The Accidental Millionaire. How to Succeed in Life Without Really Trying

237 Pages·2009·1.6 MB·English

by  Gary Fong

Table of Contents

Praise
Title Page
the plan

chapter one
My Mom, the Guinea Pig
What’s Behind the Mysterious Window?
Hairspray
Declaration of Independence
Zen and Karate
Manny’s Mudsuckers
A Night Under the Stairs
Swap Meets and Filet Mignon
From $75 a Month to $75 an Hour
Nothing Changes
Surviving in Compton
Premeditated
How Not to Run a Business

chapter two
I Start a Career in Pictures
Cracking Down
UCLA Can Be Deadly
One-Hour Photo Snapshot #1: Thumbs Down
One-Hour Photo Snapshot #2: Barbra Streisand Didn’t Get It
One-Hour Photo Snapshot #3: Oxy/Moron
One-Hour Photo Snapshot #4: Chill, Dude
Santa Barbara Bound
Two Jeffs
One-Hour Photo Snapshot #5: Firing Myself
End-of-the-Year Photo Night
Life Magazine Changes My Life
Rocky Gunn
Not in Kansas Anymore

chapter three
A Rocky Start
Hooked
Rocky Horror Picture Show, Snapshot #1
Rocky Horror Picture Show, Snapshot #2
Rocky Horror Picture Show, Snapshot #3
The Coin Toss of Destiny
I Take the Plunge
Getting College Out of the Way
Once Upon a Time (The Storybook Opens)
Charlie’s Angels
My Son, the Wedding Photographer
Rocky Dies
On Parole
My First Wedding Photography Assignment: Earn More Than a Doctor
Bill and Julie, My First Wedding
The Pay-Off

chapter four
Seeking Closure
The Nightgown
The Original Bridezilla
Great Expectations

chapter five
Storybook Takes Off
Flying Solo
My First Presentation
Fly With Me Instead
Flying Tethered
Stuck With Each Other
The Wrong Fong
Never to Be Forgiven
chapter six
The Nights Under the Desk
A Real Studio
The Money Machine
My First Mercedes
HE HAS A GUN!
Targeted at Target
Antoine
The Stranger in My Bed
The Stranger in My Bed, Part II
Giving Up Hope

chapter seven
The Intruder in the Spider Outfit
What Inspired Me to Become an Inventor
So I Invented Montage
I Become a Software Guy
Pitching Montage
Montage Wraps
My Lecture Career Resuscitated
The Virtual Masquerade Party
Alex Really Is a Girl
A Real Conversation
Cohabitation
Mom Dies
The Stranger at the Altar

chapter eight
Two Wedding Photographers in a Federal Jury Trial
Caught Red-Handed
The Jury Is Staring
Busted
A $240,000 Paperweight?
Pictage
The World Explodes
The 9/11 Town Hall Tours
Burned Out
chapter nine
Remembering and Forgetting
The Art of Retirement
Why Canon Dumped Me
Digital Intensive
Destiny Seems Familiar

chapter ten
Pre-Visualization
The Lake House
Border Blues
How I Accidentally Created a Multimillion-Dollar Plastics Enterprise
The Rotation
Something About New York City
Big White Ski Resort Village
Abandoning Ship

chapter eleven
Never Say Never
My Last Lap Around the Globe
An Unexpectedly Wonderful Life
My Approach
The Law of Repulsion

about the author
Acknowledgements
Copyright Page
praise for the accidental millionaire
“Gary’s book is a true source of inspiration, while also very engaging and entertaining. Through his
journey of life, he demonstrates that opportunities are everywhere—you just have to seize them. He
also is living proof that success is not just about numbers but more the fun and excitement of every
day. When you are done reading you will be ready for the sequel!”
—JEN GROOVER, author of What If? and Why Not?, creator of Launchers Café

