Megaliving Study Notes

This is my study notes for "Megaliving". all credits go to the author, Robin S. Sharma and its respective owner.

Stop being a prisoner of your past - become the architect of your future.

If you set limits on yourself
such as “I am too young to be a multi-millionaire,” “I am not smart
enough to be a world leader,” “I am too lazy to start my own business”
or, “I don’t have enough money to do this,” your spirit will slowly die
and you will fulfill your negative prophecy.


Limited thinking patterns must be exploded
and you must exert your tremendous mind strength to develop the
habit of Limitless Thinking.

The first step to a life full of wonders is to
see that your outside world begins with your inside world and every
single thought must be one that will take you farther along the path of
a perfect life. Your thoughts can create magic and every thing you have
ever wanted. Today’s thoughts build tomorrow’s dreams.

Picture yourself in your mind’s eye as you hope to be, having all
you ever dreamed of having. Make a “Dream List” of everything you
desire in your lifetime.

If you keep doing the same things
every day, you are certain to get the same results every day.

There are 168 hours in a week

You should spend at least 30 minutes daily cultivating the perfect
health which lies deep inside the temple of your body.

Trust me, physical excellence precedes mental excellence.

Every peak performer, from Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky
to the President of the United States recognizes the value of a calm,

As a baby, you were in the ideal performance state to achieve
excellence. Did you fear public speaking, starting a successful business
or skydiving? Of course not.

As the age-old expression says, “sow a thought, reap
an action, sow an action, reap a habit, sow a habit, reap a character,
sow a character, reap a destiny!”


Remember this ancient truth: you can accomplish anything in
your life with the right knowledge.

You must learn their
habits, read the books they read, study their diets and learn their
philosophies and strategies.

Just as a runner gets a second wind on a
long run, your mind will get a second wind if you exert your discipline
muscles and stick with the job you are doing. It will not be easy at first.
But you must be strong and not seek to escape the task you may be
finding dull and unpleasant. Soon your discipline will take over.
Things you had trouble doing will become easy. Larger goals become
attainable and your confidence soars. You feel mentally stronger and
happier.

Picture in your mind’s eye the wonderful benefits of completing
this task successfully.

Now write down your decision to dramatically improve and tape it
next to your bedside.

When
asked how he did this, he replied that he simply ran the perfect race
over and over on the movie screen of his mind before he ran it in
reality. Tennis ace Andre Agassi is a master at the art of visualization


“My whole game is attitude. You’ve
got to think positively to achieve the impossible, to be what you
expect to be. If you seek mediocrity, then that’s all you get!”

Shatter the myth, once and for all, that you are too old, too
young, too tired, too taxed, too poor or too average to do extraordinary
things.

You must expect to win at the game of life.

Take at least 10 minutes every
evening and visualize yourself doing what you want to do. Picture the
fun and happiness you will feel when, at the end of your life, you have
done all that you wanted to do.

Remember the Rule of 21.

p.50 goals in 5 years and 10 years

Another useful tip is to see yourself as a person in peak health.
Two or three times a day, shut your eyes and picture clearly the person
you want to become physically. See the brilliant glow in your face and
eyes and notice the smooth tone of your skin and muscles. See yourself
laughing and feel the energy that you have cultivated.

Everything is created twice - first in your mind and
then in the outside world.

p.59, how to breathe

Kaizen & Consistent Practice
Raise Your Standards and Keep Pushing

always answr the phone with enthusiasm in your voice and show your appreciation for the caller.

stay on purpose, not on outcome

light a candle beside you when you are reading in the evening.

mind is like muscle

replace any negative thought with positive one immediately

never argue with the person you work for -- you will lose more than just the argument

send handwritten notes

never complain

be jim wiesem

rule 76, marriage

help concentrate -- just close your eyes

peak performers are physically relaxed and mentally engaged.

