Hard-driving achievers take everything to the limit around the globe, and beyond
The idle rich they’re not. Dennis Tito blasts into space. Ed Roski Jr. scales towering peaks in Nepal. Roy Disney races yachts. Peter Morton takes archeological sojourns to Machu Picchu. Ted Field drives racecars. Barron Hilton buys himself an island for duck hunting.
Call them the full-throttle rich.
L.A.’s wealthiest people are not content to merely lounge poolside nursing an Old-Fashioned even if they wanted to, they couldn’t. At least not for long. When L.A. moguls take that well-deserved break from their respective business conquests, they launch into other types of challenges. It’s as if they need to constantly put themselves to the test to overcome, triumph, conquer. And the feats seem to be getting grander, even as L.A. moguls get older, as evidenced most recently by 60-year-old Tito’s rocket trip to the International Space Station.
“I would say the most challenging thing for me right now is flying my little Lear 24,” said local billionaire Franklin Otis Booth Jr., 77, speaking of his private jet. “It makes me concentrate my aging attention span most emphatically.”
Pushing the envelope is absolutely a must for many super-achievers, who can’t help but demonstrate that they’re better, faster, braver than the next guy, several psychologist agreed.
“I’m sure Paul Newman likes to drive racecars, but there’s a social aspect, too,” said Dr. Jerold Jellison, a professor of psychology at USC. “It’s a way to show you can put it all on the line and succeed. People who buy businesses that are ready to close and make them profitable are doing the same thing in a way. They are proving themselves worthy where others failed, or where others are afraid to go.”
For Booth, pushing the envelope in his private jet isn’t enough. The avid outdoorsman for decades has been taking exotic fishing trips with fellow Berkshire Hathaway billionaire Charles Munger. Booth this month is jetting to Uruguay to do streamside battle. But he especially enjoys going mano a mano with the trout of British Columbia, where he has landed steelhead weighing in excess of 20 pounds.
“They really like to fight, and that’s where the challenge comes in. When you get something extraordinarily large, it’s great,” he said with relish.
Dr. Rex J. Beaber, a clinical psychologist who used to teach at UCLA, said such dedication to extravagant diversions is often part of the psychological profile of the overachiever.
Doing Battle
“These are challenge-oriented people who often thrive on doing battle,” said Beaber, now a practicing attorney. “They get bored because they’ve already won the professional battle and they are seeking some form of new challenge that creates some kind of new achievement in their lives. It’s another obstacle to overcome. If they don’t do thrill-seeking, they throw themselves into their hobbies art collecting, stamp collecting, coin collecting, car collecting.”
And the latter has certainly been an unquenchable passion for publishing magnate Robert Petersen, founder of magazines such as Hot Rod and Motor Trend.
About 60 of the more than 200 classic vehicles at the Petersen Automotive Museum in the Miracle Mile district came from Petersen’s personal collection. Counting his $30 million infusion last year, Petersen has sunk about $100 million into the museum so far.
“I guess I’m deep into it,” said Petersen with a chuckle. “I’ve treated it like a business because it is an extension of my business.”
Of the 10 cars that Petersen currently owns (parked at his home and ranches), his favorites include two Ferraris: a 355 Roadster “for when the sun’s shining” and a 456 for when it’s not. His “going-around car” is a Cadillac four-door.
His favorite museum cars include a 1939 Bugatti 57C Sport Roadster that once belonged to the Shah of Iran, a former hunting partner of Petersen’s. Another favorite is a 1938 Delahaye from France.
“It takes a lot of time, because you’re constantly buying and selling cars,” said Petersen, who also has an expensive collections of rare and one-of-a-kind gattling guns. “That means a lot of long phone calls.”
Indeed, psychologist Beaber points out that moguls often employ the same tactics that made them wealthy.
Ambitious Leisure
“I’d be very surprised if I heard that any one of these people, the super-rich, didn’t approach other interests in their lives the same way they do their business interests,” Beaber said. “I am certain they do a lot of research, they focus well and they’re ambitious about it. They don’t tend to do things halfway.”
Fellow psychologist Jellison concurs.
“Personally and professionally, risk-taking is a way of demonstrating your ability to people,” Jellison said. “If you’re sitting up in the chalet at the ski lodge watching someone come down the bunny hill slope, you don’t think much of it, do you? But if you see someone coming down the ‘Double Daredevil’ slope, you are more impressed with their abilities.
“Taking risks, pushing the envelope, whatever you want to call it, is a way, psychologically, to show other people how good you are, a way to prove yourself to people,” Jellison said. “If you’ve already proved yourself in one field, then it can be a way to keep proving yourself, that you can be good at more than just that one thing.”
And for Booth, who has used his investing acumen to build a personal fortune of $1.23 billion, his outdoor passions of “shooting, fishing and flying” are all part of his unending quest to excel.
“When you do something, you like to do it well, and there’s a challenge in that alone,” he said.
