YouSaid · the spoken record

Felix Dennis

lines on the record: 62
first: 2020-06-04
most recent: 2020-06-04
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Please lodge one fact in your memory that the last 1,500 words was an important bit. In my heart of hearts I know it was the most important bit you will read in this book. Market with a bookmark and write today's data pond it. Come back to it in 20 or 30 years. Then cast your mind back to a time when you were young and you first read this book and to the thoughts of a fool, a rich poet, long dead, who once typed these words sitting in one of the most beautiful houses on earth, staring at the turquoise sea, sipping a glass of chilled wine. Will be enough for me. It's $129 books down, 1,000 to go. If you want to buy the book using the link that's in the show notes, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I will talk to you again soon.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Giving away money when you're dead takes no guts, no courage, but to divest yourself of hundreds of millions of dollars are the greater part of your fortune before your death That would be something to be proud of, don't you think For what is left afterward, but a few tears by a graveside and years of bickering. You must make your own choice. I have said my piece and I meant every word of it. This small part of my book was composed in my mind years ago. It was easy to write. I knew all of it before my fingers touched the keyboard. It has troubled me for years and I thank you for allowing me to share it. I suspect it'll have little effect on you, though. You are probably young, and you are tired of being poor But can I ask you to do me just one small favor?”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But then you are to consider that I have been very poor and I am now very rich. I am an optimist by nature. But am I happy? No, or at least only occasionally, when I'm 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'm tainted by it, because I'm afraid to. All those reasons and more. When I die, it's all going to a charity called the Forest of Dennis. You see, even when I do a good thing with my money, my ego insists that I name it for myself not a good sign.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 were 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.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 a 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, even should you succeed in becoming rich, what will you have achieved? 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 insane.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 ever can be again.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's no point in owning 100% of a rubbish company. Whatever it is you intend to do to get rich, get good at it. Al Capone is said to have shot a man who kept brewing rotten beer for Capon's illegal beer distribution racket during prohibition. His gang lieutenants didn't get it. The business was illegal anyway. But Capone refused to have his name associated with rubbish. Having read his autobiography, I found myself wishing he stayed out of the rackets and built his fortune legally. He had many of the attributes of a world class entrepreneur. And I'm going to close this conversation out with what he says is the most important part of the book.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you find you dislike what you are doing, then sell up and change your life. It's the most important sentence of the section to me. Self-imposed misery is a kind of madness. The cure is to get out. So here's an entire chapter about the power of being focused and one heading is that you should focus on doing an outstanding job. And he says, 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 the law doing an outstanding job shall be the other half.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just a few more from the section 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. Get out while the going is good and move on to the next venture. More money is usually lost holding on to an asset than is made waiting for the zenith of its value. I should know it's one of my biggest defects. And finally, 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”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, is it worth it? Should we pursue the pie at all? This is not a question for me to consider here at any length. I have become a poet, a serious one too, and I wrestle with such questions every day in the three hours I put aside to write verses. But you are not to consider this, you are to consider that I might well be a hypocrite, because I took to writing poetry after I had laid up my treasure. I have wasted vast amounts of my life laying up treasure. I have exiled myself for months at a time to plunder the riches of the USA and to bring them back to Europe. Many are the nights I lay awake in my New York City apartment, listening to the eerie sirens and street sounds which define that great city, while I dreamed of spring in an English country garden thousands of miles away.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Anything during their time except for a pile of 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. So my interpretation of this next section is this is the answer to the question. Is it worth it? It seems to be his answer to be both yes and no.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Quarter of 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 all guests using current market norms six million, ten million, maybe twenty million? You mean that's it? That's all there is after busting your balls for the better 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. 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.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you want to be rich, then I ask you to stop skipping paragraphs and play close attention. 