The Billion Dollar Secret

by Rafael Badziag

  So don’t get stuck in complacency. Avoid the golden cage.

  Lirio Parisotto, the Brazilian billionaire industrialist, had a similar experience. The two most respected people in his village were the priest and the doctor. He associated these two professions from early age on with success and wealth, and it became his dream to pursue one of these careers. After being excluded from the seminary for misbehavior, he now wanted to become a doctor.

  When preparing for the entry exam for the medical school, he tried his abilities in a public competition for a job at Banco de Brazil. It still is the biggest bank in Brazil today, an institution, and it was a dream of everybody to work for this great company. “At that time, the salary was the best in the market. And also, you have the lifetime job. You cannot be fired. The bank has a full pension fund, so you have the retirement guarantee.” The competition at the exam was fierce because everybody tried his luck.

  Lirio was one of the winners to get a job. He was sent to work in a branch in a small town in the south of Brazil. “I wanted to study. But they send me to a place where there was no university.” He asked: “But don’t you have other cities with university?” “No, we have just this one.”

  So Lirio took the job in hopes he would be transferred later on. He was just an “auxiliary of an auxiliary.” It was the first level of the career ladder, “but the salary was already three, maybe even five times as much as in my previous job. And you had a lifetime guarantee because if you don’t rob the bank, if you do nothing wrong, you will stay in the bank.”

  But after two weeks there, Lirio realized it was a dead end. “I realized out of the 23 employees of this little branch, all 23 asked to move from this place, including the guard. It dawned upon me that if I stay here I’ll die here.”

  He quit. He didn’t receive any money. He took his car and went back home to prepare for the medical school’s competitive entry exam. People in his home town, including his parents, couldn’t believe what he did. “You are crazy” was the common comment.

  This was probably the most difficult decision of my life, because if you get such a good offer of salary and security, 99.9% of people accept.

  I asked Lirio what made him take this decision.

  I thought it was not enough for me. But remember, I abandoned this job not because I received a better offer or I had a business to take care of. No, I lost this job for nothing. I became unemployed. It was just confidence in myself. This was a big risk because it was possible that everything would go wrong. I exchanged a secure job, good salary for a goal. I needed to do more than that. I thought I needed to work more to have more. Of course, doctor was better. [laughs] At that time.

  And then Lirio gave me this gold nugget: “I think if you want to achieve something in business, the worst thing is a good salary. Because you don’t become rich with that, but also you have the guarantee. Most people give everything away for the safety. Safety meaning: to have a lifetime job. This is a dream of 99.9% of people.”

  So don’t trade your future for safety, it’s a bad trade. Lirio didn’t do it and you shouldn’t either. Also, don’t become a prisoner of your lifestyle.

  It’s one thing to become successful; it’s another thing to stay successful. For this you need sustainable hunger, sustainable desire.

  Chip Wilson, a Canadian billionaire and founder of Lululemon, advises using the deathbed perspective:

  At the end of the day, does anything matter other than laying on your deathbed and either you lived the life you wanted or the life you didn’t? I think as human beings, we do so many things in the world to look good in front of other people. But I think on our deathbeds, looking good in front of other people means absolutely nothing. And I think about how many things that would’ve been incredible in my life that I didn’t do because I didn’t want to get turned down by that girl or I didn’t want that guy to think that I wasn’t smart or I didn’t want something in that kind of realm.

  We only have 35,000 days on this earth and then you’re gone, and no one gives a shit after that. You’re a little speck of germ in the whole universe. So it really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks; it’s a matter of, did I completely fulfill every second of my life? It helps me stop doing a lot of things that aren’t really, really, really important. Sometimes I think, if I only had three months to live, how would I change my calendar? What projects would I do, what wouldn’t I do? It really helps me prioritize. Because I find myself taking on things that I should do or things that are really important.

  I can’t stand going to my deathbed and having an idea untried. I need to find out whether it’s viable or not.

  If you take these lines to heart, your fire will burn eternally, your hunger will never be satiated, and you will be able to achieve humongous success in business just like Ron Sim: “I’m still very hungry. I don’t feel like a billionaire.”

  Don’t Rest on Your Laurels

  It’s not enough to never stop. You should climb higher and higher. The day you think you have made it is the day you’re going downhill. Frank Hasenfratz advises: “If you have a target to come to the top of the hill, before you get there, you’d better find out if there’s a higher hill. If there isn’t, there’s only one way to go. You’re not going to go to the top of the hill and stay there forever. Then you go downhill.”

  Don’t settle for the bird in the hand.

  Mohed Altrad, the Syrian Bedouin refugee to France and later World Entrepreneur of the Year 2015, upon graduating from the university, started to work for telecommunication companies, but soon left “because the suit was too short for me.” He wanted more and found a job opportunity in Abu Dhabi. He became one of a handful of key people responsible for building the Abu Dhabi Oil Company. At that time, Abu Dhabi was merely a small village; now it’s one of the wealthiest cities in the world with a population of 5 million people. He was a highly paid managing engineer. During his four years there, he made a fortune of the equivalent of $600,000 today for himself, and he created for Abu Dhabi wealth going into hundreds of billions of dollars. But he didn’t have any shares in it.

