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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Felix Dennis
Read between
July 2, 2023 - October 24, 2024
Being young is greatly overrated. Any failure seems so total. Later on, you realize you can have another go. — MARY QUANT, FASHION DESIGNER
if bean-counters ruled the world we would be permitted to produce nothing but beans, just to be on the safe side.
So look at your own, ailing beast. Can it be something else? Can you make it a tiger of a different stripe, or can somebody else? Is it really not a valid business? Would more capital help, or would that be throwing good money after bad? Your analysis must be ruthless. If there is anyone with business savvy in the world you trust, now is the time to seek them out, tell your story and listen.
How to sum all this up? I’m not an accountant, but it goes like this, I think. If your company can afford to pay you money, then that’s fine, as long as you declare that it has been paid and get ready to pay the tax on that payment. If you find other ways of moving the company’s money into your own pocket without reporting the movement or using a company asset for your personal life, you’re almost certainly milking the cow in a way that is not permitted.
Ask me what I will give you if you could wave a magic wand and give me my youth back. The answer would be everything I own and everything I will ever own.
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.
“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” Heed the words of John Donne, finest of poets: “And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.”
THE WORLD IS FULL OF MONEY. SOME OF IT HAS MY NAME ON IT. ALL I HAVE TO DO IS COLLECT IT.
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.
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.
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. But it sets you free, don’t you see? It sets you free.
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.
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!
Keep giving it away. The faster you give it away, the more money will flow back to you. Not because of “karma” or “universal cosmic forces,” but because you then spend less time defending it and more time making more of it.
As soon as you’ve spent it, gifted it, loaned it or invested it, forget it. More angst and worry comes into the world from concern over past investments, loans or gifts than can be imagined. It’s gone. Forget it. If any of it returns to you, fine. But that should not be your primary concern, unless you invested for safety’s sake.
Never loan it to friends. If you loan money to a friend, you will lose your friend as well as your money. Give them whatever you feel like giving. Then forget it.
Here’s my favorite story about the “infallibility” of power. It concerns a man in charge of a billion dollars’ worth of machinery who thinks he knows everything. The transcript was released (rather mischievously) by the chief of British Naval Operations in 1995, from a recorded radio conversation overheard at sea near the coast of British Columbia. NAVY VOICE: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision. CIVILIAN VOICE: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision. NAVY VOICE: This is the captain of a US navy ship. I say again, divert
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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.
Just as any system leads us astray. In the words of John Gall, writing about “Systemantics” twenty years ago in The Whole Earth Catalogue: Systems tend to oppose their own proper function. Systems tend to malfunction just after their greatest triumph. [We all] have a strong tendency to apply a previously successful strategy to the new challenge. The army is now fully prepared to fight the last war.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines is the least spoiled group of islands in the whole of the Caribbean. They are stunningly, heartbreakingly beautiful. My advice to you, gentle reader, is to come here and visit the rain forest, the volcano, the waterfalls, the empty, sun-kissed beaches and the quiet bays and keys. You will find a smiling face around each corner and a green flash in every sunset. This is as close to paradise as it gets.
