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Names of Group Members: Michael Johansen, Lina Azofeifa, Jordan Pollack, Sagar Shah toc =Essential Question:= What does it take to become a financial success story in America?

Challenge:
To assist people in becoming a financial success story.

Guiding Questions:
1) What percentage of people end up becoming a success story? 2) What does it mean to be successful in America? 3) What professions create the most successful stories? 4) What are some of the most famous American success stories in American history? (opinionated) =Guiding Activities:= 1) Explore statistics on the internet in order to find the percentage of people that end up becoming a success story. 2) Collect information through a survey that asks people what it means to be successful in America. 3) Research the internet to find statistics on what professions create the most successful stories. 4) Research some prominent figures in American history and write about what their motivation was for becoming successful, how they became successful, and what field their field of work was.

=Guiding Resources:= 1) Internet Articles, and Statistics http://www.businesspundit.com/wealth-distribution-in-the-united-states/ http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html  http://www.articlesbase.com/self-help-articles/what-percentage-of-people-are-rich-424585.html  http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/courses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm  http://www.askfite.com/my_place/2008/01/how-many-millio.html  http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/09/americans-millionaires-study-finds/

The articles included information that showed me statistics on how the wealth, and how income in America is divided between the different levels of income. These sites gave me information and statistics that showed the large percent/number of rich Americans.

2) Survey on what it means to be successful. Survey results: Of the one hundred fifty people that were asked "What does it mean to be successful in America?," 80% believed that having money is success.



3) Internet Articles. @http://www.nydailynews.com/money/toplists/forbes_400/forbes_400.html @http://www.atouchofbusiness.com/business-topics/successstories.html @http://www.mizozo.com/biz/10/2009/01/america-s-richest-people.html

In the articles I read it gave me the top financially successful people in America. In them it gave me information on their jobs, I found that most of them were entrepreneurs, business owners. This was helpful in my research because it helped me conclude that the jobs that create the most successful stories are things such as business owners, and entrepreneurs.

4) 3 of the most prominent figures in America.

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[|www.beearly.com/famousFaces/]**[|warrenBuffett]**[|.pdf]

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These links above gave me information on Warren Buffet, Bill Gates III, and Barack Obama. I found how each of them lived as a child and how they each became successful. I found that with the amount that they studied (even by going to college/not completing college) and through the belief they had invested into making their dreams into reality, all three of these men became successful. My solution (stated below) will go more in depth with my guiding resources.

= Solution/Action: =

1) In the articles I read they gave me important statistics and information about how the income and wealth of America is divided the different classes of society. According to the article,__How Many Millionaires in the United States__, 8.9% of Americans are millionaires, which equals 7.8 million people, which is an astounding number of people. In addition, this percent of people increases each year For example in 2009, the percent of millionaires was increased by 16% as claimed by the article by Fox News. In the article, __The Distribution of Wealth in America__, its statistics proved this top 10% of American accounts for 71.2% of the wealth in America, which is quite an outstanding number. This top 10% also accounts for 25.1% of the income for Americans as claimed by the same article, __The Distribution of Wealth in America__. These statistics show the huge gap between being being a millionaire in America, and just being an average or even lower class American. In addition, the statistics show that due to the large number of millionaires and the increasing percent each year it would not be that hard to assist people in becoming a financial success story.

2) To determine what it takes to become a success in America, the American populace must first define success. Success can be spiritual, social, financial, educational, etc. A survey was taken of a sample of 150 people to represent the American public. These people were asked what it means to be a success in America. The results were not surprising. Five percent of people said that respect is equal to success, fifteen percent of people said that power was success, and eighty percent of people said that success means having a surplus of money. In a capitalist society, it is not a shock that the majority of people said that money was equivalent to success. America is full of working class Americans that work hard to make a living. Some are more successful than others and that could be a result of luck, hard work and determination, or a number of other factors. Since the variable of luck cannot be controlled, the average person would have a better chance of becoming successful if they are showed how to become a success.

3) In my research I found that the jobs that result in the most successful people in America are jobs such as being a business owner, entrepreneurs, business men/women etc... In order to become a successful at these jobs I found you need to have a great idea and also be able to execute it well. Most of these people went from having nothing to having billions of dollars, which shows that is possible to be successful.

4) In these articles, I found much of the success from these men came from a desire to be affluent and try to do something like no one else has done. Barack Obama had did not have as great a childhood as anyone, but by moving homes and schools at such a young age, he wanted to change the way Americans lived and he is now doing that by being president. Warren Buffet himself started working as a child and had an interest in the stock market by the time he was 13. This shows that with all the money he made, he invested it and researched how to buy and sell stocks and because of his work, not only is he rich, but he has power all over the world. Bill Gates III is probably the most successful person between these three men because he bought Microsoft for such little money and then added to the mechanics of how it works and now he is the richest man in the world because of that. In short, these three men had a goal in mind and they all tried so hard to accomplish their goal to be successful and they achieved just that.