How To Get Rich

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 utterly determined to—whatever the cost.

The follow-through, the execution, is a thousand times more important than a “great idea.”

And just what is the most precious thing in life that riches can supply? Easy. For me, it’s Time.

Rich enough to live where you want, to go where you want, to do what you want, to meet who you want. Rich enough to buy the only two things apart from health and love worth fussing about in life. Time. And the option of not having to be in any particular place on any particular day doing any particular thing in order to pay the rent or the mortgage.

Table 1: Wealth Measured by Cash-in-Hand or Quickly Realizable Assets

the author James Baldwin in his book Nobody Knows My Name, in which he concluded:Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex. You thought of nothing else if you didn’t have it, and thought of other things if you did.

the road to wealth is the most difficult part. Or so they believe. The nuances of each individual case need not concern us, but the difficulties, as stated by virtually every wannabe I ever listened to on the subject, usually fall into one of three broad categories—often age related.If young and relatively penniless, many will argue their lack of experience and capital (especially capital!) dooms them to decades of wage slavery.If slightly better off and on the way up with a halfway decent job and perhaps the probability of further advancement, the problem is often considered to be the loss of what they have already achieved. Plus the lack of capital.By the time one is a senior manager or professional, probably with a decent house, a mortgage and children, it is the risk to the security and happiness of the latter (and maybe to a spouse), plus the usual lack of capital, which are most often cited as insuperable difficulties to taking the plunge.All such objections to becoming rich are spurious, no matter how sincerely held. But before dealing with each in turn, let me digress for a moment regarding upbringing, race, color, educational qualifications and gender.

experience has been that money is color-blind, race-blind, sex-blind, degree-blind and couldn’t care less who brought you up or in what circumstances

Conventional wisdom daunts initiative and offers far too many convenient reasons for inaction, especially for those with a great deal to lose

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 such geniuses 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 raises.They know this as well as I do. (They are far from fools, otherwise I would hardly employ them.) But fear holds them back, with the exception of those rare individuals who are content with their lot

And what is fear? “Fear is the little death, death by a thousand cuts,” goes the ancient Japanese saying. Nifty, but ultimately unhelpful. Similar to Shakespeare’s “Cowards die many times before their deaths: / The valiant never taste of death but once.”

a committee is formed and eventually makes its recommendations, then future blame for either action or inaction cannot be laid at any one person’s door. In business and political jargon, this nonsense is called “collective responsibility.” In common parlance, it is “covering your backside.”“A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and quietly strangled,” as Sir Barnett Cocks, clerk of the House of Commons, once pointed out.

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

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. Few things in life are certain except death and being taxed. But sniggering and mockery prior to any attempt to better yourself financially, followed by envy later, or gloating during your initial failures—these are three certainties in life. It hurts. It’s mindless. And it doesn’t mean anything. But it will happen. Be prepared to shrug it off.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 recognize 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.

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.

“What do you want to be when you’re grown up?” is the dreaded, inane cry from well-meaning aunts and uncles to infant children. This morphs soon enough into anxious queries about examination results.

And yet, there is a kernel of wisdom buried in the pulp of these parental and family concerns. The truth is that the vast majority of people doing the asking did not choose their own career. Either they stumbled into it or they were pushed.

In other words, if you feel absolutely moved toward 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.For a start, the salary begins to have an attraction and addictive-ness all of its own. A regular paycheck and crack cocaine have that in common. 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.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 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 percent 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.

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 desks without having to pay them too much. While lives may depend on it in a few professions, like soldiering or firefighting, in commerce it acts as a subtle handicap and a brake to ambitious individuals. Which, in a way, is what it’s designed to do.

When it comes right down to it, “team spirit” and not letting your colleagues down is a feeble reason for procrastination when opportunity comes knocking. Nearly always, it is an excuse to avoid the possibility of humiliating failure. If one of the team you work with inherited ten million quid tomorrow, do you really believe they would be checking in to keep up morale? Of course not. Neither would you, or anyone in their right mind.Which leads us to a note of caution. Those who can never be rich may not want you to become rich. That’s an ugly thing to say, but unless you realize and accept that you cannot be “one of the boys,” that your bosses and you are not “in this thing together,” that only those who refuse to be conned by the idea of “team spirit” in the workplace can succeed—unless you come to fully comprehend and understand all this, then you will only make other people rich. You will receive their heartfelt thanks and maybe a gold watch when you retire. But you will not get the money!It’s the same with close friends and family members. Consciously and outwardly they may want you to succeed beyond your wildest dreams. But subconsciously, often without being aware of it themselves, they might be far happier if you failed or only succeeded to a limited degree.It’s a selfish world out there. But, hey! when you’ve piled up your first few million in the bank, you can salve your conscience by giving generously to your relatives. Or by promoting young managers and waffling on to them about “team spirit” in your own business. Not that the brightest of them will believe you for a moment. (They’re the ones you promote fastest, by the way

While you may not necessarily want to be in a glamorous sector of any market, and they are often very crowded sectors, it helps to be in a growing one. Swimming with the tide rather than against it, so to speak. A swelling tide raises all boats, including yours.

