How to Get Rich

by Felix Dennis

and customs, minor civil service roles, non-commissioned officers in the a...

The truly evil ones, through a combination of fawning, flattery, smoke, mirrors and luck (and occasionally, even talent), have risen to the middle ranks and have people reporting directly to them.

This type of managerial toad will often talk about training and delegation in sepulchral tones, but then, as the old proverb tells us, ‘the Devil can quote scripture for his own purpose’. Such toads know they are unlikely

to rise further, but take pleasure in ensuring that you won’t, either.

When they do delegate, they enjoy delegating tasks they believe are either impossible or beyond the recipient’s ability to complete satisfactorily.

You can’t deal with bossy, puffed-up sods who won’t train you and won’t delegate. You can only move departments or change your place of work. It isn’t worth the time to do anything else.

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 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.

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 promotion and delegation. They are smart. Perhaps smarter than you are.

Not everyone works to get rich. In fact, most people do not. But almost everyone wishes to be respected.

In most of mankind, gratitude is merely a secret hope for greater favours.

I’m a fighter. My natural reaction to provocation in business, as in life, is to attack.

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.’

A desire to shine in the world is worth more than a university degree. All of this is important. Who you like and don’t like is irrelevant.

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.

Seeking substantial wealth is almost always a fool’s game. The statistics show that very few people ever succeed. Most of them should never have made the attempt in the first place.

You cannot get rich without ‘wasting’ that time.

And the old have reason to be envious. Truly, truly, they do.

Ask me what I will give you if you could wave a magic wand and give me my youth back.

If you are young and reading this then I ask you to remember just this: you are richer than anyone older than

than those who are much older.

What you choose to do with the time that stretches out before you is enti...

But do not say you started the journey poor. If you are young, you are infinitely richer...

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.

And yet you wish to waste your youth in the getting of money? Really? Think hard, my young cub, think hard and think long before you embark on such a quest. The time spent attempting to acquire

Even should you succeed in becoming rich, unlikely as that is, what will you have achieved?

Independence of a kind? The luxury to choose what you wish to do with the rest of your life? Happiness? No, no and no. You will not achieve any of those things. Not when you have too much money.

Wealth makes many demands and, by the time you have acquired it, you will be prey to certain habits. You will fear to lose it and must spend a great deal more time to defend it.

No luxury of choices for rich little you. You will be too busy keeping the sea from washing away the sand you have spent so long collecting at such terrible cost to your health and your sanity and your relationships with others. It is always thus.

There is no escape. You believe (I know you do) that

it will be different for you. But it won’t b...

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 only people the self-made rich can trust are those who knew them before they became wealthy. For many newly rich people, the world becomes a smaller, less generous and darker place.

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.

All those reasons and more. Perhaps, if I 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.

Please lodge one fact in your memory: that the last one thousand five hundred words was an ‘important bit’. In my heart of hearts, I know it was the most important bit you will read in this book.

You have to cut loose to get rich. There isn’t any other way.

As long as you have cut the parental knot, you are in good shape.

Now you must cut yourself loose from naysayers and negative influences: the Jeremiahs. These wretches cover the face of the earth. They will tell you, if you listen, about the impossibility (not the foolishness) of trying to make yourself wealthy.

Such people often include your parents, your lover, your husband or your wife, and your ‘friends’.

Firstly, they fear that you are placing yourself in harm’s way – and, to them, that cannot be a good thing. Secondly, they fear that if you should succeed, you will expose their own timidity to the light of day.

Above all, they do not wish to be faced with the mess and chaos that accompanies strenuous effort. They want the familiarity and sense of false security that comes with things staying as they are.

Do not despise these people. Seek to calm them. Or hide from them what you are about for as long as you can. If that will not work, ignore them and move on. That is a hard thing to say and a harder thing to do, but it is necessary.

Cutting loose can be painful. I have heard of very few men or women who made a ton of money who did not leave, or divorce, their wives or husbands or lovers sooner or later. Or who were not estranged from family members, often their children.

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.

Lastly, it goes without saying that you must cut loose from working for other people.

The air itself reeks of drive, and determination and focus. It is like a drug. And it has served America and her people well – at least in the sense of material wealth.

You looked me in the eye. Your eyes weren’t like any teenager I ever knew. They were fierce, like a tiger’s. You were insolent and arrogant and frightening. I told my husband so.’

‘You told me you were going to get rich. Not that you were going to university or were after this or that job. Just that you were going to be rich.