NiceStories.com: Short story: How To Become A Trillionaire (and lose 20 lbs) by Dr. Murray Trillionaire

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story is considered a classic. But in order for it to work, you have to always be nice. You see, that's the problem with all these books, they tend to not be realistic. Furthermore, they all tend to promise you the world: wealth, health, the meaning of life, how to have deep, genuine relationships (as if that were a good thing), a gentle soul etc., etc.. By promising to teach you everything, they quickly lose their credibility and are clearly unrealistic. My book sets out to only help you to do four things: 1. Become a trillionaire in under a year; 2. Think like a trillionaire; 3. Lose 20 lbs.; 4. Understand how best to annoy the French; 5. Understand the difference between Yiddish Country Music and its American counterpart; 6. Cook quick, gourmet meals with Doritos; 7. Comprehend key business concepts without having to waste time in a business school or by even taking a business school class While other self-help books are supposed to help you, in reality all they do is force you to think. That aint right! You shouldn't be paying someone money for that. I help you to stop thinking. I've done all the thinking. And since my opinion is always the right one, you really should just adopt my thinking as your own. THINK LIKE A TRILLIONAIRE Get ready to start thinking like a trillionaire! A Murray Trillionaire. My original title for this book was How To Become A Trillionaire ... and Lose 20 lbs In Under A Year While Pissing Off Some French People By Making Dinner Using Doritos As The Primary Ingredient. But I was told by some people “in the industry” that, generally speaking, twenty-eight word titles do poorly in sales unless you do a print run on 5 foot by 8 foot books. I like big, but the hard cover version of my book would be too heavy to take with you on the subway. So welcome to How to Become a Trillionaire and Lose 20 lbs. In this concise, brilliantly written, easy to follow book, I take you on a weekly odyssey that will help you to attain the above four mentioned goals. I mean five. It's five. Or is it seven? Now, I'm not going to lie to you. Earning a trillion dollars in the next year will take a bit of work, particularly on your behalf. I'm coming up with a lot of the ideas, so you're going to have to implement them. So how is we going to become trillionaires? Yes, just like there are lots of ways to skin a cat, there are lots of ways to make a trillion dollars. We could create one million companies over the next year that will each need to bring in a million dollars in profit. That would mean that we need to come up with about 2,740 ideas a day...actually more since I refuse to work on Arbor Day or during Chanukah. Even though most will be LLCs with a couple of joint partnerships, and a handful of S level corporations (or are they called D level corporations (check with an accountant)), I am afraid that we (or more precisely you) might get bogged down with a lot of the bureaucratic paperwork required for starting a new company and will not keep your eye on the ball. It's great to be able to say that you created some 3,000 companies yesterday, but if you don't have the follow-through, the companies are going to stagnate, or even worse, lose money. We could try and come up with one really good trillion dollar idea. But I hate to put all my caviar eggs in one basket! A couple of years ago, I spent an entire year focusing on just one business: a company that would sell a new advertising technique for the 21st century using donkeys and neon signs. Then, out of nowhere comes Google Adwords, and me and my ten thousand donkeys are on food stamps. So let's come up with around fifty business ideas over the next year (one a week) that will each make about twenty billion dollars. Yeh, that sounds more realistic and gives us about five days to focus on each business. No working on the weekends. That's for millionaires. I hear that Microsoft was started in someone's basement and made it's first billion an hour after Gates bought his first computer (from Michael Dell, no less). And keep in mind; we are going to be trying to lose weight at the same time. So we may get a little moody every now and then. And it's hard to come up with great ideas on an empty stomach. But it's not going to be all hard work. As the old saying goes, “All work and no play means that Jack is going to surf the Net until 3 in the morning, looking for hot porn. We're going to have a blast learning how to cook gourmet meals with Doritos along with some surefire ways to piss off the French. Remember when I said that it's bad karma to bad mouth people. Rule does not apply to the French. Or the Canadians. Or people from Connecticut. I'm also going to make you a deeper person by asking key philosophical questions like, “if you could be any Latin American country, which one would you be?”. Don't worry, I've come up with all the answers too (Chile). LOSING WEIGHT Now, about losing the 20 lbs. First of all, let me just say that I think you look absolutely fabulous just the way you are! But I like big. Not everyone likes 5 foot by 8 foot books. A lof of people “in the industry” would like you to believe that you are fat because of what you eat, or when you eat, or how much you eat. Sure, put the blame on me! So why is it that I can eat the same things as Michael Jordan and yet he remains thin? Anti-semitism. It's because I'm Jewish, and Michael is not. Although I once read that he has a grandmother that loves chopped liver. Six months ago I set out to lose 20 lbs. I lost 2 lbs. or ten percent of my goal. Now some might say that I fell short of my goal because I continued to binge eat and used bowling as my sole form of exercise. But once again, that is putting the onus on me. The only thing I did wrong, perhaps, was I set the wrong goal. If I set out to lose 200 lbs., I would have reached my 20 lbs. goal and still be able to bowl. Let's not get too caught up in this losing weight thing anyway. I find it a bit boring and depressing. I only put it in the book because I was afraid that just promising people that I could make them trillionaires might not be enough incentive to buy the book. All this effort and for what? I'm just never appreciated. I'm very sensitive, you know. Oh, great. Now I'm a little depressed. I'm going to go get myself some ice cream. While I'm doing that keep this in mind: one pound of fat equals 3,500 calories. So 20 lbs of fat is something like 70,000 calories. I'm a big advocate of setting realistic goals. So let's say you cut your calorie intake by just one calorie a day, you will lose the weight. Don't get discouraged. It will take a little under 192 years to lose the weight, but let's be honest: you didn't put the weight on overnight either. Or did you? THE FRENCH The French are a bunch of snotty, arrogant, pretentious, whiny, cynical, overly medicated, neurotic hypochondriacs. And yet, they are really good at making you feel inferior to them. There are lots