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. This is not an iron-clad rule, however. While magazine and newspaper sales have been in slow decline in the Western world for decades, this “declining” industry is where I made a great deal of my own money.More important than any particular industry are the sectors within each industry. A sizable fish in a growing sector, however small, is more attractive to prospective purchasers and investors than the same size fish in a diminishing or static pond.

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.This is the system you are pledged to both join and beat. To join because you need to get rich. And to beat because you have insufficient capital. Either by appearing to join those who will financially back you (while holding on grimly to every piece of stock you can), or by piecing together just enough success to borrow enough money to grow without disposing of your sacred shares. (See Chapter 12: Ownership! Ownership! Ownership!)

So how to choose the arena in which you intend to carve yourself a fortune? There are usually three factors involved in the Search: inclination, aptitude and fate.

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 highly unsatisfactory and frustrating that the most important decision we are likely to consciously make leaves so very much to chance. A small success, though—even a tiny success—can provide a clue. It was my own success at selling magazines on the street that led me to begin to publish them eventually.

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 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.Seize Lady Luck by the forelock and hang on for your life. More men and women have become rich by this single tactic than all “the best-laid plans of mice and men” guided by plodding strategy.Chances come to everyone in life, in all shapes and sizes, often disguised, and more often radiating risk and potential humiliation. Those who are prepared to analyze the risk, to bear the humiliation and to act in deadly earnest—these are the “lucky” ones who will find themselves, when the music stops, holding a potful of money.

Good ideas are like Nike sports shoes. They may facilitate an athlete who possesses them, but on their own they are nothing but an overpriced pair of sneakers. Specially adapted sneakers may be a good idea. But the goal is still to win, and sports shoes don’t win. Athletes do.

Why people should be loath to emulate success is a matter for psychologists. The fact that they do is a matter of fact. The result of such ostrichlike behavior can be catastrophic. As I discovered to my cost.

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 become obsessed with proving that their idea is “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

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

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.Why? Because their own funds usually come from wealthy individuals who demand a high return within a limited time frame. This, in turn, leads many venture capitalists to move from an advisory to an operational role in any business in which they invest, cramping your style and scaring the pants out of everyone who works for you. Those wealthy investors in their own funds are unforgiving and merciless, and venture capitalists will therefore do anything it takes to protect and maximize short-term returns from your business.They aren’t so much sharks as dolphins—a nickname deriving from their frantic desire to “flip” every deal as quickly as possible. By “flipping, ” I mean a sale. They do not care who the venture is sold to (yourself or an outside party), but the return of their investment, with a massive bonus for the risk and skill they have invested, is mandatory.Venture capital money, dolphin money, is not for the faint-hearted. Too often, it is only for the desperate—unless building a business for a quick(ish) return and a small piece of the action is your goal. And there is nothing wrong with such a goal in the short term.

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.Should you decide to approach venture capitalists, and by some miracle should they agree to back you, then I urge you to seek the finest legal advice that your money can buy for the ensuing negotiations. Just one sentence, even a phrase, within the initial contract can make all the difference in the world to the outcome a few years down the road.

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.Look on the bright side. Those lazy bastards who turn away from this odious task are going to be your employees. They are going to make you rich. In a sense, this exhausting and miserable search is what separates the wannabes from the gonnabes. The only way through it is to keep trudging. “When going through, hell,” Winston Churchill once remarked, “keep going.”If you cannot bear the thought of prostrating yourself to obtain the seed corn, then you will almost certainly never own the farm. “To get what you need / You toady to greed.”Or else, you ask; very, very nicely indeed.

the previous chapter, I never knew a worse few months than when I was bashing my head against a brick wall attempting to start my own outfit in the early 1970s. The whole process was pure misery.Looking back through the prismed eyes of a champagne flute, I suppose I could argue that perhaps it was my finest moment. Not that it felt like it at the time. To be honest, it nearly broke me.But I would not give in.That was the secret ingredient. I would not be a wage slave. I would not take “no” for an answer. I would not give in. I was going to be rich. Some how. Some way. Someday soon. And I would not retreat to the safety of a decent job until I was starved out of house and home.I would not give in

What fueled me was the desperation of knowing that unless I found a way around my lack of capital, unless I could pour my energy into a venture of my own, I would be condemned to a life of wage slavery. There is absolutely nothing more likely to dampen the prospects of becoming rich than a nice, fat, regular salary check.Many of my friends were in the same boat, and not a few of them were better educated and smarter than I was. The cleverest of them had chosen careers in advertising agencies or with record companies or in television or radio.It was depressing meeting with them, listening to stories of their latest promotion, never able to buy a round in the pub as they were so generously willing and able to do. Month after month I soldiered on, while “the new ploughed fields smelt dank as the grave; and I wished I were dead.”But I would not give in.

I nearly cracked. I loved her as only the young can love, and I knew I would lose her if I refused. Not that she ever said as much, she wasn’t a greedy or a cruel lass, but even so, I knew. Perhaps she was right. Maybe I should take the job and try to launch my own company in a year or so’s time. Why not, if it would make her happy? It was only a job, after all. Not like joining the army—I could always leave in a few weeks—or months—or years.

