YOUTUBE 📚 THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE 📚 PATREON

*People who aren't willing to settle for a stable job and a relatively steady paycheck - who want to test their will in the open waters of the capitalist economy in the hopes of getting in, getting rich, and getting out before it's too late.

*Business owners who want to maximize revenue and profitability, and who aren't shy about doing whatever it takes to get their share of the proverbial pie.

*Anyone who thinks that money can solve everything, but who might be open to having their minds changed concerning how much is enough, when to stop, and what to do after their big exit.

This is one of the rarest and most sincere "how to make a lot of money in business" books that you'll ever read, and interestingly enough, Felix Dennis spends a solid 15% of it trying to convince you not to bother.

During his life, Dennis built a UK magazine publishing empire and amassed a personal fortune of well over $600,000,000. But the book's somewhat tragic tone comes from the fact that he was racked with regret at the end of his life, writing this book from his cold, solitary castle, seemingly shaking you by the shoulders and saying, "Don't do it! Don't do it, or you'll end up like me!"

And yet…he almost can’t help himself. After his initial protests, he concedes: “Really? You still want to do this? Alright then - here’s how to get rich.” What follows is some of the best business advice out there, delivered in Dennis’s uniquely poetic, brutally honest style - advice that will make you rich, if you have the desire and the fortitude to follow it. Castle included.

Dennis went from college dropout to centimillionaire publishing magnate, all the while harboring an immense talent and love for poetry and literature. In fact, he even became a poet himself, performing some of it for audiences while he was alive. Looking back at his pursuit of riches from the end, however, he tells us that he (and probably you) would have been much happier had he known when to stop.

How to Get Rich is packed full of incredibly profound lessons on restraint, human desire, meaning and fulfillment, boldness, character and more, while also delivering astoundingly helpful lessons on things like negotiation, ownership and equity, and how to get what you want in life and business.

Unfortunately for Felix Dennis, he learned the lessons about restraint and desire too late, and it cost him everything. Fortunately for you, here in this book he lays bare everything he knows about the realities of starting and growing a business, what sorts of challenges you're likely to face on the way to becoming rich, and how to know who to trust as you keep breaking into new tax brackets. In other words, how to make your millions while dodging the bullets that took him out.

Just make sure you know what you're getting into. That's all that I and Felix Dennis ask of you! Getting rich can be a hell of a rush, and it has a way of taking over your whole life if you let it.

Same with running a business. It can be extremely difficult, it's uncertain, it can take a long time, it can ruin your relationships and alienate you from the people you work with, and once you get to a certain level of personal wealth, it can be very difficult to tell who your real friends are.

Even $600M couldn't save Felix from devastating dissatisfaction and regret, and it's unlikely that $700M would have done it either.

I believe (perhaps not too controversially) that being rich is better than being poor. Entrepreneurship, as a vehicle for personal transformation and expansion of the self is unmatched, in my opinion, second only to physical training, reading great books, and losing yourself in the service of others.

So I'm not going to tell you not to get rich, either. But you have to ask yourself, earnestly and sincerely: "Do I really want to do this?"

The answer is non-obvious and shouldn’t be rushed. Read this book first, and ask yourself whether you’re willing to pay the price that Dennis paid. Regardless of your answer, I think you'll agree that this is a very special book, and one that you won't soon forget.

#1: Don't Try to Get Rich - Plant Trees Instead

Most "how to get super rich" books spend the first 20-50 pages trying to hype you up, motivating you, and getting you to envision all the wonderful things that are going to happen once you finish reading the book and start to apply the author's teachings in your life.

Felix Dennis, who was way richer than most of the authors of books like that, was having none of it. He spends the majority of the book trying to convince you not to get rich at all.

The reason for this is simple, and more than a little tragic. Dennis spent virtually his entire life amassing more wealth than he could count (literally), and yet he wound up writing those words in what was essentially a cold, empty castle, absent the happy sounds of friends' voices, the play of children, and the warmth of a devoted family that could love him back.

From death's door, after it was too late to change course (Dennis died of throat cancer back in 2014), he was driven by two seemingly conflicting motivations: help sufficiently motivated people accumulate enough "F-U Money" to be able to do anything they wanted, and convince those same people that stacking up piles of cold, hard cash wouldn't save them from dying alone in a cold, empty castle.

Personally, I derived a double benefit from Dennis's book, and I'm sure he's helped many other people like me avoid making a deadly mistake. When I first read How to Get Rich, I was making more money than I ever had before, but I rarely saw my friends, virtually never went out (except to go to the grocery store and the gym), and was headed for an empty castle myself. Luckily, I was able to notice this in real time and course-correct before it was too late.

