Interesting Millionaires
The millionaire who decided to give away his entire fortune because he was unhappy
Karl Rabeder grew up poor and thought that life would be wonderful if he had money. But when he got rich, Karl discovered that he was unhappy, so he decided to give away every penny of his £3 million fortune: “My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing,” he said. “Money is counterproductive – it prevents happiness to come.”
On the block, or already sold, is his luxury villa with a lake in the Alps, his 42-acre estate in France, his six gliders, and the interior furnishings and accessories business that got him rich in the first place. Instead, he will move out of his luxury Alpine retreat into a small wooden hut in the mountains or a simple bedsit in Innsbruck. His entire proceeds are going to charities he set up in Central and Latin America, but he will not even take a salary from these.
The millionaire dog who was a trust fund of over $300 millions
Sure, there will always be people who have more money than you, but did you realize that some pets do, too? Meet Gunther IV, the German Shepherd, world’s richest dog. This dog actually received his inheritance from his father, Gunther III, a German Shepherd who received an inheritance from Karlotta Liebenstein, a German countess. Gunther IV has bought a Miami villa from Madonna and won a rare white truffle in an auction. He’s worth about $372 million right now, thanks to his growing trust fund.
The homeless billionaire
Meet Nicholas Berggruen, a homeless billionaire. You read that right. Nicholas is worth billions but doesn’t even own a home (he stays in hotels) because he’s lost all interest in acquiring things. After making his billions, Mr. Berggruen, 46, lost interest in acquiring things: They didn’t satisfy him, and in fact had become something of a burden. So he started paring down his material life, selling off his condo in New York, his mansion in Florida and his only car. He hatched plans to leave his fortune to charity and his art collection to a new museum in Berlin.
For him, wealth is about lasting impact, not stuff. Forbes magazine estimated Berggruen’s net worth at $2.2 billion as of 2010.
The millionaire whose daughter works at McDonald’s to learn the value of money
The Thai prime minister sent his daughter to work at McDonald’s. The billionaire even turned up to buy burgers from his 17-year-old daughter Paethongtan, the youngest of his three children, on her first day as a part-time employee after taking her university entrance examinations.
Her first task was to learn how to operate the cash register, but she will also learn to flip burgers. ‘In developed countries, children usually work while they study to gain experience and to appreciate the value of money and how to spend it,’ Thaksin said.’ Mr. Thaksin Shinawatra himself worked at KFC fastfood outlet while studying in the US.
Dej Bulsuk, president of McThai who operates the McDonald’s fastfood outlets in Thailand, said: “The prime minister came to me to personally ask if I could give his daughter a part-time job during the school holidays, the Premier asked me specifically to treat his daughter just like any other employee” Thaksin even said to me: “And let her sweep the floor like the others.”
Source: http://www.oddee.com/item_97564.aspx
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Money is a tool for us to trade something for survival, for living. But we should be mindful to not attach on it, there are things that much more meaningful for us to appreciate in life.
In fact, we do need money. We can spend money wisely, in a good purpose and create great benefits to many circumstances or people, to make things good, help more lives, help our surrounding to become a better place. That’s make money valuable and meaningful.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing these stories about the millionaires. Money really cannot buy us long lasting happiness. We cannot take it to the grave with us. What if we do not have the Karma to have so much money? Somehow or rather the money will be gone for example got robbed or used up to pay medical bills. Sometimes when we have money, we must also learn to give it or help those in need. When you give something you will make others happy and when they are happy, you will feel good and happy too. This is the kind of happiness that we want to achieve in our lives.
With folded palms,
Vivian
Amazing ….what the super rich did.
Karl Rabeder, the Austrian billionaire businessman gave away his large fortune, as he realized money didn’t make him happy.He had realized money is counterproductive and actually prevented him from being happy.
Nicolas Berggruen a multi-billionaire making his billions, yet lost interest in acquiring things: Having a house and others is a burden and is leaving his fortune to charity and donating his art collection to a museum in Berlin.(It’s what we do and produce, it’s our actions, that will last forever. That’s real value.”) quoted.
Thaksin Shinawatra is a Thai billionaire businessman and former Thai Prime Minister sent his daughter to work in McDonald’s. He wants her to appreciate the value of money.
Upon her death a German countess and multi-millionaire Karlotta Leibenstein, left her vast fortune to her pet,a German shepherd named Gunther III.
Money can be a pretty sweet deal, it can provide us with an exciting lifestyle, glorious things, sometimes a little happiness.
Whatever we own is temporary,doing something in life more meaning would much better.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing.
Rejoice to see millionaires gain realization to see beyond the sensory and desire satisfaction derived from material possessions. In Buddhism and as Rinpoche taught us, money is not the cause of suffering, it is the attachment to money that is the cause of suffering. In fact, if given good motivation and purpose in using money, it can create great benefits to many people. For example, donating to charity or contributing to institutions that expound virtuous qualities. There are many things that money cannot buy, like genuine care, love and kindness. Thank you for this inspiring article.
Real life examples of Karl Rabeder and Nicholas Berggruen in this article really drives the point that material acquisition is not the secret to happiness unlike what many are conditioned to believe in the secular world. It is as what Rinpoche had reiterated time and time again in his Dharma teachings that if those are the things that really bring us true happiness, then it shouldn’t be the case where the more we get, the more we have, the unhappier we become. It will also not be the case where although outwardly we have so much, inwardly our happiness or pleasure doesn’t commensurate with the wealth that we sacrificed so much to accumulate or that it doesn’t bring us lasting happiness. In addition, reading about the experience and realisation of Karl Rabeder and Nicholas Berggruen which prompted them to focus out towards a more noble objective serves to inspire and help to build up courage to walk a less travelled but fulfilling, meaningful and rewarding path. Thank you for this article which helped to put things into perspective.