of books out there on how to better understand the French or how to get along with them. Who needs to get along with them? Who wants to understand them? What you need is to be able to outsmart them! How often has this happened to you? You plan to go out for a good Chinese meal with friends and unbeknownst to you, one of them drags along a French person that happens to be “in town” and is about to ruin your evening and Chinese dining experience. What to do? Dr. Murray's going to tell you. WHO THE HELL IS THE VERY SEXY, DR. MURRAY TRILLIONAIRE? I know that at this point, a lot of you might be asking, “Who is Dr. Murray Trillionaire? And are the rumors true that he's an Aries with several Pisces tendencies? Listen to me, blabbing away, and I haven't even introduced myself yet. Someone once asked me, I think it was my mother, “Who the hell are you?” I believe what she really meant to say was, “Who the hell are you to give out advice on making money and losing weight?” I guess if you focus on the fact that I am not a billionaire or even a millionaire and could probably afford to lose some weight I gained while others were pregnant with my children, then you have a point. But it didn't stop Dear Abby from giving out advice. And her name wasn't even Abby. And I have heard from several people “in the industry” that she isn't even so dear. I, Murray Zeus Trillionaire, was born Murray Rosenberg in a small, but comfortable shtetl somewhere in the heart of New York (Brooklyn) in the mid sixties. I was transported (against my will by communist spies (my parents)) to the state of New Jersey when I was two but remain bi-cultural. I can easily blend in amongst both New Yorkers and New Jerseyans. Just don't put me with a bunch of people from Connecticut. For some reason, I make them nervous. I think it's because I use a lot of parentheses when I talk. I don't now if you noticed, but I tend to use a lot of parentheses when I talk and write. I even went as far as double parenthesizing a sentence or two ago. Get used to it (it may happen often (I do hope it doesn't bother you)). I changed my name from Murray Rosenberg to the more glamourous and less French sounding Murray Trillionaire when my last book, How To Become A Rossenberg ...and lose 2 lbs. was a complete financial disaster (although it did very well in Alabamba and Russia). I am extremely bright (borderline genius (although my type of genius does not do well on IQ tests)) and have an innate ability to use the right neurosis to solve any problem. I am a self-taught man with several PhDs. I don't wish to come off as too cocky (I love that word). Cocky, cocky, cocky. As a matter of fact, it is while I was getting my joint PhD degrees (in Yiddish Country Music from Brigham Young University and The History of Medieval New Jersey from The University of Atlantic City) that I discovered the secret formulas for amassing massive wealth in under a month. Even though I could make you a trillionaire in a month, I'm going to give us a full year. I'm assuming that you have TIVO and may need to catch up on some back episodes of Desperate Housewives or The Partridge Family. And a month is such a short period of time to learn how to annoy the French. It may take you a year to really catch on. SOME BULLET POINTS ON MURRAY: • I have been in a long term same sex relationship for I believe it has now been ninety years. Here's the scintillating part: he's French. I clearly committed some heinous crime in a previous life like having a library book that was twenty years overdue. • I have three beautiful daughters who are all currently five and under. • I love Doritos. We have been in a committed, monogomous relationship for over thirty years. • I am an Aries although I sometimes act like a Pisces. • I love the movie Grease but am not that crazy about the Broadway musical. ENOUGH TALK ABOUT ME So why'd I write this book? Why did Bill Shakespeare write Romeo & Juliette? What inspired Jacqueline Jill “Jackie” Collins to write Hollywood Wives? Many people often wonder what motivates great minds like Bill's, Jackie's, and mine to write their masterpieces. For Shakespeare it was the money; for Jackie it was the fame. She had always been content just being one of the Collins gals until her older sister Joan went from being a B-rated movie star to a Number One Class A television vixen. Although nobody has yet to ask me why I have written this book, I think it's important to set the record straight before the rumor mongers come out and distort the facts. Unlike Bill and Jackie, my motivations are much more altruistic. But then they are English, and the English tend to be very, very selfish. I, as an American, have been brought up to be less self absorbed. I am on a mission to rid the planet (Earth) of the three social injustices that plague it and continue to exist in spite of my diligently working over the last thirty years. In spite of repeatedly contacting my congressmen, threatening my accountant, and consulting with psychics, these three social injustices continue to wreak havoc on the world and torment me. I have come to realize that it will take significant financial backing to rid the world of these ills: more precisely about one hundred trillion dollars which is only about 33 trillion dollars an injustice. I take you back to the early 1970s when there were no social injustices. Back in those days while everyone else was eating Wonder Bread®, my father would go out every Saturday and buy a dozen bagels and a dozen bialys. The bialy is a petite roll-like entity named for the Polish city of Bialystok. Your classic bialy has a diameter of up to 15 cm (6 inches) and is a chewy yeast roll. Some Neanderthals like to compare the bialy to a bagel. It's absurd. To me, it's like comparing an alligator to a crocodile. Why don't you just insinuate that all reptiles are the same? Let's stick to the facts: 1. unlike a bagel, a bialy is not boiled, rather it is simply baked 2. Instead of a hole in the middle a bialy has a depression. 3. before baking, the bialy depression (I like to refer to this as “the corus maximus”) is filled with diced onions and other ingredients including (depending on the recipe) garlic, poppy seeds, or bread crumbs. The center of a bagel is filled with nothing; it's a hole. Back in the 1970s World Jewry treated both Collins sisters with the same reverence and both the bagel and the bialy with the same amount of respect. All four remained off Christian radar. But then in the early 80s, things changed. Thanks to Dynasty, Joan Collins became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, and she took the bagel along with her. Now, I have no proof that the bagel started to become more popular in the early 1980s with the Christian crowd because of Joan Collins, but the fact remains that since then, everybody knows what a bagel is, do they know of bialy? As a Jew, I will not bad mouth the bagel. However, with 33 trillion dollars in my pocket, I can go out and buy a shitload of bialys. In fact, I think I can give one to 55 trillion different Americans or give half