Then the phone rang. (I would have walked naked in the street before I allowed them to cut off my phone.) It was a pal of mine; somebody I was later to employ for many years. He had some good news.He had bought a secondhand car with his salary from his advertising sales job and was parked downstairs by the telephone box. I let him up and he produced some bottles of beer and a spliff. He drove my girlfriend home later. You can guess the rest. Money talks. Bullshit walks.

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.If you happen to read biographies, as I do (scores of them every year), you will find a thread that runs through almost any story of success against the odds. Whether money comes into it or not. Whether the person succeeded or failed. Or even, most sadly of all, when they did succeed, but did not live long enough to learn of their success.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.

He would die first. He would kill himself first. And that’s what he did. To our eternal shame, he did just that. 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.”

You must choose. Life is comfortable enough in the Western world for most people. In most parts of Europe there are the safety nets of the social services and of government-subsidized medical care. There are decent jobs at decent salaries with decent colleagues and a decent retirement; and all without the heart-stopping fear of bankruptcy, of years of risk amid fears of ignominious failure.Why do handstands on the rim of hell? Why bother to punish yourself in such a way? Nobody else does it—why should you? Go on, make everyone around you happy.Why not give in?If you are merely a wannabe, then the siren voices will prevail, and they will be right to prevail. If you are a gonnabe, then they will not prevail. Like Odysseus you will stop your ears with wax or bind yourself to the mast. You will learn to walk your narrow, lonely road—and to hell with the siren voices.You will not give in.And you will be rich.

The First Error: Mistaking Desire for Compulsion

cardinal error is to begin such a quest in the vague belief that you would like to be rich. Wishing or desiring to be rich is perhaps the most commonplace of human desires, other than sexual fantasy. Yet few people ever succeed in achieving it.Such desire is a fleeting thing, a will-o’-the-wisp floating across the surface of the mind as you pass the front window of a chic boutique: “I wish I was rich. If only I could afford it, I would march straight inside and buy that beautiful handbag.” Then the No. 43 bus comes along, and all such thoughts are abandoned on the pavement.

Wishing for or desiring something is futile 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 wished hard enough is not just a f***-up. It’s a potential personal tragedy.Life is not some kind of rehearsal. Why, then, do so many people punish themselves in this way? The answer, in almost every case, is that they were “persuaded” or hectored into becoming a banker or a lawyer when, in reality, they would have preferred to do something else entirely. Their misery is made all the worse by the realization that had they acknowledged their lack of enthusiasm early on and stuck to their guns, their lives might well have taken a far more congenial course.

And there is worse yet. Such an attempt, without the conviction to sustain it, can bring the worst of all worlds, for if a person does achieve wealth, at great personal sacrifice, they will have at least acquired a vast fortune in assets or in cash. But to make the attempt without sufficient passion and commitment, knowing in your heart of hearts that you lack the conviction to succeed, risks the suffering of a self-inflicted plague without even the consolations the loot may bring.Do not mistake desire for compulsion. Only you can know the song of your inner demons. Only you can know if you are willing to tread the narrow, lonely road to riches. No one else can know. No one else can tell you either to do it or to refrain from the attempt. When the going gets tough, when all seems lost, when partners and luck desert you, when bankruptcy and failure are staring you in the face, all that can sustain you is a fierce compulsion to succeed at any price.

The Second Error: Overoptimism Concerning Cash Flow

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!

The Third Error: Reinforcing Failure

The Fourth Error: Thinking Small and Acting Big

“Success is never permanent; failure is never fatal. The only thing that really counts is to never, never, never give up.” That’s that old windbag Winston Churchill again. But he was bang on the money there.

Acting small in the early days of your business sets an example to those around you. If staff see you indulging in long lunch hours and purchasing yourself a fancy company car, then they are either going to resent it or they are going to emulate you. This is not a good thing. You can do all that stuff later, when you’ve made your first fifty million.Most of the worst errors I have made in my life came from forgetting to act small. It’s hard to do when you’re rolling around in coin and everything is going your way. But acting big leads to complacency, and complacency is the reason that many successful start-ups falter

The Fifth Error: Skimping on Talent

it admits openly that the chances of anyone reading it and then becoming rich are minuscule. The vast majority of you are far too nice. And comfortable. And sensible.My book points out, in harsh detail, the damage to your present contentment and the risk to future and existing relationships that you run by seeking to get rich. It also deals with the coarsening of your nature that will accompany the rough and tumble of acquiring a piece of the pie from another’s table. It points out, too, that avarice is tremendously time-consuming and that time is in somewhat short supply—our lives are way too short

“Persistence” is a vital attribute for those who wish to become rich, or who wish to achieve anything worthwhile for that matter. As is the ability to acknowledge that one has made a mistake and that a new plan of action must now be made. Any such acknowledgement is not a weakness, it is a sign of clear thinking. In its way, it is a kind of persistence in itself. Try, try, try again, does not mean doing what has already failed, over and over again.Quitting is not dishonorable. Quitting when you believe you can still succeed is. You must keep the faith. Belief in yourself and faith in your project can move mountains. But not if you insist on trying to scale the mountain by an impossible route which has already failed

