I don't see myself here...

At the nail salon recently, I browsed through the stacks of magazines in the waiting area, and the February issue of Essence caught my eye. On the cover was the headline, The Million Dollar Black Woman: 3 Real Women Give You Secrets for Building Wealth. Intrigued, I flipped quickly to that section, already plotting in the back of my mind how I was going to quietly tear out the pages and sneak them into my purse. Unfortunately, I didn't have to commit that minor offense that day because the article didn't speak to me at all. Don't get me wrong, they were great inspirational segments about truly awesome women who are either already millionaires or on their way to becoming one very soon. But how they got there, the paths they took, the tools they had at their disposal were all foreign to me.

The first entrepreneur featured was Tiffany Pointer of Atlanta, who bought her first condominium at the age of 22. She didn't have a lot of money, according to the story, but her FICO score of between 760-850 qualified her for 100% financing. When she sold the property a mere two years later, she pocketed a $70,000 profit and the rest is pretty much history. That infusion of money allowed her to pay off all debts and make several other real estate purchases. Nice.

The next woman was Erica McGeachy-Crenshaw of New Jersey who bought a home inspection franchise with a stock market nest egg and donations from family to come up with the required $40,000 startup, as well as financing obtained by having excellent credit. What I did appreciate from her story was that she bought her first stock at the age of 16 by investing $1000 she'd earned from a part time job. This is an important lesson for teenagers that its never too early to start planning for your future. Today, her company is worth over half a million dollars.

The third and last profile belonged to Ann Marie Hall-Sparks of Chicago, who used a variety of tax-deferred investment vehicles to build a stock portfolio worth over $2 million. It wasn't very specific on what moves she took to get to this point, but it did mention that in addition to her already burgeoning portfolio, she began investing 80% of her money into riskier stocks and mutual funds, and 20% in bonds, so she took a very aggressive route towards building her wealth and it paid off handsomely.

Their stories didn't help me on MY journey to becoming a success, because at this point in my life, I can't go backwards. Their profiles will be wonderfully inspiring though for a young person just starting out, but for me, and many others like me, we have to approach it from a different angle. Don't get me wrong, I am in no way poo-pooing their incredible achievements or what lessons we can learn from them, I'm just being real here - where I am today, being told about a franchise opportunity with $40k startup fees or real estate cash profits that can be flipped into an empire - that does nothing for me right now. Show me how to turn $100 into $500 within the next couple of months, and then I'll flip the $500 into $1000, and then I'll see where I can take it. Actually, if I had an extra $1000 right now, I'd probably encourage my teenage son to purchase an inflatable bounce house and get him started in a little side business.

The sidebar lists six ways to make your first million, among them was to work on your credit, save regularly, and eliminate debt. All very good advice in the long run but overall, pretty typical of what you see everywhere. This is why I enjoy pulling together information for this site, because I like to show that even though you don't have stock investments or perfect credit, you can still realize true entrepreneurship and get started with the bare essentials. You have to start somewhere, why sit around waiting for everything to be perfect, for all of the ducks to be in a row? Being an entrepreneur is what's in your soul, not what's in your portfolio or your bank account. Start with what you have and accomplish what you can TODAY.