How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis

A very well written account of his experiences converted to advice on how to get rich. There is a nugget of gold on every page. I thoroughly enjoyed his narration and never once felt like I was being talked down to. Dennis seems, as he must be, a wise man and has a lot to offer in this book.

Rating 9/10. Finished 2011-03-27.

‘The inferior man’s reasons for hating knowledge are not hard to discern. He hates it because it is complex – because it puts an unbearable burden on his meagre capacity for taking in ideas. Thus his search is always for short cuts. All superstitions are such short cuts. Their aim is to make the unintelligible simple, and even obvious

The jets are always rented. If it flies, floats or fornicates, always rent it – it’s cheaper in the long run.

Whatever qualities the rich may have, they can be acquired by anyone with the tenacity to become rich. The key, I think, is confidence. Confidence and an unshakeable 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. Luck helps – but only if you don’t seek it

If the execution is perfect, it sometimes barely matters what the idea is

Becoming rich has given me the most precious thing in life. And just what is the most precious thing in life that riches can supply? Easy For me, it’s Time. Time. Time to read and write poetry if I want to. Or to write a book if it takes my fancy. Time to travel on the slightest whim, to walk in the woods, to think, to commission art, to read, to drink, to hang out with friends and loved ones … to do just about anything really, as long as it does not involve day after grinding day making money in an office or a factory for somebody else.

No task is a long one but the task on which one dare not start. It becomes a nightmare.

Never trust the vast mountain of conventional wisdom. It contains great nuggets of wisdom, it is true. But they lie alongside rivers of fool’s gold

Conventional wisdom daunts initiative and offers far too many convenient reasons for inaction.

Anyone not busy learning is busy dying.

I employ a great many people smarter than I am. That’s not false modesty. That’s a stone-cold fact. The only two reasons they continue to work for me and put money into my pocket are that, on the positive side, they enjoy their work, and on the negative side, they fear losing what they have already gained – challenging work, congenial colleagues, a certain status and the promise of promotion and pay rises

Three reasons. Firstly, I’m proud of them. Proud that those who work for me are brave enough, motivated enough and trained sufficiently well to go for it on their own. Boldness attracts applause, as the writer and philosopher Goethe once remarked in doggerel: Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it

If I had my time again, knowing what I know today, I would dedicate myself to making just enough to live comfortably (say £30 or £40 million), as quickly as I could – hopefully by the time I was thirty-five years old. I would then cash out immediately and retire to write poetry and plant trees

Up to just seven years ago I was still working twelve to sixteen hours a day making money. With hundreds of millions of dollars in assets I just could not let go. Like I said, it was pathetic. Because whoever dies with the most toys doesn’t win. Real winners are people who know their limits and respect them. Eventually I found a way out. I handed over day-to-day control of my businesses to younger and mostly smarter boys and girls. I cleaned up my personal life. I began doing what I wanted to do – not what I felt I had to do. After all, what did I have to prove? Except, perhaps, to myself

Everywhere you look, you will find men and women who appear to take perverse pleasure in pointing out the shriekingly obvious: that if a new venture does not succeed, it may result in failure

‘A committee is a group of the unwilling, chosen from the unfit to do the unnecessary.

It is for this reason that committees are discouraged on the battlefield. A commander may be proved wrong. He may be proved right. But prompt decisions and orders, right or wrong, are far healthier than endless debate and prevarication. This applies equally to a debate within one’s own mind. Fretting is counter-productive at any level

Knowing isn’t doing what you need to do, my son; Telling me you know is only bluffing on the run; Knowing isn’t doing; Doing isn’t knowing; Nothing but the knowing and the doing gets it done.

Firstly, letting others or yourself down and the consequent financial calamity. My response is: so what? You may let others down if you act. You may let yourself down if you do not act. And just how calamitous will utter failure prove to be, in any case

To sum up then, if you wish to be rich, you must grow a carapace. A mental armour. 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. But 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

The Germans have a superb word for the (secret) pleasure humans obtain from the misfortunes of others. It is Schadenfreude – from schaden meaning ‘harm’ (from which we get the word ‘shadow’), and freude meaning ‘joy’. Those of you who are definitely going to be rich will recognise it often enough in the faces and body language of idiots around you. It is the price you must learn to pay for any attempt to raise yourself in the world. And I suspect that was as true ten thousand years ago as it is today

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master; If you can think – and not make thoughts you aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same … RUDYARD KIPLING, ‘IF’

So is it such a terrible thing that the vast majority of us settle for what comes along rather than making a career plan and sticking with it? And how do you get to decide what career you might excel at anyway? Most parents and teachers reading this are not going to like my answer. It’s this: none of it matters a damn if you want to get rich. This is not to say that ‘the Search’ is not important to young people. It’s important and it’s scary and it’s fun and infuriatingly confusing. For most people, it occurs in their twenties or very early thirties

In other words, if you feel absolutely moved towards a particular vocation, then that’s exactly where you should head. But be aware that if you want to make huge sums of money, then earning a living by slowly swarming up the greasy pole is rarely the way to do it

If you want to be rich, you are not looking for a ‘career’, except as a launch pad or as a chance to infiltrate and understand a particular industry. A job for the rich-in-training is merely something to keep you ticking over, to put food on your plate and wine in your glass. Additionally, it will provide excellent training in man-management and negotiation skills; it will supply inside market information; above all, it will act as a salutary reminder of what happens to 99.99 per cent of your colleagues – the ones who buy lottery tickets and dream of becoming rich but who haven’t a hope in hell of achieving any such thing

So if you want to be rich and you are in the Search phase of your life, then get used to one thing. You are not part of a team— although you may have to pretend you are. To put it more politely, you may have to adopt the idea of teamwork, for the time being, to help yourself understand better how individuals, departments, companies or industries function.