5 years financial plan

make a new acquaintance

mental vacation few minutes a day

all the answers to any question are in print -- read daily

get into the habit of breakfast meetings

if you live in a flat, always ensures that it is very bright and has a swimming pool.

get into the habit of memorizing beautiful poetry

keep your words soft and argument hard

be known as the person who goes the extra miles --be a standout!

push yourself a little harder and little further each day

be known as an innovator at work

try to go through a whole day without saying 'I'

each day do 2 things you do not like doing

pick 5 relationships that you desire to imporve over the next six months

recognize the power mantras

The Art of Learning

This is my study notes for "The Art of Learning". all credits go to the author, Josh Waitzkin
and its respective owner.
The Art of Learning -- by Josh Waitzkin

Some good points

• endgame before opening -- build a solid foundation by studying position of reduced complexity. do not just learn the surface (chess opening)
  
• making smaller circles -- take a single technique or idea and practice it until we feel its essence.
  
• slowing down time -- focus on a select group of techniques and internalize them until the mind perceives them in tremendous detail. time is frozen.
  
• the power of presence -- real world is much tougher. to immune to the pain, learn how to maintain the tension; present must be like breathing.
• building your own trigger -- how to relax, then connect the mind to push yourself to the limit, then relax. visualize, and become a constant top performer.
  

Good quotes:

• presence must be like breathing -- everything is always on the line; always under pressure
• was he feeling nostalgic, energetic, cautious, dreary, impassioned, inspired, confident, insecure?
• counter - counter counter - counter counter counter (applied, how can I code faster? smarter?)
• creativity is always in relation to a foundation, like building a pyramid, how to connect to the sky?
• during the training, pushing myself to the absolute limit until nothing was left (code like there is no tomorrow)
• the key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.
• there have been many years when leaving my New York life felt like career suicide -- my chess rivals were taking lessons and competing in every weekend tournament while I was on a boat crashing through big waves.
• I thrived under adversity
• each loss was a lesson, each win a thrill
• what it takes to be decent, what it takes to be good, what it takes to be great, and what it takes to be among the best. If I want to be the best, I have to take risks others would avoid.
• the goal was not winning, but, simply being
• build your own trigger; recovery, push yourself to limit for a period of time, then rest, then do it again.
• I practice 4 hours everyday.
  

The Common Denominator of Success

The Common Denominator of Success by Albert E.N. Gray

Several years ago I was brought face to face with the very disturbing realization that I was trying to supervise and direct the efforts of a large number of men who were trying to achieve success, without knowing myself what the secret of success really was. And that, naturally, brought me face to face with the further realization that regardless of what other knowledge I might have brought to my job, I was definitely lacking in the most important knowledge of all.

Of course, like most of us, I had been brought up on the popular belief that the secret of success is hard work, but I had seen so many men work hard without succeeding and so many men succeed without working hard that I had become convinced that hard work was not the real secret even though in most cases it might be one of the requirements. And so I set out on a voyage of discovery which carried me through biographies and autobiographies and all sorts of dissertations on success and the lives of successful men until I finally reached a point at which I realized that the secret I was trying to discover lay not only in what men did, but also in what made them do it.

I realized further that the secret for which I was searching must not only apply to every definition of success, but since it must apply to everyone to whom it was offered, it must also apply to everyone who had ever been successful. In short, I was looking for the common denominator of success.

And because that is exactly what I was looking for, that is exactly what I found. But this common denominator of success is so big, so powerful, and so vitally important to your future and mine that I'm not going to make a speech about it. I'm just going to "lay it on the line" in words of one syllable, so simple that everyone can understand them. The common denominator of success --- the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful --- lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do.

It's just as true as it sounds and it's just as simple as it seems. You can hold it up to the light, you can put it to the acid test, and you can kick it around until it's worn out, but when you are all through with it, it will still be the common denominator of success, whether you like it or not.

