Farrah Gray, A real Reallionaire

Entrepreneur Farrah Gray is a millionaire. He first accomplished that feat when he sold his business, Farr-Out Foods, along with the rights to the pancake syrup flavor he created, to a conglomerate. He was only 14 years old at the time. He is now 21 years old and has offices in Las Vegas, Nevada and on Wall Street in New York City.

Farr-Out Foods was the most successful of his start-up businesses, but that doesn’t mean he was new to entrepreneurial ventures. Farrah, the youngest of four siblings, began dreaming at a very young age of how he could help his hardworking mother and older brothers and sister to move out of the Chicago projects. Although his mother worked hard as a consultant, and at times worked more than one job to support her family, there never seemed to be enough money to cover expenses.

Farrah’s business dreams began around the age of 6 when he designed his first business cards. Soon he began selling hand-painted rocks that could be used as bookends, and that was followed up by selling home-made body lotions which he sold door-to-door. That venture netted him $9.

His successes and his philosophical sense of business and people are documented in his first book, Reallionaire, written with Fran Harris. In the book, he tells how he achieved his dreams because of what he describes as the “nine steps to becoming rich from the inside out.” Farrah coined the word “reallionaire” when he was young.

He told PT, “When I was younger, saying ‘reallionaire, millionaire,’ it would all kind of sound the same. So I would say it. A few years later I picked up the term again because to me it started to really encompass someone who was rich from the inside out. The real reference is the authenticity — the inner wealth. So many people in the world are impressed with what’s going on in other people’s outer world — with money, with popularity. But I started to discover that what they had done in their outer world — with money, with popularity, with fame — is more than what a lot of celebrities we see on Entertainment Tonight do with theirs.

“You know they have everything that life has to offer. What’s wrong with them? But what I discovered was, there was nothing in their inner world, or there was very little.

“I said, ‘Wait a minute, I never wanted to be the type of person who just had monetary wealth.’ And I wanted to show how to have that successful balance because, for me, that’s true success — my description of success.”

For such a young person, Farrah has many titles. Not only is he an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, he’s a CEO of his corporation which owns InnerCity magazine, and he is a philanthropist of his own non-profit foundation. He’s an inspirational speaker and a book author, a corporate board member and a doctor of humane letters, recently receiving that title when he was presented an honorary degree from Allen University in South Carolina for his philosophical ideas and his contributions to society.

As an African American who started out living in the projects, he has become a role model to other people, especially African American young people, who see no hope out of hard times and difficult conditions.

“I believe that it is important to address a people that — according to statistics based on their geographical background — are automatically labeled as losers. Other people had said I would probably be in prison or dead, but I’m not. So my life is an inspiration to those who are interested in taking their life to the next level. I hope that my life’s experiences inspire people to find the challenge in all of us that finds no limits — sees no limits, only opportunities.

“The focus has been well received and I have been well received. I can’t fly anywhere any more. I can’t go out to eat anywhere anymore. People of different nationalities and races have been walking up to me telling me what type of impact I’ve had on their lives through my speaking engagements — because I’ve had that opportunity. And then, I would say, various interviews with folks and the broadcast media have helped to make me more recognizable. I usually speak to at least a half a million people a year. You meet so many people…it’s been truly a wonderful experience and one that, hopefully, is far reaching. And that is my goal — to inspire as many people as possible.”

PT questioned him about what he tries to focus on when he speaks. He quickly replied, “How to achieve — how to achieve, in so many words, no matter what you do. My message is to find what you’re doing in life. Always there’s more that we can do.

“Always more...because my grandmother always taught me that ‘better is possible and good is not enough.’ So I try to represent an example of living. I want to stay on the edge — really. And what I mean by that is always pushing myself to find out what else I have to offer.”

But no matter how busy he is, his family comes first over everything else. Farrah is now doing everything he can to help his sister Greek (Kiki)*. She has leukemia and desperately needs a bone marrow transplant. He’ll drop whatever he’s doing to be by her side in Atlanta where she waits to hopefully receive positive news of a bone marrow donor match.

An excerpt from Positive Teens magazine, Volume 8, Issue 3, June 2006

*Positive Teens has learned that Greek Gray died from her illness on August 14, 2006. Greek Gray Leukemia Foundation www.greekgrayleukemiafoundation.org

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