Team spirit is for losers, financially speaking. It’s the glue that binds the losers together. It’s the methodology employers use to shackle useful employees to their desk without having to pay them too much. While lives may depend on it in a few professions, like soldiering or fire-fighting, in commerce it acts as a subtle handicap and a brake to ambitious individual

New or rapidly developing industries, whether glamorous or not, very often provide more opportunities to get rich than established sectors. The three reasons for this are availability of risk capital, ignorance and the power of a rising tide

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. Few inventors or ‘creative types’ make very good managers or businessmen, in case you hadn’t noticed.

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. 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 analyse what your particular aptitudes are and act upon them rather than attempt to graft an oak tree onto a dandelion

They can build confidence, a key element in risk taking, and the only way I know of to get rich from a standing start. And they can inform you, too, of your weaknesses, which in turn can protect you from spending your working life making other people rich – the probable fate of nearly everyone you currently know

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.

To put it less fancifully, they were lucky in the Search and skilful in their follow-up. Boldness helped. Conquering fear of failure helped. Persistence helped. But, without some luck, no one can get anywhere in the search to discover the exact arena in which to do battle, the arena that suits an individual’s aptitudes and inclinations

Luck is preparation multiplied by opportunity.’ SENECA, ROMAN PHILOSOPHER

‘The harder I practised, the luckier I got.’ GARY PLAYER, GOLF CHAMPION

‘Luck is a dividend of sweat. ‘ RAY Kroc, MCDONALD’S FOUNDER

Fortune favours not just the brave but the bold

All around us, every day, opportunities to get rich are popping up. The more alert you are, the more chance you have of spotting them. The more preparation you have done, the more chance you have of succeeding. The more bold you are, the better chance you have of getting in on the ground floor and confounding the odds. The more self-belief you can muster, the more certain will be your aim and your timing. And the less you care what the neighbours think, the more likely you are to take the plunge and exploit an opportunity

Having a great idea is simply not enough. The eventual goal is vastly more important than any idea. It is how ideas are implemented that counts in the long run. Good

IPC’s deadly rival, EMAP, immediately set about revamping a tiny men’s fashion title they had acquired called FHM (For Him Monthly), possibly the worst-named magazine in history. But names don’t count, as pop groups like The Rolling Stones or the Beatles demonstrate. FHM became a copy of Loaded, with a twist of its own.

The lesson is clear. Despite the words of the old rock ‘n’ roll song, the original is not the greatest. Not always. 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. The problem with the great idea is that it concentrates the mind on the idea itself. This is fine as far as it goes. But unless the idea is executed efficiently and with panache and originality, then it doesn’t matter how great the idea is, the enterprise will fail. Ideas are certainly of immense importance, but I have seen so many people attempting to create a start-up company who have become obsessed with proving that their idea was ‘right’ rather than obsessed with making money. And I have watched them wasting years doing it. Nobody really cares if an idea is ‘right’, except the person who came up with it.

Even Apple’s iPod, a stunning technological and marketing achievement, is designed to keep the rest of the world at bay. To get songs downloaded onto an iPod, you have to go to the Apple music store on the internet. No other source of music (officially) connects with an iPod. Why? Because it is ‘My Way or the Highway’. It is classic Steve Jobs.

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. If, on the other hand, you spend your days thinking up and developing in your mind this great idea or that, you are unlikely to get rich. Although you are likely to make many others rich. That is usually the way of it. Ideas don’t make you rich. The correct execution of ideas does

No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions. He had money as well. – MARGARET THATCHER

The simple answer is that the amounts of money you probably have in mind are way too small. And ‘small’ can work on many levels. In 2004 my company did the rounds of New York City banks and institutions. We were looking for a measly $20 million at a reasonable rate of interest spread over five or six years for a specific purpose. No dice. We were offered $100 million dollars, no sweat – but only if the providers could cut themselves in for ‘a piece of the action’. This seemed crazy to me. I had plenty of security and was merely looking to borrow a little money, not lumber my company with an ‘end-game partner’. Eventually, we found what we needed, but we had to come back to Europe to do it. So what had happened? Many US providers of capital of any stripe now only wish to play ball in return for ‘a piece of the action’ — not to mention the guaranteed return of the capital and interest if no action materialises! (In that sense, we were probably the victims of recent low interest rates, which have forced traditional bankers into a game of Darwinian evolution. If interest rates won’t bring home the bacon, then maybe ‘a piece of the action’ will. Banks, like everyone else, have to evolve or die.) This, of course, is the premise upon which venture capitalists have always operated. Venture capital companies are one way to raise capital, for sure. But the price they demand is nearly always that you hand over a huge chunk of equity. More often than not, they also insist on a date by which your new venture must be sold, either back to yourself or to outsiders

I have been approached by venture capitalists on many occasions. They are not evil men and women; far from it. They are mostly smart, well- connected, persuasive and passionate about success. But their first loyalty is to the quick buck. You do business with them at your peril. Be warned: with them, you may have a better than even chance of making your first million. But you will make them many, many more millions in order to do so. And you are unlikely to stay in control of your own destiny with any business they invest heavily in

It was via the fishes that I made my own first money – the seed capital which ensured that I retained control and ownership of my own business back in the early days of Dennis Publishing. Fishes come in all shapes and sizes. Friends, acquaintances, relatives, business colleagues, small investors, friendly bank managers of the old school, professional advisors, ex-employers, suppliers and vendors are among them. But how can they be of any use?

Above all, I retained control of the company. A company I still own 100 per cent of thirty years later, I had created capital by swimming with the fishes. Without Dick’s expertise, or the kindness of a lawyer, or the trust of contributors and designers, or the amused tolerance of my distributors, or any of a hundred other encouragements from those around me, it simply could not have been done. I have read, in articles written about me since in newspapers and magazines, that fierce loyalty to old friends and colleagues is my best characteristic. I believe that to be so. But having read all of the above, can anyone wonder why?

Lastly, to this day, I always do my best to encourage, or to be of some practical help, to others who wish to strike out on their own

One last word on obtaining capital. It’s the worst part of the whole business of getting rich. Nothing is more humiliating or debilitating than trudging the rounds with your hand out, no matter how good your project or fierce your determination. Everyone has to do it and everyone hates it. 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

There is absolutely nothing more likely to dampen the prospects of becoming rich than a nice, fat, regular salary cheque.