It will still explain why men have come into this business of ours with every apparent qualification for success and given us our most disappointing failures, while others have come in and achieved outstanding success in spite of many obvious and discouraging handicaps. And since it will also explain your future, it would seem to be a mighty good idea for you to use it in determining just what sort of a future you are going to have. In other words, let's take this big, all-embracing secret and boil it down to fit the individual you.

If the secret of success lies in forming the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do, let's start the boiling-down process by determining what are the things that failures don't like to do. The things that failures don't like to do are the very things that you and I and other human beings, including successful men, naturally don't like to do. In other words, we've got to realize right from the start that success is something which is achieved by the minority of men, and is therefore unnatural and not to be achieved by following our natural likes and dislikes nor by being guided by our natural preferences and prejudices.

The things that failures don't like to do, in general, are too obvious for us to discuss them here, and so, since our success is to be achieved in the sale of life insurance, let us move on to a discussion of the things that we as life insurance men don't like to do. Here, too, the things we don't like to do are too many to permit specific discussion, but I think they can all be disposed of by saying that they all emanate from one basic dislike peculiar to our type of selling. We don't like to call on people who don't want to see us and talk to them about something they don't want to talk about. Any reluctance to follow a definite prospecting program, to use prepared sales talks, to organize time and to organize effort are all caused by this one basic dislike.

Perhaps you have wondered what is behind this peculiar lack of welcome on the part of our prospective buyers. Isn't it due to the fact that our prospects are human too? And isn't it true that the average human being is not big enough to buy life insurance of his own accord and is therefore prone to escape our efforts to make him bigger or persuade him to do something he doesn't want to do by striking at the most important weakness we possess: namely, our desire to be appreciated? Perhaps you have been discouraged by a feeling that you were born subject to certain dislikes peculiar to you, with which the successful men in our business are not afflicted.

Perhaps you have wondered why it is that our biggest producers seem to like to do the things that you don't like to do. They don't! And I think this is the most encouraging statement I have ever offered to a group of life insurance salesmen.

But if they don't like to do these things, then why do they do them? Because by doing the things they don't like to do, they can accomplish the things they want to accomplish. Successful men are influenced by the desire for pleasing results. Failures are influenced by the desire for pleasing methods and are inclined to be satisfied with such results as can be obtained by doing things they like to do.

Why are successful men able to do things they don't like to do while failures are not? Because successful men have a purpose strong enough to make them form the habit of doing things they don't like to do in order to accomplish the purpose they want to accomplish.

Sometimes even our best producers get into a slump. When a man goes into a slump, it simply means that he has reached a point at which, for the time being, the things he doesn't like to do have become more important than his reasons for doing them. And may I pause to suggest to you managers and general agents that when one of your good producers goes into a slump, the less you talk about his production and the more you talk about his purpose, the sooner you will pull him out of his slump?

Many men with whom I have discussed this common denominator of success have said at this point, "But I have a family to support and I have to have a living for my family and myself. Isn't that enough of a purpose?"

No, it isn't. It isn't a sufficiently strong purpose to make you form the habit of doing the things you don't like to do for the very simple reasons that it is easier to adjust ourselves to the hardships of a poor living than it is to adjust ourselves to the hardships of making a better one. If you doubt me, just think of all the things you are willing to go without in order to avoid doing the things you don't like to do. All of which seems to prove that the strength which holds you to your purpose is not your own strength but the strength of the purpose itself.

Now let's see why habit belongs so importantly in this common denominator of success. Men are creatures of habit just as machines are creatures of momentum, for habit is nothing more or less than momentum translated from the concrete into the abstract. Can you picture the problem that would face our mechanical engineers if there were no such thing as momentum? Speed would be impossible because the highest speed at which any vehicle could be moved would be the first speed at which it could be broken away from a standstill. Elevators could not be made to rise, airplanes could not be made to fly, and the entire world of mechanics would find itself in a total state of helplessness. Then who are you and I to think that we can do with our own human nature what the finest engineers in the world could not do with the finest machinery that was ever built?

