There are several cautionary tales to be acknowledged when looking at the life, times and decisions of the super wealthy over the years.

First up, an opening example is James Altucher. He started Reset Inc - a web-design company of full stack proportions - in the 1990s. He later sold it for $10 million. But then he pretty much lost everything across a string of bad investments. He had precious little left in his bank account.

But Altucher has since made a comeback, of sorts, recovering via blogging about his riches-to-rags story. He has also written 20-plus books. These endeavours have helped him recoup some of his previous financial losses.

The undoing of Mallya

For a higher profile example, there is Vijay Mallya. Part of his riches came from a vested interested in the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League. But he has since lost plenty of millions, perhaps even billions. He made a series of questionable choices, some of which led to bankruptcy.

"We can confirm that we presented a bankruptcy petition against Mallya on behalf of the banks," said United Kingdom-based law firm LT LLP partner Paul Gair in 2018.

"This was issued in Mallya's local court, Northampton County Court, and has now been transferred to the insolvency list in the High Court of Justice in London for the hearing."

You might consider it better to be a Powerball winner than becoming wealthy by other means when you read about George Forman, too. 

Foreman, first and foremost

The infamous boxer won a gold medal at the Olympics, gained notoriety around the world and enjoyed many of the bells and whistles that came with such fame.

But he had to file for bankruptcy in 1983 amid his declining sources of income. He eventually returned to boxing, did television commercials and launched the George Foreman Grill. This cooking contraption sold over 100 million units around the world. Needless to say, being associated with the grill earned him plenty of millions back. 

Hands on Handley’s money

Perhaps not as high profile as Foreman or Mallya, there was Craig Handley. He founded ListenTrust – a call centre solution that was based in the United Kingdom. It almost all went to pot for this entrepreneur. 

"When I started making money, I spent it on my passions and helping friends and family before I saved enough, rather than invest it to generate more revenue. I thought the money would keep flowing and didn’t prepare for challenges," said Handley.

"When they came, I lost 85 percent of my income and found myself struggling. Create a financial buffer before anything else - or have a solid plan to generate a return on your passion."

In conclusion, millionaires and billionaires, like people with ordinary wealth, can be prone to making mistakes here and there. They are not exempt from human error. Like the rest of us, for the most part, they can make decisions based on emotions rather than due diligence and other nifty means of making sound choices.