Living Life on The Edge

I have a strong attraction to bad boys. I have a new favourite bad boy and his name is Dan Bilzerian. And in true stalker fashion, I started looking for anything I could find about him on the internet. Wikipedia has a lot to say about him and it wasn’t surprising to see details about his personal life that has been put out there for the public to see.

His father’s name caught my eye, and my curiosity shifted from the son to the father, paul bilzerian. There is a lengthy description of who he is, what life he leads, and what his past says about him as a person – there is not a lot of positive content out there about him. What I found out was that he used to be a big shot Wall Street corporate raider and he truly lived up to his name. He was involved in numerous deals which mostly led to arrests.

Here is a list of incidents that shaped his career:

• He served a 13-month prison sentence after failing to disclose important details for a business takeover that resulted in him filing for bankruptcy
• He was involved in a legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission for 33 years
• His home was raided following accusations of illegal trade and his filing for bankruptcy was criticized as it was alleged that he hid his assets to get away from creditors and the court

Reading up on his biography can really make one go “What?”. After all, having that kind of privilege can really turn a person’s life upside down. Additionally, it can also spell the difference between whether your family can live in peace, or if they are as damned as you in your struggles.

Some articles point out just how cunning they say he is. In the course of telling the world that he is broke, he was able to secure enough money to leave his children with in the form of trust funds. In a way, he acted like any father would who was facing jail time and was on the brink of losing everything. He made sure his boys were not left with nothing.

The sheer amount of time he spent fighting the courts, to the point of renouncing his American citizenship out of disgust for how he alleges he was treated (unjustly), one can only imagine what kind of nights he had, knowing there are so many people after him and that his credibility is at stake. Having realized this, I guess being normal with just enough to get by doesn’t seem like such a bad thing after all.

I ask myself, what would I have done if I were in Paul Bilzerian’s shoes? I can think of a number of ways I could have made better choices, but what do I really know. I have never experienced having that much cash or having such privilege. Maybe, just maybe, I would do exactly the same thing if I did.