Every single qualification for success is acquired through habit. Men form habits and habits form futures. If you do not deliberately form good habits, then unconsciously you will form bad ones. You are the kind of man you are because you have formed the habit of being that kind of man, and the only way you can change is through habit. The success habits in life insurance selling are divided into four main groups:

1. Prospecting habits
2. Calling habits
3. Selling habits
4. Working habits

Let's discuss these habit groups in their order.

Any successful life insurance salesman will tell you that it is easier to sell life insurance to people who don't want it than it is to find people who do want it, but if you have not deliberately formed the habit of prospecting for needs, regardless of wants, then unconsciously you have formed the habit of limiting your prospecting to people who want life insurance and therein lies the one and only real reason for lack of prospects. As to calling habits, unless you have deliberately formed the habit of calling on people who are able to buy but unwilling to listen, then unconsciously you have formed the habit of calling on people who are willing to listen but unable to buy.

As to selling habits, unless you have deliberately formed the habit of calling on prospects determined to make them see their reasons for buying life insurance, then unconsciously you have formed the habit of calling on prospects in a state of mind in which you are willing to let them make you see their reasons for not buying it.

As to working habits, if you will take care of the other three groups, the working habits will generally take care of themselves because under working habits are included study and preparation, organization of time and efforts, records, analyses, etc. Certainly you're not going to take the trouble to learn interest-arousing approaches and sales talks unless you're going to use them. You're not going to plan your day's work when you know in your heart that you're not going to carry out your plans. And you're certainly not going to keep an honest record of things you haven't done or of results you haven't achieved. So let's not worry so much about the fourth group of success habits, for if you are taking care of the first three groups, most of the working habits will take care of themselves and you'll be able to afford a secretary to take care of the rest of them for you.

But before you decide to adopt these success habits, let me warn you of the importance of habit to your decision. I have attended many sales meetings and sales congresses during the past ten years and have often wondered why, in spite of the fact that there is so much good in them, so many men seem to get so little lasting good out of them. Perhaps you have attended sales meetings in the past and have left determined to do the things that would make you successful or more successful only to find your decision or determination waning at just the time when it should be put into effect or practice.

Here's the answer. Any resolution or decision you make is simply a promise to yourself, which isn't worth a tinker's dam unless you have formed the habit of making it and keeping it. And you won't form the habit of making it and keeping it unless right at the start you link it with a definite purpose that can be accomplished by keeping it. In other words, any resolution or decision you make today has to be made again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and the next, and so on. And it not only has to be made each day, but it has to be kept each day, for if you miss one day in the making or keeping of it, you've got to go back and begin all over again. But if you continue the process of making it each morning and keeping it each day, you will finally wake up some morning a different man in a different world, and you will wonder what has happened to you and the world you used to live in.

Here's what has happened. Your resolution or decision has become a habit and you don't have to make it on this particular morning. And the reason for your seeming like a different man living in a different world lies in the fact that for the first time in your life, you have become master of yourself and master of your likes and dislikes by surrendering to your purpose in life. That is why behind every success there must be a purpose and that is what makes purpose so important to your future. For in the last analysis, your future is not going to depend on economic conditions or outside influences of circumstances over which you have no control. Your future is going to depend on your purpose in life. So let's talk about purpose.

First of all, your purpose must be practical and not visionary. Some time ago, I talked with a man who thought he had a purpose which was more important to him than income. He was interested in the sufferings of his fellow man, and he wanted to be placed in a position to alleviate that suffering. But when he analyzed his real feeling, we discovered, and he admitted it, that what he really wanted was a real nice job dispensing charity with other people's money and being well paid for it, along with the appreciation and feeling of importance that would naturally go with such a job.

But in making your purpose practical, be careful not to make it logical. Make it a purpose of the sentimental or emotional type. Remember needs are logical while wants and desires are sentimental and emotional. Your needs will push you just so far, but when your needs are satisfied, they will stop pushing you. If, however, your purpose is in terms of wants and desires, then your wants and desires will keep pushing you long after your needs are satisfied and until your wants and desires are fulfilled.