The net result of my work in the basement at Covent Garden was that OZ got repaid and ECAL became more profitable. For a while, anyway. But they soon slipped back into their comfortable ways and shut up shop

he tried his hand first before putting his finger in the fire

Softly, cautiously, insistently, she set out to persuade me to take the job I had been offered as a result of yet another attempt to raise money. 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. That this was not the time. That she hated to see me so bad tempered, doing little but making plans and spinning wheels in a hopeless quest to raise capital to start my own business.

Off in the wings, there are always the gentle, siren voices of friends, parents and employers, of reasonable and sensible people, torn between concern for your welfare and the secret fear that you might succeed. A harsh reading of such concerns, I admit. But a true one.

In one of the finest such books in the world. Letters to My Brother by the artist Vincent van Gogh, collected and published long after his death, you will find unbearable heartbreak, madness, rejection, hunger, passion, nightmare terrors and a tale of a man who never gave in. Who would not give in, though it cost him his life. Van Gogh’s obsessions and talents drove him mad. And he knew it. They goaded and scourged him. He said himself that he had given his life and half his sanity to his art. There was only one shining star of kindliness in his universe. His brother, Theo. Theo, despite the sensible entreaties of his sensible wife (who could scarcely abide, let alone understand, her husband’s wastrel brother), kept sending what little he could afford for Vincent to purchase brushes, canvas and paint. These acts of charity, which Theo could not easily afford and which grieved Vincent to receive, changed the course of the history of art. Because Vincent often had no money. None at all. He would sell his paintings to peasants or inn-keepers in exchange for food and board. Canvases that would later sell for tens of millions of dollars were exchanged for a roof in a barn and a breakfast or lunch. (I wonder if any of those canvases are still lying, undiscovered, in a dusty old Dutch attic?) His clothes were worn out. He wandered the countryside like a tramp. He knew himself to be a disappointment to his family and to those few friends who remembered his existence. He had been a disappointment to the only woman he ever lived with. He was certainly a disappointment to himself. Nothing went right, except, very occasionally, a particular painting. Above all, it grieved him to be a burden to his brother. But he would not give in. He would die first. He would kill himself first. And that’s what he did. To our eternal shame, he did just that. And he died having written: ‘I cannot help it that my pictures do not sell. Nevertheless, the time will come when people will see that they are worth more than the price of the paint.

The history of all human ideas is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. SIR. KARL POPPER, CONJECTURES AND REFUTATIONS

‘Assumption is the mother of all f***-ups’

without an inner compulsion to achieve it. Such lack of compulsion, if not frankly acknowledged, can lead to great personal unhappiness. We have all met deeply unhappy souls muddling along in professions or careers for which they are patently unsuited. Worse still, by continually wishing and never delivering, you risk denting your confidence, beginning a vicious downward spiral that appears to draw misfortune like a magnet. The assumption that you might be able to achieve some goal if you only wish hard enough is not just a f***-up. It’s a potential personal tragedy

Never yet have I met a self-made rich man or woman whose family or personal relationships were not plagued by the burden of creating a fortune, even a small fortune. A rocky marriage; lack of time spent with their children; the substitution of expensive gifts to repress guilt created by their frequent absences from home; the concern that their children have grown used to privilege and are consequently slacking in their education or lacking in ambition – all of these come as part and parcel of self-made wealth.

This all sounds rather melodramatic. But then I have an advantage. Not only have I grown that sliver myself, to kill my enemies with, to slay demons in the night and to harden myself against the losses to others my victories have engendered – not only that – but I have watched it grow in others who became wealthy. It is always there and will swell into a protective carapace as you search to grow rich

However poorly managed a company is, there is always a decent chance of turning its fortunes around. At the very least, there is time enough to be able to do so. But if a business’s cash flow is weak or failing, then the chances are that it must shut down or be sold in the not-too-distant future and its assets disposed of to satisfy creditors

1. Choice of Words. – The art of literature stands apart from among its sisters, because the material in which the literary artist works is the dialect of life; hence, on the one hand, a strange freshness and immediacy of address to the public mind, which is ready prepared to understand it; but hence, on the other, a singular limitation. The sister arts enjoy the use of a plastic and ductile material, like the modeller’s clay; literature alone is condemned to work in mosaic with finite and quite rigid words. You have seen these blocks, dear to the nursery: this one a pillar, that a pediment, a third a window or a vase. It is with blocks of just such arbitrary size and figure that the literary architect is condemned to design the palace of his art. Nor is this all; for since these blocks, or words, are the acknowledged currency of our daily affairs, there are here possible none of those suppressions by which other arts obtain relief, continuity, and vigour: no hieroglyphic touch, no smoothed impasto, no inscrutable shadow, as in painting; no blank wall, as in architecture; but every word, phrase, sentence, and paragraph must move in a logical progression, and convey a definite conventional import.

