The Wealth Dragon Way. Lee John

School of Pharmacy and holds an MBA from Cass Business School.

      Introduction: The Story of Wealth Dragons

      In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on.

– Robert Frost

      John: My rather ordinary, humble start in life took place in a small Lancashire town in the north of England, not far from the Yorkshire Dales. I was born in Burnley General Hospital in 1981 and grew up in Colne, a fairly remote and typically northern English town, where my parents owned and ran the local Chinese takeaway. They were both originally from Hong Kong and moved to the UK in the 1970s. They married shortly after meeting and started what was to become a family business. Many Chinese people born in Hong Kong moved to the UK in those days, taking advantage of the time during which Hong Kong was a British territory, which gave them the right to British nationality. The influx was responsible for a surge in Chinese takeaways. The British seemed to love the new, exotic, tasty (and relatively cheap) fast food, and many families built up successful small businesses as a result.

      My parents, and their extended family members, worked long hours to keep the business up and running, and making a profit. It was a hard life and I hardly saw them while I was growing up. Colne has grown since the time I lived there, but during my childhood there were only a handful of shops and one primary school, where I was teased mercilessly for being the only Chinese boy in the school. I remember my nickname was Bruce Lee. This might have been a compliment within a big group of Chinese kids who worshipped the martial arts hero, but the way in which the local English kids used it when they directed it at me was definitely derogatory. They would do karate moves in front of me and laugh. I once got flying-kicked in the back so hard that it knocked me off my feet. When I took off my jacket I found there was the imprint of a shoe on it. I don't remember having any real friends at school and I don't think I went to more than two or three birthday parties throughout my entire school years. Even when I became a teenager and the kids in my area started going out to parties and local clubs, I missed out because my parents wouldn't allow me to go. Anytime I wasn't at school I was expected to work in the takeaway.

      I started working in the takeaway – doing odd jobs, cleaning and carrying things around – at around the age of seven or eight years old. I got a little pocket money for the mundane jobs I did. Everyone worked in the family business, and I knew it was expected that my brother and I would take it over some day.

      But I had other plans.

      I had watched my parents work night and day in a business that gave them a modest living and prevented them from spending quality time with their children. They worked seven days a week, so my brother and I were mostly raised by our aunts and uncles. I always knew I wanted a different life. Not only did I want to give my future children more options (including the option to spend time with their father), but I also wanted to help my parents get more time to enjoy life without working every waking minute. I wanted to free them from the chains that bound them to their arduous existence.

      By the time I started college I was working three different jobs. I was making money in every way I could, in every spare minute I could find. Along with working in the takeaway most evenings, I got a weekend job in a shoe shop. I also signed up for part-time telesales work, which was brutal. It involved cold-calling people listed in the Yellow Pages to sell them web sites. I got rejection after rejection; it was soul-destroying. But in hindsight it was invaluable experience as it instilled a high tolerance for rejection in me, which served me well later in life! My inspiration was my determination to break free from the future that had been laid out for me – a future identical to the life my parents led. I respected them, but I didn't want to live like them. I wanted to reach for more; I believed I could achieve more.

      Those were some tough years. I had absolutely no life and no friends; at times I resented it, but I knew I had to keep going. I became obsessed with working, believing I could work my way to success. But I was frustrated by how much time it took to make a modest amount of money. Was I even doing anything different from my parents, in giving up all my time to make money? That feeling probably planted the first seed of my determination to find a way to buy back my time, to make significant money without it taking up all of my time. That growing feeling – the deep desire for the freedom to do what I wanted with my time, whilst still earning an income – helped motivate me in the years to come.

      I did well enough at school to get into university; I got a place at the University of Hull to study computer animation. With what my parents had put aside for my higher education, and with the money I'd saved from all my jobs, I was able to study full-time without having to work to supplement my allowance. Being away from home and out of the grind of working in the takeaway for the first time in my life, I also had my first taste of a real social life. It was great. I made some good friends and found a little self-confidence. But money was still tight and I couldn't wait to graduate and move down south where I believed I could command a better salary than my peers.

      My first job was close to London, in Guildford. My starting salary was £21,000, while most of my friends were in jobs that paid them around £15,000; I definitely felt their jealousy. However, I soon discovered that their jealousy was largely unfounded, because the reality of earning £21,000 was not as rosy as I thought it would be. By the time I'd paid my rent and all my living costs in the expensive London commuter belt, I had less money than I did when I was doing menial work in Yorkshire!

      I lasted about a year in that first job and then jumped around doing some freelance contracts for a while before landing my next big job at an animation company called Criterion. I started on a salary of £26,000 and was convinced that this increase was going to change my life. But with more money coming in I was soon spending more on going out and enjoying myself, and it wasn't long before I found I had even less money left at the end of the month than before!

      My next job was my dream job.

      My best friend at university had been Darren Rodriguez. We had both been obsessed with working as hard as we could. We used to get up at 5 A.M. to wait outside the main building until the caretaker let us in. We were the first to get in and always the last to leave. We regularly told anyone who would listen that it was our ambition to get jobs at Framestore, the computer animation company that was fast on its way to working on Oscar-winning films such as the Harry Potter films and Avatar. All our fellow students thought we were being overly ambitious. Jobs at Framestore were highly coveted and competition was fierce, so no one believed we would get in there. Their negativity made us even more determined. We never gave up, and only a few years after we graduated, Darren landed his job there. I secured my position soon after leaving Criterion.

      But as is so often the case when you realize your dream, after an initial honeymoon period we became bored and frustrated. We started to hate our purported dream jobs just like we'd ended up dissatisfied with all our other jobs. We were frustrated with the hours, the politics, and (again) that feeling that we never had enough money, despite the fact that we were both earning considerably more than most of our friends.

      I started at Framestore on a salary of a whopping £36,000. This time I was sure I was fast on my way to living the high life. But, just as before, I soon discovered my pay cheque got eaten up pretty quickly. My travelling costs went up as I was now commuting from Guildford, where I still lived, into central London, plus I spent a proportionally higher amount on other expenses. I got a new car with a short-term loan, a laptop, some nice clothes, and suddenly I was back to square one…struggling (relatively speaking) to make ends meet. I couldn't believe I was burning through all my money. I worked out my monthly budget and discovered that, after deducting bills, I had £27 in disposable income that I could spend each day. One lunch in a nice restaurant in the city, or a round of drinks for a few friends (who perceived me as being much wealthier than them), would wipe that out in an hour.

      Darren was equally frustrated. We used to meet in the canteen every lunchtime and during all our coffee breaks to plot our escape from the rat race. We were strategizing together, in order to figure out how we could literally buy back our time. We were two guys in our midtwenties who were already heavily disillusioned with life. Something was wrong with that picture!

      One day, close to my birthday, Darren presented me with an early birthday present.