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H. L. Mencken once wrote: “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 meager 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.”
Knowledge learned the hard way combined with the avoidance of error, whenever and wherever possible, is the soundest basis for success in any endeavor.
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 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. Luck helps—but only if you don’t seek it.
The answer to the question, then, is perhaps this: not those who want to and not those who need to, but those who are utter...
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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.
Conventional wisdom daunts initiative and offers far too many convenient reasons for inaction, especially for those with a great deal to lose.
The first few million pounds I ever trousered were a direct result of trusting instincts entirely at odds with conventional wisdom of any sort.
Anyone not busy learning is busy dying. For as long as you foster a willingness to learn, you will ward off sclerosis of the brain and hardening of the mental arteries. Curiosity has led many a man and women into the valley of serious wealth.
“Fear is the little death, death by a thousand cuts,” goes the ancient Japanese saying.
In business, in the accumulation of wealth, it is an impediment, for sure. But then, so is recklessness. No, I believe that it is the fear of failure which looms largest here.
Goethe once remarked in doggerel: Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
I would use, instead: “Once begun—the job’s half done.” Because taking that first, irrevocable step has proved to be the most difficult part of nearly every venture I have been involved in.
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 counterproductive at any level.
And so is lack of action. Knowing that fear of failure is holding you back is a step in the right direction. But it isn’t enough, because knowing isn’t doing.
Her personality combines the resilience, the drive and the restless energy of so many people who become rich.
To sum up then, 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.
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.
After a lifetime of making money and observing better men and women than I fall by the wayside, I am convinced that fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment to amassing wealth. Trust me on this.
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.
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.
Working for others is a reconnaissance expedition; a means and not an end in itself. It is an apprenticeship and not a goal.
It’s the methodology employers use to shackle useful employees to their desks without having to pay them too much.
Which leads us to a note of caution. Those who can never be rich may not want you to become rich.
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.
Here was the power of a new market at work. By the time our bigger rivals were comfortable enough to launch against us (a hesitation resulting from ignorance), the tide had carried us beyond the reach of their big guns. New capital, ignorance and a rising tide had done the trick. In this instance, the Search had paid off in spades.
As a general rule of thumb, then, growing industries with relatively low start-up costs offer more opportunities for those who want to get rich than declining industries, or those that require huge start-up investment.
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.
It is the instinct to seize an opportunity when it presents itself that perhaps sets apart the self-made filthy rich from the comfortably poor, the willingness to ignore conventional wisdom and risk everything on what others consider to be folly.
Fortune favors not just the brave but the bold. Boldness has a kind of genius in it, as Goethe pointed out. It can lead to complete failure and defeat, because conventional wisdom often proves to be at least wisdom of a kind. But should boldness succeed, should the chance be seized and sufficiently well executed, then success will surely lead to glory.
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 neighbors think, the more likely you are to take the plunge and exploit an opportunity.
Here is the key, then, in the Search. Whatever your inclinations, your aptitude, your abilities or your preferences, never shrink when opportunities arrive. If you have weighed the odds and find yourself convinced, ignore the protestations of sensible people and their conventional caution.
The success of FHM in the UK demonstrates the power of emulation, especially when executed with verve and confidence.
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
You must encourage great ideas and search for them diligently. But either you control and develop such ideas or the ideas will come to dominate your waking thoughts.
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.
rich. That is usually the way of it. Ideas don’t make you rich. The correct execution of ideas does.
For the majority of people who start with nothing and seek to be rich, borrowing money in one form or another becomes a necessity sooner or later. Let’s explore the various options on the borrowing front.
Better to labor as a wage slave than as a beast of burden to a loan shark.
Persistence is a powerful tool in the hands of a hungry young hustler on the make.
I had created capital by swimming with the fishes.
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.
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,
In a sense, this exhausting and miserable search is what separates the wannabes from the gonnabes.
“To get what you need / You toady to greed.” Or else, you ask; very, very nicely indeed.
There is absolutely nothing more likely to dampen the prospects of becoming rich than a nice, fat, regular salary check.
“Assumption is the mother of all f***-ups.” Those seven words should be carved into the heart of every entrepreneur,
Wishing for or desiring something is futile without an inner compulsion to achieve it.
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.