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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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Factoring debt is like smoking cigarettes. You know perfectly well that smoking leads to death – but that death, however appalling, is some way off. And you need a cigarette now!
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You can delegate many tasks when creating a new business, but monitoring and forecasting cash flow is not one of them. It’s your responsibility and your task. Nobody else’s. You can improve cash flow by observing the following suggestions in a start-up’s early days: O Keep payroll down to an absolute minimum. Overhead walks on two legs. O Never sign long-term rent agreements or take upmarket office space. Q Never indulge in fancy office or reception furniture, unless your particu- lar business demands that you make such an impression on clients. O Never buy a business meal if the other side offers to. You can show off later. Q Pay yourself just enough to eat. Q Do not be shy to call customers who owe you money personally. It works. O In a city, walk everywhere you can. It’s healthy and sets a good example. O Check all staff travel and entertainment claims with an eagle eye. O If you’re going to be late paying, call the vendor’s boss. Give a date. Stick to it. O Always meet payroll, even at the expense of starving yourself that week. O Issuing staff credit cards, company mobile phones or cars is the road to ruin. O Leaving lights, computers, printers and copiers on overnight is just stupid. Q A vase of beautiful flowers in reception every week creates a better impression than £100,000 worth of fancy Italian furniture. O Get used to grovelling. Grovelling is an effective tool in a start-up’s cash flow. O They want your business. Play one supplier off against another. Ruthlessly. Q Only enter a factoring deal in absolute extremity. Exit it fast. O Keep your chin up. It could he worse. You could be working for them. Cash flow is the lifeblood of arty business. But just as presidents and prime ministers learn to plan for war and hope for peace, you must plan for the worst and hope for the best in all matters relating to the cash flowing in and out of your start-up company. Regular, even obsessive, monitoring is the key. I hated every minute of doing it in those early days, but if a beancounting klutz like me could do it, then you can too
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Let’s examine the nature of success and failure for a moment. We know that success has a thousand fathers while failure is famously always an orphan. Not to mention a bastard. Then again, success has been described as the abil- ity to go from one failure to another, unrepentant and with no loss of enthu- siasm. All very well. But how the devil can we judge when a failure has occurred so that we can safely cease to reinforce it and move on
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By acting small, I mean remaining in touch. Remaining flexible. Constantly examining how your company could do better. Keeping a sense of proportion and humility. Not throwing your weight around playing the great ‘I Am’. Remembering that much of your success so far has been achieved by dumb luck
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And all ill all, it’s a lot more fun than strutting around like some obnox- ious mini-mogul. Even today, I blush at the thought of the loot I wasted and the shenanigans I got up to when I forgot to act small. Never again, brothers and sisters. Never again. End of sermon
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Sometimes, to ensure that a talented individual will work for you, or will stay working with you, you need to be flexible. Money is not always the great motivator here. Talented people want a good salary, of course, but surpris- ingly often they are more attracted to new opportunities and challenges
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When you come across real talent, it is sometimes worth allowing them to create the structure in which they choose to labour. In nine cases out of ten, by inviting them to take responsibility and control for a new venture, you will motivate them to do great things. It is possible that I would have succeeded in rebuilding Dennis in America without Steve’s help. But I doubt that it would have been as much fun. And I doubt, too, that we would have succeeded to the degree we did
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Talent is usually conscious of its own value. But the currency of that value is not necessarily a million-dollar salary. The opportunity to prove themselves, and sometimes the chance to run the show on a day-to-day basis, will often do the trick just as well. This holds true even if talent is placed in the driver’s seat of a small division within an existing operation. What talent seeks, as often as not, is the chance to prove itself and the opportunity to excel.
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Self-belief is a priceless asset. We may detest arrogance, yet isn’t it true that we admire it a little, too? Even though arrogance is a poor, shabby thing compared with rooted self-belief. It is an imitation of the real thing. Why do we covertly admire such attributes? Because such people often have what the ancients called ‘the look of eagles’ about them, which has little to do with their appearance. Single-handedly, individuals with ingrained self- belief (and, usually, a dollop of arrogance) have changed the destiny of nations
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Ignore his politics, and even his principles, by all means. But to read Winston Churchill’s speeches today, and, better still, to hear his recordings of them, is to understand the astonishing power and mesmeric quality of self-belief
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Truly. Do you believe in yourself? Do you? If you do not, and, worse still, if you believe you never can believe, then by all means go on reading this book. But take it from me, your only chance of getting rich will come from the lottery or inheritance. If you will not believe in yourself, then why should anyone else? 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, I assure you
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There is nothing wrong with doubt, or with fear. They are immensely useful tools. But you either learn to incorporate them into your thinking and your life, or you will be ruled by them. There is no ‘middle way’.
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Doubts can and should be confronted, as should fear. This is best done in daylight, under rigorous examination
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If you want to be rich you must work for it. But you must believe in it, too. You must believe in yourself, if only to armour yourself against the laughter of the gods in your quest. Your mad quest to be rich
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You can’t get rich painting by numbers. You can only do it by becoming a predator, by waiting patiently, by remaining alert and constantly sniffing the air and by bringing massive, murderous force to bear upon your prey when you pounce. You can share the kill later, by all means. But if you want to get rich, trust your own judgement when it calls – and leave those whose job it is to manage your business to pick up the pieces. They can have the scraggy bits. But the heart and liver are yours
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Yes! A thousand times yes! Why? Because if you do not launch the weekly edition, even though you know it is a good idea, then your rivals will do it for you. You will then be left with a damaged monthly and no weekly. This is called the ‘Barbarians at the Gate’ principle
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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Let’s imagine you have a herd of sacred cows inside a fortress. The barbar- ians are at the gate and you are under siege. Killing sacred cows is a horrible crime, even though your defenders are running short of food. If the barbar- ians overrun the fortress, the sacred cows will die anyway. If you kill some of the cows, you will be stronger and possibly able to turn back the barbarian attack. Ergo, you eat one or two sacred cows – even if those same cows were the meaning of life last week. Learning to evolve or die is a cardinal virtue. This same argument has been used for centuries, both in commerce and in politics