“Gary Fong is a world-renowned photographer, inventor, and entrepreneur who has made multiple
fortunes and lived a life far more colorful than any of his photos. From his inauspicious beginnings in
a tiny, hairspray-saturated apartment that doubled as his parents’ wig studio, he went on to become, at
a very young age, one of the world’s most successful wedding photographers. After making millions
in an industry traditionally reserved for small businessmen, he practically stumbled upon serial
successes in the photo printing, software, real estate, and camera accessory industries by making
intuitive decisions based on his own quirky impulses.
Gary Fong is not a traditional businessman and his story is not a traditional rags-to-riches tale.
Known to make important life choices on the flip of a coin, he has followed the whims of fate and
instinct to create a life of astounding prosperity and adventure.
Sometimes hilarious, sometimes touching, The Accidental Millionaire is a series of ‘snapshots’ from
key periods of Gary’s life. When strung together, they form a rich mosaic of a life fully lived and an
adventure that is still unfolding.”
—ANDY WOLFENDON, story editor for Chicken Soup for the Soul

the plan
My life has not gone according to “The Plan.”
The Plan was for me to go to medical school and eventually pull down a
respectable salary of about $150,000 a year.
Had I gone with The Plan, by this point in my life (I’m in my mid-forties) I
probably would have just finished paying off my student loans and would be
eyeing that thirty-two-foot Catalina sailboat with the FORSALEsign that I
passed every night on my way home from the clinic. I’d be settled into a
comfortable home in the ’burbs, with my wife of twenty years and my 2.3 kids,
driving a Lexus sedan. And living the life of my dreams.
Well, my parents’ dreams.
Which I tried, for a time, to convince myself were my dreams too.
Following The Plan made me cry a lot. Eventually I found myself with a
literal gun to my own head. That’s when I ran from The Plan and began an
adventure into uncharted territory.
Uncharted territory goes completely against the grain of my upbringing.
My parents were first-generation Asian immigrants. Their lives’ territory was
very well charted. And they’d charted mine too. My destiny was determined
before I was born, and I had absolutely no say in it. My parents didn’t know (or
particularly care) if I was going to be gay or blind or a violent psychopath. All
they knew was that I was going to be a doctor. Secondarily to that, of course, I
would be married at a young age to a nice Chinese girl whom my mother
endorsed, and I would deliver my mother numerous grandchildren for her to
spoil. ASAP.
While I was growing up, my family suffered through sobering bouts of
poverty. My parents sacrificed everything to ensure that I could get a good
education. All they wanted was for me to not have to face the same financial
struggles that they had. As a side benefit, they also weren’t going to mind the
privilege of saying, “My son, the doctor.”
I didn’t want to live in poverty either, so I gave The Plan a go for many years.
I even got a degree in pharmacology in my attempt to become a physician.
I failed.
And what did I do instead? I became a wedding photographer.
You can imagine the songs of joy this caused to leap from my parents’ hearts.
And yet, spring-boarding from that career, which began with moving back
into my parents’ apartment and shooting weddings for $150 each, I became a
multi-millionaire within a fairly short period of time. And it happened due to one
improbable accident after another.
I use the word accident because I never set out to be rich. I am really not all
that gung-ho ambitious, as you’ll discern from the pages of this book. I guess
ambition is a relative thing. I certainly don’t fit the mold of the inspirational
characters I’ve read about. And this book does not contain conventional wisdom
about getting rich. Becoming wealthy was never the dream for me. The dream
was simply to get as far away as possible from the brutal struggles my parents
had gone through.
It wasn’t their modest lifestyle that troubled me. I could have lived with that.
It wasn’t the lack of money either. What got to me was the constant panic on my
parents’ faces as they sweated out how they were going to survive another day,
another week, another month. To me, that look was hell itself. I still have
nightmares about it. It’s probably something I’ll take to my grave.
I credit two very small events in my life, separated by many years, with
changing my life. The first occurred when I was ten years old. I wrote in my
journal, with oddly grown-up clarity, that I was going to become my own parent.
I was no longer going to derive my sense of safety and well-being from Mom
and Dad. I simply realized that they would never be able to provide it. This
journal entry became a mandate for me to take complete responsibility for my
life’s direction.
The second event occurred when, as a grown man, I glanced at a bumper
sticker on a car. Yes, a bumper sticker.
I was stuck in heavy L.A. traffic, feeling utterly frustrated with the fact that
my life was not going according to The Plan, mired in the depths of apathy and
frustration, when I saw nine little words on the rear window of a Subaru wagon.
Instantly—and I do mean instantly—my perspective changed.