How to Get Rich

by Felix Dennis

Having too much money isn’t important. Breaking your neck is important. Getting cancer is important. Having nothing to eat is important. Losing someone you love is important. But too much money is absolutely not important, it’s just a part of the game. As H. L. Mencken put it: ‘The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.’ That’s a fair summary. If we lived in a world where seaweed was overestimated, I would collect tons and tons of it. And I would enjoy doing it. But I wouldn’t kid myself it was all that important. It’s just seaweed.

‘Fortune favours the brave,’ says the old proverb. And that’s right enough. But it seems to especially scorn anyone who wants money too badly. And it positively appears to despise men or women who fear to lose what fortune they already have. As William Shakespeare put it in Othello: Poor and content is rich, and rich enough, But riches fineless1 is as poor as winter To him that ever fears he shall be poor. My advice concerning luck is to laugh in the face of the Lady when she presents herself. Take what you will of her bounty and act swiftly to take advantage of good fortune. But never thank her for it. And forget her the moment she leaves to seek another victim.

You asked me to show you how to get rich. So here are my last thoughts on this vexing and baffling phenomenon. Prepare yourself for luck, but don’t seek her out. Let her come to you. Make your own luck. Don’t whine or ever describe yourself as ‘unlucky’. (You’re alive, aren’t you?) Be bold. Be brave. Don’t thank your lucky stars. The stars can’t hear you. Stay the course. Stop looking for the green grass over the hill. Don’t try to do it all yourself. Delegate and teach others to delegate. Remember that most predators are lucky most of their lives, unlike their prey. Whiners and cowards die a hundred times a day. Be a hero to yourself. If being a hero isn’t your style, then fake it. Reality will catch up eventually. Just do it. It is much easier to apologise than to obtain permission. Never take the quest for wealth seriously. It’s just a game, chum. Next time you bump into Lady Luck, giver her a whack on the rump from me. Be lucky. Get rich. Then give it all away. (We’ll get to that bit later.)

The fortress that parleys is already half taken. RUSSIAN PROVERB

If you are overly fond of haggling, my advice is that you quit thinking about making money the old-fashioned way and consider becoming a politician instead. That way you can rob and plunder your fellow citizens year after year without risking your own financial security or capital – you bastard. (By the way, please get used to people thinking of you as a bastard. After all, it’s what nearly everyone thinks of politicians, except themselves.)

Personally, I don’t think I was a very good managing director or CEO of any of my companies, so my advice concerning your choice of middle management is limited to the following: the world is full of aspiring lieutenants. 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.

Remember that few of us are any good at detailed negotiations. That includes your opponent, by the way. If you are 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.

Never fall in love with the deal. A deal is just a deal. There will always be other deals and other opportunities.

Avoid auctions in business like the plague – unless you are selling something, that is. You will nearly always pay more than is wise if you are the ‘winner’ of an auction process.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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.

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.’

Being rich is fine, and at the very least is better than being poor. But it shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all of your life, or anyone’s life. If you can laugh in the midst of early poverty and in the face of real adversity, and if you can still laugh when you’re coining it in, then you will almost certainly continue to coin it in. But if you chase money desperately in the earnest belief that you can never be happy without it and seriously think that the chase is a meaningful occupation, I doubt very much you will succeed. You have to be fiercely determined, true. But an appreciation of the absurdity of the chase helps enormously.

To become rich you must be an owner. And you must try to own it all. You must strive with every fibre of your being, while recognising the idiocy of your behaviour, to own and retain control of as near to 100 per cent of any company as you can. If that is not possible, in a public company, for example, then you must be prepared to make yourself hated by those around you who are also trying to be rich. That is the dirty, rotten little secret of it all, my friend. Just like Gollum, it is your Precious and they are all ‘filthy little thieves’.

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 else counts in the getting of money. Shareholder thanks do not count. A good salary and a company car and health plan and pension don’t count. Most share options (usually nothing more than the promise of chickenfeed to salaried employees, and a promise broken half the time, too), don’t count. The gratitude of colleagues doesn’t count. 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.