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 out a single share of anything you've acquired or created if you can help it. Nothing, not one share to anyone, no matter what the reason, unless you genuinely have to. Do you remember my old rivals, Robin and David, from the EMAP? So this is another publishing company in England. He says 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”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Being rich is fine, and at the very least, it's better than being poor, but it shouldn't be the be all and end all of your life earning one else's life. 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. All right, moving ahead, we get to his main point of this chapter, and the heading he put on it is why ownership isn't the important thing, it's the only thing.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he's got an entire chapter. It's called ownership ownership ownership. Tells you how important it is. But I appreciate, I particularly appreciated a bunch of his paragraphs in this section. This one idea. I really liked. Appreciate the absurdity of the chase. My amateurish musings illustrate very nicely just how idiotic the getting of wealth as a goal in and of itself really is. Ah, but you could argue. That's very well for you. You have already made your pile. It's easy to be philosophical when you've already amassed a fortune. And my reply would be There is truth in that, but there's also truth in the assertion that I may well have been. A delusion, if you will.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Destiny by his insane, unprincipled self belief, and the belief in the destiny of his country and of freedom in Western Europe. I am not asking you to be Winston Churchill. None of us could be or would necessarily want to be. He was a child of his time, but I do ask that you begin right now, right at this very moment, to ask yourself whether you believe in yourself. Truly do you believe in yourself? Do you? If you do not, and worse still, if you believe you can never believe, then by all means go on reading this book, but take it from me. Your only chance of getting rich will come from the lottery or inheritance. If you will not believe in yourself, then why should anyone else? Without self belief, nothing can be accomplished. With it nothing is impossible.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would we worship? How many millions upon millions of those among us would have disappeared? And how many would have never been born? Ignore his politics and even his principles by all means, but to read Winston Churchill's speeches today and better still to hear his recordings of them, or to hear the recordings of them, is to understand the astonishing power and mesmerizing quality of self-belief. Younger men and women may mock all they wish, but the iron determination and self belief of this one old man meant more to Britain at that moment than all the other kings and queens in her long history. For just one moment a democratic people were saved from fear of failure and from fear of fear itself, from the shame of capitulation to evil, by what? By one old man's belief in his own”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We had one such in the past century in England. Perhaps he was a warmonger, perhaps he was an incompetent strategist and a jingoist and an empire builder and a silly old buffoon, especially about the rights of women. But Winston Churchill's sense of his own destiny, his unshakable self-belief, was for a while all that Britain contained in its arsenal after Dunkirk. Have you seen that movie Dunkirk, by the way? It's one of my favorite movies of the last several years. His cabinet colleague, Lord Halifax, would have made peace with Nazi Germany in an instant, as would Neville Chamberlain, the previous prime minister known as the Apostle of Apeasement. And if we had made peace, which would have meant disarming ourselves and handing over our Air Force and perhaps our Navy to the Nazis, where would Europe be now? What language would we be speaking? What would our beliefs be?”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We made a test arrogance. Yet, isn't it true that we admire it a little? Even though arrogance is a poor, shabby thing compared with rooted self-belief, it is an imitation of the real thing. Why do we convertly admire such attributes? Because such people often have with the ancients called the look of eagles about them, which has little to do with their appearance. Single-handedly individuals with ingrained self belief and usually a dollop of arrogance have changed the destiny of nations.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Whiskey swelling idiot with too much money who believe they are built of titanium. See what I mean about it is honestly though it does make the book very interesting like it does make it a very interesting read again I know I've said this over and over again I can see why so many people recommended it okay so this is one of my favorite sections of the book I just absolutely love it it's something I also personally believe it's the importance of self-belief and then he's gonna quote again heavily from Winston Churchill”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A single evening's entertainment could come to $30 or $40,000. There was nothing I could not do. I was the king of the world. I was acting big. Even though I was not so foolish as to use company money for this idiocy, my business still suffered and my health suffered. So he winds up in the hospital and they're saying, listen, if you don't get off the drugs and the alcohol and the nightlife right now, you're going to die. He eventually stops drugs completely and the only drinks, only thing he'll drink, like the only alcohol he drinks after that is wine. Something to note. He almost dies from legionary disease at this time. But while he's telling us about that experience, I really feel the sentence is a way that he's describing the person he was in the late 80s and early 1990s. It is especially lethal to a coked-up, overweight, cigarette smoking malt.