The Billionaire Career: From employee to successful entrepreneur: a tale of destiny

By Daniel Strauss

The Billionaire Career is an allegory of risk, playing to your strengths and discovering yourself to become successful in business. It tells the story of Dan, a man who wants more from his job and his life. He yearns to start his own business, and for the freedom and control that being his own boss would give him but he is faced with numerous challenges – for one thing, how to start a business with next to no money. But everything changes one day when he’s faced with a choice at work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tafelberg
• Release date: Apr 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9780624092773

Daniel Strauss

Daniel is 'n Suid-Afrikaanse entrepreneur en waagkapitalis. Hy is die Strauss in die beleggingsonderneming Stocks & Strauss. Hy het 'n B.Ing. (Bedryfsingenieurswese) en MBA aan die Universiteit van Stellenbosch verwerf. Hy en sy vrou, Rolene, het twee kinders en woon in die Kaapse wynlande. Dink soos 'n miljardêr is Daniel se eerste boek.  

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Tafelberg

To my parents,

whose love and support gave me the wings to reach my full potential.

Thank you for being the best example that any child

could ask for. I love you.

Chapter 1

THE MOUNTAIN

This was not a place he’d ever expected to find himself, Dan thought as he stopped for a break and looked around. He had been walking since 5 a.m., traversing the steep path along with eight other hikers along a mountain ridge.

It had just gone 9 a.m. and the sun was already high. But instead of a balmy breeze to match a crystal-clear blue sky, icy wind and rain lashed his exposed flesh. Four hours of technical walking with no break, and finally they were going to settle down for breakfast.

His backpack hit the ground with a thud, and he groaned with relief as the heavy weight fell off him. The thin air at altitude was already making his breath come short and shallow, and he was feeling the blood pound through his lungs and tasting its metallic taste. He hadn’t felt this level of exertion since his first rugby match at fourteen – and that was over twenty years ago.

‘I am out of shape,’ he admitted, turning towards the climber who dumped his heavy pack right next to his. Galius turned and looked up at him with a grin, nodding a bit too enthusiastically.

‘Too many hours behind that desk of yours,’ he said, pulling out his water bottle and taking a long drink from it. ‘I told you it would kill you.’

Dan hadn’t thought Galius was being literal when he’d said that, but it was feeling all too real now as he surveyed the long footpath ahead of them and heard his ragged breath.

They were four days into the gruelling ten-day trail that traversed the formidable Hex River Mountains on the Rim of Africa trail. It was a Monday; he’d usually be at his desk with his second, if not third, cup of coffee. Instead, he was looking out at a vast amphitheatre of rock. They were walking towards the highest point of the walk now, almost 2 000 metres above the valley floor and the highest point along the entire Rim.

Of course, Dan had known none of that a month ago when he’d signed up for this trip. He’d made a strange choice that day. After five years of hard work and a gruelling eighteen-month project, he had been offered a special bonus. His boss had presented it to him with great fanfare and in front of the entire office staff. It was a reward for his hard work and for getting the company into a stronger financial position. Dan had stood up, smiling at the audience, shaking his boss’s hand and doing a fist pump, but he knew it was a guilt gift. They’d hit their strong quarterly figures only after the directors had forced Dan to take the lead in the process of retrenching 30 staff over the past year, so his smile was thin and superficial.

‘We’re offering you a choice,’ the CFO had said, playing to the room. ‘A big cheque – or a hike along one of the toughest mountain passes in the country. But we’re not going to tell you how much the cheque is for, so you won’t know which one has the greater value.’

Dan could see one of the marketing guys at the back of the office holding a massive poster of a cheque with a ribbon around it.

‘But someone has a very nice car to pay off.’

They’d all laughed.

Every part of him had thought this was a no-brainer. He would take the money, of course. But then something unexpected happened. He’d glanced at the brochure his boss was waving in front of him, seen the photo of a rugged, unyielding, empty mountain, and before he’d known what he was doing he’d reached out and grabbed the brochure.

‘I’ll take the trip,’ he’d said.

The room went silent, and a lone voice whooped from the back.

His boss’s stunned face possibly mirrored his own. ‘Dan, you must be joking?’ he’d asked.

‘No.’ Dan shook his head as he turned and walked back to his office, slipping the brochure into his pocket. ‘I am not.’

Those gathered had laughed awkwardly, then turned to the muffins.

In fact, just thinking about that moment brought a strange tingling to his body and an unexpected grin to his face. He turned back to Galius, who was squinting through the morning air as he wiped the beads of sweat off his face.

They grinned at each other as they started to make some sweet tea.