This is the core of it. Persistence is not quite as important as self-belief. I have known people who believed in themselves, who acted on that belief, got lucky quickly and got rich. Persistence merely offers a second or third bite at the cherry. Your belief in yourself brought you to the cherry bowl in the first place.Self-belief is a priceless asset. As Eleanor Roosevelt once remarked: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Firstly, if you have ever escaped from very serious trouble indeed, or have been at the point of death, then you will know that one of two things happens. Either you become cautious to an absurd degree, or you are liberated from many ordinary fears. With liberation comes the knowledge that nothing is really very important in the lives of men; nothing is as terrifying as the fear itself. And from that, paradoxically, comes self-belief—a belief that anything is possible.Secondly, you should remember that you are unique. Any scientist will tell you so. No other human was ever born, or will ever be born, with the same combination of upbringing, flaws and qualities that you possess. Why should you not believe in yourself?Even the fact of your existence, that you were created by the swiftest sperm of the millions let loose upon the luckiest of eggs that day, is a miracle. What were the odds that it would be you who would result? Yes, you, sitting in your chair reading these words right now. How then, could you not believe in yourself? Nature did. Destiny did. Or, if you wish, your God did

Strangling your own baby, in order to grow, is far more common than you might think. If you have a successful monthly magazine, for instance, and then launch a weekly in the same category, you will inevitably weaken sales of your original title. This will follow as surely as night follows day. So should you launch the weekly magazine?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.

Let’s imagine you have a herd of sacred cows inside a fortress. The barbarians 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 barbarians 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. Recently, the growth of the Internet has begun to destroy the music industry. More and more people download songs without paying for them, despite it’s being illegal. As a result, CD sales have been in a tailspin and record companies have watched in horror as billions of dollars have been sucked out of the market, crippling their share price.These record companies, who have grown fat for years by charging very high prices for little bits of cheap plastic, reacted foolishly, at first. They were far too slow to begin devouring the sacred cow of the CD. What they wanted was for the pirating and illegal downloading to stop. That’s where they concentrated their efforts. Dumb move. The barbarians were not about to quit anytime soon.After all, what the record companies were faced with was nothing new. It was merely a kind of forced diversification. What they should have been busy doing, since the creation of the Napster website, let alone Apple’s iPod, was weaving themselves new baskets—not defending the old, worn-out basket. Today, as a result of commercial pressure, that is exactly their strategy.

The biggest basket I ever built wasn’t my first or second. It was my twentieth. But if I hadn’t built the second, I would never have reached the twentieth. And maybe, just maybe, I have a couple more baskets yet to build.

Why? Because I want to hear what they have to say.That’s not because I’m a sociable chap. In fact, there’s little I like better than my own company. But 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

Ideas, by the way, cannot be “owned” by anyone. You cannot trademark or patent or copyright any idea. You can only protect the execution of the idea and trademark the name. This is an important thing to know in any business and is often misunderstood by people who come to you with an idea. Such people often request you sign an NDA (a Non-Disclosure Agreement), and I am usually happy to do so.Why? Because the force in law of most NDAs is limited and they do not work in the way most people think they do

listening continuously, listening and learning, is one of the vital components for those of you who wish to be rich

Is luck just “a dividend of sweat”? How many times can one person “dust themselves down, pick themselves up and start all over again” before they lose heart? I have already mentioned Winston Churchill’s “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” All very well if you are a cigar-smoking, aging hero at the nadir of his career, who is nevertheless certain he is destined for greatness. But what about the rest of us

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 apologize 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.)

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.

Or take the attitude of banks toward start-up or small companies. If you need a loan because you cannot meet payroll, you almost certainly won’t get one. (Er, make that “you absolutely, definitely won’t get one.”) The balance of weakness is so obvious and utterly immediate, nobody will want to waste time listening to your entreaties.But if you need a loan, say, because you wish to take a private company public with a reasonable chance of success in the not-too-distant future (in other words, you don’t really need a loan, it would merely be convenient to be offered one), then loans will shower upon you like confetti. After all, banks need to make money by selling professional services as well as charging interest, and you are now a potentially important customer, a customer who may well require those professional services—not a supplicant groveling on his knees with a dog-eared business plan.

A Few Tips on Negotiating• 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.• Most negotiations are unnecessary. Don’t enter into them. Remember that “the fortress that parleys is already half taken.” Save serious negotiations for serious occasions.• 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.• 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 consequences—you are. Professional advisors are there to explain and advise, not to decide.• 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 along that route you will get yourself some new advisors. The world is full of them.• 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.

Choose a rogue element to your advantage and bring it into the negotiation at a late stage. You’ll be amazed at how often this tactic produces results.• 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 outmaneuvered, than to have two or three of you silently squabbling.• 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 bad one.

on such occasions, do not attend, even if you are the 100 percent 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 trust your nominee completely, though.• 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 light and make a battle plan.• Whatever you agree to during a negotiation, fulfill 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.

