what time you are leaving home
what time you expect to arrive
what route you are going to take
what you will be doing when you get there
Getting rich is exactly the same. You will want to know in advance what rich means to you, how you intend getting there, how long you expect it to take and what you are going to be able to do or want to do with your money when you get it.
So, having defined what wealth means to you, can you now see the importance of setting your objective? Think about how you intend getting rich and how long it is going to take you and then set your objective. It might be simple: ‘I am going to be a millionaire by my fortieth birthday and I shall make my money by running my own property development company.’
That was easy. Well it was for me because I’m only making up an example for you. For you I wager it’s going to be pretty hard. This is because you won’t have thought about this before. Oh, I daresay you might have had a casual dream – I want to be very, very rich and/or famous and/or successful. But few people – only the rich, famous and successful ones in my observation – actually decide what and when and how. You have to if you too want to be wealthy. And I assume you do or you wouldn’t be reading this far. Good for you.
Now set your objective. I can wait.
Back already? How did you get on? Your objective has to be realistic, honest and achievable. By realistic I mean that setting an objective of being the richest person in the world might happen but it isn’t going to, it isn’t realistic.
Honest means you have to be true to yourself and set an objective that you can live with and work with. Lying to yourself means it will fail. Lying to others means it will fail.
Achievable? Yes that too. If you know nothing about property and aren’t interested in learning, have no capital and can’t get a mortgage, then setting an objective to be a property developer isn’t realistic, honest or achievable.
Happy with what you’ve got? Good. If not, have another bash at it and let’s get a move on: we want to get you up and running as soon as possible.
YOU WILL WANT TO KNOW IN
ADVANCE WHAT RICH MEANS
TO YOU, HOW YOU INTEND
GETTING THERE AND HOW
LONG YOU EXPECT IT TO TAKE
RULE 4
Keep it under your hat
Now you have embarked on a new journey, a new direction, it might be worth keeping it under your hat. There may come a time when you will need to discuss what you are doing with money mentors (see Rule 71) but for the moment don’t broadcast what you are doing. There are several reasons for this:
Other people’s opinions can often be negative and this can put you off.
If everyone is doing it, there may be less room for you.
There’s no need to give away all your best ideas.
Having other people discussing your business among themselves is never good for you.
You don’t want to be seen as preaching or trying to convert people to your way of thinking.
No one else really wants to know what you’re up to – if they ask how you are, reply with a simple ‘Fine’ rather than a lengthy explanation of what you are doing.
It’s nice having a secret – it gives you a warm, smug, glowing feeling
If you go round broadcasting what you’re doing, there will be people around you who will get jealous and will do pretty well anything to put you off. After all, you are saying goodbye to them in a way. You are proclaiming that the old you, the old lifestyle, isn’t good enough any more and you are off to pastures new. Of course they are going to be unhappy about that. So keep it under your hat. That doesn’t cost anything or require you to do anything.
NOW YOU HAVE EMBARKED
ON A NEW JOURNEY, A NEW
DIRECTION, IT MIGHT BE
WORTH KEEPING IT
UNDER YOUR HAT
Let this be our little secret. Carry on learning and practising the Rules but just don’t go telling all and sundry – no matter how much you think they might benefit from reading this book. Leave a copy around by all means of course.
The interesting bit is that even if you did go telling everyone, they’re unlikely to do anything about it. Most people would rather watch television than drag themselves out of their pit of poverty. I am only thinking of you when I say keep it under your hat. Anyone who gets religion of any sort needs to keep a tight lip on it. People really hate being preached at, lectured at, encouraged to think about their lifestyle or told that what they are doing isn’t good enough. Gaining prosperity is one of those things you do privately, clandestinely, surreptitiously. Not that there is anything wrong, just that it’s best done alone.
RULE 5
Most people are too lazy to be wealthy
You have to get up early, work hard all day and go to bed still working on your objective. Yes, money does sometimes grow on trees – or so it seems. Yes, people do win the lottery, the jackpot, the big prize. People do get sudden inheritances from long lost relatives. Yes, people do suddenly find fame and fortune where they sought for none. But it isn’t going to happen to you. Well, the odds are that it won’t. If you set your objective as ‘Win the lottery and live in the lap of luxury for evermore’, then read no further. Put this book down and go and buy lottery tickets. If your objective is a little more realistic then read on.
Most people are too lazy to be rich. They may say they want to be, but they don’t. They may buy a lottery ticket as a sort of half-hearted gesture of wanting to be rich, but they aren’t prepared to put in the work. They aren’t prepared to make sacrifices, study, learn, work their socks off, put in the effort and make it a determined and concentrated focus of their life.