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when you stop listening, you stop learning. And if you stop learning, it’s time to get out of the kitchen and let someone else do the cooking. Listening is the most powerful weapon after self-belief and persistence you can bring into play as an entrepreneu
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Courtesy is not a cardinal virtue in getting rich, I admit. But it helps. It works. It greases wheels where force will not prevail. Out of the mouth of anyone on their way to becoming rich, it lends a certain gravitas and creates the impression of someone you might like to do business with. This is true in any country in the world, in my experience, but it is especially true in the USA. Americans worship courtesy almost as much as they worship money
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It is curiously common for new ideas to arrive independently from more than one source at a time. Science can’t explain it, and neither can I, but it’s a fact, all the sam
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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As I keep attempting to drum into you, riches aren’t particu- larly worthwhile in themselves in any case. They don’t make anyone a better person, at least as far as I have seen. But listening continuously, listening and learning, is one of the vital components for those of you who wish to be rich. What you choose to do with your loot is up to you. But listen and learn if you want to be rich!10
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You think not? How many times have you ‘knocked on wood’, perhaps rising from your chair to find a piece of wood to knock upon, or even tapped your head in a self-deprecating nod to the pagan gods of fortune? Many times, I would wager. I do it myself, and so do most people I know, however sheepishly
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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We may mock Mrs Blair and Mrs Reagan all we like, but this invincible worm of doubt, this nagging feeling that some are born to win and some are born to lose, that we can perhaps propitiate Fortune with ritual or prayer or sacrifice – this deathless wriggler infests most of us, to one degree or another. So what can we do about it on our quest to get rich?
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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‘Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.’ I have never come across a better definition – that’s why I’m repeating it. Preparation multiplied by opportunity. Say it again. Learn it off by heart. Let it become a daily mantra. Luck is preparation multiplied by opportunity
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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If you haven’t prepared yourself, the opportunity will go begging. It will be yet another regret in your life, another ‘if only …’ And even if you have prepared, but are too busy, probably buried in the minutiae of management, or a messy divorce, or moving house, or a hundred and one other things, then luck will again evade you. Months or years later you will be saying, ‘If only I had spotted that opportunity. I was ready for it, but I wasn’t paying attention.’ ‘If only…’ are the two saddest words in the English language
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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Albert is a ferocious negotiator, as I’ve mentioned, and a whizz at assim- ilating and mastering detail. But he is a perfectionist and his powers of dele- gation are stunted. He’s so good at what he does that he is unwilling to accept even slightly second-best. This means, for him, that he must do it himself. And if by chance he doesn’t get it exactly right the first rime, then he will do it over and over again until it is right. Until it is perfect
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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While he is fair, and sometimes more than fair, with his staff, they don’t love him. They don’t love him because they do not get the chance to grow, and if there is one good thing about a wellmanaged company in a capitalist society, it is the opportunity to groom talent and encourage it to grow. Apart from the money, it’s the best thing about getting rich. As a result of trying to do everything himself, Albert also sometimes misses out on good fortune and luck when it’s staring him in the face. He reminds me of a groom-to-be who is so keen to redecorate the church, the reception rooms and his new house to ensure a perfect wedding day that he fails to notice his bride-to-be has grown tired of waiting and has married another man
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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As H. L. Mencken put it: ‘The chief value of money lies in the tact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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But Albert doesn’t get it. He won’t laugh at himself enough; he won’t dance in the moonlight stark naked at a party for the hell of it; he won’t sing the words to ‘Duke of Earl’ or ‘Doo-Doo-RonRon’ out loud when we’ve imbibed too much malt whisky – he doesn’t even know the words to those songs, for chrissake. He cares what people think about him. He cares about his gravitas. He can’t empty his mind during negotiations, stare straight through an adversary and walk away from a table with millions of dollars piled on it. How can I put this another way? Lady Luck doesn’t love star-struck suit- ors like Albert. She wants crazy bastards who will tell her to take a hike or get lost if they feel like it. She won’t come calling to anyone who needs her or needs to worship her
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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Lastly, Albert has a penchant, and always did, for calling himself unlucky. He’s subtle in the way he does it, but he does it none the less. And he does it too often for my taste. You do not have to read Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking to know that if you repeat something nega- tive often enough, then you are training yourself in the ways of negativity. The mask of misfortune Albert so ironically dons for the amusement of those around him fits rather too well these days. He is becoming the mask. It’s a dangerous, stupid game and he ought to know better.
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baffling phenomenon. O Prepare yourself for luck, but don’t seek her out. Let her come to you. O Make your own luck. O Don’t whine or ever describe yourself as ‘unlucky’. (You’re alive, aren’t you?) O Be bold. Be brave. Don’t thank your lucky stars. The stars can’t hear you. O Stay the course. Stop looking for the green grass over the hill. O Don’t try to do it all yourself. Delegate and teach others to delegate. O Remember that most predators are lucky most of their lives, unlike their prey. O Whiners and cowards die a hundred times a day. Be a hero to yourself. O If being a hero isn’t your style, then fake it. Reality will catch up eventually. Q Just do it. It is much easier to apologise than to obtain permission. O Never take the quest for wealth seriously. It’s just a game, chum. O Next time you bump into Lady Luck, giver her a whack on the rump from me. O Be lucky. Get rich. Then give it all away. (We’ll get to that bit later.)
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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But the acquisition of managers who can bring a sense of mission to even mundane tasks, who can identify’ potential candidates, nurture late bloomers, fire dullards and whiners and adapt to changing circumstances – that search- ing, identifying and nurturing is not about negotiating
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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Most people seek job security, job satisfaction and power over others far more than they seek wealth. And thank goodness for that. If all the great managers in the world were dead set on becoming rich, and willing to take the necessary risks to do so, there would be little hope for the likes of you and me
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 397 | Added on Friday, March 18, 2011, 08:29 PM

