"How to Get Rich": an anti-self-help book by Felix Dennis | Hacker News Reader

"How to Get Rich": an anti-self-help book by Felix Dennis

didigetthingsdone.com

Here's an excerpt from the book: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article1084093.ece?pri...

Felix Dennis is one of those rare racehorses that not only can run fast, but can also tell you exactly how to run fast.

One of the best books I've read. Very frank and upfront. I re-evaluated many of my beliefs and assumptions after reading it.

When I was staying in Amsterdam, I picked up this book and read it from cover-to-cover. And when I got back to the states, I read it again.

I read an enormous number of how-to, self-help, technical and spiritual books every year. I can easily tell the fluff from the meat. This is a book I'll keep in my library for a long time.

He talks very frankly about his successes and failures. That's hard to find in business books today, which are full on theory, but this guy backs up his missives with a $100m bank account.

Anyway, I strongly recommend this book. It's a fast read and even if you don't agree with everything he says, you'll certainly get a few good nuggets from it.

Guys like you are why guys that this have $100m bank accounts.

He already had $100m before writing the book.

It's a joke, thanks for the karma hit.

I didn't downmod you, I only replied to your comment. Anyway, talking about karma is probably just noise here.

It is ;)

Curiously, given the points on your comment, comments about comments about karma ARE ok.

I motion that ALL comments that distract by talking about karma are voted down. I guess that includes this comment about comments about karma.

I completely agree. I didn't want to reply to karma stuff, but I did just as a personal message to the op. I thought my message was going to be scored negatively but anyway, who cares?

I have a stronger suggestion: that any branch in the conversation tree (a post and all its replies, recursively) should be able to be marked meta or orthogonal. Comments are supposed to be rewarded with global "comment karma", I suspect, for the contribution they make to the original topic (the same one that the posted article discusses.) Comments that have nothing to do with the article subject (note that the article itself may be a horrible presentation of the subject; it is not the subject as stated by the article, but rather the subject the community extracts from the article that is the focus.)

Anyway, comments (and all replies to those comments) marked orthogonal enough times by the community would have their comment karma removed, and be collapsed and perhaps restyled. To restore them, you could click on a "seperate discussion" action link on the collapsed thread, which would submit the thread as a separate story, to be voted up and down on its own, orthogonal merits (clicking it again once the story had been so submitted would vote said story up.) If that post, then, achieved a certain (low minimum) score, its posts' comment karma would be reinstated.

I don't like all aspects of this guy's philosophy. He is to a large extent only concerned with his own well-being. A great example is where he talks about how he fired his entire management team because they asked for an equity share in this company. For startups, the philosophy should be "we're all in this together", not "I own the company and you're not going to get a share of the success."

That being said, the book is a very entertaining read.

There are two basic problems with people who give you advice based on their own experience.

1) It may have been correct for them to do whatever they are advising you to do, but incorrect for you to do it. 2) It may have been incorrect for them to do whatever they are advising you to do, but they did so many other things correctly (including, but not limited to, being in the right place at the right time) that they succeeded wildly anyway and therefore don't recognize some or all of their mistakes as such.

From a lot of the advice I've read of his, I think it suffers from a little of both.

Wise words.

I used to read and listen to a LOT of self-help/business development material. I found at least a 10-1 noise-to-signal ratio as far as material I thought had relevance to me. Then, I winnows out all of that stuff, I came to realize that each author can only give you their best shot at explaining how it worked for them in their situation. Simply because they think they know how to make it: that doesn't make it true. They just have theories and observations that they've made into life rules. The attitude and tactics that worked as a publisher in 1982 in Manhattan might be the opposite attitude you need for Silicon Valley in 2008. If they're honest they'll tell you "Beats me, kid. This is just my opinion." But it's really hard to sell books like that.

And even if they are spot on, if there is ONE set of truths or poems or something that is THE answer for what you need in your situation -- the things that you think are useful in that 10-to-1 ratio -- you have no way of knowing whether your selection criteria matches you up to receive what you need. It's just a gut feeling on your part.Probably a lot of books out there like "How to get Rich" where you could use the advice but its packaged the wrong way for you to select or consume it effectively. I know I wouldn't buy another book with "get rich" in its title. I don't want to get rich -- I want to help the most number of people possible.

So I'm ordering the book. I might or might not have time to read it. One of the funny things I noted in the video was how readers kept reading it over and over. To me, we got something funky going on here. If you're reading it over and over, why aren't you out in the real world making money instead of reading?

