The 100 Million Dollar Experience

I read a fantastic quote in the Four Hour Work Week book. People don’t want a million dollars, they just want million dollar experiences. Tiger Woods on the other hand, prefers his 100 million dollar experiences. Yes you read that correctly, 100 MILLION DOLLARS!

That’s the reported amount (down from the original $750M figure) that Elin Woods is expected to receive from this divorce settlement. In return, she essentially can’t bash the man or make another trillion dollars from writing a tell-all type book.

Where am I going with this post? Well to be honest I just wanted to comment on this mega-popular topic.

It’s easy to mock and judge the situation. However, it’s unfair to judge what happened because nobody knows what went on behind closed doors in their relationship. It’s also unfair to comment on the morality issues because in reality we’re all hypocrites. Speaking of hypocrites, I once had a friend in college that judged me for going out. One day after a difficult exam he bragged to me about how he never got caught cheating. So he doesn’t go out but he cheats on tests. What an honest man.

Here are the first few points that hit me after hearing about the Tiger Woods settlement:

Money can be taken away. No matter how much money you have, it can always be taken away from you. In the last few months alone, ultra-rich celebrities like Hulk Hogan and Tiger Woods have had large chunks of their fortune taken away from them. I’ve written about lottery winners that went broke. The sad reality is that you work hard for your money, but it can be taken away from you at any given moment (lawsuit, divorce settlement, or lousy investments).

Watch what you do. Nobody is bulletproof. You can have all of the contingency plans in the world, but you can still get caught. You can lose your job, you can lose a colossal client, or your wife can catch you cheating with over a dozen different women.

Always ask for help. It doesn’t matter if you’re $40,000 in debt, you can’t find a job after college, or you’re a sex addict. If you need help, ask for it right now! And no, reading about your problem is not enough. You need to make bold moves. Otherwise, you will continue with your downward spiral and there’s no telling when you’ll eventually hit rock bottom (i.e. being known as a cheat all over the world).

This post may have made no sense but I really wanted to jot down some of my thoughts on this. Do you think that the reported 100 million dollar figure is enough or not enough? What do you make of this whole situation?