A FEW TIPS ON NEGOTIATING O Remember that few of us are any good at detailed negotiations. That includes your opponent, by the way. O If you ara a poor negotiator, like me, then set a limit on what you will pay or accept and on any conditions attached. Do not deviate. Your first thought is your best thought. O Most negotiations are unnecessary. Don’t enter into them. Remember that ‘the fortress that parleys is already half taken’. Save serious negotia- tions for serious occasions. O Do your homework. And do it rigorously. What you don’t know or haven’t bothered to find out can kill you in any type of serious negotiation. O Despite my jungle book examples above, the devil really is in the detail in serious negotiations. Get all the professional help you can trust. But do not surrender control of the negotiations or the agenda to such professionals. They are not the ones who will have to live with the conse- quences – you are. Professional advisors are there to explain and advise. not to decide. O If your advisors are leading you down a path you don’t approve of during your negotiations, call a ‘time out’ and tell them privately that if they continue down that path you will get yourself some new advisors. The world is full of them. O Never fall in love with the deal. A deal is just a deal. There will always be other deals and other opportunities. O Avoid auctions in business like the plague – unless you are selling some- thing, that is. You will nearly always pay more than was wise if you are the ‘winner’ of an auction process. O The negotiator opposite you is not your new best friend. He is not your partner. He is not your confidant. You have no obligation, outside of ordinary courtesy, to please him or satisfy his demands. He is the enemy. If you do not understand that real winners and real losers emerge from serious negotiations then you will be robbed, whatever the circumstances. O Take no notice of management manuals that tell you to leave passion and emotion out of the negotiating room. If you are emotional or passionate about something, then let it show. But leaven emotion with courtesy, and, if possible, with wit. If you’re not the witty type, then flattery and self-deprecation are good substitutes. O Listen when engaged in serious negotiations. Then listen some more. You are in no hurry. Nobody ever got poor listening. Also, use silence as a weapon. Silences are disconcerting. People tend to fill silences with jabber, often weakening their bargaining position as they do so. O Choose a rogue element to your advantage and bring it into the nego- tiation at a late stage. You’ll be amazed at how often this tactic produces results. O The British created the largest geophysical empire in the world with one tactic: divide and rule. It always works. It never fails if you can get to exploit it. Get to know the other side. There may be slight differences in the individual approaches of their senior managers and, possibly, in their goals. Drive a wedge and keep hammering. O Permit no such weaknesses in your own camp, I have often banned senior executives from taking part in negotiations simply to avoid this trap. Better you are in there on your own, outgunned, outflanked and outmanoeuvred, than to have two or three of you silently squabbling. O Everyone thinks they are a great negotiator, but most of us simply are not. If it’s your company, then, for better or worse, you are the final arbiter. That remains true whether you are a good negotiator or a had one. O If you suspect you perform badly on such occasions, do not attend, even if you are the 100 per cent owner. Get someone else to do it after setting out your response to every conceivable option that might arise. This tactic can be devastating to the other side, and Peter, Bob and I have used it on many occasions in the past. You have to completely trust your nominee, though. Q Above all, establish where the balance of weakness lies in any serious negotiation. Most strengths are self-evident, especially strengths like cash and infrastructure. Weaknesses are usually hidden. Ferret them out, hold them up to the fight and make a battle plan. O Whatever you agree to during a negotiation, fulfil the bargain. Nobody wants to do business with a weasel or a chisler. Written in the Zoroastrian Scriptures two-and-a-half thousand years ago was this: ‘Never break a covenant, whether you make it with a false man or a just man of good conscience. The covenant holds for both, the false and the just alike.
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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I will leave you on this subject with the words of Britain’s closest rival to Machiavelli: Francis Bacon. Bacon ‘negotiated’ his way from relative poverty to the very pinnacle of wealth and power in England under King James I. Then lost it all, and spent his last years writing and studying. His Essays are among the wisest, most thought-provoking (and meanest) set of instructions ever published in English, I sleep with them by my bedside. This is from a short essay (short even by Bacon’s standards) entitled ‘Of Negotiating’, published in 1625, nearly four hundred years ago. Every word of it is true today: If you would work (negotiate with) any man, you must either know his nature and fashions, and so lead him; or his ends, and so persuade him; or his weakness or disadvantages, and so awe him; or those that have an interest in him, and so govern him. In dealing with cunning persons, we must ever consider their ends to interpret their speeches; and it is good to say little to them, and that which they least look for. In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not took to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.
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To put it bluntly, this is all bollocks. It has nothing to do with becom- ing rich. To become rich, every single percentage point of anything you own is crucial. It is worth fighting for, tooth and claw. It is worth suing for. It is worth shouting and banging on the table for. It is worth begging for and grovelling for. It is worth lying and cheating for. In extremis, it is even worth negotiating for. Never, never, never, never hand over a single share of anything you have acquired or created if you can help it. Nothing. Not one share. To no one. No matter what the reason – unless you genuinely have to. Do you remember my old ‘rivals’ Robin an
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But I will not give them a share. Not one. Not for love. Nor for loyalty. Not to be fair. Because capitalism isn’t fair. Life isn’t fair. The lottery of what genes we are born with isn’t fair. The moon and the stars and the gas clouds of Alpha Centauri aren’t fair
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But in a partnership, the making of money comes first. Friendship and affection comes later – if you’re lucky, as I have been. I hope that you too, dear reader, will one day be lucky enough to find such partners and enjoy similar success. But my earnest advice is that you establish yourself first, retaining as much control of any start-up or acquisition as you can, and then, and only then, seek pastures new with partners in the picture. That’s a great way to spread risk. Partners are a wonderful thing. But they are not a marriage – except of convenience. Ideally, you should keep something of your own to fall back on
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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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.
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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I say this not because I am idle – I’m anything but – but because the exercise of delegation, used responsibly, allows you to bring out the best in others and to make yourself rich in the process. It is the nearest thing to a ‘virtuous circle’ imaginable. Just imagine getting rich while you’re helping others to help you get richer and prove their worth in the process. Magic
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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If you do not own the company, or a part of it, then it is possible you are only a senior manager because you like power. It is not true of everyone, of course. But often enough. You like bossing people about. You enjoy telling them what to do. If that is the case, then you might be understandably reluc- tant to delegate real power or opportunity, in case the person you delegate to proceeds to excel. This, in turn, may well demonstarte to the rest of the company what a no-hum manager you really are. This is a warped way of thinking. But I am convinced it lies behind much of the reluctance to delegate I have encountered in my business life. I used to be surprised at the reluctance of others, both in and out of my own companies, to delegate
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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The whole point about getting rich is not to have to deal with this nonsense. Office politics can be fun, as can all forms of politics, but to many people they are upsetting. They reduce productivity and dent morale. They can take up astonishing amounts of time. They increase the number of’sick days’ in a department – which is often a good indication that a toad is in charge and needs to be winkled out of its hole