MOST PEOPLE ARE TOO
LAZY TO BE RICH. THEY
MAY SAY THEY WANT TO
BE, BUT THEY DON’T
And for a lot of them – not you – it is because they believe that if you do so you are somehow tainted with evil (see Rule 7). But is it OK to work hard to make money? Is it a worthwhile thing to want? It depends on why and what you are going to do with it I guess.
Most people don’t want to do the work. Yes, they want the money but only if it comes to them by accident, by luck, by chance. Then it’s OK. Then it’s not tainted with sweat and work and passion and focus.
I think if you look at anyone rich enough to be a role model – Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Alan Sugar, Warren Buffett, Simon Cowell, James Dyson, Petr Kellner* – you’ll notice only one thing in common...they work their socks off. They might make their money from computers, sales, business, the film industry, vacuum cleaners, pop music, radio stations, whatever. But the one thing they all share is the ability to do more in a day than most of us do in a month.
And that’s the wonderful thing about wealth – it’s lying around waiting to be claimed (remember Rule 1). And those who claim it are the ones who get up early, work hard and put in the hours.
And you are going to have to as well. I don’t have loungers, weight shifters or decorative spongers on my team. I want hard-working, dedicated, focused, ambitious, driven money makers. With a sense of fun of course.
* I did have a bet with myself that you wouldn’t have heard of him – the Czech Republic’s first billionaire.
RULE 6
Get a reality check
It’s amazing how many people just ignore the obvious. Especially poor people. No I’m not being prejudiced, I’m saying that this is part of the reason they’re poor.* Some people moan a lot about not having enough, they make loads of excuses, they may work, but not hard enough or not in the right ways, and they hope that their problems will simply go away.
Well guess what? They won’t go away. They’re more likely to get worse. If you’re struggling financially and wondering how to make more money – a lot or just a little – for those things that matter to you, you need to take positive action. Because I promise you that short of winning the lottery, nothing’s going to change unless you
do.**
So sit down and think constructively about what you can do to increase your wealth. And then do it. Nothing else will dig you out of the financial morass. Be realistic – about where you’re going, what you’re spending, what you’re saving, and what you can do to set yourself on a new and more prosperous path.
NOTHING’S GOING TO
CHANGE UNLESS YOU DO
This applies to saving money as well. If you want £20,000 in five years’ time, it’s no good putting away a fiver a month. You’ll be lucky to save £1000 at that rate. If you want to save a specific amount of money, you need to work out exactly how much you need to save per week or month to do it. If it’s not going to add up, don’t bury your head in the sand. Work out how to save more, or extend your deadline.
If you know you have money vices, then face them. If you always spend £100 a month on beer, gadgets, shoes, whatever, then it’s no good pretending that you don’t when you make those financial plans. And if you know you struggle to save anything, there’s no point pretending that you can suddenly put away £100 a month, every month.
I know it’s very tempting to avoid looking at problems and disappointments, but if you do that you’ll never get wealthy. If you’re serious about making money, you have to start by finding the courage to confront the financial nasties in your life and do something about them.
* I’m not talking about people starving in third world countries here – I’m talking about people with friends and neighbours who have more than them.
** And you can start by saving the cost of that lottery ticket every week. How much have you spent in your life on lottery tickets? Go on – work it out. And what have you won? That balance isn’t going to change, you know – you’re just throwing money down the drain. Take it from me, you won’t win the jackpot.
RULE 7
Understand your money beliefs and where they come from
We all grow up with money myths. We get a lot of them from our parents and the way they bring us up. I can still hear my mother saying, ‘A penny saved is a penny found’, and to this day I still have no idea what it means. Maybe I’m lucky. My money myths are based on a lot of nonsense like that. But most of us have the following ingrained beliefs:
Money is the root of all evil.*
Money is dirty.
I don’t deserve to be rich.
Money is only made by the greedy and dishonest.
Money corrupts.
You mustn’t brag about money – never say how much you earn, are worth or paid for something (unless it is a bargain).
You can’t have money and be ‘spiritually pure’.**
You lose your friends if you get rich.
You have to work too hard to get rich (see Rule 5).
Happiness and money make poor bedfellows.
The more you have, the more you’ll want.
It is somehow better to be poor.
I wasn’t meant to be rich – if I was I would have been by now.
I’m not the right type to be rich
Have a quick look through. Check which ones you believe. Check which ones strike a chord with you. Now you have to do a bit of that old-fashioned hard work. Write down ones that mean something to you. Add ones I’ve missed – there will be a few. Now work out why you hold these beliefs. Is it something you have actively thought about, reasoned out, dedicated some research to? Or are they inherited, left over, picked up along the way?
Get rid of any that you can question and accept are nonsense. Discard any that simply aren’t true. And chuck out any that stand in the way, hold you back, stop you making some money.
What you should be left with is none at all, nothing, a blank sheet. Now you can write new beliefs such as:
Money is OK.
Wanting money is OK.
I am going to be wealthy.