Recently I was talking with a young man who long ago discovered the common denominator of success without identifying his discovery. He had a definite purpose in life and it was definitely a sentimental or emotional purpose. He wanted his boy to go through college without having to work his way through as he had done. He wanted to avoid for his little girl the hardships which his own sister had had to face in her childhood. And he wanted his wife and the mother of his children to enjoy the luxuries and comforts, and even necessities, which had been denied his own mother. And he was willing to form the habit of doing things he didn't like to do in order to accomplish this purpose.

Not to discourage him, but rather to have him encourage me, I said to him, "Aren't you going a little too far with this thing? There's no logical reason why your son shouldn't be willing and able to work his way through college just as his father did. Of course he'll miss many of the things that you missed in your college life and he'll probably have heartaches and disappointments. But if he's any good, he'll come through in the end just as you did. And there's no logical reason why you should slave in order that your daughter may have things which your own sister wasn't able to have, or in order that your
wife can enjoy comforts and luxuries that she wasn't used to before she married you."

He looked at me with rather a pitying look and said, "But Mr. Gray, there's no inspiration in logic. There's no courage in logic. There's not even happiness in logic. There's only satisfaction. The only place logic has in my life is in the realization that the more I am willing to do for my wife and children, the more I shall be able to do for myself."

Imagine, after hearing that story, you won't have to be told how to find your purpose or how to identify it or how to surrender to it. If it's a big purpose, you will be big in its accomplishment. If it's an unselfish purpose, you will be unselfish in accomplishing it. And if it's an honest purpose, you will be honest and honorable in the accomplishment of it. But as long as you live, don't ever forget that while you may succeed beyond your fondest hopes and your greatest expectations, you will never succeed beyond the purpose to which you are willing to surrender. Furthermore, your surrender will not be complete until you have formed the habit of doing the things that failures don't like to do.

A gift or hard graft?

We look at outrageously talented and successful people - the Beatles, Mozart, Rockefeller, Bill Gates - and assume there is such a thing as pure genius. Not necessarily, argues Malcolm Gladwell...

...........
..........
.......

By the way, let's not forget Bill Joy. Had he been just a little bit older and had to face the drudgery of programming with computer cards, he says he would have studied science. Bill Joy the computer legend would have been Bill Joy the biologist. In fact, he was born on November 8 1954. And his three fellow founders of Sun Microsystems - one of the oldest and most important of Silicon Valley's software companies? Scott McNealy: born November 13 1954. Vinod Khosla: born January 28 1955. Andy Bechtolsheim: born June 1955. ·

© Malcolm Gladwell 2008.

• This is an edited extract from Outliers: The Story Of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell, to be published on November 27 by Allen Lane at £16.99. Malcolm Gladwell: Live In London is on November 24 at 5.45pm and 8.30pm at the Lyceum Theatre, London. Tickets from £13.50 to £26.50. To book, call 0844 412 1742 or go to malcolmgladwell-live.com. There will be an interview with Malcolm Gladwell in tomorrow's Observer.

What I hope you learn

--By Michael Kelly, IBM Inc.

My business professor in Stony Brook, 2005 Spring & Fall

If you want to be rich, first stop being so frightened

From The Sunday Times
July 30, 2006
If you want to be rich, first stop being so frightened
Felix Dennis, publishing tycoon, has written a guide to becoming a multi-millionaire. All you need is thick skin, cunning - and a work ethic
Why would a rich person waste time writing a book to help other people get rich? Two reasons. Because I enjoy writing about something I feel I know about. And because I believe that almost anyone of reasonable intelligence can become rich, given sufficient motivation and application.

It also helps that I am writing while sipping a very fine wine (a Chateau d’Yquem 1986, if you really want to know), nibbling on fresh conch tidbits, ensconced by a window with one of the most beautiful views on earth.