Why Ownership Isn’t the Important Thing—It’s the Only Thing

To become rich you must be an owner. And you must try to own it all. You must strive with every fiber of your being, while recognizing the idiocy of your behavior, to own and retain control of as near to 100 percent 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.”

Do you remember my old “rivals” Robin and David from the EMAP elephant? They were both far better publishers than I will ever be. On my best day they would have wiped the floor with me. But after a quarter of a century of jointly creating one of the biggest media companies in Britain for EMAP shareholders, what did they get for their pains?I don’t know exactly, of course, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. But I’ll guess, using current market norms. $6 million? $10 million? $20 million? (I doubt the last, but it could have been.) You mean that’s it? That’s all there is after busting your balls for the best part of your working life and making hundreds of shareholders and lawyers and banks immensely rich? A few measly million dollars less tax? That’s shocking.I’ve made more than that in deals I can barely remember now. I once made a million dollars by selling a magazine I had not even published yet to a rival. A million dollars for a day’s work. And why? Why? Why?Because I owned it. I owned it all. And my dear friends David and Robin never owned anything during their time there except for a pile of EMAP share options, a good salary and a lovely pension. Please think about this if you want to be rich. Ownership is not the most important thing. It is the only thing that counts.

. 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.”The best kind of fairness is the kind that makes money. Lots of money. Then you can decide to do with it whatever you wish. And there’s even a whole chapter at the end of this book about it. (See Chapter 18: How to Stay Rich.) But we can’t be wasting time thinking about and debating fairness while we are in money-making mode. Money making and fairness having nothing to do with each other.

Now don’t get the wrong idea. Going public made me a fortune. And unlike a private business, it seemed that the more we divested (sold off) our shares, the richer we became, because more people bought them and the more those shares we still had left were worth. That sounds weird, but it’s exactly what happened. In a private company I would virtually have to be pried away from my shareholding with a crowbar—until I was ready to sell the whole shooting match, anyway. But with a public company, everything seemed to be topsy-turvy.And that included selling shares. Just as directors of a public company cannot use their inside knowledge to enrich their lunch buddies, even inadvertently, so they must not use that knowledge to enrich themselves. By selling shares when things are going badly, for instance. Not unless everyone knows things are going badly. Got it?There were other weird rules and mantras we had not faced as a private corporation. Growth was apparently all that counted. Growth in share price. Growth in corporate revenues. And being in the “right” markets (like the Internet, at that time). Profits were not the issue. Nobody seemed to care that not a cent had ever been made by any company trading on the Internet back then. All that mattered was that we achieved compound growth in flavor-of-the-month markets.

A private company could never have operated in the way Peter was required to run MicroWarehouse. A private company lives on profits and reserves. There has to be a balance between investment and profit-taking. Between growth and the bottom line. In a private company, growth is not a goal in itself; you only grow if it makes sense to grow.But a public company exists only to boost its share price, and its share price is determined, incredibly enough, by “analysts”—spotty-faced youths who live on another planet where growth-at-any-price is the only deity one is encouraged to worship. Medium- or long-term strategies were for wimps and amateurs, in their estimation. This quarter’s results, this quarter’s growth, were the only things that mattered to them. It almost seemed, at times, as if profit was a dirty word. If we were making “profits,” asked the “analysts,” weren’t we in danger of “wasting” money that could have been invested to produce more

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!It used to be surprising to me why so many people appeared to have a problem with delegating. But I finally figured it out, and the answer isn’t a pretty one. It concerns our old bugaboo, ownership.If you own a company and that company’s purpose is to make you wealthy, you will be content, delighted even, for any amount of glory to go to anyone who works there, providing you get the money. It is in your best interests to delegate whenever it makes sense in such circumstances.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 reluctant to delegate real power or opportunity, in case the person you delegate to proceeds to excel. This, in turn, may well demonstrate to the rest of the company what a ho-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 this reluctance of others, both in and out of my own companies. Now I’m not surprised at all.Bossy people and glory hounds are mostly interested in building a power base so they can have yet more people to boss about. It’s pitiful and a little sad, but we have all seen it. We saw it in school. We saw it in the playground. We saw it in college. And we saw it in our first job. If you are observant, you have been seeing it nearly all your life.Such bullies and toads appear to cover the earth. They often gravitate toward jobs that give the appearance of power but which require low(ish) skill levels—security companies, the prison service, immigration and customs, minor civil service roles, noncommissioned officers in the armed forces, and so on. I am not suggesting that these organizations are made up solely of such creatures; but who would disagree that they have more than their fair share of them?

This is fine, because they are easy to spot in such roles, and they have to work somewhere. They are mostly an obnoxious nuisance. But cleverer specimens are also probably working right next door to you today. 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. How do you counter this idiocy? You don’t—unless you own the company, in which case you fire them. I have fired a few. It was the only time I enjoyed firing anyone.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 can take up astonishing amounts of time. They increase the number of

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 organization already possesses and not address the weaknesses.

