If You Were Given $25 Billion . . .

If You Were Given $25 Billion,
What Would You Do With Your Time?

I often play a game with young people and people looking for a work. It has three questions, but the most important one goes like this: If your rich uncle Robert died, and left you $25 billion, what would you do with your time, now that you don’t have to work for a living? 

I try to get the obvious stuff out of the way. So I say “After you have taken 4 trips around the world, bought castles, ranches and homes in ten cities around the world, and each house now has 15 luxury and sports cars in the garage. You give each of your friends and relatives $50 million each, and your favorite charities $100 each, you still have $23.5 billion left. What are you going to do with your time, now that you don’t have to work for a living?

Let me tell you something amazing. I would be doing exactly what I am doing today, only on a larger scale. I would be helping obese, poor, gay and homeless kids, which is what I am planning to do this weekend.

I also plan to go on the road, live in a RV, and do Christian concerts, vegan cooking classes, health seminars and preach God’s word. I hope to record my music, and bless others with my songs. I want to make photography books about social issues like gay suicide, obesity in children, or homeless children. If I had $25 billion dollars, I would use my time to help people and make the world a better place. Since I have less than $25, I will use my time to help people and make the world a better place. What's different? Only the scale, I have to help people one at a time.

I will be giving concerts and health seminars in churches, and I am going to do vegan cooking classes and a fun weight loss program web or TV show for obese children. I will pitch the shows to the food network or the Logo channel; however, I am perfectly happy doing web broadcasts, if that is God’s plan.

Now here is the fun part. Miguel and I plan to live in an RV, and travel to different cities and national parks, doing our ministries. Wouldn’t it be great to do a vegan cooking broadcast in a beautiful new RV, and the go outside and film the eating under a waterfall in Yosemite? Los Angeles is where my larger photo shoots usually are, but I expect we will tour the nation if God continues to lead in this way. I can buy a brand new 5th wheel trailer and a 1 ton pickup to pull it for under $90,000. Payments can be as low as $700 a month, which is less than the $1,200 I am paying for my two bedrooms in downtown Long Beach.

We will support our travels by shooting both assignment and stock video and still photography, and by selling books and music at our concerts. We just started the stock photography business this month, and already have over 200 images on sell.

So OK, your uncle lives on your sofa, and is trying to borrow money from you for booze instead of leaving you $25 billion. What are you going to do with the money you have in your pocket, and the time God has blessed you with today? Life is not about dreams and plans for the future; it is about grabbing life and living for all you are worth today.  What would you do with your time if you had $25 billion? OK, do some of that today. Get busy living or get busy dying.