I am prepared to put in the work
Wealthy people have none of the troublesome money myths we poorer people have. They have purged them or never had them. If we too purge them, we stand a better chance of getting rich.
GET RID OF ANY BELIEFS THAT
YOU CAN QUESTION AND
ACCEPT ARE NONSENSE
* It is actually the love of money that is supposed to be the root of all evil but is it a belief of yours?
** Whatever that means.
RULE 8
Understand that wealth is a consequence, not a reward*
If you work hard at making money, you stand a better chance of becoming rich. You have to accept that money is a payment given to you for clever thinking and hard work. The harder and smarter you work, the more you will earn. You don’t get given the money by a committee who examine whether you deserve it or not, whether you have been good enough or not. It is a direct consequence.
We often look at someone who has money and make all sorts of value judgements about whether they deserve it or not. We all do it. I was reading about Calvin Ayre – the internet bookie – who has grown very rich indeed running online gambling. He has something like 16 million customers in the US. The US Department of Justice isn’t very happy about this and want to shut him down. Ayre isn’t a US citizen and doesn’t reside there. You can read all about him on the www.Forbes.com website (home of the really wealthy folk). If it isn’t your home page it jolly well ought to be. You are in this to be wealthy, which means understanding where wealth comes from.
Back to Ayre. He has grown rich exploiting an alleged US law loophole whereby what he does is alleged to be illegal but he isn’t in the country to commit any crime. Do we judge him? I don’t. I study this information to see if I could make use of it. What might be wrong is the gambling. But I am aware that his consequence of hard work has been lots of money.
I was watching a TV programme the other day about a chap who cleans and polishes cars for rich celebs and such like. He charges £5000 for car washing. Mind you, this does include polishing. Now, is his money a reward or a consequence? I don’t think he would see it as a reward. It’s the price he sets, and customers pay him because he is the best car cleaner in the world. The consequence of his business idea, skill and effort is to be very well paid.
YOU DON’T GET GIVEN THE
MONEY BY A COMMITTEE
WHO EXAMINE WHETHER
YOU DESERVE IT OR NOT
* I use the word ‘reward’ in the sense of a prize or bonus, not as a payment or renumeration.
RULE 9
Decide what you want money for
This is part of your defining, setting an objective process. There are no right or wrong answers. For example, making a fortune and spending it all on cocaine seems, to me, like a foolish thing to do. But that’s personal. You might find a problem with me spending mine on a decent Châteauneuf-du-Pape. We all spend on what we think will satisfy us, make us happy. We all choose our own pleasures and it’s not for me to sit in judgement on anyone else.
So why do you want to be wealthy? The answers you give will tell you a whole lot about your hidden money myths and how you really see money.
WE ALL SPEND ON WHAT WE
THINK WILL SATISFY US,
MAKE US HAPPY
Sometimes it’s very simple: we have a dream and need the money to fulfil it. The dream comes first. Gerald Durrell had wanted a zoo since he was a small boy and wrote 36 bestselling books which helped to fund his zoo (on the island of Jersey). What’s your dream?
It might not be that simple, however. I asked a close acquaintance why she wanted to be wealthier the other day and the results were quite revealing. She said she wanted to be ‘better off’ so that she could give her children more. And in giving them more, they would stay at home longer. And if they stayed at home longer, she wouldn’t have to face a possible old age alone. So basically she wants to be wealthy to stave off loneliness.
Another acquaintance said he wanted to get wealthy so he could have adventures. When pressed further it seemed his adventures were the ‘running away’ sort where he could be young, free and singl
e again.
Is money really the answer for either of these people? Is it for you?
When you know what you want greater wealth for, think also about alternative ways to meet your needs: I said earlier some people want to be wealthy so they can pay for medical care for any close family member that might need it. They could invest in some simple medical insurance to cover that instead.
Consider also what you don’t need more money for. I like my toys – cars and boats – but have found that my investments in such things hasn’t increased as my income has gone up. I still like old cheap sports cars and old boats that need plenty of maintenance. Do you really need as much as you think? If so, fine, you just need to be sure and be clear about it.
So what’s your excuse? What do you want money for? It might be to free you from having a job, or it might not even be for yourself but to support causes you believe in. Set your own agenda, my friend, and keep it to yourself. But I do recommend you write it down, because it makes it so much more real. It is a useful exercise to look back on one day and see if your dream and achievements match.
RULE 10
Understand that money begets money
There is no greater truth than this – money makes money. It likes clustering together. It breeds quietly and quickly like rabbits. It prefers to hang out in big groups. Money makes money. The rich get richer; the poor get poorer. That’s life. Yes, it is sad. But it does seem to be a fact. Now we can work hard ourselves and do something about it or we can sit around moaning and become part of the problem. The choice, as always, is entirely yours.
The Rules of Wealth Page 2