He’d met Galius only four days before, when the two of them had arrived at base camp. They’d hit if off instantly. It all started when Dan ducked under the catering tent set up on the open plain, and Galius walked straight up to him and slapped him on the back.

‘What are you doing here, brother? You look more like a desk jockey.’ He delivered this with an easy smile on his face, then pulled Dan into a strong hug. The comment stung, with its barb of truth, but Dan was more taken aback by the hug.

‘Beneath all this is solid muscle,’ Dan joked, patting his belly as an excuse to pull away from the embrace as he eyed the man. Galius was older, though lean and wiry, with a messy mass of blond hair that looked as if it had been bleached by a lifetime of sun. He seemed to have his own gravitational pull and his eyes shone with something Dan no longer recognised. It took him a while to identify it: a spirit of freedom.

He felt dim by comparison.

‘Danie,’ he said, putting his hand out with the practised move of countless boardroom meetings. ‘Call me Dan. And you’re right. I have been behind a desk for too long. Would you believe I used to be an athlete in my day? I battle to believe it myself, to be honest. Although I could probably smash you in a game of tennis.’

‘I bet you could,’ Galius laughed easily. ‘I may take you up on that challenge.’

As Dan put his hand out, he noticed how it immediately created a more comfortable distance. He was not a hugger, or at least he was out of practice. His sister had been the one who’d hugged him the most, but that had been a long time ago.

He shoved that thought out of his mind.

‘In your day?’ Galius smiled. ‘How old are you?’

‘Just turned 35 last month.’

‘No excuses. I’m a good decade and a half older than you.’ There was an easy pause. ‘What did you get for your birthday?’

Dan frowned at the strange question, still playing with the idea that this fit man was almost 50. He ran his fingers through his own short, dark hair. He always kept it trimmed; his management position demanded suits most days, and a clean-cut haircut was important to him.

He’d got very little for his birthday, in fact, and had barely noticed until now. The annual call from his parents, a load of Facebook and Instagram messages, and a persistent ex had sent him a bunch of flowers at the office. At least the office had shown up – they’d organised drinks after work at a new bar not far from the office. That had been worth it, as it had been a chance for Dan to pull up right outside in his ‘gift to self’ – a brand-new black Mercedes C-Class. He smiled just thinking about it. It was a dream come true.

The two of them grabbed a plate of food and sat outside in the setting sun. They spent the rest of the evening discussing cars, and the C-Class’s handling.

Over the next few days Dan and Galius spent a lot of time together, talking as they walked. The crowd of eight hikers was a mixed one, with two German climbers, one Italian and a group of three friends from Pretoria. The guide was a slight woman, who took off ahead of them each day and kept mostly to herself.

‘You look like an accountant. Born and bred,’ Galius said as they set off on the first day. It seemed he was going to challenge Dan the entire walk, but the conversation was refreshingly honest.

‘I am an accountant. But not born and bred. I grew up just outside Kimberley and my dad worked for the mines. He was a shift boss, and we lived away from the city in the staff housing. This soft, good-looking face has been cultivated through years of desk work,’ Dan said wryly.

‘So, no silver spoon?’

‘Not at all. As a boy we had very little, but at school everyone was the same, and I thought my life was just perfect. But when I was in high school my mom got a teaching job and I became a boarder at a city school. There, I saw that some people had a lot more money than us. It was the first time I’d really seen that.’

He tightened the hip belt of his backpack as he walked, easing some of its unfamiliar weight from his already niggly shoulders. ‘It started then, I suppose. I was determined to make something of my life and knew that, for me, this would involve money.’

‘No siblings?’ Galius asked, his lithe body showing no signs of discomfort. ‘Me, I have Layla, my laatlammetjie sister. She would love it here. She’s always off somewhere on a new adventure. I couldn’t imagine life without her.’

Dan shook his head. ‘No, it’s just me,’ he said, then sidestepped the lie. ‘I knew I had to study to get ahead but there was no way my dad could afford that. I didn’t get a bursary, so I started working as soon as I finished school. I could not wait to get out of that town for good and into the city. After a while I got a fairly solid job as a floor manager in a factory producing fast-moving consumables, then studied part-time at UNISA. It was hard graft, but nothing was going to stop me. I did my articles and have been working my way up over the last decade. I’ve been my current financial manager desk-jockey self for the past five years.’ He paused, then opened his arms wide. ‘And this trip was my special bonus.’

Galius whooped. It echoed down the valley, and those ahead of them turned back and smiled as they started walking again and Dan quickly lowered his arms.

‘What’s the company?’

‘A sports-drink brand. Well, it started off as a sports drink, but it’s moved into a series of sugar-based products. Now there are twelve product ranges for sports and endurance, with a hefty hit of the sweet stuff.’