I've got a few books/tapes I have repeatedly listened to. Stuff like negotiation and communication skills that I am weak on and need practice. But mostly the good books you say "Wow! I needed that!" and put them down and start using them. You don't go back and re-read them. Somebody said once that the defining attribute of self-help books wasn't whether they actually helped you, it was that they made you feel good by reading them. Repeated reading is a warning sign.

I don't think it's bad to read self-help books at all. It's just bad to take blanket generalizations as gospel.

His advice, in particular, that you should never give up equity seems the sort that he succeeded in spite of.

I don't either. That's why I said I was buying this one.

It's just a crap shoot, that's all.

Yeah, you just kind of have to have the attitude that you're searching for a diamond in the rough going in. I may buy that one as well.

Check out J Paul Getty's How To Be Rich, which is both about how to attain wealth and what to do once you succeed. Pretty awesome really.

Thanks. Added to the list for the next Amazon purchase.

Somebody should do a meta-book on success/self-help literature. I guess it started with "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill? I dunno, but there's a boatload of it out there.

My friend Richard Brodie did just that. It's called Getting Past OK. Worth a read.

"I am convinced that fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment to amassing wealth."

True Scientists Celebrate Failures!

Fear of failure is a big motivator for me. That, and money

With a title like that I would never have considered reading this book ever had it not been for the comments on this thread.

One more comment from someone who really values the content here on hn...

I'm still not quite sure why, but undoubtably my favorite business book. Looks like I could use a reread tonight. For some reason, that'll really stoke my flame.

I remember a quote from some movie i don't really remember which said " If you can't help yourself, Self-Help Books can't really Help you".

I have always felt, self-help books are a big sham. First the mainstream media convinces you that you are a loser by showing people younger and dumber than you having more money. Once you go into the loser phase, some smart idiot who has inherited millions of dollars, who has never seen poverty writes a book which teaches you how to get rich. Are we humans so naive now that we have started reading books which teach us how to become rich.

I don't know how you become rich and also i am pretty much sure Bill Gates or Warren Buffett can't you teach you that too(mainly because there was lot of chance or randomness involved in their richness). This is my view, if you have a contradictory view, i would like to hear.

I do have a contradictory view :)

While a lot of becoming rich may be "chance and randomness" like you say, there are certainly patterns and other statistical data that shows different mindsets, beliefs, and character traits between the super-wealthy and the rest of us. You could increase your chances of becoming rich by inheriting certain traits of those who are already wealthy (and became so on their own. No inheritances or royalty here).

I would argue that becoming wealthy is less chance and more personal character traits, while the degree of wealth is mostly due to chance.

There can be only 1 Bill Gates, but for every one of him, there are thousands others who are successful, but on a much smaller scale. That's my view. :P

Isn't it more common-sense, i mean we already imitate or inherit most of the qualities of our idols. A guy who has Steve Jobs as an idol, surely likes design and thinks more of himself as an artist.

I can give you an example of MBA's, they pretty much learn Business( which means they know more than other people about Business), but as i see they are no more successful than people who have no MBA's. MBA's go through tons of case-studies yet they are not able to start successful companies. What i mean to say is, sometimes our Uniqueness is what is more important for our success, when we read the famous books, it makes us similar to other successful people which might be an disadvantage rather than advantage because successful people when they became successful, it was because they and their business were different from other successful people. To be really successful, we have to be different rather than same, we have to stand out from the crowd.

Everyone is Unique, only if we live up to that Uniqueness.

Eh, not all self-help books are that way, and a lot of the ones that are even contain nuggets of wisdom you can learn from. There are a lot of people who can help themselves, and the first step is often realizing that other people know stuff they don't.

How To Win Friends and Influence People is a sterling example of a good self-help book. Also, How To Be Rich by J. Paul Getty sort of changed my life.

The main concept was that to become rich, you have to work for yourself. Otherwise someone is essentially taking a cut from the profits of your labor.

If you liked this, check out tom ashbrooks interview with Felix from NPR.

http://archives.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/06/20080623_b_ma...

I liked that they had the woman from Harvard Business school on at the end to offer an alternative point of view. In the end it was nothing but her word against his, but I was surprised he didn't have better answers to her counter examples. Warren Buffet, for example, has become very rich without (apparently) making the kind of sacrifices that Felix has done.