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Then the owner of a startup venture. And so the anecdote to this, which he's going to continue here in a minute, I would summarize as think big but act small. He says, all the times I got in trouble in my life, I was acting big. And that's when he's, well, he's going to talk. This is just a crazy section. You ready? I know all this because in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, I forgot to remember to act small. I spent millions of dollars on drinking drugs and running around with whores. I lost all respect for money and for the blood, sweat, and treasure I had expended to acquire it. I was acting big. In a single decade I got through more than a hundred million dollars living high on the hog. At one time there was no less than fourteen mistresses, he puts in quotations marks, he's essentially paying for a female companionship here. There were no less than 14 mistresses depending on a regular stipend from my personal bank account.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They run out of money. And so I think Felix and Donner are essentially saying the same thing. Watch your cash. This other idea that I think is also important and true, success is never permanent. Just because you have a success or two under your belt doesn't mean you have it made. 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. Once you begin to, this is resting on your laurels is another way to think about the section, okay? Once you begin to believe that you are an infallible, that success will automatically lead to more success, that you've got it made, reality will be sure to give you a rude wake-up call. Believing your own bullshit is always a perilous activity, but never more fatal.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of my favorite quotes I reference it all the time comes to the founder of Sequoia. His name is Don Valentine. And I love this. He says, there are two things in business that matter, and you can learn this in two minutes. High gross margins and cash flow.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If today were the last day of my life, what I want to do when I'm about to do today, and whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Moving ahead. I really loved his frank and honest account. He talks about, I'm going to give you a summary here, but he's talking to a senior accountant. And he's like, he's talking to a senior accountant. He's like, please explain what a balance sheet was me. Balance sheet is to me. And the accountant was astonished. And he asked, he says, how did you become a multimillionaire many times over without even understanding a balance sheet? And he's like, because his opinion is balance sheets are for, he calls him bean counters over and over again in the books. He goes, I understand cash flow. And so this is his opinion on the most important metric of your business being cash flow. Cash flow is something that any entrepreneur must fully comprehend from the get-go. Balance sheets are a matter for accountants, banks, and auditors. But cash flow is the heartbeat of your company. If cash flow is good, then no matter how badly run or poorly managed a company is, there is always a decent chance of turning its fortunes around.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's saying this to us because I think it's vastly different if you wind up having all the financial success that you want, doing something you really wanted to do versus having a lot of financial success doing something you don't want to do. I don't think those are two of the same things at all. So let's go back to this sentence. What are riches anyway compared to the health or the peace of mind that even a modicum of contentment brings in its wake? Remember he's flat out at the end of the book. He tells us he's not happy. In and of itself, great wealth, very rarely if ever breeds contentment. Do not mistake desire for compulsion. Only you can know the song of your inner demons. That's extremely important. No one else can know. No one else can tell you. So when I read that section, I thought of something, the solution to figuring out if you're on the right path or not, I think came from this idea that Steve Jobs had that I read in his biography. This is in the biography by Isaacson. So Steve said. He said, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What are riches anyway compared to health or the peace of mind than even a modicum of contentment brings in its wake? In and of itself, great wealth very rarely, if ever breeds contentment. Do not mistake desire for compulsion. So think about this. He's really writing to himself. He's writing. This is how I interpret the book at least. He's writing to an earlier version of himself. And I also think one thing, I do think there's people that obviously, like there's happy and sad people in all kinds of different circumstances. There's happy poor people. There's sad poor people. There's happy rich people. There's sad rich people, right? But I would say is he never, one thing I think would have contributed more to his happiness is he was very successful magazine publishing, but he even comes out and says, he's like, am I a magazine publisher because I love magazines? No, I just thought I could make a lot of money at it. And I think that I want you to know that as”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 have well taken a far more congenial course. It is my hope that this book will cause you to consider very carefully whether you are truly driven by inner demons to be rich. That's a hell of a sentence if you really think about what he's saying there. He's giving you a hint, which he'll expound in the, you know, he comes out and says flat out at the end of the book what he feels. So let me read that sentence again. I think it's important. It is my hope that this book will cause you to consider very carefully whether you are truly driven by inner demons to be rich. If you are not, then my earnest and heartfelt advice to you is do not on any account make the attempt.