The business arena is saturated with advice, a majority of which is bullshit. Therefore, I think it’s important to have a list of mentors who you can seek for accurate information and guidance. Unfortunately, starting out, most entrepreneurs don’t have these types of real-life mentors and we have to make due with people we read about online or in books.
I think that research and obtaining new knowledge is crucial to success- it can tell you when you’re veering off course, but at the same time what is equally important is knowing when to ignore advice. For me, Felix Dennis is one of those mentors that cuts the bullshit and helps keep me on the right path.
His book, How to get Rich: One of the World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets, is a no-nonesense approach to making it big in the business world. He dissuades the majority of readers from making the attempt because of the sacrifice and hardship that is required, but at the same time gives helpful insights for people that are determined to be as successful as he is.
I’d recommend this book for any one that wants to be richer than their neighbor.
Quotes + Notes
“The follow-through, the execution, is a thousand times more important than a “great idea.” In fact, if the execution is perfect, it sometimes barely matters what the idea is. If you want to get rich, don’t sit around waiting for inspiration to strike. Just get busy getting rich.”
“(Young person’s advantage:) neither education nor upbringing, nor even money, can buy—you have almost nothing. And therefore you have almost nothing to lose. Nor is a propensity for risk-taking your only advantage. You have stamina far, far beyond those who are twenty or thirty years older.”
“Ambition, fearlessness, self-belief, stamina, a degree of callousness, a willingness to learn.”
“Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
“No matter how much faculty of idle seeing a man has, the step from knowing to doing is rarely taken.”
“What are you willing to sacrifice to achieve it? How great is the sacrifice in reality, as opposed to your nightmarish fears at 3 o’clock in the morning?”
“Thus the nightmare of prospective failure provides you with the very opportunity you are seeking. Not only does it restrain smarter people than yourself from becoming rich—and there can only be so many rich people in the world—it.”
“Thick enough to shrug off the inevitable sniggering and malicious mockery that will follow your inevitable failures, not to mention the poorly hidden envy that will accompany your eventual success. Few things in life are certain except death and being taxed. But sniggering and mockery prior to any attempt to better yourself financially, followed by envy later, or gloating during your initial failures—these are three certainties in life. It hurts. It’s mindless. And it doesn’t mean anything. But it will happen. Be prepared to shrug it off.”
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy; the chance to draw back; always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is one elemental truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one commits oneself, Providence moves all. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of incidents and meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would come his or her way. —JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE”
“This last factor is crucial, because the ability to live with and embrace risk is what sets apart the financial winners and losers in the world.”
“An understanding and passionate affinity with any subject, in combination with effective management, sales and marketing techniques, could well provide a tailor-made solution to the Search.”
“So how do you judge your own aptitudes? Trial and error is the only way I ever heard of.”
“Inclinations are easy to list. Aptitude is far less so. Trial and error, combined with fierce determination and a willingness to discard cherished perceptions about ourselves, is the best that I can suggest.”
“More important, it really does not matter who gives birth to any particular idea. This is borne out by the laws relating to patents and inventions. You cannot patent an idea. You can only patent your own method for implementing an idea. It is for this reason that so many people have become rich despite never having had a single great idea in their lives. As it happens, I count myself among them.”
“It is how ideas are implemented that counts in the long run.”
“If you want to be rich, then watch your rivals closely and never be ashamed to emulate a winning strategy. They may josh you a little for doing it, but that’s a price well worth paying.”
“If you want to be rich, then watch your rivals closely and never be ashamed to emulate a winning strategy. They may josh you a little for doing it, but that’s a price well worth paying.”
“If you never have a single great idea in your life, but become skilled in executing the great ideas of others, you can succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Seek them out and make them work. They do not have to be your ideas. Execution is all in this regard.”
“Ideas don’t make you rich. The correct execution of ideas does. ”
“For a self-made man or woman there is no avoiding it. Beware of anyone who tells you that there are short cuts to obtaining even a small amount of capital. Outside of family and friends, there are none that I ever heard of.”
“In a sense, this exhausting and miserable search is what separates the wannabes from the gonnabes. The only way through it is to keep trudging. “When going through, hell,” Winston Churchill once remarked, “keep going.””
“If you cannot bear the thought of prostrating yourself to obtain the seed corn, then you will almost certainly never own the farm.”
“That was the secret ingredient. I would not be a wage slave. I would not take “no” for an answer. I would not give in. I was going to be rich. Some how. Some way. Someday soon. And I would not retreat to the safety of a decent job until I was starved out of house and home.”
