Back in 2009 I began to research “investing” and stumbled into some books, one was Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I learned several important words that I never really heard of until now. Here they are:
- Assets: Simply put, assets put money back into your pocket. (real estate, businesses, song royalties.)
- Liabilities: Takes money out of your pocket. (TV’s, tablets, cell phones, consumer debt, women. Lol.)
- Passive Income: When you work very minimal to none to receive income. (Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, The Waltons, Paul Mc Cartney.)
- Earned Income: Where you physically have to work 100% of the time to earn a paycheck. (Most people fall into this category.)
Successful investors invest in assets that produce passive income. This was mind boggling because I thought wealth was all inherited or luck was involved. I finally realized that the opposite was true, and soon discovered that the wealthy think differently than the how the average person thinks.
“The wealthy think smarter not harder.”
Then I thought there must be famous musicians that think this way. Googling “wealthiest musicians” he found several lists of the richest musicians on the planet and realized the top musicians were on every list he found.
“Did these guys create their wealth purely on song royalties?” He thought to himself.
After studying more about these artists the research shows every music artist on the rich list invest in many assets other than song and album royalties. Though song royalties is great passive income it’s not the only form. The richest musicians on the planet learned from the richest people on the planet. Go figure.
Here is a compiled list from the 10 wealthiest musicians on the freaking planet at this moment in time 2015 among others and I learned quite a few gems.
- Madonna Net Worth $650 million: Assets include: Merchandise Sales, TV rights and DVD sales, Material Girl Clothing Line, Truth or Dare Perfume, Smirnoff Vodka, Vita Coco Water.
- Paul McCartney Net Worth $800 million: Assets include: Music Publishing, Apple Corps, MPL Communications, Beatles Catalog.
- Sean Combs Net Worth $550 million: Assets include: Badboy Records, Sean Jean Clothing, Restaurants, Ciroc Vodka, Revolt TV, Enyce Clothing line.
- Jay Z Net Worth $500 million: Assets include: Rocawear Clothing, Damon Dash Clothing, Carol’s Daughter Beauty Products, Brooklyn Nets NBA Team, J Hotels, Armand de Brignac champagne, Block Starz Music, Gain Global Investments Network LLC, Roc Nation Sports.
- Dr Dre Net Worth $620 million: Assets include: Beats Audio, Aftermath Record Label, Hp Laptop Line.
- Celine Dion Net Worth $400 million: Assets include: Nickel Restaurants, Album Sales, Les Productions Feeling Inc., Le Mirage Golf Club, Schwartz’s Restaurant, Pure Night Club, Celine Dion Parfums.
- Bono (U2) Net Worth $600 million: Assets include: Album and song royalties, Clarence Hotel, Elevation Partners private-equity firm, Forbes Media LLC, Facebook stock.
- Andrew Lloyd Webber Net Worth $1.2 billion: Assets include: Really Useful Group, Song and Album Royalties, Musical Theatre.
- Beyoncé Net Worth $350 million: Assets include: Album Sales, Dereon Clothing, Real Estate, Endorsements.
- Kenny G Net Worth $50 million: Assets include: Album Sales, Starbucks Investment, Stock Investments.
Wow! What a list.
Why Kenny G? Well, because he’s one of my favorite instrumentalists and his bass player is slammin’ and I recently found out that Kenny G is a stock trader and I myself in the last year have been study stock trading. So I guess we’re two peas in a pod… Kinda.
Most musicians are lazy asses and don’t want nothing to do with managing or investing money they just want to perform and receive a paycheck. That’s the way poor people think.
Here’s compiled list of books to get you fellow musicians starting in your journey. If you don’t like reading than it must suck to be you. I didn’t enjoy reading myself but when you have a thirst for knowledge it doesn’t matter what you like or dislike you’ll do it either way. There are audio books available.
- Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill
- Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
- Millionaire Fastlane by MJ Demarco
- E Myth by Michael Gerber
- Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
- The Millionaire Mind by Thomas Stanley
Read these titles and your mindset completely changed from thinking like the 99% to thinking like the 1%. Thinking like the 1% of successful musicians will keep you moving forward while thinking like the 99% will keep you complacent.
Message:
BUILD ASSETS!!!