We can get so caught up in the singular pursuit of wealth (or anything, really) to the point where it takes over our whole life, and we forget that it's not the only thing that's important. That's what was happening to me, and what is happening to great multitudes of people today who are stuck endlessly competing, running faster and faster in a race to nowhere.

Nobody wins a race they don't want to be in, and Felix Dennis has the right idea here in that we should never lose sight of our ultimate aim. It's far too easy to overshoot it, only to wake up years later in a life we never wanted, one that's too difficult or too late to get out of. Sahil Bloom, in his excellent book, The 5 Types of Wealth, calls this winning the battle but losing the war.

What's helpful here is to get very clear on your "enough" number, and writing it down in a place where you can see it often. It's a number that, after you reach it, you decide that you can rest easy, knowing that you have enough. For myself, that number is about $50,000 per month in income, and I'm sure that if Dennis had ever sat down and decided on his "number," it wouldn't have been $600,000,000!

But perhaps even knowing your "enough" number isn't quite enough. Dennis hit on this idea, as well as a possible reason for this, in the following quote:

#2: Ignore the Odds

Most people aren't rich, will never become rich, don't even deserve to become rich. Most people just don't make it. That's the reality. But it doesn't have to be your reality. You can be, quite literally, exceptional.

Just "believing" that you'll eventually become rich ain't it, either. But it does involve a seismic shift in your belief system, a semi-delusional, near certainty that you can defy the odds. That you can become rich. Alex Becker, in another book I recommend highly, The 10 Pillars of Wealth, says this:

You have to have this level of (internal) arrogance and self-belief if you want to have any realistic chance of beating the odds and getting rich.

You have to have the belief system that says, "No, I'm not like most people. I'm better at making money than the vast majority of people, or at least I have the potential to become better at making money than the vast majority of people, and no matter what, I am going to make it."

You can't say, "Oh, well, I'm not sure if that's really for me. I mean, I'll give it a shot, do my best and whatnot, but I'm not convinced it'll work out." If you say things like that - if you even think things like that, you'll likely remain poor.

Now, that does not mean that you have to go around shoving this attitude in other people's faces. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm talking about your internal beliefs about what's possible for you, and what you're capable of attempting. It has nothing to do with other people. It's an inside game.

#3: Grow a Carapace

The people who came after Felix Dennis's mother still exist. The names and faces change, but they're still out there. I call them the 99 percenters. They're the people who've given up on their own dreams, so they take it upon themselves to try and destroy yours. No matter what you have to do, never let this happen.

You have to protect your mind from the 99 percenters at all costs. They're the people who don't see it happening for them - who don't believe that they can get rich - so they try to get the image of future riches out of your head too. Get them the fuck out of your mind, and out of your life. They're as nothing to you.

Run an ad campaign inside your mind, where you bombard your conscious and subconscious minds with positive thoughts, positive imagery, supportive words, shining examples, and inspiring role models. All day every day. Turn up the megaphone inside your mind and drown out all the negativity from the 99 percenters who try and get in your way.

Christiano Ronaldo is phenomenal at this, by the way. If you've ever seen him talking to himself, motivating himself, shielding himself from both the internal and external negativity - it's something to behold! He's completely on his own side, and his mental fortress is locked the fuck down. That's the level of self-belief we should all aspire to!

Mind you, even he still has coaches and mentors. So do I, and so does basically every mega-successful person you've ever heard of. We all have trainers and coaches and experts we bring in to help us get to the next level. We listen to those people. But never to the 99 percenters.

The news is full of 99 percenters, by the way. Which is why I never watch it. It's a constant stream of negativity, mental pollution, and awfulness that has never once positively contributed to my getting rich. So I literally have no time for it. None.

What you're really doing here is reprogramming your own mind for wealth and success. It's important work - this growth and development into new mental territory - and it's all too easy for the 99 percenters to fuck it up. I don't usually swear this much in any one piece of writing, but I do feel very strongly about this.

Fuck the 99 percenters. Fuck the negativity, the outrage, the fear-mongering, and the senseless drama. Leave all that stuff for the brokies. You're on your way to becoming rich. You can't water and poison your own mind at the same time and expect to get rich, and you can't leave it open to the deleterious influences of the 99 percenters. Felix Dennis understood this acutely when he said:

#4: If...

#5: Few Are Prepared to Make the Necessary Sacrifices

Again, most people will never, ever become rich. But you can't even worry about them. Encourage them whenever possible, and be a positive example to others, but you can't feel guilty that you took positive action and they didn't.