“What fueled me was the desperation of knowing that unless I found a way around my lack of capital, unless I could pour my energy into a venture of my own, I would be condemned to a life of wage slavery. There is absolutely nothing more likely to dampen the prospects of becoming rich than a nice, fat, regular salary check.”
Letters to My Brother by the artist Vincent van Gogh,
When the going gets tough, when all seems lost, when partners and luck desert you, when bankruptcy and failure are staring you in the face, all that can sustain you is a fierce compulsion to succeed at any price.
And it is control and ownership of a business entity which brings with it the promise of future wealth.
• Keep your chin up. It could be worse. You could be working for them.
“Success is never permanent; failure is never fatal. The only thing that really counts is to never, never, never give up.”
After all, who built the pyramids? The pharaohs or the engineers? Think about it.
Without self-belief nothing can be accomplished. With it, nothing is impossible. It is as brutal and as black and white as that. If you take no other memory from this book, then take that single thought. It was worth a damn sight more than the price you paid for it.
One of my favorite philosophers, the first-century Roman Seneca, coined the following: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
Because I owned it. I owned it all. And my dear friends David and Robin never owned anything during their time there except for a pile of EMAP share options, a good salary and a lovely pension. Please think about this if you want to be rich. Ownership is not the most important thing. It is the only thing that counts.
Nothing counts but what you own in the race to get rich. If you haven’t much skill, or much wit, or much talent, or much luck, and yet you insist on owning more than your fair share of any start-up or acquisition, then you can become rich. If you take what you’re given, you will probably not get rich.
Unfortunately, as John Lennon pointed out, our lives are “what happen while we’re busy making other plans.”
By focusing hard on obtaining that human capital you will vastly increase your chances of becoming rich.
But why would clever, cunning and adept people work for a mug like you? Simple. There are many clever, cunning and adept people who are risk-averse. You are not risk-averse because you are dedicated to becoming rich. Believe it or not, much, much cleverer people than you will come and work for you if you ask them.
Your employees, your colleagues, your suppliers and your customers are all human capital. Choosing among them is an art form. Yet creating the right environment in which money can be made is essential.
And yet you wish to waste your youth in the getting of money? Really? Think hard, my young cub, think hard and think long before you embark on such a quest. The time spent attempting to acquire wealth will mount up and cannot be reclaimed, whether you succeed or whether you fail.
You will be too busy keeping the sea from washing away the sand you have spent so long collecting at such terrible cost to your health and your sanity and your relationships with others.
THE WORLD IS FULL OF MONEY. SOME OF IT HAS MY NAME ON IT. ALL I HAVE TO DO IS COLLECT IT. Done that?
Armies and governments fear men or women who know they are going to die soon; and they have good reason to. Such people have nothing to lose. They will commit any atrocity and take as many others with them as they can, if they are driven to it. You must now become that doomed man or woman. You are going to die. Nothing can alter the fact. It is immutable. Incomprehensible. Unfair. All those things.
Never stop looking for talent and promoting talent. This single suggestion will keep anyone rich.
The Eight Secrets to Getting Rich 1. Analyze your need. Desire is insufficient. Compulsion is mandatory. 2. Cut loose from negative influences. Never give in. Stay the course. 3. Ignore “great ideas.” Concentrate on great execution. 4. Focus. Keep your eye on the ball marked “The Money is Here.” 5. Hire talent smarter than you. Delegate. Share the annual pie. 6. Ownership is the real “secret.” Hold on to every percentage point you can. 7. Sell before you need to, or when bored. Empty your mind when negotiating. 8. Fear nothing and no one. Get rich. Remember to give it all away.
After all, if everyone was prepared to make the necessary sacrifices, who would be left to work for my own companies?
Here is my suggestion. Think of this fear not as the King Kong of bogeymen, but as a mare. A nightmare. A mare, after all, is a horse. A horse can be tamed, bridled, saddled, harnessed and (eventually) ridden. Harnessing the power of such a creature adds mightily to your own. Thus the nightmare of prospective failure provides you with the very opportunity you are seeking. Not only does it restrain smarter people than yourself from becoming rich—and there can only be so many rich people in the world—it affords you the chance of increasing your confidence, both when you confront it and when you master it.
For a start, the salary begins to have an attraction and addictive-ness all of its own. A regular paycheck and crack cocaine have that in common. In addition, and more to the point, working too long for other people can blunt your desire to take risks. This last factor is crucial, because the ability to live with and embrace risk is what sets apart the financial winners and losers in the world.
The three reasons for this are availability of risk capital, ignorance and the power of a rising tide. Investors are drawn to emerging industries in the hope of making a fast buck. To get rich, you will need capital, and to acquire capital you need to be where loose capital is searching for a home. In addition, the combination of ignorance and misconception that surrounds any new market or technology works in your favor. If you are quick at grasping concepts and jargon, you become an “instant expert.” The owners of capital love “experts.”