And if I had given 20 per cent to those four employees, should I not have had to do so with many others as they joined the company and worked hard to make it a success? Where would it all end? I’m not a bloody charity. I’m an entrepreneur trying to make a small fortune, not the Salvation Army. I pay people to get a job done. And I pay them well. I try to make it as much fun as I can along the way. I reward senior managers with bloody huge bonuses based on performance and results. Millions of dollars have been paid out in such bonuses over the years. 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. Except for your loved ones or closest friends, it’s every man for himself in this world, in case you haven’t noticed: ‘No prisoners! The Lord will know his own!’ Or, in the rapier advice of Benjamin Jowett, a nineteenth-century master of Balliol College, Oxford: ‘Never retreat. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl.’

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

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!

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.

My vetoes are carefully explained and very well known to all of my executives, who agree to abide by them before they join the board. It’s a short list, but has worked well for many years. Without my express permission: They may not vote anyone on or off the board. They may not physically move the headquarters of the company. They may not dispose of, or shut down, any substantial asset. They may not purchase, or launch, any substantial new product or business. They may not award themselves bonuses or salary increases. That’s it. No more vetoes. Within those guidelines, the managers of my companies are free to get on with their jobs, grow the business and reach the margin return agreed upon at the beginning of the year. A margin that they will have arrived at among themselves by consensus.

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 ‘minding the ranch’? It says you don’t trust them. It says you cannot delegate meaningfully. It says you are a meddler and a micro-manager. So don’t do it! If you want to get rich, then learn to delegate. Don’t learn to pretend to delegate. Delegation is not only a powerful tool, it is the only way to maximise and truly incentivise your most precious asset – the people who work for you.

In most of mankind, gratitude is merely a secret hope for greater favours. DUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, MAXIMES

Employees work for a salary. That salary is guaranteed. They are also awarded pension contributions from their company and, in some instances, health care and other perks. They risked nothing but a small potential embarrassment when they applied for the job in the first place. They are not owners. The financier John Paul Getty put it best half a century ago: The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights. Exactly. Risk equals reward. ‘An honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay’ is not risk-taking.

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. You and I, on the other hand, for the purposes of this book, are greedy little sods solely bent on the pursuit of wealth. We must be very careful not to load our own sins on the shoulders of the innocents described in the last paragraph. They are what the English call ‘the salt of the earth’. You won’t get far if you attempt to financially ‘incentivise’ the salt of the earth. Praise, the ability to discern when a good job has been done and the courtesy to say so, fairness, integrity and camaraderie should be employed instead. It takes more trouble than mere bribery, but it produces wonderful results.

Competition isn’t some misty-eyed concept that should be confined to students of the ‘dismal science’, Economics. Competition is the heart, soul, liver, lungs and kidney of the beast we call Western capitalism. 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.

It is not that pearls fetch a high price because men have dived for them. On the contrary, men dive for them because they fetch a high price. RICHARD WHATELY, ENGLISH PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN, INTRODUCTORY LETTERS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY

10. Offer legal perks that you have paid for yourself to employees. This sounds crazy, but it works. I allow my employees, for example, the use of my Rolls-Royces or Bentleys for their weddings. I permit them to stay at my homes around the world if they have performed well. I send every child born to an employee (well, I used to in the early days – there are too many of them now) a massive soft toy. Such perks are legal because I paid for them myself from after-tax dollars or pounds.

Set an example. If, as an owner, you want fancy furniture in your office or works of art or Persian rugs, then bloody well pay for them yourself. How can you expect frugality when a junior manager, who works in a cubicle, comes to visit you, knowing that the company paid for those accessories? There is nothing wrong with them being there. It’s who paid for them that counts.

Back up your managers. With delegation comes responsibility. Back up your managers, in public, whenever and wherever you have to. If they do not perform, speak seriously in private to them. If they still do not perform, fire them. But do not undercut them or engage in meetings that appear to undercut them. Reprimand other managers who bad-mouth their peers. Nearly everyone’s ego and self-confidence is more fragile than the outside world believes.