Galius nodded. ‘I try not to touch that stuff.’

Dan shook his head. ‘Actually, I’ve tried to introduce a reduced-sugar range, which feels on trend and far healthier. But it was bombed. They told me to stay in my lane.’

‘So now you’re a successful corporate guy. You’ve bought yourself a great apartment, I bet, and I imagine you’re still paying off that sweet car.’

‘Paying in blood,’ Dan said, glancing down at the hiking boots he’d barely worn in.

‘You could have paid it off sooner … had you taken the cheque.’

‘That’s exactly what my bank account was saying. Take the bonus! But the strangest feeling came over me. I saw that mountain in the picture and all I heard was my whole body shouting yes!’

‘Are you sure it wasn’t shouting for the money?’

‘Absolutely.’ Dan turned to Galius as they walked. ‘Weird, right? Something I’ve been chasing all my life. I was shocked. Frankly, everyone was shocked. My friend Barnabas even told our boss I wasn’t thinking straight.’

Galius laughed. Again, his unencumbered voice rolled back at them from across the valley.

‘Respect, brother. In my circle of climbers, and out here on the mountain, we call that the power of higher listening. It’s when our higher consciousness takes control of the voices in our head and we can hear things that we seldom hear in everyday life. Sounds like you heard it then. So many moments in life are insignificant, and then a seemingly small thing suddenly becomes significant. It can happen at the most unexpected time – like when a big cheque with a red ribbon is dangled in front of you.’

Out of nowhere, Dan felt a lump in his throat. He wasn’t expecting to feel emotional about something so small, but Galius had touched the heart of it. His higher consciousness had clearly taken control of his thoughts that day. He swallowed and cleared this throat.

‘It felt like a crossroads. The one road took me further and further down a path I already knew. The other took me into the unknown. I’m still not sure I made the right choice.’

Galius grinned. ‘You’re in the right place, and you made the right choice – even though the next few months may not always feel like it. Mountains are a beautiful, wild refuge, where the journey of our life takes on new meaning. That’s why I go into them so often. And you are here, also, because we only live once and experiences count.’

Later that day, the conversation tailed off as the climb got harder and more technical. That night they all ate in silence before falling into a dead sleep in their tents, gone from the world in a vast amphitheatre.

The next day the guide walked with them, and Galius spent a lot of time asking her about the vegetation around the mountain. He was deeply interested, and Dan noticed how he talked a lot less than he listened. Dan was finding himself talking less too, and he drifted away and walked alone for most of the day. The silence was overwhelming.

Later that day they picked up on the thread.

‘So, after all that hard work, all that graft, do you feel like you have finally made it?’ Galius asked. ‘That was your dream, wasn’t it?’

Dan shook his head. ‘No. That’s the thing. I’m nowhere close to making it yet.’

Galius laughed. ‘I don’t know many people who really think they have. It’s all relative, isn’t it? I know a woman who earns hundreds of thousands. She’s earning what she aimed to earn when she set out years ago and has made her way up the ladder at work. You know, she was so happy when she got that job. But now she mixes with top execs, people who earn much more than she does. Suddenly, she’s not so happy any more. She’s reset her goals to include CEO-level earnings. But what happens then? Suppose she makes CEO and ships herself off to a conference in Europe, where she meets the CEOs of multinationals who earn ten times what she does. Will she still feel like she’s made it, Dan? Or will that envy set in, do you think, the minute she gets back to the hotel? And when she reads an article on the flight home about a top entrepreneur who has just listed his company on the stock exchange and whose net worth is a hundred times greater than hers?’

Dan whistled softly.

They walked on in silence.

Galius stopped and pulled off his softshell to get some sun on his arms. Kneeling to stash it inside his backpack, he looked up at Dan. ‘So, it seems we both came on this walk as a pilgrimage.’

‘I don’t know much about that,’ Dan said. ‘That’s not why I signed up.’

‘Are you sure? It sure feels like it to me. Pilgrimages are as old as time. Every religion has some devotional practice that calls for a journey. Sometimes they are visits to a particularly important place like Jerusalem, Santiago de Compostela or Mecca. It feels like this is that kind of walk for you.’

Dan frowned as they walked on. He knew he didn’t know exactly why he’d made this choice, but he’d never thought of it in these terms before.

‘That’s why I came halfway across the world to do this walk,’ Galius went on. ‘I always try to carve some time out of my life to get quiet, to think about what I am moving towards. I’ve just exited a company. It’s the end of a phase of my life. I am taking this time to find out what to choose next.’

He touched a necklace he was wearing. Dan had noticed it a few times and was oddly intrigued by it. It was a brass medallion on a leather strap. Galius saw the way Dan was looking at it – Dan had leant forward a little so he could see it as he walked next to Galius and was looking at it with new interest.