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 organizational 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 are 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 program 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.Any leader will tell you of the importance of morale. And it is important. It cannot compensate for sloppy work, or for lack of persistence or belief in yourself. It cannot compensate for a lack of determination to succeed or for ill fortune. Nonetheless, good morale, a pervasive feeling of “us against the world,” combined with the promise of responsible delegation and promotion based on achievement, can move mountains. And under those mountains is gold. Your gold.But what exactly is delegation?Let me put it this way. The work undertaken by your colleagues and employees is more important than your work. Your job is merely to lead, perhaps just to point in the right direction. This is advice I suspect will fall on stony ground for the uninitiated. Let me be crystal clear.I am not suggesting you will have an easy time of it or that you will not work long and unsociable hours. You will. All of us who made our own money did and it will be little different for you. But I have the benefit now of hindsight. I look back along the years and see myself working like a proverbial Trojan. A stupid Trojan. You can avoid this trap.

else do I delegate? Almost everything now. I do not run my companies and have not done so for many, many years. Rivals do not believe this. They smile knowingly when I tell them that. Perhaps because many of them are not good delegators. But they are wrong. I don’t run my companies. And I have no desire to.Instead of attempting to stay in day-to-day control, I have devised a system where I keep overall control, but do not involve myself in running a business unless I wish to get involved for a particular reason. I use the power of veto instead.By making myself the chairman of all my companies, I can choose to attend or not attend senior management or board meetings as it suits me. On average, I will attend four to six such meetings a year for each company.The chair is usually taken in my absence by the MD, the president or the CEO. Verbatim minutes are taken. (I do read all the minutes of these meetings very carefully, and I can get a mite cross if they are not produced promptly and accurately. For me, they are not a memorandum of past events. They are a tool to understanding current positions.) I also have Ian Leggett, my personal financial manager as well as my group CFO, placed on all these boards. If I am not present, you can be sure he is.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.

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.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. With Ian’s beady eye on them while they do it!If things go wrong in a particular part of the business, then I will get involved. When we are about to launch, sell or close something, I am always involved.To run a group of companies like this you have to trust your managers and directors. You can only do it if you have learned, by long experience, the art of delegation. It is important to distinguish between delegation and abandonment. Absentee landlords never prosper. I am not absent. But I am not exactly toiling with the troops side by side, every minute of every day. My days of toiling in those particular mines are well and truly over.To be honest, I suspect my managers prefer it that way. They certainly get to take more scary decisions more often. And that’s half the thrill of their job, I hope. As our senior management turnover rate is one of the lowest in the industry, and has been for years, my system must have something going for it

gravitated toward? Computer software, technology and dot com start-ups, cable and satellite television, property, environmental waste clean-up, alternative energy services...any one of these might have created a much larger fortune for me in less time than I took with magazines. Do I know anything about these industries? No. But, then, I didn’t know anything about magazines in 1967 either.So this is the first lesson in the power of focus. Keep your eye on the ball if you wish to get rich. And do not forget which ball.It’s the one marked “The Money is Here.

offices and all the accoutrements. Human capital is by far the most important element of your environment, whether you are just starting up or deep into the game. By focusing hard on obtaining that human capital you will vastly increase your chances of becoming rich.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 morning. 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.You don’t believe me? Then I have obviously failed in this book. Do I strike you as a particularly clever person? Right! I’m not a clever person and I have just enough wit to know it. I never attended university and was tossed out of my school before I had “graduated,” to use the American expression.You do not need to be clever. You do not even need to be that adept. You need only a little cunning and massive determination to become rich. Providing you can pay much cleverer but risk-averse people properly, and promote them and lead them in such a way that they are all rowing in the same direction, they will sign on to your little ship. I can guarantee that this is true because I did exactly that myself.Persuading them to join is not the problem, but separating the wheat from the chaff is harder. They look so much alike. This is where you have to focus your energy and concentration.Your employees, your colleagues, your suppliers and your customers are all human capital. Choosing among them is an art form. Yet creating the right environment in which money can be made is essential. I repeat, you can’t do it on your own.

takes effort, experience, focus and skill. If you get it right, you will become rich with an ease that will astonish you and everyone who knows you. If you get it wrong, you will be running around like a headless chicken for a year or so and then you will be bankrupt.And you will deserve to be.

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.1. Never choose an important employee or a key supplier alone.

Go further than reading a person’s references.

Make notes. Speak little.

Good suppliers respect attention to detail.

Pay employees well. Bonus better

alert for “crossovers

Only hire winners.

Ignore your prejudices, likes and dislikes.

Promote from within when you can.

Don’t leave senior employees in any job too long.

Screwing up isn’t criminal or deliberate or malevolent. But covering up is, if you get caught. And you will get caught—ask the shade of Richard Nixon.

Experience is only a name we give to our failures.You are now a more experienced person. And next time around you’ll ensure that you do not duplicate your earlier mistakes. As old lags tell new inmates in the nick: “You’ve done the crime, now do the time. No whining.” It’s good advice.