"You cannot help yourself because you suck at whatever it is you need help with"

Felix Dennis is great. No nonesense but he properly lives his life too. Thanks for the link - I've seen documentaries about him, but didn't realise he'd written a book, so I'll go buy this as its sure to be a good read

I like the fact that you define "Properly lives his life" as spending over 100 million on whores and drugs over the course of it. :-)

"If it flies, floats or fornicates, rent it. It is cheaper." :-D

whoops! Freudian slip I think!!!

Haha. Your true colours are showing

This is one of my most favorite books. It is highly probable that you (as a HN user) will like it too.

Why don't you review/summarize it for Squeezed Books?:-)

I can tell you how to get rich. Make more money than you spend. Think of ways to increase the amount of money coming in by investing the left-over money.

It accumulates. My new startup is going to help you do that (FIRST HINT :))

Respectfully, that's advice on how to not be poor before it's advice on how to get rich. To be rich, you have to consider the way you make your money. Getting paid lots of money per hour is not going to make you rich on your own 99 times out of 100 (the other time being those people who make $1000 an hour or something), because as soon as you stop working, that income stream is gone. You can only also work so many hours in a day. Investing helps, for sure; and many people have gotten rich that way. However, investing on its own has a very slow velocity for someone getting started. The best way (from what I can tell) is to find a way to decouple the money you make from the amount of time you have invested in it. That means royalties or licensing fees for something you have created or own the rights to.

You don't understand how to get rich then. Let me give you an example. I work and make $1000, and spend $700. This leaves me $300 extra. I work another month and the same thing happens. Now I have $600 extra. I take this $600 of extra money, and I purchase 300 shoes in china, and sell them for $3 a piece. I now have $1800 in extra cash. I work another month, and I have $2100 extra (in 3 months).

I take the $2100 and buy two medical devices, which I then sell in the 3rd world for $4000 a piece. I now have $8300 in excess money after 4 months. Notice that each business I did required roughly the same time, but the profits increase because I am able to buy more and more expensive things.

Now, with my $8300, I buy a second hand taxi and I lease it to a pakistani guy to drive around. He pays me $2000 a month. Now, each month my excess income is $2300. I repeat the process. I can quit my job after 4 months and still earn more money.

What we say does not disagree with each other. Every business you do has to not require much of your time.

But the basic philosophy is that you need excess income, and you need to keep investing and reinvesting this excess income in things that bring a percentage income. You then end the process by putting the money into something that guarantees an excess of income every month above what you started off with.

That's the REAL way of getting rich. The other ways are just playing lotto. Unfortunately, most people buy flatscreen TVs, Playstations and drinks with their excess $300.

I think you should re-read my last two sentences. This is exactly what I said to do.

I think perhaps the emphasis is different. You say that it's just "spend less than you make", and I say that it's primarily "don't sell your hours for a fixed price".

No, it's a different philosophy entirely. Making money in a way that does not require you to work is only half the picture. The MAIN and MOST IMPORTANT part of things is that you need to KEEP REINVESTING in things that keep bringing higher returns. Nothing you do keeps bringing in steady income without requiring time. It starts of good but just drifts downwards as time passes. It is imperative to keep changing your investments for higher returns, otherwise you cannot get rich.

I am currently reading 'The Black Swan' and he does a good job of explaining how some fields lend themselves to extremes and others don't and that it is hard for our minds to wrap themselves around this. He explains that if you take the shortest person ever and the tallest person ever - the differences would be a lot but not orders of magnitude greater. Yet, if we were to take this year's best selling book, it would be so many orders of magnitude more than the least selling book. Our minds have a hard time dealing with comparisons that don't have real world equivalents.

What this does is create an opportunity for some industries to have 'winner takes almost all' scenarios. Book publishing and POP music are two examples where the very top people take almost all the rewards. Brain surgeon is not one of these industries - being the very best brain surgeon would still require a (in comparison) a lot more time than the author of the Harry Potter books takes to sell another book.

Most wealth is created by massively scalable business models such as licensing, show biz and mass media. And interestingly not that many fortunes come from Wall Street.

You mean your way of becoming rich means exploiting the 3rd world, and recent immigrants?

Might there be more ethical ways?

You can do the same exact thing, but with software. I just decided to use a real world example to demonstrate how one can do it when one has little to no skill. Using software it's WAY easier, but it's the EXACT same principle.

I strongly disagree. You talked about selling potentially LIFESAVING medical equipment for twice what you bought them for in the 3rd world, an area that cries out for CHEAP medical care.

Perhaps you have some other examples in mind. I stand by my questioning of why your examples appear to involve taking advantage of people who are probably in need of assistance.

