What would you do with $1,000,000,000?

It was one of those Friday afternoons when after an exhausting week at work, you just couldn't wait for the weekend to start! I was driving in my car and decided to tune in to one of my favourite radio stations.  The female radio presenter was welcoming her audience to her radio segment and promised to soothe our nerves by playing some oldies – ‘Friday flashback’ she called it. 

Oooooh, that sounded very nice – some soothing melodious oldies to calm my frayed nerves on a sunny day in the ever calamitous Lagos traffic. To my utmost surprise (and maybe dismay), the very first song on this diva’s playlist in the name of ‘oldies’ was none other than  the song  BIG BOY by the Eldee the Don, featuring Banky W, Olu Maintain and Oladele.

What!!!!!!!  When did Big Boy, a song released just ‘yesterday’ (think it was released in 2008 or so) get the classification of an ‘oldie’!!!! Arrrrrh, my mind agitated!  However, when I considered modern acts like Davido, Whiz Kid, Tiwa Savage singing songs like ‘Skilewu’ Sekem Sekem and Doro Bucci, it truly made Eldee the Don’s Big Boy look like old school indeed!

So here I was stuck in traffic, worse still stuck with my favourite radio station playing Big Boy as an old school song !!!   Ahhhh, how was Big Boy supposed to soothe my frayed nerves? More out of boredom or was it a lack of alternatives, I listened. And boom, just like that I started having revelations!

Now for those of you who may not be familiar with the lyrics of Big Boy ( I actually had to go search it out myself), please find an excerpt below :

I got some Stunna shades on

Prada on my back

Louis on my feet

Gucci on my wrist

I'm a Big Boy

They hate on me cos I'm a Big Boy

Tori mo joko sinu Bentley

Porsche ati Hummer

Lau lau spending

Pounds ati dollar

I'm a Big Boy

They keep on hating on a Big Boy

The more I listened, the more I realized the following :

1) The song was reflective of our society where MATERIALISM  and COVETOUSNESS have almost choked out our moral values.  Where a man’s worth and sense of importance is measured by the clothes he wears, the type of cars he drives, the type of house(s) he lives in and their location. However, ageless and timeless wisdom declares that  “a man’s wealth does not consist in the abundance of his possessions”

2)    A society wherein other to impress other people and show that they belong, people buy what they don’t need and quite frankly cant afford, to show that they have arrived. Thus encouraging an I-Must-Make-It-At-All-Cost syndrome especially amongst the youths, who see these so-called big boys driving about in Range Rover Sports, yet do not have a decent accommodation over their heads, as role models.

3) A society with so little financial intelligence, where liabilities are called assets and vice versa. Thus whenever a person's income increases, he changes his lifestyle to accommodate his new level. His changes his wardrobe to accommodate the latest designers clothes, buy a new car(s), a new house(s) etc. 

      
      "But I thought to own a new car or a new car house was adding to my assets?!"

      Hmmmmmm! Let us hear what Rich Dad has to say about that :

      “You must know the difference between an asset and a liability, and buy assets. If you want to be rich, this is all you need to know. It is rule number one. It is the only rule. This may sound absurdly simple, but most people have no idea how profound this rule is. Most people struggle financially because they do not know the difference between an asset and a liability. “Rich people acquire assets. The poor and middle class acquire liabilities that they think are assets"

                                                                                                      ― Robert T. Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad

So what then is an asset? Again Rich Dad puts it very succinctly as :

“An asset is something that puts money in my pocket.

 A liability is something that takes money out of my pocket.” 

                                                                                                       ― Robert T. Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad

So if your designer clothes, latest gadgets and electronics, posh cars etc are NOT putting money into your pocket, my dear, what you have is a liability and not an asset!

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4)   Finally and albeit the most painful is the fact that big boys don't last; their wealth does not endure the test of time. And because they get it 'lau lau' and spend it 'lau lau' with little or no thought for the future, they wake up one morning and find out like the prodigal son that their wealth/inheritance has gone with the winds.... it has developed wings and flown away.

    History is replete with the individuals, groups, corporations, who in their big boy days were swimming in wealth, yet ten-twenty years down the line. they were penniless!

      Remember Iron Mike Tyson? The one-time undisputed boxing heavyweight champion of the world with probably the greatest knock out stats in the history of boxing!

      

       According to Mark Morgan Ford in his post "The Sad Story of Mike Tyson - A Spending Fool", the former heavyweight champion's income exceeded $400 million !!!. Yet, in 2004, before his 39th birthday, this amazing moneymaker was $38 million in debt….!!!!!

   

    Our own dear Rashidi Yekini (of blessed memory). arguably one of the best football strikers to emerge from Nigeria and even sub-Saharan Africa spent his last days on this side of eternity in penury! Yet in his hay days, he strode the continent of Africa, and indeed Europe like a colossus with his pristine knack for goal-scoring!

     

So the next time, you hit a jackpot of $1,000,000,000, what would you do with it?

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