Money is something that did not come with you when you were born, and will not go with you when you die. When one dies, will their friends or family talk about “oh, so-and-so was such a great CEO, he always got clients and met deadlines, and he is worth $X billion.” NO! It’s what kind of person he was when he was alive; what kind of husband he was, what kind of father he was, how he treated people.

A truly successful person is not judged by how much money they have, nor how much power they have, nor how many people work for him. So many “financially-rich” people are out there thinking they have it going good, but they are afraid to go home, why? Because they either have an incredibly bad family life (due to all their excessive working hours and time spent with clients, RATHER than with his wife and kids, not to mention, those long hours and stress is killing his health), or there is no family life to speak of. THIS IS NOT HAPPINESS.

I once read “humans are the only animals who do not know the primary purpose on earth is to enjoy life. Next time you are at someones deathbed, pay attention to what the person is saying. They never talk about how they regret not spending enough time at the office, or not being able to grab this client. They ALWAYS regret not spending enough time with their family. ALWAYS. So if you knew you were going to die today, what would you regret?

DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Stop complaining, start doing.
People in the U.S. who make money, and a lot of it, are making it for several reason:

The one group… is just fortunate. If you were born a Kennedy, Bush or Hilton, you will do fine. For those of us who were not, go to step number 2.

The second group… was born with a great skill. It you were born as smart as Einstein or as athletic as Jordan, you will do fine. This is probably a form of “being fortunate” as well, but the members of the second group worked hard to make sure that they don’t waste their talent. For those of us who were not, go to step number 3.

Now, I didn’t forget the topic of this blog. Further, I would like to emphasize that this is pretty much the first time I write a blog. Finally, I wasn’t born as a member of group 1 nor group 2. So keep on reading and you will find the solution…

The third group consists of the hard working individuals. A lot of them have shared their opinions in this blog. They complained about how they work so hard in corporate America, or how the dedicated teachers of our communities deserve to make more money. All is true. But that’s not enough. Hardworking without associating oneself with the next groups will result in a miserable life dedicated to writing blogs about how much money Chief Executive Officers make.

The risk takers are the proud frequent flyers of the fourth group. We are talking about business owners obviously. One misconception is that business ownership can only happen with a great idea that will result in the next Microsoft, You Tube, or Ebay. You can take a moderate risk, invest in a business, not having any original idea at all, and still make much more money than 90% of the Chief Executive Officers out there. You need to take the first step though.

Finally, I would introduce the group of the dedicated “dudes.” The ones who are NOT truly dedicated, like some of you, will most like spend the rest of their lives writing blogs about how “it is not fair.” They will find gazillion reasons why they are the victims, while others make so much money. But they forgot that when they went to get another drink with their buddy, the now-CEO spent untold hours getting an advanced degree. They forget that when they took their family to the lake on a memorial-day weekend, the now-CEO spent the long holiday-weekend working on a presentation. The dedicated individuals are the ones that live, eat, breath, and sleep their career. They don’t work 40-60 hours a week. They work 168 hours a week (24 hours times 7 days a week).

Whether these dedicated individuals are making the right choice, that’s should be the topic of another debate. Yes, these individuals end up with failed marriages and the first time they see their kids is not 22 minutes after their kids are born; rather it is 22 years after their kids graduate from college. At that point many of these dedicated CEO’s figure out that they wasted the last 22 years advancing their career instead of cherishing the important things in life, such as family and friends. But again, we all make our own decisions of whether we should be the dedicated career-oriented individual or enjoy life to the fullest.

So what’s the conclusion? Unless you were born to group one or two above, where wealth is practically guaranteed, the rest of us need to choose their destiny.

Option A is to belong to groups 3 and 4. All you need is to work hard and take a risk. You might fail a few times, but never give up. You will be wealthy and enjoy a poolside living.

Option B is to belong to group 3 and 5. Entrepreneurship is not for all of us. So work hard AND make your job and career a priority, so you can climb to the CEO position one day. Once again, you will be wealthy.

Option C is to keep complaining.

Please excuse the poor grammar and the many misspells. This blog was written on memorial-day weekend, one hour before I’m heading to the lake, after spending the last 3 years of memorial-day weekends way to dedicated to my career. I have achieved the wealth, without being a CEO of a public company and by learning that being jealous about other’s success without creating my own is a waste of time.

I struggled as a full-time employed engineer for years. Had a “good paying” job and was greatly appreciated by all those who employed me. It didn’t occur to me just how much until I went into a 6 hour conference call on board a cruise ship years ago..wasn’t I supposed to be on vacation???

I switched to contract/consulting and now make a ga-zillion dollars a year through several corporate enities. I have many employee-minded people working for me and more importantly; making money for me. I get it..but I don’t think the author of this article really does.

Corporate pay is vastly unfair and unbalanced. Until the stockholders do something about it, it’ll always be like this.

I’m in my mid-twenties, have an MBA, and make not much over 60K a year. The reason people at work complain about CEO pay and/or not making enough money is because they’re lazy.

They want to stare at their computers surfing the web half the day, and spend the other half the day chatting with their cube-mates about the car their husband is looking at, the theater system they want to buy, or about how the price of plasma TVs is coming down.

The CEO of the company I worked for successfully diversified the company and brought in billions and billions in revenue. So he makes tens of millions a year. He deserves it! The people who DON’T deserve their pay are the lazy ones who try to blow off the day and get nothing done.

Let’s face it. Americans are expensive. We make more and our employers pay for health care. Let’s be worth it!

But it’s never what you make, it’s what you’re spending habbits are like. I earned an excellent living, but had very few expenses or very few expensive expenses and was able to invest most of my income and retire early, but now I’ve gotten off the point.

Larger corporation CEOs do make too much

But most CEOS are adequately paid, in fact maybe underpaid, compared to the other alernatives. Take private equity for example. These are funds like Blackstone and KKR that are buy out public companies and take them private. These guys are spending their investor’s money, but they have a greater incentive and ability to strictly control pay than a company controlled by a million shareholders. But they’re still paying far more to CEOs than public companies and not burdening them with cumbersome ‘oversight’ regulations. Obviously the CEOs must be delivering, otherwise they wouldn’t be getting a deal from private equity.

Public companies are trying to compete with that even as their ability to do so is being removed by Congress and the hype over ‘excessive compensation.’ That means private equity will capture the best managers, leaving their public counterparts behind. If that happens, more and more public companies will go private, and be controlled by rich and unaccountable pools of capital:- a reverse of the historical situation. At that point we might be wishing for the old ‘overcompensated’ CEOS back