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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True delegation is an entirely different matter and can often be a joy to be involved in. On both sides. As an owner, or an owner in training, you must always be alert for the telltale signs that here is a candidate for promo- tion and delegation. They are smart. Perhaps smarter than you are. They work hard and they appear to love the work they do. They ask intelligent questions and don’t waste time gossiping and mucking about. They listen and correct their errors, and don’t repeat them. They want your job. Especially in the early days of your company, delegation and promotion are among your most powerful weapons to get 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
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Do not seek a replica of yourself to delegate to, or to promote. Watch out for this, it is a common error with people setting out to build a company. You have strengths and you have weaknesses in your own character. It makes no sense to increase those strengths your organisation already possesses and not address the weaknesses
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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If you are bad at keeping records and filing and tend sometimes to shoot from the hip, for example (that sounds a familiar description!) then bring in people who have the organisational skills that you lack and who tend to be of a more even disposition. It’s so easy to delegate important work to people who arc similar in temperament and skill-sets to you, or to promote them. So easy and so wrong. You may be the founder or the owner, but you cannot do everything yourself- even if you could make time stand still. By setting an example early on with a programme of carefully tailored delegation and well-deserved promotion, you will create an atmosphere of loyalty, efficiency and camaraderie that feeds upon itself. An atmosphere poisonous to toads.
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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I see a young man who would think nothing of working a sixteen-hour day – going out into the London night for a drink and a swift curry, coming back into the office for a few hours’ kip on the office sofa and beginning the process all over again. And I see the same young man, dragging himself in on Saturdays and Sundays, pale with selfinflicted exhaustion. Snappy. Quick to criticise and too slow to delegate and praise others. I see a young man trying too hard, but not delegating enough
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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But you don’t have to go about starting up a business like that. You have the benefit of reading this book and examining all the ridiculous errors I made as I stumbled from one catastrophe to another. Then again, there are a lot more entrepreneurial role models, like Richard Branson, to learn from these days. There weren’t so many back in the early 1970s, or at least it didn’t seem as if there were. How do you learn how to delegate wisely? Trial and error, I would say. I have been constandy surprised all my business life at who faces up to chal- lenges best. It is very often not those who talk the best talk
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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my express permission: 1.They may not vote anyone on or off the board. 2.They may not physically move the headquarters of the company. 3.They may not dispose of, or shut down, any substantial asset. 4.They may not purchase, or launch, any substantial new product or business. 5.They may not award themselves bonuses or salary increases
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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One thing I do to compensate for this style of ownership is to look hard for signs of excellent work. When I spot it on one of our websites, or in a magazine, or from management minutes or financial results, I drop a hand- written note to whoever is responsible. And I do it often. I also invite folk who work for me to visit me in my private office, which is about half a mile from our company headquarters, usually after work. And when I visit any particular company in the flesh, it’s usually without warning, on the spur of the moment
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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Because I have learned that obsessive micro- management scares away talent
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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I learned to delegate a long time ago and to accept that you must allow young managers the opportunity to make mistakes without crushing them or blaming them when things go wrong. (You can always fire them if they make the same error over and over.) Because I love to see talent grow in the stable and watch it come hurtling out of the box at full gallop. Because it make me a little proud to be a part of such a process. Because I get easily bored. For all of those reasons.
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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All this is bad enough. But have you ever considered how the growth of such devices has conspired to damage and corrupt delegation in the work- place? If you go on holiday or a business trip and keep obsessively in touch via a mobile phone or Blackberry with the office, what does that say about your management style? About the trust you have in your colleagues ‘mind- ing the ranch’?
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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I’m a fighter. My natural reaction to provocation in business, as in life, is to attack. But this basic instinct has led me astray many times, and I have learned to think a little more carefully before tearing into the enemy with fangs bared
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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My advice on competition is always to ensure that you want to fight, and ought to fight on a larger competitor’s ground. If he is anxious to buy you, determined to park his tanks on your lawn, maybe you should let him. For the right price
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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TWENTY-ONE WAYS TO MAKE MORE PIE It is not that pearls fetch a high price became men have dived for them. On the contrary, men dive for them because they fetch a high price. RICHARD WHATELY, ENGLISH PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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You cannot get rich all on your own. No one can. You have to create, or work within, the right environment. Humans are a cooperative, if argumentative, race. If you were to be boycotted by your immediate neighbours, if nobody would meet with you or take your instructions or sell you anything or buy anything from you, you could never make money. You cannot do it on your own. Getting rich is mostly sleight of hand, but if you acquire no audience but a mirror, then there is no illusion with which to get rich
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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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 morn- ing. 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. 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
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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FOCUS TIPS WHEN CHOOSING ‘HUMAN CAPITAL’ Here are a few discoveries I have made over the years about staying focused when choosing employees or suppliers
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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Why does it count? Why is it important to focus on doing an outstand- ing job? Firstly, talent will flock to your company. Talented employees mean you have more opportunities to make more money. Secondly, you will make fewer errors. The quality of your management will see to that. Thirdly, it places a premium on your assets and the worth of your business. That means you get richer faster. Fourthly, it’s simply more enjoyable – which means you will enjoy coining to work and will spend more time focusing on doing an even better job.
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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FACING THE MUSIC
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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KEEPING IT STRAIGHT
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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On a separate and happier subject, if you wind up investing and doing business in the USA, do make certain you become a part of ‘the non-double – taxation treaty’. This ensures you are not taxed on profits you made in the States and then taxed on them all over again when you bring the money back to Britain. Or vice versa
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 594 | Added on Friday, March 25, 2011, 12:47 PM