a bialy to 110 trillion Americans. Not sure what my strategy will be, but I will live to see a day when McDonald's serves an Egg McBialy and that Dunkin Donuts has a bin for bialys right next to the Sesame bagels. And then there's social injustice number two! On July 29, 1974 the universe changed forever when the divine "Mama" Cass Elliot, Baroness von Wiedenman, née Ellen Naomi Cohen, tragically passed away. The world lost one of the greatest singers of all time leaving us with only Cher, Helen Reddy, and sometimes Anne Murray. While her family and I mourned her tragic death at the age of 32 (wasn't Jesus also 32 when he died?), vicious anti-Semites from around the world were creating rumors that persist to this day, over thirty years since her death. There is an urban legend that claims that Mommy Cass died choking on a ham sandwich (not a turkey sandwich, or a white tuna salad sandwich on a bialy which is certainly more credible.) This vicious, malicious, rumor is patently incorrect. About a week after her death, the coroner released a report (see the August 8th 1974 issue of the German newspaper Die Zietung and please read the article entitled Nicht Ham Sandwhich auf Die Mama) that clearly and most definitively found no food in her trachea and determined that the cause of death was heart failure. And there was no ham sandwich in her heart either. It costs about a million dollars to have a one minute to ninety second ad during prime time TV. With 33 trillion dollars, I'll be able to flood the airwaves with the truth and once and for all, rid the world of this lie. Finally, there's social injustice number 3. I am all for affirmative action, especially if I can benefit or make a buck from it. While affirmative action has fallen out of favor with many people, it is an undeniable way to give people that have had fewer opportunities, the possibility to succeed. I fully support affirmative action for Afro-Americans and more recently the Hispanic community. It has allowed for many young people from these communities to attend colleges that would have previously been beyond their reach. Millions have benefited. But what about the Jews? I'm not looking for affirmative action to be extended to Jews in education, but rather in all areas of sports. Back at the Summer Olympics of 1972, Mark Spitz, a Jew, won five gold medals. He managed to show the world that Jews can swim and more importantly, look good in a Speedo. We can dance too. And with the right elevator shoes and a couple of tubes of Ben Gay®, we can play basketball. But how many players on The New York Knicks do you think are Jews? Which of the L.A. Lakers are Jewish? With 33 trillion dollars I can either buy a dozen different basketball teams or bribe at least twenty. And I will not stop at basketball. I want for 51% of every sports team worldwide to be Jewish except maybe Sumo wresters where I will settle for 48%. WAIT! I'VE CHANGED MY MIND Do I really want to spend all that money on improving the universe? I got a good night's sleep and am starting to have a change of heart. Mama Cass died over thirty years ago. Who the hell cares at this point why or how! Both bagels and bialys are full of carbs, and everybody knows that carbs make you fat and cause cancer. Besides, I've always wanted to have my own slave—well, actually slaves. Granted it's horrific to be a slave and get nothing for it. But what if you were someone's slave and getting paid a million dollars a year? Or $15,000 if you're French? So I'm getting me some slaves: France to be more precise. There are about sixty million French. But I think it's worth it. At a handsome annual salary of $15,000 a Frenchman, it's going to cost me $900 billion dollars to enslave all of them. They'll be no hard labor, but they'll probably all still bitch and moan (in French, bien sûr). Lots of toe massages, they're only getting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, and I want them to all learn the hokey pokey. I'm a big time philanthropist. So I will certainly still be giving to others, especially when it can make me look good. For example, on my birthday I plan on giving a Duncan Donut's Boston Crème donut (my favorite) to everyone—everyone on the planet. Now, I know that there are about 6 billion people on the planet and the donuts must now be up to at least $0.75 a piece, but what's 4.5 billion but pocket change? To hell with it, everyone's getting a cappuccino with it too! But you have to supply your own sugar. What do you think I am, made of money? Oh yeah, I am. Sugar's included. And here's the best part. It's breakfast in bed. A French person will be coming to bring you your donut and cappuccino. Please let me know if they are rude. And no tipping! WHY OTHERS HAVE FAILED I think it's important to take a look at those who have already attempted to become trillionaires and why they failed. Throughout this book, I will repeatedly show you why you shouldn't listen to anyone else but me. Nobody else knows what they are talking about. Now I'm not suggesting that I'm G-d, but if you would like to think of me as a god (with a small g), then that's fine. But it needs to be Dr. god Trillionaire. I did not spend all that time in graduate school for nothing! Now where was I? I lost my train of thought. Were we talking about Dynasty? The episode where Alexis tells Dominique Deveraux that “today is the day that they must be picking up the trash?”. No, no, that's right, I was telling you that we need to look at some loser billionaires that have not been able to become trillionaires. Let's start with William Gates III, currently the richest man in the world. Billy Gates. O.K. Billy, so you launched Microsoft and in a relatively short period of time made it one of the fifty biggest companies with annual sales of 40 billion dollars. But what have you done since then? I don't see any other companies in the top Fortune 500 that you have started. Looks like you're stuck on cruise control. Lazy! I've come up with over one hundred business ideas. And there are hundred more where they came from. It's great to start lots of charities in Africa, but what if the African economies go south (or would it be north) when the Togan real estate bubble pops? RULE #1: RATHER THAN START JUST ONE MAJOR CORPORATION, CONSIDER STARTING A DOZEN IN AN HOUR. J.K. Rowling. Although she's an o.k. writer (I personally find she lacks creativity (and imagination)), J.K. Rowling is a pretty lousy, business woman. She's been at this Harry Potter thing for well over five years now, and she's only managed to bank a billion dollars out of it. Lesson #1, J.K., it all boils down to simple math: if you are only going to be able to sell 325 million copies of your books and have about a billion people see your movies, then you are going to have to charge more than just $9.99. Harry Potter paperback books tend to sell for about $9.99. If J.K. would have only raised the price of her books by let's say 100 times to put it right under $1,000 a book at $999, she would be sitting on an estimated fortune of about $100 billion, not just 1 billion. She'd be one-tenth of her way to a trillion dollars, only have sixty more books to write, and have double the fortune of that lazy Gates (Bill, at least she's written seven books). RULE #2: PRICE YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE CORRECTLY. Sammy Walton. Sam Walton was the founder of two American retail stores: Wal-mart and Sam's Club (o.k, that's already twice as many companies as Gates but still leaving room for improvement). Walton died in the early 1990's, but it is believed that if he were alive today, he would be worth over 100 billion dollars. But he made two big mistakes: first he died. But secondly, and equally importantly, he left his fortune to four kids, his wife, some nieces and nephews, and I think a cat. So each one of them only has about 20 billion dollars, putting them practically back at zero. RULE #3: IF YOU ARE GOING TO DIE WHILE TRYING TO BECOME A TRILLIONAIRE, LEAVE YOUR FORTUNE TO ONLY ONE PERSON. AND MAKE THAT ONE PERSON ME . Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt. Several years ago, Angelina Jolie and I came up with a great business idea one evening while munching on Doritos and sipping on Billy Bob Thornton's blood. Angelina would start buying kids at super reduced rates (never paying more than $15 for one unless the kid knew the theme song to The Brady Bunch in their native tongue, in which case we'd go up to $20). We'd doll the kid up, making them look really cute, and within five years sell them to the highest bidder, Mia Farrow, or Rosie O'Donnell. We figured that if we could sell them each for about a million, then we'd only have to buy and sell about 100,000 before making our first trillion. Angelina eventually connived me into agreeing that Brad should join in, but I drew the line with Madonna. Absolutely not. But it's been taking them so long to pick the kids they want to buy. I'd warned her that if we are going to buy 100,000, we're going to have to buy at least 275 a day if we want to turn this thing in to a profit by next year. I personally like the idea of buying entire villages at a time. RULE #4: TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE (WHATEVER THE HELL THAT MEANS). SO DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES? Do you have what it takes? I can't waste my time trying to make you a trillionaire if you don't have what it takes. As a matter of fact, I have decided to sell this book to only one million people because more than that, I'm just going to be all over the place and not be able to give each one of you the attention you deserve. So consider yourself lucky that you are part of a very exclusive club with only a million members (unless that is that this book is able to sell more than a million copies) in which case you are going to just have to learn to share me. Don't worry! It's not because I have one million other lovers out there, that I love you any less! Don't tell anyone, but you happen to be my favorite. I just love your eyes! Or is it your chin that I love? Let's start with this simple test to see how savvy you already are on the ways of trillionairosity. You may find the answers to these philosophical questions on our website at www.murraytrillionaire.com. 1. If you were to find a trillion dollar bill on the street, you would a. Ignore it! b. Pick it up and keep on walking! c. Ask people nearby if any of them just lost a trillion dollars! d. Pick it up and give it to the Amish! 2. There is nothing quite as sexy as a. Communism b. Existential Utopism c. Anarchism d. Capitalism e. I don't find economic theory sexy 3. In order to feel happy and self fulfilled, I need to own a. My own trailer b. My own trailer park c. A French chateau d. 35, very large French Chateaux e. France 4. Which of the Gabor sisters made the best goulash? a. Eva b. Zsa Zsa c. Magda d. Harpo 5. I am morally opposed to the war in Iraq because a. Wars often lead to deaths b. Profit margins in this war are under 30% c. Bob Fosse was not asked to choreograph the war 6. What word should go in the blank space. __________ and Jelly. a. Butter b. Peanut Butter c. Tina Turner d. Tax-exempt Municipal Bonds 7. Which one of the following men is NOT sexy? a. Bill Gates b. Warren Buffet c. Shaun Cassidy d. Donald Trump 8. Which of the following investments gives the best rate of return? a. A house next to Hugo Chavez's dacha in Kennebunkport, Maine b. Tickets to Barbara Mandrel's next concert c. The book How to Become A Trillionaire (and lose 20 lbs.) d. A yeshiva in Tehran 9. Mahatma Gandhi's biggest mistake was a. Marrying Indira b. Not charging people for advice c. Buying tickets to Barbara Mandrel's next concert d. Loaning Eleanor Roosevelt $500. DETERMINING YOUR SCORE Give yourself 3 points for every (A) answer, 4.723 points for every (B) answer, your ideal goal weight in points for every (C) answer, and π (pi) points foe every (D) answer. Go ahead, tally up your points, don't be afraid. I'll wait here. If you scored between 7 and 7 billion, then you are well suited to become a billionaire. Welcome aboard, mate. I sounded very British there, didn't I? NOBODY ELSE KNOWS WHAT THE HELL THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT I really do hate to bad mouth people even though I do consider cattiness one of the most important qualities for a good friend. I think that's why we get along so well. And can I just say (just between you and me) that that Phil Donahue doesn't know what he's talking about. How does Marlo put up with him? I think she feels sorry for him. Just with the whole Oprah thing and how she really just put him out of business overnight. Very sad. But he had it coming. I told him to dye his hair. And start wearing red glasses. But he wouldn't listen. Who cares? Sally Jesse Raphael did. And what about that Dale Carnegie! Way back in the 1930s even before Liza Minnelli was born, Dale Carnegie whose real name was actually Dale Carnegey (I don't trust people who change their name), wrote the somewhat successful book How To Win Friends & Influence People. Carnegey basically proposes that you be nice to people, appreciate people, blah, blah, blah. But Carnegey lived back in a gentler time when everyone was nice, except maybe for Hitler, Mussolini, and Joan Crawford. Wait a mommy dearest minute! Weren't the French and the British really nice to Hitler at first? “Oh, you need some more living space? Well, here's Austria! Or was it Czechoslovakia?” And then without even saying, “thank you”, Hitler starts moving his furniture into Poland. Who has time to be nice, especially when you are busy making trillions and losing weight? No, our motto is going to be How To Buy Friends & Delude People. I've got a little secret; Rhonda Byrnes's The Secret doesn't work. Now, I've never read the book, but I read several reviews on Amazon.com, and I think that that's more than enough to form my own opinion. Ms. Byrnes neglects to tell you that her secret only works if you're Australian, like she is. O.K., here's the Cliffs Notes version of her book (or at least of the Amazon reviews): if you are positive, you