Across the valley, far, far below me, palm trees fringe the fishing boats and yachts nodding in the harbour. Beyond the bay to the west, a turquoise sea ripples out to a purple and pink horizon, heralding another glorious sunset.

I am in Mustique, a tiny island in the Windward Islands of the Caribbean. More specifically in my “writer’s cottage”, a study-cum-library some distance from the main house, built solely for one purpose — to permit me to write whatever I please in peace and quiet.

All of this, as if you needed me to remind you, costs money. It’s what you get, if you want, when you’re rich.

You’ll be suggesting next that it will improve my sex life.

People who grow rich almost always improve their sex life. More people want to have sex with them. That’s just the way human beings work. Money is power. Power is an aphrodisiac. Money did not make me happy. But it definitely improved my sex life.

Just how quickly can I become rich?

I have known it done inside five years, but there are very few “short cuts”. Knowledge learnt the hard way combined with the avoidance of error, whenever and wherever possible, is the soundest basis for success in any endeavour.

The bottom line is that if I did it, you can do it. I got rich without the benefit of a college education or a penny of capital but making many errors along the way. I went from being a pauper — a hippie dropout on the dole, living in a crummy room without the proverbial pot to piss in, without even the money to pay the rent, without a clue as to what to do next — to being rich. And I am certainly no business genius, as my rivals will happily and swiftly confirm.

Yet the odd thing is, I’ve ended up far richer than most of my rivals.

How rich are you, anyway?

I don’t know. Nor does any rich person know. I haven’t cashed in all my assets and I’m not certain what they will fetch. Let’s say $400m-$900m (£215m- £483m) of net worth before tax.

Five homes. Three estates. Fancy cars. Private jets. (The jets are always rented. If it flies, floats or fornicates, always rent it — it’s cheaper in the long run.) Thousands of acres of land. Art on the walls and libraries stuffed with first editions. Bronze statues littering up the garden. Chauffeurs, housekeepers, financial advisers and other personal staff coming out of my rear end. Oh, and thousands of bottles of fine wine in the cellars. Never forget the wine.

Less the debt, of course. Around $30m (£16m) of debt. Rich people always have a certain degree of debt. Apparently it helps to reduce taxes. I’m not so hot on the bean-counting side. But I can’t fly the jets or drive the Rolls-Royces or Bentleys either. I never had the time or the inclination to learn.

Honestly speaking, what kind of people get to become rich?

An interesting topic. There is a confidence that radiates from first-born sons and daughters. Not in all the cases but in too many for it to be a coincidence. A similar confidence is to be observed, more often than not, in people who are rich, no matter whether they were born with it, inherited it or acquired it through their own efforts.

You can see it in the way they walk into a hotel or restaurant they have never visited before. In the irritating disposition of rich women to haggle in an Oxfam shop over a designer dress — unlike any working-class woman, who would be horrified at the thought of doing any such thing, even though she perhaps needs the discount while the rich woman does not.

You can see it, too, in the way the children of the rich appear to assume that the world was created entirely for their sole benefit. Money brings a kind of insouciance with it. It is among wealth’s least attractive characteristics.

Whatever qualities the rich may have, they can be acquired by anyone with the tenacity to become rich. The key, I think, is confidence. Confidence and an unshakeable belief 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 a capacity to work so hard that your best friends mock you, your lovers despair and the rest of your acquaintances watch furtively from the sidelines, half in awe and half in contempt.

Becoming rich does not guarantee happiness. In fact, it is almost certain to impose the opposite condition — if not from the stresses and strains of protecting it, then from the guilt that inevitably accompanies its arrival.

If I had my time again, I would dedicate myself to making just enough to live comfortably (say £30m or £40m) as quickly as I could, hopefully by the time I was 35. I would then cash out immediately and retire to write poetry and plant trees.

