Young Entrepreneur Farrah Gray explains Success

So often we track Farrah Gray, the self made entrepreneur that grew up the youngest member of a single parent family.  In the housing project in Chicago and he made a childhood decision that entrepreneurship would be his ticket out of poverty, like many entrepreneurs Gray, put his mind to work.

Gray at 10, got together with friends in the neighborhood, and raised over $12,000 in his business club. By, 12 Gray raised over 1 million dollars from private investors to start his own venture capital firm. He then started a food company while still a teenager, then sold Farr-Out Foods to an Israeli company that was seeking an entry into the U.S. market. This all while without a college degree or MBA, he has transformed himself into a successful entrepreneur and millionaire seemingly overnight.

Gray, now 21, will speak at the upcoming Fourth Annual Road to Personal Wealth Financial Conference on Oct. 29 at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center in Edison. Other speakers include CNBC television personality Jim Cramer and Bill Rancic, one of the winners on "The Apprentice." Gray believes that in order to be successful, a person must find his "area of excellence,"

Gray tells young people to ask themselves three questions.

- "What comes easily to me but harder to others?"

- "What could I do for years without getting paid?"

- "What can I give back to the community?"

In a recent interview with Star-Ledger: Gray discussed running his own business. You started a food company and sold it when you were a teenager; why launch a business career at so young an age? People who are in a comfortable place in life don't bring about change, but I grew up poor in a housing project on the South Side of Chicago. My mom had two back-to-back heart attacks and I said, "I must help my mother. I must help her." I was determined to change my condition. What do you think makes people succeed? Believing in yourself is the first thing. You have to have the attitude that you will be successful regardless of who you are, and when you look at your competition, you need to be able to say, "I will be where you are, if not further." What prevents people from achieving success? A lot of people don't know what their life purpose is. They don't know what business to be in or what to do with their lives.

Psychologists and chaplains will tell you that the No. 1 thing they hear when they visit people on their death bed is regret: not regret over the things they did to other people, but regret about the things they could have changed, the opportunities they didn't take advantage of.

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