will create positive energy and only good things will happen to you. O.K., I'm game. So last Thursday I wake up and see that I'm out of Minute Made Diet Limeade. Minute Made makes these four diet drinks: Lemonade, Raspberryade, Orangeade, and Limeade. I only really like the Lime one. It rocks! But the last few times I have been food shopping, it has been hard to get. Have you been buying all of it? Because my life is not already difficult enough, I have to deal with the fact that there are often lots of Lemon, Raspberry, and Orange, but no Lime. But before heading off to the supermarket, I covered myself in positive energy. “Of course there will be lots of Limeade waiting for me. So much that I will not be able to carry all of it. Or, I will twist my wrist trying to do so. Twist my wrist in a good way. I'm not being negative. I love twisting my wrist.” Well guess what, in the name of Kylie Minogue, there were cartons and cartons of Limeade! Maybe this positive energy thing works? So I get back in my car with a trunk full of ade, and head back home. I made every light. Every single one. Oh, this can't be coincidence. I never make every light. Can life get any better? Yes, it can. I flip my TV on, and there is a re-run of a Fantasy Island episode that I have never seen. So I'm sipping limeade, glued to the set with a riveting performance by one the greatest actresses of all times—one María del Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza de Rasten (a.k.a. Charo) when lo and behold, I fall asleep. Does Charo marry Tattoo before leaving the island? I'll never know. Where's my limeade? Shit, I spilled it on the floor. What type of damn positive energy is this? So I jump out of my seat in a huff. Ouch, ouch, ouch. I just stubbed my toe. Negative energy is back. It's starting to fill the room. I'm having a hard time breathing. It appears that in order for this positive energy thing to work, you have to be positive all the time. How realistic is that? Let's get back to reality and how we are going to make a trillion dollars within the next year. There's plenty of time to discuss why I believe Dr. Wayne Dwyer speaketh in rubbish and Dr. Phil is a threat to the 22nd century. We have work to do. We need to make a trillion dollars by next year. Maybe we can even try to do it in ten months and take the summer off! THE 12-STEP PROGRAM I've been working on a 12-step program to becoming a trillionaire that I will just have to patent or trademark. Or is it copyright? Twelve is a very mystical number. There are twelve planets in our galaxy, if you count Earth four times, five if you don't consider Pluto to be a planet. There were twelve people (aside from Jesus) at the last supper. And there are twelve letters in the name Barry Manilow. So it's no surprise that when Alcoholics Anonymous was trying to come up with a catchy way to get people to stop drinking that they came up with a twelve step program. My 12 step program is going to be better than AAs in that they only promise you sobriety. With ours you'll make tons of money, and you don't even have to be sober. Heck, you don't even have to follow all twelve steps; you should be fine if you follow just one. And if that weren't already enough, if you buy now, I'll throw in an extra step. But please, pay careful attention or you might just only become a billionaire. I'm sitting here wracking my brains trying to come up with twelve steps. I'm stuck with four: 1. Come Up With A Good Idea 2. Write The Idea Down (in case you forget it) 3. Get someone else to do the work. 4. Sip Diet Minute Made Limeade. THE 4-STEP PROGRAM Four is a very mystical number. There are really only four planets in the galaxy that matter: Mercury, Jupiter, Earth, and Uranus. There were four people in Culture Club. And there are four letters in the name Cher. Before I forget, I am absolutely furious that Pluto was demoted and is no longer considered a planet. We live in a society where astronomers wield way too much damn power! When I was in third grade, my teacher taught us that if you just remember, “My very educated mother just served us nine pickles!” that you would remember the order of the galaxy: 1. My (Mercury) 2. Very (Venus) 3. Educated (Earth) 4. Mother (Mars) 5. Just (Jupiter) 6. Served (Saturn) 7. Us (Uranus) 8. Nine (Neptune) 9. Pickles (Pluto) Now, listen to me, you damned, self-absorbed astronomers, by taking Pluto out of the mix, what are today's kids supposed to learn? That my very educated mother just served us nine? Nine what? If you are going to take Pluto out of the mix, then you have to put something else back in, and it's going to have to start with a P. My third grade teacher also taught me how to remember what months have 31 days in it. But I'm not going to tell you that now. I'm saving it for later. You're going to have to just keep on reading (and start making some billions). In case I forget, could you just remind me? Not to be to catty, but Dr. Wayne Dwyer never tells you how to remember what months have thirty-one days in it! And he supposedly has a doctoral degree in Education. What kind of educator is he? I'm sorry, I side-tracked a bit. But it was important. When you get a chance, maybe you can write to your governor and tell him that you want Pluto back in our galaxy. Don't write to your congressman, but your governor. I believe that this is one issue that is going to be resolved on a state by state manner. Like gay marriage. Which by the way, I am totally for. As long as there is also gay divorce. And I get to keep everything. MY 12-STEP PROGRAM STEP 1: MAKE PEOPLE'S LIVES EASIER This morning, I woke up and immediately went to the bathroom. But only fifteen years ago, I would have been forced to go outside to an outhouse. Indoor plumbing has certainly made your life and mine a lot easier and made one or two inventors quite wealthy. And yet, I still have to get out of bed to go to the bathroom; there are still no toilet beds. Invent a toilet bed, matching sheets and toilet paper, and you're on your way to trillionairehood. How can you make your life or the life of others easier? I still have to put sugar, then milk into my coffee every morning. And that's not all. Then, I have to stir. Why hasn't anyone yet invented sugar milk? Or better yet, why hasn't anyone invented a sugar milk spoon that would melt in my coffee as I twirl it around? I would no longer have to spend countless seconds looking for my milk and my sugar. I'm exhausted before I take my first sip. How about a sugar-milk-coffee spoon that would just melt in your mouth. STEP 2: MAKE THE UNIVERSE A BETTER PLACE Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, more commonly known on the street as Mother Teresa, cared for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless, and even those that overused the expression, “as a matter of fact”. But she never really did much for the rich, except perhaps make them feel guilty. So she died pretty poor. On the other hand, Sir Walter Reeses boldly took two great tastes (chocolate and peanut butter) and put them into one candy