Making money was, and still is, fun, but at one time it wreaked chaos upon my private life. It consumed my waking hours. It led me into a lifestyle of narcotics, high-class whores, drink and consolatory debauchery. As a philosopher might have put it, all the usual dreary afflictions of the seeker after wealth. ()

These afflictions, in turn, helped to undermine my health. But like an old, punch-drunk boxer, I couldn’t quit. It’s no excuse, but making money is a drug. Not the money itself. The making of the money. This sounds like so much hooplah, but it’s true.

Nobody believed that exercise could prove addictive until science stepped in and discovered endorphins. And making money, I assure you, is a hell of a lot more of a rush than jogging.

Up to just seven years ago I was still working 12 to 16 hours a day making money. With hundreds of millions of dollars in assets I just could not let go. It was pathetic. Because whoever dies with the most toys doesn’t win. Real winners are people who know their limits and respect them.

Eventually I found a way out. I handed over day-to-day control of my businesses to younger and mostly smarter boys and girls. I cleaned up my personal life.

I began doing what I wanted to do — not what I felt I had to do. After all, what did I have to prove? Except, perhaps, to myself.

IT IS possible that you will avoid such mistakes when you get rich. I hope so. One thing is for sure: “the usual afflictions” are no reason not to make the attempt. There is no reason on earth why financial success should lead to personal catastrophe.

If you wish to be rich, however, you must grow a carapace. A mental armour. 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 sniggering and malicious mockery that will follow your inevitable failures. Not to mention the poorly hidden envy that will accompany your eventual success.

Consider carefully this shortlist:

* If you are unwilling to fail, sometimes publicly, and even catastrophically, you stand little chance of ever getting rich.

* If you care what the neighbours think, you will never get rich.

* If you cannot bear the thought of causing worry to your family, spouse or lover while you plough a lonely, dangerous road rather than taking the safe option of a regular job, you will never get rich.

* If you have artistic inclinations and fear that the search for wealth will coarsen such talents, you will never get rich. (Because your fear, in this instance, is well justified.)

* If you are not prepared to work longer hours than almost anyone you know, despite the jibes of colleagues and friends, you are unlikely to get rich.

* If you cannot convince yourself that you are “good enough” to be rich, you will never get rich.

* If you cannot treat your quest to get rich as a game, you will never be rich.

* If you cannot face up to your fear of failure, you will never be rich.

The truth is that getting rich means sacrifice. And it isn’t always you that’s doing the sacrificing. This is not a calling for the faint-hearted. There is no shame in turning away. After all, if everyone was prepared to make the necessary sacrifices, who would be left to work for my own companies? Quite apart from sacrifice, there is a last brutal truth to be confronted. After a lifetime of making money and observing better men and women than me fall by the wayside, I am convinced that fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment to amassing wealth. Trust me on this. ()

If you shy away for any reason whatever, then the way is blocked. You will never get started. You will never get rich.

Fear of failure is almost certainly the reason that you have not already begun to make yourself rich. It haunts all of us.

In essence, it comprises two components. The first is our natural desire to avoid letting ourselves or others down. The second is the exposure of that failure to the outside world.

This nastier, stickier second component, the “broadcasting” of our misjudgments or errors, especially to our peers, is often the nub of the matter.

The same factors apply to me, sitting around with colleagues at Dennis Publishing trying to figure out if we should invest millions of pounds to launch a new car magazine, or to a young woman considering whether to take over her father’s used-car business or to invest another two years of her life into obtaining a PhD in bio-engineering.

Neither decision will involve utter financial ruin. But fear of a result that cannot be easily hidden weighs heavily in the balance.

The board of directors that runs Dennis Publishing will talk earnestly and sensibly about the effect on morale for the rest of the company (usually forgetting to mention its own morale) in the event our proposed new magazine bombs.

In reality, Dennis Publishing staff working, say, on The Week or Maxim or Computer Shopper, won’t give two hoots if the company’s new car magazine is a sensational flop. But by discussing the matter in such terms, in code if you like, the board gives itself the opportunity to weigh its own fears while appearing to weigh the fears of others. It is a form of well-disguised cowardice.