Revenue catch him, he will be for the high jump. If you use your company’s money to buy yourself a fancy car or a house or a boat or anything at all of that nature without declaring it, you are a criminal. Full stop. And sometimes, the Inland Revenue and the VAT collectors put such criminals in jail. As well as fining them huge sums of money. So why does my friend do it? Because he founded the company. In his mind, he took all the risk and he thinks that whatever money the company has no use for belongs to him. But it doesn’t. Not unless it is paid as salary, or a bonus or as a dividend. This is the thing to keep in the forefront of your mind.

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.Excessive idolatry of money will “take” all those. It will corrode both self-belief and love. It will stretch integrity on the rack. It will “take” the fortress; and it will not be a pretty sight.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. They aren’t suited to it, and if that sounds defeatist, then consider the fact that the search will take up a great deal of your waking life for many, many years.

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.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 wealth will mount up and cannot be reclaimed, whether you succeed or whether you fail

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 be. It never is.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.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. It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Ridiculous and gloomy

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 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.

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. In doing so, they drain confidence and optimism from you. Such people often include your parents, your lover, your husband or your wife, and your “friends.” Which is not surprising. It’s not that they do not care about you. They may well do so, in their own way. But two cardinal fears rule their concern.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.The order in the “pack” from which you spring, the family grouping, will be shattered. Should you become rich you will become the number-one dog in the pack, and their own order will slip accordingly. 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. You cannot spend your life assuaging the fear of failure (and success) that is the common lot of the risk-averse

Should you have parents who are too ambitious for your future, then much the same advice applies. The stereotype for this in the twentieth century was the American Jewish mother, determined that her sons should become doctors or lawyers. This is all very well, but it will not make you rich, because, in its way, it is yet another attempt to slot you into a preordained path. You must cut loose from it to become wealthy. Or to be happy, for that matter.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:

Lastly, it goes without saying that you must cut loose from working for other people. If you have been gainfully employed since you left school or college, this is an oddly difficult thing to do.It is dunned into our head that we should work. Western civilization is based upon a work ethic that has propelled it into the front rank of the tribes and cultures we share this planet with. If you have ever stood, early in the morning, on a weekday in New York City and watched the countless tens of thousands of workers hurrying to their steel and glass towers, you can catch a scent of this ethic. It is frightening, but exhilarating, too. 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.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 anymore. 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.

If you are not just reading this book for a bit of entertainment (nothing wrong with that), and if you seriously do wish to get rich, then I am going to ask you to memorize the words below, close the book and repeat the words again to yourself. Let’s go:THE WORLD IS FULL OF MONEY. SOME OF IT HAS MY NAME ON IT. ALL I HAVE TO DO IS COLLECT IT.

Fear NothingFear nothing. Another easy-to-say and impossible piece of advice. Tough luck, chum. Life’s a bitch and then you die. Get used to it. It isn’t going to change anytime soon.What is there to fear? Everything and nothing. Try looking at it through my eyes. I am an insignificant little worm on an insignificant planet which circles an insignificant star in a big (presumably) bad universe. A universe I will never comprehend, nor can ever hope to comprehend.Just like everything that walks, breathes, grows, flies, crawls or swims, I am going to die. One day, my planet will die. Long, long after, the sun it still circles as a dead rock will die. Then there will be darkness on the face of the earth. That is, there would be darkness if there was any creature alive to view 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. They will commit any atrocity and take as many others with them as they can, if they are driven to it. 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.

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

you wish to get rich, there are no reasons why you should not get rich. None at all.For they are not “reasons”; they are excuses. For the most part they are pitiful alibis, half truths and self-serving evasions you have erected to spare yourself from the quiet terror of taking your own financial life in your hands and making your dreams concrete reality. They are the children of fear and the parents of a thousand “if onlys.”It may well be true, should you succeed, that you will discover you are not as happy as you once believed wealth might make you. But is that a reason for not beginning? Perhaps I will be proved wrong and you will become rich and as happy as a lark in spring. Who knows? You will never find out if you do not try, and if you do not begin trying now.

The only three valid reasons for not attempting to become rich are: “I do not wish to be rich.” Or, “I wish to be rich but I have other priorities.” Or, “I am too stupid to try to get rich.”

It is my belief that children do not care if parents are rich or poor, providing there is enough money for basic essentials like food, clothing and shelter. What they care about is unconditional love. That is the only key, the only true priority, although they neither know it, nor say so, after five or six years old.

Then my mother’s career began to flourish and our lives changed. We became “middle class” overnight. I got a bike. There was a smart bathroom in our new garden flat with a modern bath and hot water pouring out of the tap. The lavatory paper came in soft, comfy rolls. We were allowed pets and we had a lawn with a big tree to play cowboys and Indians in. Was I a mite happier?I don’t believe so. I had a wonderful time in my grandparents’ house. All the other kids in the alley there were in the same boat. We didn’t even know we were poor. Material surroundings are of far more importance to adults than to children.

