The 'Reallionaire'

May 19, 2006 — -- Farrah Gray began contributing to his family's financial support at the age of 6, and he made his first million by the time he was 14. His success made a lot of people change their thinking about where life in the projects of Chicago's South Side could lead.

His head is shaved, and he now dresses impeccably in expensive, tailored suits when he goes to work in one of his offices in Las Vegas or New York; but he looks only slightly older than his age, which is 21. Part of what motivated him to begin earning money at such a young age was watching his mother work so hard.

"When I went to sleep she was up; when I woke up she was up," he said. "So I never really was sure that she did go to sleep. And I really felt that out of that feeling of struggle, my mom had a heart attack, and I said there must be something I can do to help her."

Setting out with an executive-size ambition to make life easier if he could, Gray made use of the most basic resources available to him -- such as the rocks he found in the street.

"I started painting these oversize rocks. And I would knock on people's doors. Knock hard. And shake people's hand and say, 'Hello my name is Farrah Gray.' I said, 'Would you like to buy this rock? It can be used as paper weights, bookends and door stoppers.' And people would look at me and say, 'Isn't that the rock that was in front of my door?' And I'd say, 'Yes, but it's different now.'"

He says he was learning lessons in seeing alternative uses of common things. For instance, when Gray's mother refused to buy him a briefcase, he decided to use his lunchbox to greet the world as a self-appointed CEO.

"I took a red lunchbox, and I would go around and that was my little briefcase and I used my brother's clip-on tie and I would present myself to the world."

"Instead of a little boy, he was a little man," said his grandmother, Audrey Price. "He was going to make a speech. And he told whoever was in the room at the time to just 'sit back and listen to me.' And it was like he was a professor or something."