What Exactly Is Wealth?

Wealth isn’t about being rich. It’s not about how much money you have in your bank account. It’s not the care and respect you can obtain from those around you. It’s not who you can impress or how you can show off. It’s not the fancy cars or luxurious condos. It’s not the beachfront hotel with a midday worryless drink. It’s not about rising above others or controlling those below. It’s not the card in your wallet or the couch in your home. It’s not the bed you sleep in or the trophy lover you desire. 

True wealth is about the ability to create real change in the world. 

To create real world wealth, the most difficult first step is finding and building a foundation of capital to rise from. That’s what the book Startup Saboteurs by Ziad K. Abdelnour is all about. Discovering the ways to manifest a vision towards living a successful life in this world and how to spot and avoid the pitfalls of common failure that entrepreneurs face when bringing a vision into reality. 

When I started reading Startup Saboteurs, my plan was to write a review containing my thoughts and reflections of the book itself from the standpoint of analysis or as a critic. As I read the book’s first few pages, my intentions of what I was to write immediately began to change. Instead, I decided here to share my personal experience of how the book Startup Saboteurs by Ziad K. Abdelnour made me think about my own life process. 

If you are a prospective entrepreneur of any industry on Earth, I cannot encourage you enough to go out and get yourself a copy of this phenomenal work. I will now be carrying it alongside the other most important books of my life, including the Mason Holy Bible, Mediations by Marcus Aurelius, The Upanishads, Discipline Equals Freedom by Jocko Willink and two of my own published books of M4CH1N3 & Understanding 2020 An American Journal. Startup Saboteurs by Ziad K. Abdelnour will now be the 7th book in the collection that I personally choose to live by and carry with me wherever I go. 

Here is the knowledge I obtained from reading Ziad K. Abdelnour’s work, connecting my past, present and future experience with his own. 

In the journey to financial freedom, you must learn to leave your emotions behind you. With eyes open forward like a train on a visionary track, you must watch the world in front of you to discover what its needs are. In a consumer society of a planet full of products, to build wealth is to have the ability to guide the vision of not only you, your company or your potential customers, but to guide the vision and direction of the world as a whole. 

Startup Saboteurs explains how the system actually works to inspire other individuals to learn how to play the game and serves as a guide to navigate the world of finance to personal freedom. Don’t sit in an ivory tower watching the world and talking about it, you have to take risks in life. Your actions are what counts. Don’t let others motivated by jealousy, greed and envy dictate what your limitations are. 

In the process of seeking financial freedom, expect failure. In fact, learn to love failure. Failure is the best teacher that life has to offer, so as you work moving forward doing anything in this life, learn to accept and welcome every failure ahead as a lesson. Face the hard truths of your own mistakes head on, and know that every time you fall you have the ability to stand up and move forward again, mentally equipped with the expertise of personal experience. Your pain will make you become stronger, if you pay attention and allow it to do so. 

In my own work as a news writer, book publisher, musician and film director, finding a proper team has been my greatest difficulty. I spent too much time in dependence of what my family and friends thought of me, endlessly working with hopes that one day things would just click into gear and they would be along for the ride ahead with me. I seek to empower everyone around the world and motivate seeking freedom and independence for each travelling mind with the will to do so, but the expectation that every human I ever cared about would care about my work and vision the same is both unnecessary and ridiculous. Reading Startup Saboteurs, I felt a great deal of that past desire seemingly slip away. For the past few years, as past connections became more distant and I worked with greater focus, these past bonds had already lost a great deal of their allure. Even still, reading this book seemed to cut the final cords of those needs, further granting my own personal freedom. The vision I have is my vision to hold, and not only is seeking the past to be in that vision with me unnecessary, but it can also be harmful in moving forward to see my vision through in truth and finding the right people to share this vision with. This is ok. 

In building a new machine within the mechanics of  the business world, you must seek to find a team of people worth trusting. This will most likely not be your family or your high school friends. You must seek those who share a genuine passion in the pursuit of excellence, and a sense of shared vision in any crafted visionary mission. These people do exist, but it is up to you as an entrepreneur to let go of past cares and keep an open mind to the future of possibility. Even if you start out on a business venture alone, as your business grows, you will find that you will not be working alone forever. Remain open to this, and remain open to the entire world of possibility for that matter, learning every day along the way. 