Capitalism demands that whoever takes the most financial risk calls the piper’s tune. The biggest rewards go not to those individuals who came up with the idea, nor to those individuals who built the empire. They go to those entities or individuals who funded the enterprise and own the most stock. Always bear this in mind during the Search.
Plus the ability to sell, which is usually nothing more than a talent for hype and keeping a straight face as you demand a fifty times markup from potential buyers who wouldn’t know a Damien Hirst from a pickled sardine.
The problem is that we create an image of ourselves in our childhood and youth (often at the urging of parents, siblings or friends), and subsequently attempt to graft reality onto this image. More often than not, the graft doesn’t take and the result is bewilderment and disappointment. Far better to ruthlessly analyze what your particular aptitudes are and act upon them rather than attempt to graft an oak tree onto a dandelion.
How to Get Rich: One of the World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets (Felix Dennis)
– Highlight on Page 85 | Loc. 1726-27 | Added on Saturday, July 07, 2012, 05:46 PM
She reminded me that at twenty-five years old, I was still a young man. That I could always give up the job and then start my own company later.
“Everybody has talent at twenty-five. The difficult thing is to have it at fifty.”
Write down your doubts and fears. Examine them. Hold them up to the light. Suck the wisdom out of them and discard their husks in the trash.
Listening is the most powerful weapon after self-belief and persistence you can bring into play as an entrepreneur.
the world is full of aspiring lieutenants. Most people seek job security, job satisfaction and power over others far more than they seek wealth.
must try to own it all. You must strive with every fiber of your being, while recognizing the idiocy of your behavior, to own and retain control of as near to 100 percent of any company as you can.
I’ve made more than that in deals I can barely remember now. I once made a million dollars by selling a magazine I had not even published yet to a rival. A million dollars for a day’s work. And why? Why? Why? Because I owned it. I owned it all. And my dear friends David and Robin never owned anything during their time there except for a pile of EMAP share options, a good salary and a lovely pension. Please think about this if you want to be rich. Ownership is not the most important thing. It is the only thing that counts.
“Why doth treason never prosper? For shouldst thou fail, thou must hang. And if it doth succeed, why, ’twas never treason!”
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid. —BERTRAND RUSSELL, “IN PRAISE OF IDLENESS”
Especially in the early days of your company, delegation and promotion are among your most powerful weapons in getting rich. Men and women with spirit will be prepared to leave safe, comfortable jobs and work for you, providing the atmosphere of the new operation is loaded with optimism, adventure, the sweet scent of delegation and the promise of promotion. Not everyone works to get rich. In fact, most people do not. But almost everyone wishes to be respected. With promotion comes respect. And with delegation comes promotion. If your company is young and a bit rickety, meritocracy, delegation and promotion are the bricks and mortar that will make it stronger.
For whatever reason, a surprising number of first-class employees (managers or otherwise) are not overly motivated by money. They want security, or respect, or the chance to learn or the opportunity to shine. Often they require little more than a decent salary in a company where they feel motivated and valued.
How you react to it, how you face up to it, defines whether you can stay rich, and probably whether you can get rich at all.
My advice on competition is always to ensure that you want to fight, and ought to fight on a larger competitor’s ground.
20. Enjoy the business of making money. The loot is only a marker. Time cannot be recaptured. There is no amount of pie in the world worth being miserable for, day after day. If you find you dislike what you are doing, then sell up and change your life. Self-imposed misery is a kind of madness. The cure is to get out.
I became a multimillionaire in 1982. By then I was thirty-five years old. Barmy! By thirty-five I was already half dead.
With my talents I could have been a multimillionaire by the time I was twenty-five or twenty-eight. All that was stopping me was my conviction that I was a born magazine publisher. How stupid. I wasted eight or nine years when I could have been drinking Petrus, swilling down Retsina and lager instead.
This is so important, gentle reader. It pains me to think about it. If you wish to become rich, look carefully about you at the prevailing industries where wealth appears to be gravitating. Then go to where the money is! That is where you should focus your efforts. On the ball marked “The Money is Here.”
No. But, then, I didn’t know anything about magazines in 1967 either.
Stupid people are easy to hire. The world is full of stupid people. Many of them are extremely pleasant and will give you a lovely smile every morning. But such people will not add to your wealth. In the early days, you should avoid them like the bubonic plague. What you need are clever, cunning and adept people.