  Mohed left and went back to France to build something on his own. He invested all his savings in a computer company he created with his partner, Richard Alcock. They built one of the first portable computers in Europe. It was a suitcase format. With 30kg of weight it was featherlight for that time. Mohed sold the company within 18 months for double the amount of his investment and was ready for the next step.

  Back to Lirio Parisotto. After quitting his lifetime job at the Bank of Brazil, Lirio committed himself to the study of medicine. Being a doctor became his dream after the failed priest career. During that time, he started a small business and hired a manager so he could focus on his studies. When Lirio started to practice at a hospital toward the end of his studies, he realized two things. First, “I realized a doctor is a slave. They work 24 hours a day. It’s difficult to take a vacation or travel because they have their patients. And also, there is a lot of unhealthy competition between the doctors.” So he decided to go into business. Second, he realized that although the medical profession itself was highly honorable, it didn’t feel right to make a business out of it and make money with people in trouble. Upon graduation, instead of working as a doctor, he went to work in his store. “Not an easy step. Some people thought I was crazy. My company was very small at that time.” He again decided in favor of an unsure future in his business that he had a greater vision for. Lirio turned this business step-by-step into a multibillion-dollar industrial company.

  So don’t settle for the bird in the hand. Do it like Lirio: never compromise your future for safety. Never settle, never get comfortable.

  If you reach a dream, set another, bigger dream. Billionaires are never finished.

  Naveen Jain, after having built several multibillion-dollar companies, still claims to be at the beginning: “Well, I am very early into this book; only a few chapters have been written. The majority of the chapte
rs are yet to be written. I’m going after every one of the major industries. I started with space and I’m going into health care. Next thing I’ll probably attack will be education. I’ll probably attack the food, and I’m going to continue to attack these biggest problems because I know the biggest problems are the biggest opportunity for an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, I really think if I can solve any of these big problems, there is a massive business to be created.”

  If you reach a dream, set another, bigger dream.

  — Rafael Badziag @BillionairePal #BillionDollarGoldNuggets

  Billionaires never stop growing.

  Hüsnü Özyegin, the Turkish billionaire I have interviewed, still founds new companies at the age of 70-plus. “We just started a pension company, for instance. We invest in a new wind farm every six months. We have five wind farms under construction as we speak. There are so many opportunities.”

  Let’s end this chapter with the words of Peter Hargreaves, who perfectly summed it all up:

  I think not many people want to go above a certain level. Once people have achieved the amount of success that will support more than their lifestyle for the rest of their lives, people get disincentivized from that, and there aren’t many who want to go on and on and on and on. I think to go way beyond where you need to, you’ve got to want to make it bigger and better all the time, no matter how big. You’ve got to want to rule the world. I spend only a tiny percentage of my income.

  And you? How high do you want to go, dear reader? What are your ambitions and dreams? How hungry are you to reach them? Is your desire strong enough to propel you throughout your career and not let you rest on your laurels?

  - Drifters are defeated by life and have lost their dreams.

  - Millionaires are complacent and have small dreams.

  - Billionaires are ambitious with dreams larger than life, insatiable hunger, and a desire to soar higher than the skies.

  For more stories on this topic, go to:

  http://TheBillionDollarSecret.com/resources

  CHAPTER 4

  Build Your B.O.A.T.

  They can because they think they can.

  —Virgil

  Like Noah’s Ark, your B.O.A.T. will safely navigate you through the endless seas and the whirlwinds of your career. Your B.O.A.T. consists of Belief, Optimism, Assertiveness, and Trust in yourself. You need to be optimistic, confident, and assertive toward skeptics, and for all that you need belief! Together with enthusiasm these are some of the most important qualities of a successful entrepreneur and elements of the Billion Dollar Secret.

  Optimism and Positive Mindset

  Be an optimist. Tim Draper, the legendary Silicon Valley VC investor, told me: “You have a choice. You can be an optimist or you can be a pessimist. Optimists are the ones who accomplish everything. Pessimists don’t accomplish anything. Pessimists just give you all the reasons why it’s not going to work. The optimists show pessimists that ‘Hey, every once in a while, guys, you’re wrong. This might work.’ So, be an optimist.”

  Optimists are the ones who accomplish everything. Pessimists don’t accomplish anything. Pessimists just give you all the reasons why it’s not going to work.

  — Tim Draper #BillionDollarGoldNuggets

  Billionaires don’t spend time on negativity. Tony Tan Caktiong, the World Entrepreneur of the Year 2004, is quite extreme about it. He can’t really remember sad or painful things. “Maybe the reason why I don’t remember is that I have a very positive mindset. I always look at the positive side of things”

  All the self-made billionaires I interviewed describe themselves as enthusiastic optimists, as positive-thinking people and they see it as their strength. They believe that hard times never last forever. They feel positive not only about themselves, but also about other people.

