A Quote by Michael Heisley

I made my money turning around distressed or bankrupt companies. I did 50-some of them in my career... I started on a shoestring and eventually built up quite a fortune.
My career was about to change radically, in turning 50 I had hit the age where my Dad made a big career and his life started to unravel.
Jimmy Iovine, he pretty much started off as an engineer and a producer, and then he started up a label. Then he built his label to have big artists like Dr. Dre and 50 Cent. Then he started up a headphone company and made it a billion dollar business. He's a genius to me.
No one starts playing my kind of music to make a fortune. But I do want to keep doing what I do and I do want to continue selling records. And I would, eventually, quite like some money.
After the first Olive Farm book was published, in 2001 I got a three-book deal with Orion for a large sum of money. Obviously it did not come all at once, but it made the difference to living here on a shoestring to being able to turn the whole place around.
I didn't have accessories when I started my career. Did you see me wearing bling-bling when I did 'Hola at Your Boi?' No! I hustled to get money to buy them, and there is no crime if I show it or flaunt it to my fans because they gave me money to buy them.
I started writing sketches with Dennis Kelly, who I ended up writing 'Pulling' with. We entered a BBC competition and did quite well, then started writing bits for other people's shows. You wheedle your way in, write pilots and eventually you end up writing a sitcom.
If you look at companies like Twitter, Google, all these companies started with ideas and then everybody used it. In my world, people don't think like that. Rappers chase the next check. They become a slave to labels and eventually that money starts shrinking.
I started my modelling career by sending my pictures to American Apparel and eventually meeting my friend Petra Collins, who started shooting me for magazines around New York. I ended up signing a modelling contract with Wilhelmina Models a couple of years later.
I’m the least fanciful guy around, but on nights when I wonder whether there was any point to my day, I think about this: the first thing we ever did, when we started turning into humans, was draw a line across the cave door and say: Wild stays out. What I do is what the first men did. They built walls to keep back the sea. They fought the wolves for the hearth fire.
I did some theatre. I had some smaller roles in a couple TV shows and films. I used to think I did a lot of acting, but my 'career' started when I started Homeland.
I did some theatre. I had some smaller roles in a couple TV shows and films. I used to think I did a lot of acting, but my 'career' started when I started 'Homeland'.
I gladly, I voluntarily gave up the kind of commercial film career I had going as soon as I had enough money to finance my own films. I didn't make that money necessarily from the film business, but I eventually made a lot of money and that's what I do. Of course, I consider myself unbelievably fortunate, and I'm pretty content with my life.
That first company I started made a lot of money for the venture capitalists - nearly $30 million - but next to nothing for the founders. The companies I started after that varied between failures and mediocre successes. But at no point did I ever consider getting a 'real job.' That felt like a black and white world, and I wanted Technicolor.
I started taekwondo at 5 or 6 years old and did a bunch of kick-boxing later, too. Eventually I became a black belt and coached as well. I did some basketball and softball growing up, but most of my activity was martial arts.
I didn't end up going bankrupt... I made some great investments and I held on to my money, which also enables me to have the freedom to do what I want now. But it's not about finances. No matter what, it's about keeping it real.
I started off with making personal donations and eventually set up my own foundation, VTCY Foundation, now known as Better Malaysia Foundation. My contributions are also made through companies that I own.
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