bar: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Mother Teresa is up to become a saint, but Walter got knighted just like Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Elton John. Sirdom is a lot more financially rewarding than sainthood. I digress. How can you make the universe a better place, particularly for the rich? Many people focus on what the poor don't have; but what about what the rich don't have? Do they not matter? In Greenwich, Connecticut you can call your next door neighbor's mother a pedantic endomorph, but will gang violence ensue as a result? Probably not. So some brilliant entrepreneur invented Playstation 3 which brings all the fun of livin' in da hood to your own home movie theater. And thanks to ingenuous businessmen like Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, bad boys throughout Connecticut can listen to hip hop music, dress like gangsta bitches, and play with their X-boxes. Isn't the world a great place? Fear not, there's still room for improvement. The rich still get herniated discs, indigestion, and have to spend time on the weekends with their whiny kids. Has anyone come up with a golf bag that is easier to carry from your garage to your car and can play with your kids while your sipping a martini? Maybe one that can get out of your trunk and into your garage with a simple verbal command. Go out and make the world a better place. For the rich. STEP 3: SOLVE PROBLEMS THAT DON'T REALLY EXIST There are two types of problems: those that exist and those that don't exist. Solving actual problems (or the ones that actually exist) is difficult, time consuming, depressing, and never financially rewarding. Focus on problems that don't exist. Some people have a difficult time telling the two apart. So let me help. The North Koreans have nuclear weapons but don't have any food. So they tend to wake up cranky. It's just a matter of time before they sell a nuclear bomb to a group of terrorists that own an all you can eat buffet. This is a real problem. The fact that we are all going to die, probably as the winner of the next season of American Idol is just about to be announced is not only depressing, but who the hell knows how to solve this problem. Not me. The Canadians do not have nuclear weapons. But they come into our country, dress like us, eat like us, and take our most coveted jobs. People bitch and whine about the Mexicans. But Alex Trebek, who has 100% full control of what you see on Jeopardy, the categories chosen for both Jeopardy and Double Jeopardy, is not Mexican; he's Canadian. The late Peter Jennings who used to always tilt world news to a Canadian perspective would dip his Doritos in maple syrup, not guacamole. Will & Grace. Grace- Jewish and originally from New York. But Will- Canadian. Not right. But there's a solution. Why doesn't someone come up with a line of T- shirts that say, “I'm not Canadian!” Of course, you would have to show your birth certificate in order to get one of the T-shirts. They'd come in all different colors. There are about six billion people floating around that are NOT Canadian. So the market is pretty big. So how can you come up with some problems that don't really exist? If the truth be known, as it seldom should, my ability to solve problems that don't exist is just a natural talent that I was born with, along with my ability to worry about ailments that I don't yet have. This is not something I learned. So how the hell can I explain to you how to come up with your own non-existent problems? Shit, this is a real problem! STEP 4: IT'S NECESSARY—YOU JUST DON'T REALIZE IT YET! Do you remember back in the 90s when NBC used to call their Thursday night line-up, “Must see TV.”? A couple of years before Friends was going off the air, I wrote to the president of NBC and told him to change it to “Please watch TV.” We're not promising anything, we're asking you a favor. Didn't listen to me, and they lost trillions of dollars in advertising. Although not everyone can come up with solutions to problems that don't really exist, we all should be able to determine when something is necessary even when we don't realize it yet. The key to this is to not live your life in the present. Live in the future. Perhaps this is also the way to solve problems that don't really exist. My daughters are all under five. But I often worry what if they marry men that I don't like? Everyone has children so as to have someone to complain to when you get old. “How come you never come visit me or how come you only come to visit me once a day or how come nobody has massaged my feet today? But what if your future son-in-laws don't know how to massage feet? I've written up a contract that all my daughters have signed that gives me veto power. I'd be happy to send you a copy to have your kids sign. Just send me a check for $586 and a self addressed stamped envelope. Don't live for the day, live for tomorrow. Everyone is so focused on what baby boomers are going to want when they are retired and no longer working. But what are they going to want when they are dead and no longer period? Am I the only one who has come up with the idea of psychedelic tombstones or being able to be cremated at your death and to be recycled into an incense candle? STEP 5: DEFENDING THE HOMELAND Who was the greatest businessman of the 20th century? That's right, you guessed it, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR coined the very clever phrase, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” Fear sells. Depressions, communist invasions, Nazi's taking over Europe. He made people so worried that they didn't know what to buy first. Sadly, communism is dead, and the Nazis have been relegated to just running our public schools. But there are lots of other things to be afraid of. You're 85 years old and afraid that you will not be able to perform with your 22 year old girlfriend? Fortunately, there's now Viagra that assures an erect penis. But what happens if your 110 year old mother suddenly rings the bell and wants you and your 22 year old girlfriend to take her food shopping? Can't shop with an erection! Someone needs to come up with an Unviagra. Afraid that global warming will ruin your daughter's bat mitzvah? Start selling global warming insurance. But be careful, fears are very trendy and easily fall out of favor. Although after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing everyone was afraid of our home grown terrorists, they quickly fell out of favor for the foreign ones who often have names we can not pronounce, making them automatically more scary. STEP 6: HELP THE RICH My partner Michel regularly goes on business trips where he stays in five star hotels. Last week he suggested that I come down for a night or two with our oldest daughter. Since I'm too cheap to ever spend my own money on a luxury hotel, I thought it would be nice and cost nothing to show my four year old how the rich live. We took a taxi from the train station to the hotel where we were greeted by a hotel employee who opened the taxi door for us. Since I was not