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for sharing these inspiring stories about billionaires and their life choices. It is definitely not something new when a billionaire decided to give away all his fortune to charity and pursue a more simple life. It made me think that all of us in are trying our best to earn big bucks and sacrificed our health, family, and relationships while these billionaires who are already rich decided to give everything away and live as simple as possible. Such irony isn’t it?
We should learn from them because they had already been there, done that. Money is not everything and it certainly does not equals to happiness. Happiness comes from simplicity where our mind is at peace and content state. There is a saying in the chinese culture : ” We are saving up all our money to pay the doctors and hospital fees”. While we sacrifice our health to earn money, we will have to use the money we earn to pay for medical bill in the end. Hence, sacrificing health for wealth is certainly not a good choice.
Humbly,
Chris
Interesting to see millionaires and billionaires being humble and some even donated all their belongings. Money is important but not the most important for it does not bring permanent happiness. Should it be then, the people mentioned above would not have given out all their wealth in exchange for happiness.
Happiness developed from our mind. It is not the material that we have that determine our happiness.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this article.
I admire what Karl Rabeder did, trading his wealth and luxury for a simple life in nature. Many of us though unhappy in the situation that we are in don’t take any actions to change things because we are equally afraid of change, so we continue in our unhappiness. I hope he will find happiness and peace.
We often see the brightest smiles on the faces of the poorest. We often see tortured pain and loneliness on the faces of the wealthiest. But still it did very little to deter us from chasing wealth. Personally i think wealth is destructive but so is poverty. We do live in era that requires some form of financial income to “survive” – to have a place to live and food to eat. I think like most things in life moderation is the key and wealth is no exception.
I read sometime ago that the poor are actually happier and “richer”. They are not attached to material wealth and contented with simplicities in life like an innocent child. Karl and Nicholas realised that too. Some due to poverty resort to spirituality for help whereas some of the rich may not even meet any spirituality in their entire life.
Wow! These people have it all and they gave it all away! Interesting! But they have to go thru so much to find happiness which they thought exist. At least they did something good out of it and without attachment to it. I like Karl Rabeder’s story. Money is definitely not the doorway to happiness.
I like stories of Karl and Nicholas the most out of these 4, for their ways of thinking that are so different from the rest of the world.
Karl was born poor and once he had money he decided to give up and move to a simple lifestyle. For Nicholas, acquisitions have become burden to him. For both of these millionaires, simplicities lead to happiness.
How nice will that be if more millionaires in this world can realise that money is not the answer to everything in the world and are more willing to give out their resources to the poor.
It is silly to say one doesn’t need money. Humans have poisoned the earth so much that you can’t really do anything with it in most places. And most of us aren’t really good farmers.
I mean this Internet was bought and paid for with money. This Internet connection costs money. This computer, it costs money too. So I don’t think we can say that money is not necessary but we can say that money should not be everything in one’s life. It is something but it should not be everything.
Money made me miserable too, I just spent more money when I was miserable. So it was like, spend money, make money, spend money… and all the time I was miserable and didn’t know it 🙂
Anyway that’s all in the past now. People like what they like I guess. And just because you don’t like money doesn’t necessarily make you good or noble.
Perhaps one should guard against being proud of having no money.
It is so inspiring to know that there are still people existing that are not attached to material wealth and Karl Rabeder proves that wealth does not bring happiness. Nicholas Berggruen,sets a good example to show us that acquiring or attached to things becomes a burden. So if we have less and are not materialistic, we can be contented and have a happier life.
Such persons, living in materialist cultures, having achieved a level of material security… is merely disillusioned with with the materialist propaganda & wanting to do some good.
But who are to say they are not driven by their egos in wanting to do those good… very hard to say… need to observe & to know their minds for that.
From my personal life experience, I think whether you’re super rich or poor, u can still be very miserable about life.
Just like my mum, she’s never been happy all her life because of bloody money. When I was a little kid and when our family used to be rich, she always complains to us about not having enough money. She is always throwing tantrum, nagging my dad and stingy towards her kids when we asked her for our education fee.
Now that all her kids has grown up with their career and life and our family is not as well-off anymore, her obsession with money gets worst. My parents has never had a day without peace due to money. She would ask her kids to pay off the family debts that they borrowed from the bank.
I feel sad with my mum’s ignorant and obsession about money. Everytime when my mum calls me on the phone weekly, she would complain to us about not having enough money. She does not really care for us or even just ask the basic concerns like ” how’s are you doing” . When we were young, we have tried to advise my mum that praying to Jambala doesnt mean that she will get more money, but everytime our conversation will become an argument.
We really don’t know what to do with my parents, they are deeply trapped in the world of money except being compassionate and patient with them.
Money has a disastrous effect in our family, whether my parents are millionaire or poor like a beggar.
Just discovered a pop song by Jessie J called Price Tag with good lyric:-
Chorus:
It’s not about the money, money, money
We don’t need your money, money, money
We just wanna make the world dance,
Forget about the Price Tag.
Ain’t about the (ha) Ka-Ching Ka-Ching.
Aint about the (yeah) Ba-Bling Ba-Bling
Wanna make the world dance,
Forget about the Price Tag.
What an inspiring article – so nice to see people giving back and also teaching that invaluable lesson that acquiring money money money doesn’t equate to happiness. As Rinpoche has always taught us – it is giving away to others that really makes us unhappy. I love the first story about Karl – how fascinating that he started poor, worked his whole life to gain wealth only to find that none of it made him happy… and to give it all away again! It does seem that people who have less are happier. Going to poorer countries and meeting the people there is such direct, clear evidence of this.
Sometime I feel confuse in my life too!
What are the actual thing that require in my this short life time!
TOO BAD!!