  Have Faith

  Mohed Altrad has always had unbounded faith in his future. It was the case when he rejected his destiny as a shepherd. It was the case when he moved to France. And it was the case when his seemingly blind optimism helped him to get into the right business. After selling his portable computer company as described in the previous chapter, he stumbled upon a bankrupted scaffolding company in his wife’s village:

  I was on vacation there and somebody came and said, “Do you want to buy a scaffolding company?” And believe me, this was the first time I’d heard the word scaffolding. Maybe you could say it’s irrational the way I did it, but I believed in it. So I invested all the money I had in this business.

  I just went to see the company, and although it was bankrupted, I saw in it a huge development potential because scaffolding is needed all over the world. If you want to paint your ceiling, you need a scaffold. If you want to renovate the outside of your house, it’s a scaffold. If you want to work at refineries, nuclear centers, airports, you need this.

  I saw an opportunity and I saw a way of being close to my wife, to her village. You ask yourself, am I in the right place and doing the right thing? This is the sort of feeling.

  In the next 30 years, Mohed Altrad not only turned this company around but added over 200 other scaffolding companies to his Altrad Group, making it world’s number one scaffolding company. This earned him the title World Entrepreneur of the Year 2015. He told me the most valuable advice in his life was: “Believe. You should have some faith in what you are doing.”

  And believe me, this was the first time I’d heard the word scaffolding.

  — Mohed Altrad #BillionDollarGoldNuggets

  This youthful enthusiasm and sometimes even ignorance help you in achieving great things, because you don’t know that it can’t work or you don’t realize how hard it’s going to be, and you make it happen.

  This was the attitude the business pioneers of the Polish transition to the free market in the 1990s like Michał Sołowow had: “The opportunities that emerged were used by many people back then. Eventually those were the same people who often took the greatest risk because—paradoxically—they had no experience. They didn’t have historical knowledge, didn’t know the difficulty of conditions, were not limited by knowledge. They didn’t know ‘there is no way.’”

  Jack Cowin has similar thoughts when he looks back on his career:

  One of the interesting things about youth is you don’t know what you don’t know. It’s youthful enthusiasm of we’re climbing the mountain and we don’t know how high it is. Heads up in the clouds, but it’s an adventure.

  You don’t know what the limitations are. If I knew then all the things I know now, we wouldn’t have done half the things. Because we made a lot of mistakes. Expanded geographically way too soon. But we survived. We were at the front end. Today you’d have competitors who’d put you out of business. We didn’t know anything. But you survive, you make it work.

  Jack, being a Canadian, came to Australia with the desire to bring fast, affordable food to this country. His first business was a KFC store, and then he built Hungry Jack’s and Domino’s Pizza there and became a billionaire during that process.

  If I knew then all the things I know now, we wouldn’t have done half the things.

  — Jack Cowin #BillionDollarGoldNuggets

  This faith and unbounded optimism are visible in billionaires’ biographies and attitude. You can see it when Frank Stronach came to America with $200 in his pocket and the faith to make it big here, or you can see it in billionaires’ statements, like Ron Sim’s. When I asked him what had been his greatest success, he answered: “I would say the next 10, 15 years, we will see our real winners. I will candidly say that I am far from my goal. The greatest things are yet to come.”

  Anything Is Possible

  It’s almost hackneyed to say, “Limits are only inside you.” Everybody considers himself as having no limits. But in reality, most of us deal with huge mental limitations on a daily basis without being aware of it.

  Dilip Shanghvi, the world’s wealthiest man in pharmaceuticals, told me, “All of us are capable of far
more than what we think we are. We have so much inherent potential. So believe in yourself.”

  Tim Draper has a similar perspective: “Anything that can be imagined can actually happen. I watched Star Trek when I was younger, and there’s a communicator now—it’s the smartphone—there’s a holodeck—it’s the VR—the tricorder reading, that’s happening. We have pretty much done everything except space travel to all the different planets.” One of his life mottoes is “Anything is possible.”

  But how to do the “anything”? Sergey Galitskiy founded Magnit, the largest supermarket chain in Europe with now over 17,000 supermarkets and drugstores. When I was interviewing him, they were opening five new stores every day. Can you imagine it? Imagine what is needed to open a supermarket. First you need to find land, then to negotiate and buy it, then you need to get all the permissions, then build the store, then install all the systems, hire and train people, organize supply and logistics, then actually supply it and market it to the customers, then you can open it. And they do it five times each and every day? How is it possible?

  “The successful entrepreneurial life is in fact the denial that this or another thing is impossible. Each of partners would say that it is impossible to open five stores per day and I would say the same, but when you are in this mode, every day why not more, why not more. The fact that a company like this was set up in impossibly hard conditions and became successful is already the denial of everybody’s thoughts at that time, and some people did think that it was not impossible.”