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I would not give in I remember a bitter winter night in my West End flat at the back of a sweatshop. Edward Heath's three day week was in operation, and some daft minister had suggested that the citizens of the UK should learn to shave in the dark to save electricity. That was nothing new to me. The electricity had been turned off in my flat weeks ago. So had the gas. I couldn't afford to pay the bill. I sat by an open fire feeding broken furniture that I had scavenged from the trash into my living room fireplace. And while he's sitting there burning furniture his girlfriend at the time who has a normal job, just quit, just stop doing this, give up. And she winds up leaving him because he won't.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Britain appeared, you know, he's going to talk about the overall conditions when he was building his business. Britain appeared to be in terminal financial decline at the time. Interest rates had skyrocketed, and strikes were so commonplace it was difficult to recall landscape not driven by demonstrations, protests, lockouts, and industrial disputes. The banks and the markets weren't just skittish, they were downright terrified. Property values either soared or collapsed. Politicians were jittery. IRA bombs were exploding left, right, and center. These were not good times. 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.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not that it felt like it at a time. To be honest, it nearly broke me, but I would not give in. That was the secret ingredient. I would not take no for an answer. I would not give in. I was going to be rich. Somehow, some way some day soon, and I would not retreat to the safety of a decent job until I starved out of house and home. I would not give in.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I heard a guy who wants to be an RB singer, I mumbled. Yeah, but what you heard was an English guy copying Howlin Wolf and Chuck Berry's voice. But it isn't your voice. Now do one using your own voice. I went back into the studio and I tried. What followed was a catastrophe. I had no voice of my own. I had been singing R&B on stage ever since I was 13, but I'd never develop my own voice. I always imitated the voice of the original artist. John delivered some devastating advice. It won't do, man. It's not that you can't sing. Sure you can do a fair imitation of Chuck or Chuck Berry or whatever, but people don't pay for imitations. You gotta find your own voice or stick to editing your magazines.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“While I belted out a couple of RB songs John and Yoko were amused at my efforts. John stopped our impromptu jam session and ushered me into the control room. Then he played back the tape, urging me to listen carefully. What do you hear?”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Million pounds. That's a sensational result for a small, wholly owned private company. That's also another hint Felix is not a fan of public companies. He goes in great detail about that, and he's also not a fan of having any partners or giving any kind of control either. So he says that's a sensational result for a small, wholly owned private company. You may not necessarily want to be in a glamorous sector of any market because they are often very crowded sectors. So he talks over and over again in the book about you need to maintain ownership, you need to maintain control. It's the most important thing. He says control is often the be-all and end-all of the game. Whoever controls a business can force its sale. Whoever controls a business can implement a merger, whoever controls a business can fire you. Ownership is power. Ask Bill Gates of Microsoft or Larry Ellison of Oracle. I just did this three parts.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In a little bit about him trying to sing RB in front of John Lennon and John Lennon's advice to him. That didn't happen. And if I'm honest about it, I'm still a little disgusted with myself that I quit my dream so early. But hey, I was getting tired of stealing food and bumming other people's cigarettes and not having the rent money. He also talked about a mistake that he sees that a lot of young people make is they only want to work in glamorous industries or jobs or that's where they want to start their company. And his point is like, listen, there's plenty of unglamorous businesses and opportunities that exist. Where's the most opportunity to be found? Forget glamorous. One of the richest self-made men I know digs a hole in the ground to dispose of household waste. That's not how his company describes itself in its annual report, but essentially that's what it does, along with building incineration plants. Glamorous? No. But in a good year, he earns twenty to thirty million.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To help one that would never otherwise have occurred, meaning after you commit, after you actually decide this is what I'm going to go do, and you start walking forward towards that. A whole stream of events issues from that decision raising in one's favor all manner of incidents and meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would come his or her way. So now we're going to get into the words of Felix. The biggest decision over which any of us is likely to exercise real control, meaning what are you going to do for a living. But we do get to choose if we are determined enough what it is we want to do for a living. Most of us flunk this test. My career as an entrepreneur or magazine publisher came about entirely by accidents. If you had asked me when I was 18 years old what I would be doing for the next 30 years, I would have told you I was going to be one of the biggest R&B singers in the world. That made me laugh, but he's dead serious. He actually, there's a story I'm going to tell you.