going to be paying for the hotel, I thought what the hell, and gave him a 25¢ tip. Then there was another employee who opened the hotel door for us. Another quarter. A maid came to our room to offer to shine my sneakers. As soon as she left, someone else was there offering a big chocolate chip cookie to my daughter. Within the first fifteen minutes of being at the hotel, my free night at the hotel had already cost me $5. I didn't care that it was only 3 in the afternoon, I told my daughter to get in her pajamas, we were going to sleep for the night while I still had some cash left in my wallet. It's costs a lot of money to be rich. So while the poor don't really need all that much money, the rich do. So any way you can help them, I believe that you shall be rewarded. When you are a trillionaire, remember those billionaires who are less fortunate than you are and try to help. There are lots of young, rich people out there that don't really need your love but could really use some of your money. STEP 7: TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE NEEDY The advantage of helping the rich is that you can charge huge mark-ups like 19,000%. But it is difficult to find people who can afford to spend $38,000 for something that costs you $2 to produce. You can't charge the needy as much, but look around you, there are so many of them. They're everywhere. For example, the other day I stopped by my parents house while they had some friends over. As I arrived they were talking about Barry Manilow, how gorgeous he is, and how at sixty-three years old, he still sings like a twenty year old. O.K., they were delusional, but they were not hurting anybody. And then for some unknown reason, they started talking about hip hop, 25 cents, Dr. Drech, Iced Coffee, and Tupac Schomberg. They were like deer caught in the glare of some car's headlights. Someone was going to get him. I left before anyone got hurt. But on my way home I thought about how wonderful (and profitable) it would be to create a book on Explaining Hip Hop to Jewish Senior Citizens. You could then follow up with a book on Explaining Square Dancing to Jewish Senior Citizens or Explaining Hard Liquor to Jewish Senior Citizens. STEP 8: YOUR HEALTH Whenever I give out advice to people, I like to preface it with the fact that although I am not “an official psychologist”, I did take a course in psychology in high school, and I got an “A” in the class. Self actualization is a key term and concept that is studied by us psychologists. Since you probably did not take high school psychology, I'll try to keep this simple. Self actualization is the full realization of one's potential. So, if you are fat, ugly, and stupid, self actualization basically means that you accept yourself for who you are and will work very hard to reach your very limited self potential. Fortunately, most people are totally unaware of self actualization, and few strive to become it. This is good as there is no money to be made in a self actualized crowd. Letting people believe that they can be smarter, better looking with little to no effort, now that's where the money is. Your nose is too big; your penis is too small. But here's a pill that you can take that will change all that. And although none of this really works, isn't it wonderful that you are helping people to reach their better potential! STEP 9: FOR THE KIDS My partner Michel is French, and so it's very difficult to buy anything for him. He's so fussy. If I buy him a sweater, he wants it be in his size, not mine. If I buy him music, he wants it to be music he likes. But he likes opera. My kids, like all kids, love everything. You can take two sticks and put it in a box, and as long as you tell kids that they are magical sticks, they will love them. Hey, that's not a bad idea for a business! So while I would suggest shying away from selling anything to the French, kids are a great market. Forgot to make dinner? Put out a bag of Doritos. Kids will eat it. The French won't. And although most people hate spending money on their French, they love spending money on their kids. STEP 10: STOP THE MADNESS! From Baghdad to Brussels there are millions of people dying every day in religious strife and none of my tupperware tops go with the containers. It's crazy! But I am forced to buy a wide range of shapes and sizes as I never know what leftovers I'll have. The world we live in is insane, and there's lots of money to be made as a result. How can you stop all this madness? There's really nothing to do about all the people dying in religious strife, but I think we can improve tupperware. Could it be made of a more malleable plastic? Should Tupperware come in neon colors? STEP 11: LEARNING I've always had a hunger to learn. When I was eight, I memorized the names of all one hundred and seventy exits of the New Jersey Garden State Parkway. And it payed off well. About a month after learning this I was down in Florida visiting my grandmother when two of her friends (a husband and wife) were arguing whether the entrance for the New Jersey Turnpike is Exit 129 or 139 off of the Garden State Parkway. The husband was right (129), and paid me a dollar for my knowledge. I later found out that the wife would have paid me five to have lied. But it didn't matter. I realized that my knowledge could be profitable and quickly became a consultant to anyone needing to know anything about the right exit to get off on The Parkway. At the same time that I was learning all the exits on The Parkway, my sister memorized the exits of the Turnpike. But there were only sixteen of them, and she was never really able to capitalize on her knowledge. So make sure to learn something valuable. If you go to a cocktail party, someone may ask you who was the 8th president of the United States (Martin Van Buren), but nobody ever asks who the 8th vice president of the United States, who by the way was also Martin Van Buren. I kid you not. There are no exits on the Garden State Parkway that make any reference to Martin Van Buren. I kid you not. STEP 12: ENTERTAINING THE MASSES According to Forbes, Jessica Simpson made more than 14 million dollars in 2005. That figure could have been double or even three times that amount if she actually had any talent. Tom Cruise made $67 million in the same year. His twin brother Rush Limbaugh made $30 million. If Tom Cruise can maintain his star status for the next one hundred years, he will have made over 6.7 billion dollars. It's not a trillion, but if he invests in the right infomericials, he can get pretty close. Entertain the masses, and don't worry if you have any talent. It's not stopping anyone else. STEP 13: HARNESSING YOUR RAW TALENT As a matter of fact we all have some talent. Remember my kindergarten friend David Lerner who couldn't memorize the alphabet. He was born with the G-d given talent of being able to stick two straws up his nose, and then drink his chocolate milk through his nose. He would then gargle his milk to prove that it was going down his throat. We would all pay handsomely to see him do this, and