How To Court Power Without Falling Prey

[bbrennan1986]

How do I insinuate myself inside a powerful sphere of influence in order to gain the investors necessary to make my life's vision come true. I'd rather not wind up like Tesla broke with powerful men making buckets of cash off his invention and innovation. Not comparing myself to Tesla intellectually just in the sense that he was a man of VISION and men of power and a different kind of vision took complete advantage.

[DreamSpirit]

That's a really loaded question.  Do you have a specific idea in mind for what exactly you'll need funding for?  There are tons of ways to find start up cash; kickstarter.com is a good site, gofundme.com is another one.  If you want to be around wealthy people who can potentially invest in your idea, it would take small steps if you're on the outside.  You can start by hanging out where they go, golf clubs, yacht clubs, etc.  volunteer there or work there.  Do like a gorilla does when he wants to be accepted by a new group; he just starts by hanging out around them, close enough to where they can see him and he gets exposure, but not so close that he scares them and they try to run him away.  Over time, they just accept that he's there and he gets into the group.  The same applies to humans, go where the wealthy can see your face and get a feel for you.

[Leo Gura]

You gotta learn street-smarts and how to assess people so you don't get shafted. If you go into serious business with a naive attitude, you'll definitely get fleeced. A lot of this is learned through trial and error, but I actually have 2 great books about exactly this topic on my book list in the Dealing With People category. They're real eye-openers! They alone are worth the price of the list, saving you thousands if not millions in the long-run if you plan to do big business throughout your life.

I've been screwed in business once or twice and I was pretty savvy to start out with because my Dad was real good a fleecing people and I learned how the mind of a scoundrel businessman works. Make no mistake about it, big business is cut-throat and people will eat your lunch if you let them.