullshit), and that I owed close to fifty million dollars to Phil Collins. Each time, my old, senile father came through, probably out of instinct, through a brain that had died long ago. 
 
At the end of this run, I had spent close to a hundred million dollars on cars, luxury suites at hotels, and lots and lots of high end hookers and designer drugs. But I had also saved just over a million dollars, mostly because I had deposited it in a bank in Mexico and forgotten about it because I was so high on blow and had said to my friends when we were in Cabo, “Hey, let’s deposit like a million dollars in one of the shitty banks here.”
 
The moral of the story is that I am technically a millionaire as I write this and until I figure out how to withdraw that cash. And, after I do that, I’m sure my dad has more to give. 
 
I know my story might seem amazing (because it is) but I truly believe that anyone can do what I did. It really comes down to three simple steps and if you follow them closely, you will be a millionaire like me.


1. Have your dad give you a lot of money (in the millions or higher, if possible).

2. Make sure all that money is put in a bank under your name.

​3. Really, it’s only two steps. Sorry.