Meet Mike Summey
Posted on October 29, 2003
Mike Summey (coauthor of THE WEEKEND MILLIONAIRE with Roger Dawson) is an entrepreneur in the truest sense of the word. From
a humble upbringing in the poverty-stricken coalfields of Southern West
Virginia, he struck out to make his fortune at the tender age of 15. With little
education and no money, he stumbled his way through several menial jobs ranging
from carpenter work to factory jobs and even door-to-door encyclopedia sales. In
1967, at age 21, after being laid off from his factory job and given $300 in
severance pay; he paused to contemplate his future.
After considerable thought, he wrote down a simple sentence that he
carried in his wallet for the next 30 years. The sentence read, “I will become a
millionaire by age 30 and retire by age 50.” What followed was like a fairy tale
and speaks volumes about the power of having goals.
When he compared the meager wages he made working for someone else
to the lofty goals he had set for himself, he knew he would have to change
careers to have any hope of achieving them. The shock of losing his job, made
him determined not to ever be at the mercy of an employer again. He invested the
$300 severance pay in an old van and started a small sign shop that he
eventually built into a billboard company with offices in two states. Among his
many accomplishments in the outdoor advertising field, he invented and patented
the single pole construction used throughout the world today and designed the
first fully integrated computer software for the industry. However, it was
advice from his accountant in the late 1970s, that started him down the path
that led to his writing The Weekend Millionaire’s Secrets to Investing In
Real Estate.
His accountant advised
him to start diversifying his investments and recommended real estate. This all
sounded good, except for the fact that it took all the money he could scrape
together to keep his capital-intensive business growing and there was simply no
surplus money left to invest. Aside from the money problem, having to oversee
offices in two states, made time a commodity in nearly as short a supply as
money
Mike started like many new investors, spending an hour or two when he
could find the time looking for properties he could buy with little or no money
down and favorable financing. After several months, he found a small house that
met his criteria and he purchased his first rental property. From this meager
start, he went on to build a fortune in real estate using his spare time. Right
on schedule with the goals he carried in his wallet, he sold his company and
retired at age fifty. Today he enjoys a six figure monthly income from his real
estate investments, lives in a dream home located on a beautiful gated private
estate and flies his own pressurized twin-engine airplane.
He has been named to numerous Who’s Who publications including
“Who’s Who in the World,” “Who’s Who in America,” “Who’s Who in America in
Finance and Industry,” “Who’s Who of Leading American Executives” and
many more. He is a member of the National Speakers Association and is past
president and Member of the Year of NSA Carolinas.
If you ask Mike Summey what he credits for his success, he is quick
to say, “It’s my education. I have PhD from the University of Hard Knocks.” His
philosophy of how to become wealthy and his explanation of how to live the
Lifestyle of Success are fascinating in their simplicity. He doesn’t talk a
lot of theory and he won’t try to baffle you with a lot of hype and rhetoric.
With his friendly down home Southern drawl, his often-humorous anecdotes and
real life stories, it’s easy to see why, to paraphrase the E.F. Hutton
commercial, “When Mike talks… people listen.”
» Filed Under Uncategorized
Comments
Leave a Reply