If on my deathbed I had only a very short time to pass on what wisdom I have accumalted about getting rich to a son or daughter, then it would be this: Ownership Shall Be Half of the Law; Doing an Outstanding Job Shall Be the Other Half. There is no point in owning 100 percent of a rubbish company. Whatever it is you intend to do to get rich, get good at it. Hire people who are better than you at it. Listen and learn and get better still at it.
I had broken two of my own cardinal rules and paid the price. I had not looked to see if the leopard could change its spots, and I had not instructed my managers at Dennis Publishing to quietly sound out the chances of selling Stuff.
The first question to answer is where is the goddamn money? Let’s imagine it is in a mine in a mountain. Fine. Which mountain? The mountain that is already making a lot of other people rich would be a good bet.
To be rich, if that is still your desire, you must somehow learn to harness fear to your own advantage.
Never stop looking for talent and promoting talent. This single suggestion will keep anyone rich. Talent is all most companies consist of. Talented people are crucial to keeping your company humming right along and growing. As the owner, you have the right to seek out talent, both inside and outside of your company. You have the right to insist it is promoted or hired. Make use of that last right. If you get known for making use of it, the talent will start coming to you.
– “I believe that almost anyone of reasonable intelligence can become rich, given sufficient motivation and application.”
– No college education or capital.
– “Knowledge learned the hard way combined with the avoidance of error, whenever and wherever possible, is the soundest basis for success in any endeavor.”
– If he can do it, I can do it. “By making errors, lots of errors, and learning from them.”
Key: “confidence and an unshakable belief it can be done and that you are the one to do it.” “Tunnel vision helps. Being a bit of a shit helps. A thick skin helps. Stamina is crucial, as is a capacity to work so hard that your best friends mock you, your lovers despair and the rest of your acquaintances watch furtively from the sidelines, half in awe and half in contempt.”
– Not want or need, but determined.
-“The follow-through, the execution, is a thousand times more important than a “great idea.” In fact, if the execution is perfect, it sometimes barely matters what the idea is. If you want to get rich, don’t sit around waiting for inspiration to strike. Just get busy getting rich.”
Liquid assets
100,000-400,000 comfortable poor
400,000-1,000,000 comfortably off
1,000,000-2 million comfortably wealthy
2 mil – 10 mil lesser rich
10 mil – 30 mil comfortably rich
30 mil – 70 mil the rich
70 mil – 100 mil the seriously rich
100 mil – 200 mil the truly rich
over 200 mil the super rich
Total assets
2 mil – 4 mil comfortable poor
4 mil – 10 mil comfortably off
10 mil – 30 comfortably wealthy
30 – 80 lesser rich
80 – 150 comfortably rich
150 – 200 rich
200 – 400 seriously rich
400 – 800 truly rich
800 – bil filthy rich
bill and over super rich
“The way will most likely be hard your failures many. It will be fun and it will get a little hairy, even scary at times. But the earlier you start and the more risks you are prepared to run tempered by listening hard and choosing the right mountain (we’ll come to that later), the more certain it is that, sooner or later, you will find yourself with a small success on your hands.”
“If you wish to be rich, you must grow a carapace. A mental armor. Not so thick as to blind you to well-constructed criticism and advice, especially from those you trust. Nor so thick as to cut you off from friends and family.”
“Capitalism…as its name implies, it requires capital for those who wish to play the game and succeed.”
Control + Ownership = future wealth
Failure
1. Lack of compulsion
2. Cash flow optimism (non-viable, can’t support expenditures). It is an entrepreneur’s job to manage and forecast cashflow.
3. Reinforcing failure (let it go. Success often has to do with timing).
1979- His first real success
4. Failing to act small, think big. “Thinking big, that’s the secret.” “It’s never game over, time to party.”
I want to establish myself as a serious player.
5. Skimping on talent. Talent = sustained growth = wealth.
Inviting talent to take responsibility and control leads to great things.
Talent wants to prove itself, excel, and run the show daily.
-Need talent to be rich (yours or others).
– Talent does the work.
– Self belief has a mesmeric quality.
– Examine your doubt and fears.
– Canibilization is good because otherwise others will take that revenue.
– Predator, not deliberate.
Self belief. Persistence. Listening.
-Young, so have nothing to lose.
-Stamina – 12 hours per day of work
– Knowledge of technology
– Working for someone else blunts your desire to take risks
– Small success can provide clue as to aptitude
– Ability to take chance and exploit initial success
– Serendipity
– Nike sport shoes –> runner. Idea –> entrepreneur.
– Emulation of business practices. Never be afraid to emulate a winning strategy.
– Names don’t count.
– Encourage and search for great ideas but control them so they don’t control you.
– “There are only six ways of obtaining capital. You can be given or inherit it; you can steal it; you can win it; you can marry it; you can earn it; you can borrow it.”
The Thought Hole 