The Upside-Down Pyramid for Getting Rich1. 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. Investing in private companies you think can do well is another sensible ruse for staying rich, but giving it away on a continual basis is a surer route. By the way, when you do start giving it away, find someone to do it for you. Most of my money is given away by a lovely lady accountant called Catherine Bishop, and she does a far better job of it than

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. Which is a different matter. All you did with that type of “investment” was take a punt or make a gift. Do not waste time playing the “blame game” over investments, loans or outright gifts, however large. The blame, if there is any, is yours.• 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. Ditto with relatives. If you diligently follow this one piece of advice, you will be saved a sackful of misery. Trust me. Broadcast your policy loudly. This will spare you from many embarrassing demands that will otherwise vex you.• Get “first flush” barminess out of your system as fast as possible. You’re going to do it if you get rich. Yes, you are. You are going to buy a sodding great big house, then more houses abroad, then servants by any other name, then you are going to start misbehaving. Gambling. Credit-card abuse. Expensive clothes. Whores. Drugs. Drink. Fast cars. Private jets. Big parties. Interior designers.

Your oldest friends are your only friends. Sad. Very sad. But true. And not all those old friends will be comfortable with the new disparity in wealth between you and them. You’ll have to wait and see which. And, surprisingly, you will have to work on those friendships for quite a while. They’re important to you, believe me. Only your old, trusted mates can tell you when to get off. Will dare tell you that you’re out of order. But why should you have to reach out to them? Because . . .• Get used to being “cut off.” I do not carry a mobile phone or any communications device on my person. At least, not one anyone knows anything about. No one has my e-mail address, because I refuse to register one. I never will. I am very hard to reach and that’s deliberate. Only a very few trusted aides, business associates and my lover can reach me day or night. And sometimes, not even then. If you do not begin to isolate yourself pronto when you get rich, then you will be driven mad pretty swiftly.

Avoid developing “plate-glass vision.” It’s true you want to be difficult to reach, but that doesn’t mean you should allow yourself to develop what Bob Dylan called “plate-glass vision.” No need for that. I often eat at the same small restaurants I always did in London and New York. They know I’ve done well, but the staff there have no idea how well.

Develop a passion outside of making money. Fast.

Get your own private advisors. The professionals who help run your company must be first class. The professionals who run your private wealth for you must be even classier. There is no substitute for a first-class lawyer, tax advisor, accountant, auditor, estate manager and business advisor. None. You will get into a ton of trouble if you don’t search them out, appoint them, and make your peace with them at the earliest opportunity

Watch out for fraud in the early days

Do not try to be friends with your staff. When you are worth several hundred or a thousand times what a member of your staff is worth financially (do the math), then trying to be friends with them or encouraging them to be friends with you is silly. They know it’s phony and you know it’s phony, and they know that you know. Not being friends comes with the territory. Being fair and friendly is always cool. Trying to be “one of the boys” is pathetic.

Do not sleep with your staff

Choose personal aides with enormous care.

Don’t abuse it

Be safe. If you make a lot of money, then it’s foolish not to look to your security.

Never stop looking for talent and promoting talent.

No deal is a “must-do” deal.

Lead. Do not be led.

You have employed a bunch of talented boys and girls who are smarter than you. Great. But you are their leader. If you sniff an opportunity, then get them to consider it. If they prevaricate, call a meeting and brainstorm. If they still won’t get excited, then take the project into your private office or somewhere else and begin it there. Do not leave the opportunity within the company to be sabotaged, focus-grouped and committeed to death—which is almost certainly what will happen to it. Your employees and advisors are just that: employees and advisors. You are the owner. You must follow your instincts. You must lead.• Stay as healthy as you can. I have no advice to offer on this subject—and no right to offer any. I’m rich, not a hypocrite. But staying healthy long enough to enjoy your wealth must make some kind of sense.• If you’re bored with a business, sell it. You will not be able to disguise your lack of passion for a business if you fall out of love with it. Your lack of enthusiasm leaks out of you and infects those around you. They can sense it and they will find it hard to forgive and easy to emulate. Sell that particular business pronto. Then go and invest in something that doesn’t bore you.• Try to sell before you have to. You’re an entrepreneur. Your companies are not your “babies,” they are tools for acquiring wealth. Try to sell them before they peak. Buyers require what is called “blue sky” (further growth) to get excited and offer a great price. I’m bad at this, sometimes. Fortunately, my American partners, Peter and Bob, are good at it. And, usually, they are right.• Retirement will kill you.

It’s official! Retirement kills the kind of people who make their own pile. I do know one couple, old friends called Don and Sue, who squirreled away a million bucks or two (plus a house) and travel quite happily, and very modestly, for most of the year. They go to India and Indonesia and other such places. Or else stay with friends, like me. They love their life, and are content to live on the interest from their investments. But they are the only ones I know who ever really retired contented. Interestingly, Don always predicted he would retire early; long before he made any money. Still, for most men and women who have made a lot of money, retirement is usually a living death sentence.• Remember you are only richer than them. Not smarter than them. If you do not employ a great many people smarter than you in your company, you are either Albert Einstein reincarnated or a fool. Making money doesn’t mean you are smart. Having a posh car, a fancy office and wearing a $5,000 suit doesn’t make you smart. Being surrounded by technology, research and cool gadgets does not make you smart. Living in a big house does not make you smart. It makes you rich. The sun does not shine out of your backside. You are not infallible. You are neither

Pope nor Albert Einstein

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.