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What follows is the first of a series of excerpts from my new book Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All, which will be released on January 4th. To read excerpt 4, click here.

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EXCEPRT 5: The Business Yogi

……For a year or two, selling that fake coke seemed like the perfect job for me. It seemed like I could have all the trappings of a drug dealer—the new clothes and gold jewelry—without any of the risks. Since incense wasn’t illegal, the cops couldn’t do anything to me when they caught me with the stuff, which they did on one occasion. For a while, it seemed like I’d stumbled on the perfect hustle.

Yet in spite of all the toys I could suddenly afford, when I began to listen to my heart, I could hear that I wasn’t comfortable with any of it. I couldn’t justify my actions anymore by saying I was using and enjoying the stuff myself. Instead, I was peddling junk that I would never use myself. I fact, I would often go out and buy real cocaine with the profits from the fake stuff I was selling.

Additionally, I didn’t like living in fear that a junkie was going to shoot up some of my “cocaine,” realize that he’d been tricked, and try to get revenge the next time he saw me. I didn’t like wondering whether some local stick-up kid, after hearing about me and my boy’s operation, was going to kick in our door one day in a quest for some easy cash and end up blowing our brains out. I didn’t like thinking that the next time the cops caught me with a box full of incense they were going to figure out a way to keep me in jail for good. Yes, the product I was selling was profitable, but it was also making me paranoid, not proud. Fearful, not fulfilled.

Thankfully before I could get into any real trouble, around that time I was lucky to find a greater inspiration…. 

-Russell Simmons