‘I bought this on my first pilgrimage I went on,’ Galius explained. ‘I keep it as a reminder of the journey I am on, and of how easy it is to choose the other path.’

‘A pilgrimage,’ Dan mused, the medallion and the choice he’d made and the open spaces starting to converge in his mind. ‘I guess I do like the idea of that.’

‘Well, we, my friend, seem to be on one.’

Dan chuckled, speeding up to keep up with Galius, who was now a few steps ahead of him. This forming thought had slowed him down without his noticing.

‘The important thing, Dan, is to find what you are walking towards in life. Not what you’re walking away from, and certainly not what you’re moving randomly towards. You seem to have a vision of where you want to be. And behind you, it feels like a door is starting to close. But what are you walking towards?’

Dan looked out towards the landscape inching past them. ‘Towards? I’m not sure. Yet.’

The question burned in Dan’s mind all the rest of the day and that night. It was only the next morning when they’d finally stopped and taken a break that he felt he had a chance to answer it.

‘You asked me what I’m moving towards,’ he said as they sat down and eased off their boots. ‘I’ve been thinking about it. In fact, last night I could hardly sleep. My mind has been racing with your questions.’

Galius unwrapped a piece of biltong, cut a slice and offered it to Dan. But Dan ignored the offer, not even seeming to register it.

‘I’m moving towards something big. Big money. I am burning to make it. It is consuming me. I want …’ He paused. ‘I feel weird even saying this out loud, like it’s too much.’

‘Just say it.’ Galius put the slice of biltong into his mouth.

‘It sounds like a song or something but … I want to be a billionaire.’

To Dan’s surprise, Galius didn’t laugh at him. Instead, he did something unexpected. He balanced the biltong on a rock and clapped his hands, the crack an echo. ‘Abracadabra,’ he said.

Dan looked at him, flushing. ‘What’s this, a magic show?’

‘You could call it that. It’s an ancient word meaning I create as I speak. What people call magic, after all. I call it having a very clear path and following it. So, I speak it out loud first, and then I create it in reality.’

He picked up the biltong and the knife, cut another slice and offered it to Dan. ‘That’s why you didn’t take the bonus. You knew somehow it was a trap.’

Dan frowned, took the slice, but kept it between his fingers, processing the thought.

‘The path it offered looked like the safer path, but that’s not the path to becoming a billionaire, or even a multimillionaire. It’s great to know where you want to get to. And to say it, and mean it. But there are many steps between your saying something and it actually happening. You’re an employee now, right? You’ve been one for years. But you’re not going to get wealthy that way. You need to think differently – and maybe even throw out everything you think you know about business, money and the rules of the game. Do you think you’re up to that?’

Dan felt his temper flare. He looked away. ‘You’re full of questions and suggestions,’ he said, turning on Galius. ‘But do you actually know anything about making money? In between all your trips and … kitesurfing or whatever. Or do you just ask the right questions and get others to do the hard work?’

Dan regretted his outburst as soon as it was over. He knew his temper could land him in hot water, but he felt triggered by Galius. He put the slice of biltong into his mouth and slid his feet back into his boots. Without lacing them up, he got up, shuffled towards his backpack and busied himself with his gear. Galius kept slicing and chewing, calm and even a little amused. Dan laced up his boots, then strolled off towards a spot with a view of the valley below to calm himself down. Finally, he wandered back to where Galius was sitting, his face turned up to the sun.

Dan sat down next to him. Galius held out another biltong slice as if nothing had happened. The two of them chewed slowly as they watched the rest of the group settle in for a longer rest.

They both sat back like lizards in the sun and watched for a long while. It was only when the others started packing away their snacks and getting ready to go again that Galius folded and stowed his knife, laced up his boots and responded.

‘Here’s what I know about making money, Dan,’ Galius said. ‘One thing is that the richest people in the world do not measure their wealth in annual salaries or bonuses. They measure their wealth in net worth. And net worth comes from many sources, but most significant net worth comes from shareholder value. Dan, if you have never thought about how shareholder value is created, your net worth is unlikely to grow significantly and you’ll never become a billionaire in your lifetime.’

Dan yearned to ask more, but everyone was moving on. He banked his questions for later and helped clear up to make sure there was no trace of them on the face of the pristine mountain.

He watched as the guide walked over to a low bush, squatted and methodically collected all the small, green berries that had dried out on the plant. She slipped the wrinkled berries into her pocket, a few into her mouth. He had seen her do this a number of times on the trail. The plant looked familiar to Dan.

‘Why are you always eating those?’ Dan asked.

She walked over and tipped a few into his hand.

‘These are