On a less corporate level, the young woman believes she might be able to expand her father’s used-car business more aggressively than he has done in the past. On the other hand, a PhD would add status to her life and offers the prospect of a fulfilling career in science.

She must decide. Her father is unwell and cannot wait for her decision. What if she takes over the company and it goes belly up? What if she shoots for a master’s degree and does not achieve it? A failure to obtain her master’s degree could be disguised fairly easily. She could always claim she has become bored with bio-engineering. The decision to take over her dad’s company, however, will be far more closely monitored — by relatives and neighbours, by the people who work there, by rival car dealerships, by the bank manager, and not least by her father. Should she fail, she will run the risk of becoming a laughing stock or an object of pity.

So what is her best option? She is unlikely to get rich as a bio-engineer. But she might well get rich expanding the dealership, especially because she is aware that her father has never invested to the extent that he might have done in marketing and promotion, especially on the internet.

The car dealership is already capitalised, and, although she will have to pay off her father eventually, he is hardly likely to foreclose on her. There is an opportunity, but is she prepared to exploit it? So what should our young college girl do? Normally, I would hesitate to offer any advice. But I happen to know her. I was half in love with her once. She happens to be real and her name is Julie. All this happened a long time ago.

In the event, she took her degree and her father sold the business to an outsider. Julie is a highly competent bio-engineer and has enjoyed her career enormously. But on more than one occasion she has told me she regrets not taking her father up on his offer.

What swung the balance was her fear of failure in such a “public” endeavour. She was frightened that others (especially the male-dominated community of car sales firms) would laugh at her.

It irks her to know that she will never be rich. It always irks intelligent people like Julie. And I can give you other examples. One of them is my mother.

She will be furious (if she ever reads this) that I have mentioned her in such a context. But I know my mother well. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything I have achieved I owe not just to care and love but to her genes.

She could have built herself a fortune had she wished. Her personality combines the resilience, the drive and the restless energy of so many people who become rich. But 60 years ago it was almost unheard of for a woman to act out such ambitions. Her parents would have been scandalised. Neighbours would have viewed such behaviour in the most negative light imaginable. And had she succeeded, horror of horrors, she would have earned their undying enmity. It just was not “done” for a woman to earn a fortune for herself — except, somewhat dubiously, as a movie star perhaps. Or a writer of crime novels.

Single or newly married women from respectable families in the 1940s and 1950s were actively discouraged from involvement in business except for a little light typing or serving in shops and department stores. Especially if they had children. Especially if they lived in the south of England.

Never mind that my mother had more brains in her little finger than half the twerps she worked for as an accountant. Women were not even allowed to sign a hire-purchase form back then. They had to get their husband or their brother or their father to do it.

So she didn’t become rich. She had a decent career. She earned enough to support my brother and me and to provide us with more than just the necessities of life. And she married again and became a pillar of the community. But I know that she could have done it, had she been prepared for the unpleasantness, the sheer nastiness that would have been unleashed upon her if she had chosen to say: “To hell with them. Let’s go!” It was not so much a fear of failure on my mother’s part, I believe, as a fear of upsetting the whole apple cart of the community in which she lived. And now she is an elderly, if formidable lady who quietly walks her dog along English country lanes.

DENNIS'S WEALTH GUIDE

Total assets

£1m-£2m The comfortable poor

£2m-£5m The comfortably off

£5m-£15m The comfortably wealthy

£15m-£40m The lesser rich

£40m-£75m The comfortably rich

£75m-£100m The rich

£100m-£200m The seriously rich

£200m-£400m The truly rich

£400m-£999m The filthy rich

More than £999m The super rich

© Felix Dennis 2006

Extracted from How To Get Rich by Felix Dennis to be published by Ebury Press in August at £16.99. Copies can be ordered for £15.29 including postage from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585