In recent years, I have increasingly noticed that a rare interview or meeting, especially with a youth audience, does without raising the question of money. Once I spoke on the air and the very first question they asked me was: "How did you earn your first million?" Students of the University of Arts and Culture also asked me about my first million. In general, many young people dream of power and money now. Looks like, it’s worth talking about it in detail.

I'll start with the "first million". It’s an interesting story. It was with the “first million” that I learned two important lessons: how you can make money, and how to relate to it. I earned my first million in 1989 thanks to the MGIMO hostel guard, Aunt Masha. This is my first advice: if you want to make money, try to talk more with different people, and not only with wealthy businessmen and successful managers. A five-minute conversation with a janitor can be a hundred times more useful than hearing the lectures “How to Become a Millionaire” by some visiting “coach” who is not a businessman at all, but an artist of the conversational genre.

So, while on watch, Aunt Masha used to constantly read the newspapers and did not skip the announcements. She prompted me that the Mitsubishi company announced a recruitment of specialists with knowledge of the Japanese language. And she added: "Go to the Japanese and earn a million." I immediately called them and fixed an appointment. The next day I passed the tests, and a week later I was invited to work as a manager of the company’s department.
Literally after three months of work, I became a millionaire as Aunt Masha predicted. That million came from a salary of $300 and commissions from every car sold, and I sold a lot. Moreover, I also offered to sell German cars, and we became the first official dealers of Audi and Volkswagen.
I asked for this “first million” of mine to be given to me in cash. It was my dream to become a millionaire. There was excitement, I liked making money, being a businessman. And now the dream came true. That is why I wanted to touch this money, which is impossible if it sits in some bank account. I came home, laid out those wads on the table, looked at them for a long time and thought: "This is my million dollars, so what’s next?" And I suddenly lost my excitement. I realized that making money cannot be the goal of life.
The Dalai Lama once told me an important thing. He said, looking at my beautiful house in the USA: “Listen, dear Kirsan. Don’t let yourself to get attached to anything, to any beautiful thing in this life."
Money is the energy of the material world. There is no need to deny the importance and necessity of money, but it is also not worth exaggerating its value. Without a doubt, money is a blessing, but it is just a means of living. Everyday survival is impossible without money, let alone further development. At the same time, it is a serious mistake to think that once we have a lot of money, it will solve all our problems. Perhaps the opposite is true: if someone has only money and nothing else, then such a person has nothing but problems.
The second piece of advice I got from Alexandre Dumas: “Do not value money for any more nor any less than its worth; it is a good servant but a bad master. " Precise remark of the French playwright and prose writer! And Francis Bacon, an English philosopher, literally continued this thought: “If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him." However, the spenders and idle squanders of their wealth are no better, believe me!
The most important principle of Buddhism is the principle of detachment. Buddha taught that one cannot get used to anything. One should appreciate everything and not be attached to anything. Otherwise, things will go awry. I believe that regarding money, one should adhere to the principle: “It does not belong to me. I only use it. " I use it to implement new ideas, projects that interested me and which I consider important. When these projects are implemented, I feel like a happy person.
In the very centre of Elista there is a majestic temple The Golden Abode of Buddha Shakyamuni, which is also called the pearl of the Kalmyk steppes. The main and largest Buddhist temple in Europe. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama blessed its construction. I am happy to be involved in its creation. Even before the construction began, I mentally imagined this temple, it was a very vivid and beautiful vision - what is now called "dream visualization". Maybe that's why the construction took eight and a half months only. Faster than a woman bears a child.