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You are seeking. So he also has this idea that choosing what you do for a living may be the biggest decision that you ever make in life, a decision that you have control over. You obviously don't control who your parents are or where you're born, you know, your gender, your race, any of that stuff. But his point here is that most people don't even choose. It's the biggest decision that you have control over and most people don't even think it's a choice. He starts off with this section by quoting Johann Wolfgang van Goth. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. So this is a quote from him until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always in effectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is one elemental truth. The ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans. That the moment one commits oneself, Providence moves all. All sorts of things occur.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It hurts, it's mindless, and it doesn't mean anything, but it will happen. Be prepared to shrug it off. He's got a great section called Harnessing the Fear of Failure. This reminds me of something I learned from Jimmy IVE a long time ago. He talks about he trained himself that anytime our initial reaction to fear is, you know, we hesitate, we stop, or we run away. And so Jimmy was like, anytime I felt fear, I used it instead of something that's holding me back. It's something that's pushing me forward. And this is, it kind of echoes what Dennis is saying here. Excuse me, what Felix is saying here. Think of the sphere not as the King Kong of our boogeyman, but as a mayor, a nightmare. A mayor, after all, is a horse. A horse can be tamed, bridled, saddled, harnessed, and eventually ridden. Harnessing the power of such a creature adds mightily to your own. Thus the nightmare of prospective failure provides you with the very opportunity.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I made and also this is also the mistakes I made going maybe a step too far. He does have some good ideas like this developmental mental armor If you wish to be rich you must grow 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 snickering and malicious mockery that will follow your inevitable failures Not to mention”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Narcotics, he mentions he was addicted to cocaine specifically, but I know he did a bunch of other drugs too. These afflictions in turn help to undermine my health. I always craved just one more massive payday, one more fight. I can take this young punk. I know I can, just this once, so I can go out as a winner, so I can retire as a champ. Then I'll retire, just this last one. So he's exposing us to some of his inner monologue as he was addicted to making money. And now this is how he's looking back on his life. Remember, he's writing this a few years before he dies, and he dies of throat cancer at the age of 67. So there is a, it's never stated in the book, but I highly suspect he knew he was close to Nem's life. Pathetic. I should have known better. There's no such thing as a permanent champ. With hundreds of millions of dollars in the assets, I could just let go. And so this is a summary of the entire section. Real winners are people who know their limits and respect them. And so that's how the book goes. It goes back and forth between this is how I did it. These are some good ideas.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Says, if I had my time again, knowing what I know today, I would dedicate myself to making just enough money to live comfortably. So he's going to switch from dollars to pounds here. And he says that number he would chew for is $60 to $80 million. As quickly as I could, I would then cash out immediately and retire to write poetry and plant trees. That's what he's doing with, I'll talk more about this later, but one of his goals in life was to plant a gigantic forest inside of, I don't know if it was inside of London particularly, but somewhere in England. He says, making money was and still is fun, but at one time wrecked chaos upon my private life. It blocked me from beginning to write poetry until my early 50s. It consumed my waking hours. It led me into, we're going to get into a lot of these details I referenced earlier. It led me into a lifestyle of narcotics, high class whores, drink and debauchery.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say the summary of his thoughts on this subject, right? But this is the first time he talks about are you sure you want money? Are you absolutely sure this is what you want to do? And he talks about the fact that he would give all of his money back for time. So he says, could you turn the clock back for me by 40 years? I would willingly swap you every penny and every possession I own in return. And I would have the better of the bargain too. Just keep that in mind because he's going to expound on that thought. And I would say it's a philosophy ingrained in his mind through decades of experience many times throughout the book. Moving on, this is his advice that you need to know when or when is enough. And I read some other reviews in this part I'm about to read to you is particularly was highlighted by a bunch of other people that read the book too.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For those two stubborn or too inexperienced to pay attention to well meaning naysayers. He wraps up this section about why it's a benefit to be poor, smart, determined. Stick with me, young brother or sister. You are suffering from nothing more than excusable confusion and a lack of experience, conditions that will pass with time, and whose passing can be expedited by fierce determination and application.