I'm sure wherever he is today, whatever he's drinking, I'm sure he's doing it through his nose and being well compensated for it. Five Theories to Acquiring Massive Wealth I'm about to spill the beans and give you the five secrets to gaining massive wealth. I discovered these five secrets while getting my joint doctoral degrees in Yiddish Country Music and the History of Medieval New Jersey. This just proves my theory that higher education matters! Well, actually that's not true. It really doesn't. I discovered these five secrets while watching TV while I was in Graduate School. This just proves my theory that television matters. THE LAVERNE & SHIRLEY THEORY As every well educated person knows, every Laverne & Shirley episode begins with, and I quote, “Schlemiel, schlimazel, hasenpfeffer incorporated!" I will not insult your intelligence by telling you what this means. After all, it's common Yiddish that you surely already learned in Yiddish 101. It's just another example of the dichotimization of the world. I believe the French refer to this as the ying and the yang. There are two types of people in this world, the yings and the yangs, the haves and the have nots, the New Jerseyans, and foreigners, those that say tomato and those that say tomato. For our financial purposes the world is divided into those with great ideas (that would be me) and those that implement the great ideas. Nobody is both. Shirley was the brains. She always came up with the ideas. But she would have spent her life in her basement apartment with her ideas if it were not for Laverne, the implementer. It's not enough to have good ideas. You need to implement them. That's where I'm a little weak. So are you an ideas person (a schlemiel) or are you the implementer (schlimazel)? Another way to look at it: are you dumb or are you lazy? Both? Then who the hell needs you? Bill Gates, he's an ideas man (or rather an idea man). He came up with the idea for Windows. Didn't have a clue as to what to do with it. Should he apply it to tee-pee building, abstract expressionist theater? Wasn't sure! That's where Paul Allen came in (not to be confused with Peter Allen who was married to Liza Minelli and was more of an ideas man). “Let's take this Windows thing, Bill and apply it to computers”. Thus, I imagine one of the initial conversations between Bill and Paul. Bill had the idea, Paul ran with it. You need to determine if you are an ideas person or an implementer. Then go find your ying or your yang. And make some beautiful abstract expressionist theater together. Neither an ideas person or an implementer? Well then you better find both. And learn how to make really good cookies or waffles. Otherwise, you may be dumped. THE GILLIGAN'S ISLAND THEORY In every episode, the Professor is scheming how to get off the island. By the way, he was a professor of what? Near Eastern Judaic Studies, I believe. What's the rush? Gilligan knew that once they were rescued that that would be the end of the show. No rush. Timing is everything. Just like you can't hurry love (no you just have to wait), you can't lose 20 lbs. in one week. Well you can, but since one pound equals 3,500 calories, you need to cut your weekly caloric intake by 70,000 calories or 10,000 calories a day, leaving little room for noshing. Does it not make more sense to give yourself two weeks and only cut daily intake by 5,000 calories? 10 years and cut daily caloric intake by 19 calories? You can't become a trillionaire overnight! My friend Howie says you can if you play every Lotto in every state and in every country and win. Then go to Vegas and put all your winnings into the slot machines and win. But even this would probably take at least 48 hours to do. Be realistic. Give yourself a year to become a trillionaire. That's what I'm doing. And remember, I'm an ideas man. THE DYNASTY THEORY Now this next secret is pretty controversial, and I'm sure lots of people are going to argue with me on this one: you need money to make money! Let's just stick with the facts. Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan had lots of money. And she used that money to make more money, buy islands, destroy friends and family, etc. J.J. Walker of Good Times fame had no money. And with his no money, he was able to make no money. So I must emphatically emphasize that if you want to make money, you will need to have money. Alexis lived in Denver while J.J. lived in the Chicago projects. So if you have some mobility and are currently living in the Chicago projects, may I recommend you move to Denver. If you don't have money, you may want to hang around with people who do have money and constantly ask them if you could borrow a quarter. THE WHO'S THE BOSS? THEORY Think outside of the box. Easy to say, but more difficult to do. Unless you are geniuses like Martin Cohan and Blake Hunter. Alice (The Brady Bunch), Florida Evans (Maude), Rosie the Robot (The Jetsons), Florence Johnston (The Jeffersons) are all great Americans who have helped to make this great country what it is today, all were housekeepers, and all were women. Only some radical, genius thinkers could ever come up with the idea of a man as a housekeeper, someone not afraid to think outside of the box. Cohan and Hunter came up with the idea one afternoon while cleaning their kitchens as their wives were out playing a round of golf. Shortly after coming up with this idea, they both gave me a call to ask me my opinion. I suggested that this male housekeeper should work for a single dad who was a construction worker. I thought that most of the series should be filmed in their house in Tahiti with them both always seen just wearing a speedo. But Cohan and Hunter decided that they wanted to really go way outside of the box. This male housekeeper was going to work for a woman—an executive no less. Think outside of the box. And wear a speedo while doing that. THE OH MIGHTY ISIS THEORY I can not emphasize enough how important it is to use your magical powers whenever possible to help you to gain massive wealth (make sure that no bud-in-sky neighbors are watching (yeh, I'm taking about you Gladys Kravitz)). Whether you choose to do this by twitching your nose, tranforming yourself into some water form along with your wonder twin, or to become the oh mighty Isis with the gentle assistance of zephyr winds. I can not tell you how many times I have gotten myself out of awkward situations and made a nice profit in the process by simply transforming myself into a water fountain.

Authors appreciate feedback!
Please write to the authors to tell them what you liked or didn't like about the story!

Dr. Murray Trillionaire has 1 active stories on this site.
Profile for Dr. Murray Trillionaire, incl. all stories
Email: murray@murraytrillionaire.com

How To Become A Trillionaire (and lose 20 lbs) (standard:humor, 11306 words)
Author: Dr. Murray Trillionaire	Added: Sep 06 2007	Views/Reads: 3398/2912	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Dr. Murray Trillionaire will help you to become a trillionaire and to lose weight at the same time.