One of the World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares his Secrets
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Felix Dennis
Secrets to Getting Rich
- Analyze your need. Desire is insufficient. Compulsion is mandatory
- Cut loose from negative influences. Never give in. Stay the course
- Ignore great ideas. Concentrate on great execution
- Focus. Keep your eye on the ball marked “your money is here.”
- Hire talent smarter than you. Delegate. Share the annual pie
- Ownership is the real secret. Hold on to every percentage point you can
- Sell before you need to, or when bored. Empty your mind when negotiating
- Fear nothing and no one. Get rich. Remember to give it all away
Notes
Fear of failure looms largest here…I am convinced that fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment to amassing wealth… If you are unwilling to fail, sometimes publicly, and even catastrophically, you stand very little chance of ever getting rich. If you cannot bear the thought of causing worry to your family, spouse, or lover while you plow a lonely, dangerous road rather than taking the safe option of a regular job, you will never get rich.
You are not part of a team – although you may have to pretend you are…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.
…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…A sizeable 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…few fortunes are made in mature industries.
Ownership is power… 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% of any company as you can…Never, never never, never hand over a single share of anything you have acquired or created if you can help it. Nothing. Not one share. To no one. No matter what the reason – unless you genuinely have to…I am a great believer in sharing the annual pie around. (Compensation from profits, not ownership).
Think big. Act small.
To become rich you must behave as a predator. I will go further, you must become a predator…“I asked you what you were going to do when you left school. You looked at 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.”
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 maximize and truly incentivize your most precious assets – the people who work for you…You can delegate many tasks when creating a new business, but monitoring and forecasting cash flow is not one of them. It’s your responsibility and your task. Nobody else’s.
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 forever.
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… When opportunities come you must pounce. Whether you are just starting out or have been at it for a while. If an opportunity should arrive just as you are taking your family on vacation, do not weaken.
Letters to my Brother
Barbarians at the Gate – Principle
Mexican Shootout