Ziad K. Abdelnour says it perfectly in the preface, right from the start, that “The only boss I want to have in my life is money… Success is no accident or serendipity. I had all the odds against me, and I crushed each and every one along the way. Not because I was a Democrat or a Republican. Not because of my attitudes about social issues. Not because of what my background is or isn’t. Not because people think I’m a nice guy. I succeeded because I’m a capitalist, I’m an entrepreneur, and I’m a warrior. That is the mindset I want to teach others so they can create their own wealth and American success story.”

As an entrepreneur, you must figure out three things. How the product of your vision will provide value to the world. Who the product of your vision provides for and what will give your vision the edge over the competition. With individualism and self reliance and no dependence on government or institution, by not putting faith in your vision in the hands of others. A true entrepreneur finds freedom through faith, discipline and wealth. 

Ziad K. Abdelnour goes on to say, “I want to create an army of people who think like this”, not for the sake of wealth but for the sake of freedom of independence. As an artist myself, I couldn’t agree with this vision more. I find myself, even now, after reading Startup Saboteurs, thinking about how possible this is and the potential that a shared vision like this worldwide could have.

Instead of entitlement and expectation, we should strive for intelligent work, education and experience. Instead of conformity, we should inspire innovation and collective individualism by each leading by example in our daily efforts, motivations and actions. Instead of ego, we should strive for humility, curiosity and an unquenchable thirst for truth.

The book Startup Saboteurs forced me to assess my own failures and successes both in the business world and in my own personal life. 

As an individual, my own failures so far have been caring too much about the past, doing too much alone on my own and expecting that to never have the possibility of changing, not being a salesman of my own work, and having a lack of ability to delegate and make new connections. These are experiences I can share with the world around to help build a better humanity.

Another of my failures is that I have no real friends, no wife, no girlfriend and no children. Even my family seems to not enjoy my presence at times, as all I do is work. Most everyone seems to believe that I am too serious about the world and too focused on my vision. I am not sure if this is actually a failure, as I certainly would never consider it to be, but for the typical human seeing that I have none of the above would commonly be considered failure. This thought concerns me less and less all the time, as I get more and more done. I’m addicted to my work and as I continue to grow, I find myself more and more comfortable with the notion.

My successes so far have been my capability to continually learn every day no matter what, the will to continually stand up, learn and accept every waking failure, being myself without fear, consistency in writing and work ethic and my endless perseverance in the face of doubt and resistance. These are experiences I can also share with the world around to help build a better humanity. 

Another of my successes is that I am consistently organized. I write every day down and keep up with daily, weekly, seasonally, yearly and total life goal checklists. In my view, it is absolutely essential for any entrepreneur to be as organized and thorough with all time as humanly possible. You do not have to be a writer to write every day. My advice would be, no matter what you do, to get yourself a journal and some pens to organize your thoughts. The sooner the better. 

I am a storyteller. I’ve written every day down since September of 2006, I’ve published 3 books, made 2 movies and I have released 5 albums of music just to tell the stories of my experience and the experience of what it is to exist from the world that I see. With this, one of my own pitfalls is how to be a proper business man. This book assisted me in building a foundation of thought for me to begin to move forward with a business mindstate. I’ve always had the entrepreneurial spirit, but without business grounding a true vision will not be able to grow and thrive in the modern world. For this, I am thankful. 

Now the question for me, after finishing reading Startup Saboteurs, is should I seek investors or should I continue to take the ‘bootstrapping’ approach to building my vision brand? I’ve put in all the capital investments from my own pocket and put in all the sweat equity from my own time. There’s only two ways for a source pool of capital to grow, and that’s either debt or equity. Debt is money borrowed and equity is what is invested by the owner. Profits can also become equity. 

For me so far, personal investment has only gone so far. I print my own books, publish my own music and get the equipment and spend the time to make my own movies. Finding an investor would be about the same as getting signed to a record label, working with a film production company, or getting on with a book publisher. I would lose complete control over my work, but at a certain point I believe that this becomes somewhat necessary for growth. If you can find the right team and work with the right people towards a shared vision, then everyone can make more money and build more wealth and be able to bring better ideas into existence. Yes, I can record music on my own, but my resources for advertisement and exposure are very limited despite my vast pool of finished work. Yes I can publish my own books, but the idea is about the same as music here. When it comes to movies, there is a great difference, as making a movie alone or with friends in a home town cannot compare to what is possible to a big budget production in terms of the content itself and its reach around the world. 

