KISS cofounder Gene Simmons revealed some of his thoughts and ideas that he shares on his speaking tours during a recent radio interview with 91.7 Giant FM in Niagara Falls.
“What I do is I grab the mic, I go into the audience and really talk to people about the choices they’ve done in life and how they can make more money,” he said. “How you can make more money predominantly comes down to one, being selfish. Me first. We’re not taught that. Two is having the right thing at the right place at the right time. If you can help yourself, you can help others.
“People who start businesses make sure that they pay taxes, and there’s people who work for the company, and you’ve got to rent and buy equipment and insurance, and everybody gets paid first, and then the guy that owns the company gets paid last if there’s any profit.
“Most of the time, businesses fail, the guy that pays himself last loses everything. The workers lose nothing. My advice to everybody is, pay yourself first, especially if you’ve got all the skin in the game. If you start a company, make sure before anybody else gets paid, you pay yourself first.”
Gene also says that when it comes to relationships, people should prepare for them to fail. “You want to get married? Okay, before you get married, have a cohabitation agreement or a prenuptial agreement. While you still love each other, figure out what the business is not in case, but if and when you finally get divorced.
“You’d better talk about those financial issues while you love each other than when you wind up hating each other. It’s a better business model… When you love each other, you can make something work. If you hate each other after you’ve been married and you’re miserable, it’s going to be torture for everybody. Nobody thinks about that, because they don’t teach that in school.
“You live and you learn. I didn’t make that one up, because the stuff you and I learned in school does us zero good in life. They don’t teach Life 101. I’ve got some of the answers, and folks in the audience will say, ‘I’ve got another answer.’ I go, ‘Terrific.’ That’s how you learn.
“The same solution may not work for everybody, but at least you’ll see the different ways of climbing up the hill. There isn’t just one way. Let me hear the different ways – that one might work for me.”