Search out and promote talent. Talent comes in all shapes and sizes and is often inarticulate and shy. Talent isn’t necessarily the woman in the Calvin Klein suit who talks the talk and bamboozles meetings with stunning graphics on her PowerPoint presentation. Talent is often to be found dressed in T-shirts down in the lower reaches of your organisation. Set a bounty on talent among managers. When you find it, test it. Groom it. Work it until it’s ready to drop. Load it with more work and responsibilities. Praise it. Reward it. It will make you loads-a-money.

Interview your rivals’ talent. I have never known a single person in a rival organisation, however well paid or cosseted, who has refused to meet me for a quiet drink after work. I have discovered more about what my rivals are up to in this manner than any other. In addition, I have often been so impressed with the people I met in this way that I poached them later. No intelligence-gath...

Discourage secrecy. The more you take middle and senior managers into your confidence, the more they will respect you and the harder they will work for you. Many managers disagree with this policy. They love the feeling of power that comes from knowing what oth...

Save a little bit of pie for suppliers. Save a little of the annual pie to wine and dine key suppliers. Or let them wine and dine you. If you like them enough, invite them to your home. We all remember to call often upon our major customers. But it is worth rem...

Never bad-mouth rivals. It’s a sign of stupidity and weakness. I try to go out of my way to praise my rivals when I can. Often enough they deserve praise and they’re sure to learn about my comments sooner or later. Why go out of your way to antagonise them? (Secretly feeling sorry for them, because t...

Sell early. Real money rarely comes from horsing around running an asset-laden business if you are an entrepreneur. You are not a manager, remember? You are trying to get rich. Whenever the chance comes to sell an asset at the top of its value, do so. Things do not keep increasing in value for ever. Get out while the going is good and move on to the next venture. More money is usually lost holding on...

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....

What is it you are attempting to achieve here? You are trying to become rich. This must be the main focus of your business life. Becoming rich. Not becoming one of the world’s most famous athletes, or taking on Rupert Murdoch in the newspaper publishing and television business, or having your name appear a thousand times when you type it into a Google search. You want to get rich. And you want to do it legally and as quickly as you can. That is what we are supposed to be about. Unfortunately, as John Lennon pointed out, our lives are ‘what happen while we’re busy making other plans’. And that is precisely what happened to me and a great many other people I know. We forgot we were supposed to concentrate on getting rich and concentrated, instead, upon excelling in the first sphere we succeeded in.

If you have entrepreneurial flair, then you can go into just about any business and make money. But instead of rushing to where the money was, I kept on digging in the relatively poor pit of ink-on-paper until the money, reluctantly, came to me. 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.’

If on my deathbed I had only a very short time to pass on what wisdom I have accumulated 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.

Being young is greatly overrated. Any failure seems so total. Later on, you realise you can have another go. MARY QUANT, FASHION DESIGNER

If there is any way at all you can play ‘pass the parcel’ with a venture you believe is destined to fail and in which you are a principal, then do not hesitate. Pass the damn parcel and move on to the next opportunity. But how can you know when things are going to fail? You cannot. Nobody has 20/20 future vision. But if you are running the business, you will certainly know much earlier than anyone else, providing you are willing to stare reality in the face, that is, which many executives and entrepreneurs are not.

But never despair. We are not engaged upon a serious business here. We are only talking about the getting of money, and, occasionally, the losing of money. You may despair when you have broken your neck; you may despair when your only child has predeceased you; you may despair when terrible wars, famines or plagues afflict millions of innocents. But you must not despair over a simple thing like money.

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.

CUT LOOSE When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away; Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day. CHARLES KINGSLEY, FROM THE WATER BABIES

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 administrator; I’m a sound engineer.’ Our job defines us. But it cannot define you. Not any more. You are a wild pig rooting for truffles. You are a weasel about to rip the throat out of a rabbit. You are an entrepreneur. You are going to be rich, and you don’t much care, within the law, how you are going to do it.

The world is full of money. Some of that money has your name on it. All you have to do is collect it.

Gold rushes don’t happen in old mines. There will be people making a good living out of old mines, but they won’t be too keen to let you muscle in on their stake. Look for new mountains where gold is being mined; or will be mined soon.

One thing is for sure, you must avoid the trap of going into what you think will make you money if you have no empathy or feeling for what you are about to do. There’s no future in that.