The ways and means of success are readily available to most people (and becoming available to more and more people every single day), but you can't be responsible for anyone else's success except your own.

Many of the people that Dennis is talking about could have become rich, but they chose not to be. Maybe it wasn't necessarily a conscious choice, but it was a choice all the same. They could have become rich, but they didn't make the necessary sacrifices. They were too fearful, too lazy, too uncertain to take a positive step forward in belief.

No matter. That has nothing to do with you, nothing to do with what you're capable of. Sure, go ahead and help them out when you get rich, but don't waste your brainpower or your willpower trying to save people who don't really want to be saved.

#6: Never, Ever, EVER Give In...Easily

There's a great quote often attributed to W.C. Fields, where he says, "If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it." That's pretty much the energy that Felix Dennis is bringing here.

Hard work, grit, and persistence are all wonderful traits, and they can serve you extremely well in life. But if something's obviously not working, don't be a damn fool about it! Have the self-awareness to recognize that what you're doing isn't working, and the courage - yes, the courage - to change course.

But Dennis brings up two very important points here, one of which is that, when faced with difficulty, you should be prepared to take at least a few steps more than what seems sensible, past the point where the 99 percenter would be okay with quitting. Go ten steps past that. That's where winning is.

At the same time, however, after taking those ten extra steps, if you see nothing happening - nothing at all - then you may want to re-evaluate your approach, take another look at your strategy, get some help, etc.

As you can see, there's a level of nuance here, and on a case-by-case basis, it can be very difficult to tell when you "should" give up. But if you're paying attention, you'll know. And, on the other hand, if you can see a path forward - if you can see the possibility of success - you must keep the faith. You must push on. You must.

#7: Get Some Eggs, Then Make More Baskets

In Key Idea #10 we'll explore equity and ownership, but here we're discussing diversification and multiple streams of income.

There's more danger and nuance here as well, but Dennis does make an important point about not relying on just one single stream of income, and not having any one single point of failure in your business ecosystem.

There's a difference though between making more baskets (diversifying your income streams) and chasing a bunch of shiny objects. As the Russian proverb has it, he who chases two rabbits catches none, and so help me, if I have to hear about one more 18-year-old "CEO" running 5 different businesses, I'm gonna lose what's left of my mind.

Starting 5 different businesses and earning $1,000 per month from each one isn't hard. But for the same amount of effort, you could focus on growing one business to $10,000 per month or more. That makes a whole lot more sense. Yes, there's something to be said for spreading your enterprise risk over several different revenue streams, but trying to run 5 unrelated businesses is not it.

Myself, I run precisely one business, within which I cultivate several different revenue streams. They may look wildly different (YouTube, book marketing, my newsletter, Patreon, writing on Medium, affiliate marketing, etc.), but they each support and enhance each other.

For example, you may know that I take detailed notes on every book that I read. Those notes form the basis for my newsletter, and they're also made available on my Patreon. I use my newsletter as material for my articles on Medium, for my YouTube videos, my social media posts, etc. I use my newsletter and massive social media audience to help authors sell more copies of their books, which they pay me for. And of course I share affiliate links across all those same platforms.

This is one single business that I run, based on books, and all my revenue sources are upstream of my book notes essentially. A bunch of eggs, in a variety of closely-related baskets, in other words.

It's all about energy and focus management. A good way to picture it is as though you're trying to harness the sun's energy. When the sun is shining on a regular, sunny day, the sun's rays are spread over the entire earth. And of course it feels...nice! Relatively warm, just another nice sunny day. But, when you filter the sunlight through a magnifying glass, you can start a blazing fire. It's the same idea in business.

Having your focus and energy spread out across several different business operations is like walking around on a warm, summer's day. It's not bad! You're not making great progress in scaling your business or your income, but you can live like that for a while. But, when you filter your own personal resources through the magnifying glass of one singular business objective, the sun's rays become literally incendiary.

#8: Why Intelligent People Fail in Life

In the book, Felix Dennis tells the story of a friend of his, Albert, and about the reasons why Albert never became as rich as Dennis did. It wasn't because Dennis was smarter, or had any other unfair advantages from birth. It was simply because Albert was capable of imagining defeat.

There's another fantastic book, Zorba the Greek (one of my favorites of all time, actually), where Zorba is telling the narrator not to be so much of a pen pusher. The latter's life was all paper and ink and books, to which he retreated instead of rushing out into the great wide world and living his actual life! The narrator's predicament is something I and many other people know a little something about. Maybe you do too. It's possible that you think too much and live too little.