My goal has always been to create art until I could build a production studio and provide jobs for other people to help create more art. Like an American dream machine. I have a vision to promote the ideologies of freedom, independence, free market capitalism and truth through art, in a world where that has all too often faded from what is being currently marketed. I know that there is a massive hunger by people in America and around the world for a return to the true ideals of American art, especially in a world all too dominated in the artistic scene by anti American propaganda and Communist influence. This vision can certainly grow, but I cannot do this alone.

At this time, what would I even use an investment for? The books are published with another on the way, the music is live online and the movies are done. With that said, at this point, I would use an investment for advertising and brand building. If done properly, I believe that the art that I have already created has a vast potential to find a wide audience on the world stage. I have dealt with a great deal of censorship in recent times online, but cash is king and even the censors would still be willing to accept profits for advertising as of now. Build awareness and keep continually creating as I go. Lord knows I can work like a human machine, with the past year alone I have published a book, made a movie and released 3 albums as well as working a full time job and writing dozens of news articles. Advertising these efforts is what I need to do. 

All of that aside, frugality and focused money management are always ideal and should be utilized no matter how much profits are ever made or how much investment exists. That is the sign of a proper entrepreneur, as luxury can become a distraction and a pitfall in itself to anyone seeking to bring a vision into reality. Especially a vision that intends to build wealth for the sake of influencing the world around to better change. 

Should I find an investor? Sign to a label? Join Hollywood or the tech elites of now? 

Most likely, maybe and hell no. 

I couldn’t do anything with anyone unless they shared the same vision that I have for American art and freedom by free market capitalism, but with that said, I know there is a great mass of others who want to see the same things happen in our world as I do. Reading Startup Saboteurs, I know that Ziad K. Abdelnour is one of them and I also know that we are not alone. 

Great things take time and effort, and when being an entrepreneur it is always best to never rush to decisions sacrificing experience and personal responsibility for expedience and reliance. Even if investors come, it would be my advice from my personal experience to continually go with bootstrapping. Make every dollar count, focus on making money rather than spending it. Manage yourself, learn and solve the problems that come along the way. From the book Startup Saboteurs, Ziad K. Abdelnour would most likely say the same. No matter if you have an investor or not, you must remain accountable for the actions of yourself, your business and your team’s effort as you lead forward with any direction. 

A lack of innovation and truth exists in all modern markets. It’s time for individuals to step up with their vision and make financial freedom happen. Nothing great comes without hard work, truth, experience and risk, so be willing to take each step along your journey as an entrepreneur and just keep learning every single day. 

Listen. Be willing to help and motivate others around you. Find your team. Be yourself. Never fear authenticity. Keep passion. Remove your ego. Have no expectations. Surprise people. Keep and grow global awareness, economically, socially, politically and technologically. Learn from history. Be honest. Every mistake is an opportunity and every failure is an education. Say sorry when you mess up and say thank you when good comes your way. The more you do, the more you learn, the more of the right people you meet and the more effective you become, the more your life will unfold as you live your story true. Humility, wisdom and foresight are the keys to success. Discipline, faith and wealth are the keys to freedom. This is the mindset to the path of the future entrepreneur. 

One of my favorite parts of the book was Ziad K. Abdelnour sharing a motto taught to him by his father that says, “At the end of the day, and no matter what technological miracles are conceived, people do business with people. The greatest deals in the world are sealed by a simple handshake, and some are broken over simple animosity.”

You may find yourself working like a machine, but remember to love like a human. Listen to all views and pop every bubble you find yourself caught in. Learn from everything, all the time, every day. Build your business up from this foundation of thought.

Keep moving forward, step by step, to the vision that you seek. 

Become an entrepreneur. Create. Do the work. Dream big. Find your financial freedom. Get money. Have fun. Lead. Learn. Share your story. Take the time to teambuild. The vision is your victory. 

To every entrepreneur, or anyone who has aspirations in life or wishes to learn about the good of free market capitalism, please take the time to find and read the book Startup Saboteurs by Ziad K. Abdelnour. Experience it for yourself.  It very well might just change your life, for the better. For the future.