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sort two immediate examples leap to mind, as we will see in more detail later, I published a series of eight full page full color folded posters with headlines and articles printed on the back of them and charge the same cover price as magazines with ten times the number of pages. The result was dubbed a poster magazine and sold millions of copies around the world. Nobody had told me it couldn't be done because nobody had done it before. Similarly, I had launched half a dozen magazines about a new fad called Personal Computing back in the 1980s. Even though British magazine retailers and wholesalers at the time were unanimous in their belief that nobody will ever buy them, those magazines have earned me tens of millions of pounds in the last 25 years and are still earning me money today. Conventional wisdom is usually right, but when it's wrong, it can offer quite extraordinary opportunities.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can tell he's read a lot too based on that paragraph is what I'm trying to tell you. Not knowing that something cannot be done, you are likely to waltz into unchartered minefields where angels before you have feared to dance. Never trust the vast mountain of conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom daunts initiative and offers far too many convenient reasons for inaction, especially for those with a great deal to lose. Treasure that instinctive knowledge, and that's a great way to describe that one paragraph that he's saying, that they have instinctive knowledge. They believe it can be done because they think it can be done. The next page he talks about, he continues to expound on this idea that you should trust your instincts. So this is on trusting your instincts and ignoring conventional wisdom and how that can be beneficial. The first few million pounds I ever trousered were a direct result of my trusting instincts entirely at odds with conventional wisdom of any”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Nearly all the great fortunes acquired by entrepreneurs arose because they had nothing to lose. Nobody had bothered to tell them that such and such a thing could not be done or would be likely to fail or if they had told them then they weren't listening. They were too busy proving those around them wrong without even meaning to. So he references a few times in the book His Love of Biographies. I think of, again, I'm trying to evangelize to you that just read as many biographies of great people regardless of who you feel great as you can. Because I think that paragraph that he's talking about is true. In my experience, I've read over, what, 133 or however many it's been so far?”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it was okay for you starting out in the late 1960s, but times have moved on. You couldn't do it that way today. Perhaps not, but you can certainly do it some way. Times change, but human nature, the lure of wealth and the determination to acquire it remain a shining constant in the world of ambitious men and women. The example of others not even born in the 1960s is all around you. They prove such thinking to be false. If you think it can't be done and dwell on that thought too long, then you are likely to remain poor. It's as simple as that. Okay, so let's move into the book. This is a part.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The first is to claim that people did not set out to get rich but became rich by accident. Oh, I only did what I love to do and woke up one day to find myself wealthy. That sort of thing. It may have happened, but very rarely in my experience. Some people are merely better at disguising desire. That's all. The second myth is that people got rich by having a great idea. While this is more feasible hypothesis than of gotting rich by accident, it's a trap because it's a partial truth. All of us have had great ideas from time to time. The follow-through, the execution is a thousand times more important than a great idea. In fact, if the execution is perfect, it sometimes barely matters what the idea is. If you want to get rich, don't sit around waiting for inspiration to strike. Just get busy getting rich. Thirdly and lastly, I think that perhaps the most destructive myth about becoming rich lies in the remarks like”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That 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 the capacity to work so hard that your best friends mock you, your lovers despair, and the rest of your acquaintances watch 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, and he emphasized that word, who were utterly determined to whatever the cost. I think this is his last question. Is it? Yeah, what are the biggest myths you know regarding getting rich?”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Honestly speaking, what kind of people get to become rich? An interesting topic. The writer F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me, by which I suppose he meant that they appeared to have an acquired characteristics to send them apart from lesser mortals. Ernest Hemingway's response was, yes, they're different. They have more money. Typical Hemingway, but his repost isn't entirely satisfactory. Here is Richard Rumbold, an English Republican conspirator speaking from the scaffold in sixteen eighty five. So let me just stop here. I think it's going to become obvious. So he always pokes fun of himself for not being educated, but he's extremely well read. He dedicates a lot of his time to writing and performing poetry all over the world. This is a very interesting, bizarre person. But I would say that what makes this book so pleasurable.”
2020-06-04 · Founders · #129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source