You don't need to have your entire business plan laid out before you take the first step forward in belief. As they say, no plan survives first contact with the enemy, so it's likely that your strategy and/or tactics will have to change anyway. None of that, however, is to say that you need to wait to take the first step. Start walking, and the way will appear.

Additionally, it's a waste of time to wish for other people's gifts or advantages. Cultivate your own. Develop your own strengths; create your own unfair advantages, and deploy them relentlessly.

It all comes down to taking massive action. Take the first step. Advance confidently in the direction of your greatest ambitions. Because Zorba was right: "Action! Action! No other salvation exists."

#9: The Absurdity of the Chase

There's a fantastic business book that I recommend all the time called The Millionaire Fastlane, by M.J. DeMarco. In the book (which I read on my phone, overnight, sitting in my car, working a minimum-wage security job while launching my business at the same time), he says two things that are perfectly relevant here.

One is that wheelchairs don't fit inside the trunks of Lamborghinis. Meaning, the earlier you can get rich, the better, and don't listen to anyone who tries to tell you that trading your health and 40 years of your life in exchange for slightly-above-average wealth is a good deal. It's a total scam, and a devastating lie that society pulls over the 99 percenters.

But the second thing that he says is that he was happy before he bought his Lamborghini. At the time of writing, I just sold my Porsche and my next car will be a Lamborghini Gallardo that I'm planning on buying later this year. But I'm happy now. I'll be happy when I buy my Lamborghini, I'll be happy the day after, and I was happy way back when I was reading The Millionaire Fastlane in the front seat of my Mitsubishi Eclipse!

What I'm getting at is that a certain level of detachment and self-awareness when it comes to wealth and happiness goes a long way. If you can maintain perspective and a rare sort of clear-headedness when it comes to wealth-accumulation, you'll be so far ahead (above, really), all those who are caught in the mousetrap below, running faster and faster amid the fray. This quote from G.K. Chesterton sums it up quite nicely:

#10: Extreme Ownership

Here Dennis is speaking about equity: owning as much as possible of the value you create, whether in the form of royalties, revenue split, company shares, etc. He takes a rather extreme view (and it helped him generate extreme wealth), but he's also not wrong. Don't give up any equity that you don't have to.

When you're first starting a company, and you're making approximately $0 (or even operating at a loss), it can be easy, not to mention attractive, to give up a whole bunch of equity in exchange for assistance in the form of capital, etc.

If you're not 100% convinced that your new venture will be success, it's so tempting to give up as much equity as you have to in order to keep the lights on. After all, what's 50% of $0? 75% of $1,000/month? Why wouldn't you accept somewhat predatory terms, if you think that it's the only way your business will survive and succeed. But what if you do make it?

What if, after you make it through that first year or two (or ten), your business starts growing, and you start making money hand over fist? You're still locked in to those damn-near predatory investment terms, forced to hand over 50% of $100,000/month or more. Do you still think it's a good trade?

Felix Dennis's point is that you need to be extremely greedy when it comes to holding onto your equity, and you need to make sure that you own close to 100% of as many wealth-generating assets as you possibly can. If, that is, you want to become rich.

Of course, you don't have to go to such extreme lengths, and in the Opposing Views section below, I offer an alternative viewpoint to take into consideration. Briefly, to quote Zig Ziglar, you can get anything you want in life, just as long as you help enough other people get what they want.

That might mean giving up some equity. It might not. But Dennis is directionally correct when he emphasizes the importance of owning income-producing assets, and not giving away money that you don't have to, just because you're afraid that it won't be there later.

#11: Give the Glory, Get the Money

Following up on the last Key Idea, you can also accomplish a tremendous amount in life if you don't care who gets the credit. That's what Felix Dennis is getting at in the quote above. Give them the newspaper headlines! Give them the industry awards and standing ovations that come with them. Providing you get the money!

If you give all the glory, you can get all the money, a point that Napoleon Bonaparte understood extremely well. He once remarked that "men will die for ribbons," and this is still true today. Toss people some trophy, medal, or public recognition of some sort, and they'll literally face cannon fire for you.

Maybe you don't want to be so Machiavellian about it, but it's still true! You can use this fact of human nature to get rich. Give the glory, get the money.

#12: The Eight Secrets to Getting Rich

I’ve been taking detailed notes from every single book I’ve ever read since 2014, and they’re all here on my Patreon for just $1.

They’re updated monthly (sometimes twice a month), and by supporting me on Patreon you’ll also be able to keep up with everything I’m reading and learning, and get my best notes, takeaways, and summaries from every book that I finish.

More Patreon rewards are available as well, like being mentioned by name in all my YouTube videos, Patron-only discounts, special offers, and more.

Click here for instant access to all of my book notes for just $1!