Cicero was a subtle man. Money can reduce any fortress; but which fortress is he speaking of, do you think? The enemy’s (whoever the ‘enemy’ may be) or your own? Let us assume it is the latter. So what is your fortress? It is your inner core, your integrity, your belief in the worth of others and the love of those dear to you. Not to mention your own worth. It arises from belief in yourself. And, for a few, from a belief in their own destiny
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 596 | Added on Friday, March 25, 2011, 12:50 PM

If you are young and reading this then I ask you to remember just this: you are richer than anyone older than you, and far richer than those who are much older. What you choose to do with the time that stretches out before you is entirely a matter for you. But do not say you started the journey poor. If you are young, you are infinitely richer than I can ever be again. Money is never owned. It is only in your custody for a while. Time is always running on, and the young have more of it in their pocket than the richest man or woman alive. That is not sentimentality speaking. That is sober fact
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 599 | Added on Friday, March 25, 2011, 12:52 PM

Happiness? Do not make me laugh. The rich are not happy. I have yet to meet a single really rich happy man or woman – and I have met many rich people. The demands from others to share their wealth become so tiresome, and so insistent, they nearly always decide they must insulate themselves. Insulation breeds paranoia and arrogance. And loneliness. And rage that you have only so many years left to enjoy rolling in the sand you have piled up
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But then, you are to consider that I have been very poor and I am now- very rich. I am an optimist by nature. And I have the ability to write poetry and create the forest I am busy planting. Am I happy? No. Or, at least, only occasionally, when I am walking in the woods alone, or deeply ensconced in composing a difficult piece of verse, or sitting quietly with old friends over a bottle of wine. Or feeding a stray cat. I could do all those things without wealth. So why do I not give it all away? Because I worked too hard for it. Because I am tainted by it. Because I am afraid to. All those reasons and more. Perhaps, if l am lucky enough to become old, I will accumulate something else: the courage to give it all away before I die. That would be a good thing, I think.
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
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Firstly, of course, you must break loose from your parents and family
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– Highlight on Page 605 | Added on Friday, March 25, 2011, 12:57 PM

Now you must cut yourself loose from naysayers and negative influences: the Jeremiahs
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 607 | Added on Friday, March 25, 2011, 12:59 PM

Fear of failure is a subject about which I have already written in this book, probably to excess. I repeat that it is the main stumbling block to getting rich for most people. You simply have to face up to it, stare it in the eye and cut loose from such thoughts. Here is Robert Johnson, perhaps the greatest blues guitarist who ever lived, singing about fear of failure: I got stones in my passway and my road seems dark at night. I got stones in my passway and my road seems dark at night, I have pains in my heart, they have taken my appetite.
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 609 | Added on Friday, March 25, 2011, 01:00 PM

Getting rich comes from an attitude of mind. It isn’t going to happen if things drift on pretty much the way they are right now. Cutting loose can be painful
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 610 | Added on Friday, March 25, 2011, 01:01 PM

Focus, determination and relentless drive are wearing in themselves – both to you and those around you. Any distraction whatever can cost you a chance that may not come again. And, for the purposes of this book, family, lovers and friends are distractions, plain and simple.
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 611 | Added on Friday, March 25, 2011, 01:03 PM

Now you must leave the safety of the ant colony and the hive. You are to become a loner, an outcast, cut off from the very thing that defines what many of us believe we are. What is the first question usually asked by strangers of each other? Right, it’s ‘What do you do?’ In some cultures, the way of answering may be different; but it nearly always relates to work in the West: ‘I’m a teacher; I’m in banking; I’m a dairy farmer; I’m an HR admin- istrator; I’m a sound engineer.’ Our job defines us.
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 619 | Added on Saturday, March 26, 2011, 09:48 AM

why have I told you this, and thereby warned the brewers and distributors of Hairoun of my evil intentions concerning my (truly) great idea? Easy. Because I have about a hundred good ideas every day. Ideas are ten a penny. And because I have no intention of going into the beer busi- ness. (Or is that a double bluff?) You see, you have to choose a new mine where you suspect there is money, or an old mine with a different angle to get rich. The right moun- tain. A great new mine right now is in telecommunications, or the internet, or legalised gambling. Property is always good. (You can start small in prop- erty and you can get lucky quickly. It’s a crowded market, though, for that very reason.
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 621 | Added on Saturday, March 26, 2011, 09:49 AM

Avoid that trap. Don’t do anything because you feel you have to. Go for what attracts you. Go for something that exploits your natural talents. Go to the mountain which produces money. Money that has your name on it
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 624 | Added on Sunday, March 27, 2011, 12:01 PM

If you want to be rich you must make a pact with yourself about fear of anything. You cannot banish fear, but you can face it down, stomp on it, crush it, bury it, padlock it into the deepest recesses of your heart and soul and leave it there to rot. Just try. Try for just a single day, a whole day when you refuse to acknowledge fear of failure, fear of making yourself look like an idiot, fear of losing your lover, fear of losing your job, fear of your boss, fear of anything and of any kind. Fear will creep back, usually at three in the morning. Laugh at it and tell it to take a hike. Smash it in the teeth. Spit on it. Put your arms round it and make nicey-nicey. Then slip a sharp blade into its stinking throat just as you’re French-kissing i
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Bookmark on Page 630 | Added on Sunday, March 27, 2011, 01:21 PM

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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 630 | Added on Sunday, March 27, 2011, 01:21 PM

GO! GO! GO
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 634 | Added on Sunday, March 27, 2011, 01:22 PM

You may have many reasons for caution and proceeding carefully
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 637 | Added on Sunday, March 27, 2011, 01:22 PM

Which leads me to what, I suspect, will prove a controversial take on the subject of having children and getting rich
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 644 | Added on Sunday, March 27, 2011, 05:23 PM

THE UPSIDE-DOWN PYRAMID FOR GETTING RICH 1. Commit or don’t commit. No half-measures. 2, Cut loose from all negative influences. 3. Choose the right mountain. 4. Fear nothing, 5. Start now. 6. Go!
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 656 | Added on Sunday, March 27, 2011, 05:25 PM

O As soon as you’ve spent it, gifted it
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 658 | Added on Sunday, March 27, 2011, 05:26 PM

O Get used to being ‘cut off’. I do not carry
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 674 | Added on Sunday, March 27, 2011, 05:37 PM

THE EIGHT SECRETS TO GETTING RICH 1.Analyse 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 nego- tiating. 8.Fear nothing and no one. Get rich. Remember to give it all away
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Dennis, Felix – How to Get Rich
– Highlight on Page 679 | Added on Sunday, March 27, 2011, 11:36 PM

This book was the result of a dinner conversation. I had written a review for the business magazine Management Today about a book called Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. He’s the same chap who wrote The Tipping Point.