And yes, trade is definitely often unethical. One of the main reasons the U.S. is rotting is because of unscrupulous business practices.

First, we're rotting? How so? Seem to be doing pretty good from where I sit, almost 30% of the world's GDP and all.

Second, it seems you know just what the appropriate ethical markup for medical equipment is. Care to share it with the rest of us? Is like 10% okay enough but if you mark it up 20% you've crossed some kind of numerical moral line? I've never heard such malarky, but I'm open-minded. Maybe there's some fancy formula for how free trade is supposed to work with life-saving equipment. Got one? Or are you just posturing?

I find some of these comments extremely fascinating.

Well, you obviously know nothing about that particular business. Let's say an average medical machine like a heart rate monitor - this machine cannot be bought accross most of subsaharan Africa. Even for doctors who have the money, it still cannot be bought, because it's not being sold.

Now, one can buy two pieces, put it in your luggage and fly down there. Not as a humanitarian, but as a business man. You can thene easily sell it for twice what you paid, meaning that a doctor now has this machine, and he is saving lives.

What YOU don't seem to realise is that this doctor can afford to pay that amount for the machine because he is MAKING A LOT OF MONEY. The reason he buys it from you instead of just flying to the US is that you are OFFERING IT CHEAPER when his flight, transportation and accomodation is factored in.

You get it? It's a win-win situation for everyone, it's not exploitation. Exploitation is what you medical companies do when they set the price for medicine at a very high level, even though there is no expense or effort involved in those medicines anymore.

So, what's your preference - a city in the 3rd world where there is no heart rate monitor, or a city in the 3rd world where the richest doctor has a heart rate monitor that he paid twice the value for?

Because if you were to tell me that I should buy a heart rate monitor and go sell it for $100 profit, I'd say no. It's not worth my time. The same as you apparently, otherwise you'd be out in Africa right now helping out. But you're not.

So please don't be a hypocrite.

Now, to business. Let's say I want to make money online using the same system as I did above, but with $300 capital.

Step 1: I'd find out the most in-demand software products out there

Step 2: I'd reduce this software to the simplest possible functionality. I'd pay a software developer to make me this software for $200 (cheap outsourced guys)

Step 3: I'd buy a domain and host, and start selling this software. I expect to have about 10 sales a month bringing me $100 extra a month. So after 1 month, I've got $350.

Step 4: After a couple of months, I'd repeat the same thing, leading to a second $100 revenue stream. In the meantime, I have improved the reach and features of the first software, such that it is bringing me $200 a month.

Step 5: After about 5 months, I should have a steady $600 - $700 revenue stream. I'd save up till I have $2000.

Step 6: I'd take the $2000 and clone a popular piece of software, and make it specific to a particular industry for $1500. I'd put $500 in marketing

Step 7: The new software should be bringing me a more reasonable income, like $800 a month.

Further Steps: I'd just keep repeating, upping the stakes each time. Bigger and bigger.

The point is not what you do, the point is that your path has to keep changing and getting bigger and bigger.

That's what you would do?

Is that what you actually do? Presumably you have had (or could have borrowed) $300 in capital at some point in your life...

Yes, that's what I do. I make money by writing and selling software, it's not sexy, it's not a million bucks, but it grows. There are LOTS and LOTS of other software makers and sellers just like me.

My new startup is also in the same area, it's what I know.

Trade is exploitation?

I'm not sure if this is related to your next project, but I think there is a market for personal outsourcing, and especially local outsourcing.

Getting people to plan events, organize your inbox, or run errands should be a lot easier.

Part of spending more time working on things that make you more money is spending less time on things that are valuable but take a long time.

This is pretty independent from software writing, where more work on engineering scales well. That's why such a tool would be good - a non software based methdod of scaling work.

Felix Dennis: ex-addict, poet - and murderer?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/03/pressandpublishi...

Plot thickens...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1584076/Felix-Dennis-...

This is easily one of the most valuable business books I've ever read. It has an exceptionally honest personal perspective on success.

There's a medium somewhere between "suck at everything" and $100m - he's one of those bombastic Brits like Christopher Hitchens. Good read, good content, but one man's experience. Buffett's got a better personality.

Is this the UK equivalent of Fitty Cent?

Woah!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/57/Felix_Dennis_P...

I wonder if there is an e-version of the book somewhere, if you know what I mean.

What I am reading right now: http://www.happinesshypothesis.com/ . Why go this additional step of getting rich - if all you need is to be happy?

Many paths lead to riches

Few in sunlight, most in ditches.

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