Habits of Billionaires

[BSD]

Fun read.

Three things that repeated over and over again:

1. Exercise daily.

2. Follow your passion.

3. Read. A lot. At least two hours a day, but many said they read four or more hours a day.

"Secrets Of The Self-Made

FORBES

Want to really know what makes the wealthiest entrepreneurs tick?

Fourteen self-made members of the vaunted Forbes 400 shared candid, contrarian and even comedic answers to 20 thoughtful questions--ranging from what they eat for breakfast and how they pray to the importance (or lack thereof) of getting an M.B.A. and what advice they would give aspiring entrepreneurs. You can search the list two ways: Read each titan's responses to all 20 questions--or peruse the entire group's answers to each of the 10 most thought-provoking ones. (We will add more names to this list in coming months.)

If your own responses differ greatly from what you read here, don't fret: There probably are no right answers. Then again, these guys are on the List!"

Continued...

Of course, a willingness to take outrageous risks is equally part and parcel of the equation.

 

[DaxDestroyer]

Fun read.

Three things that repeated over and over again:

1. Exercise daily.

2. Follow your passion.

3. Read. A lot. At least two hours a day, but many said they read four or more hours a day.

"Secrets Of The Self-Made

FORBES

Want to really know what makes the wealthiest entrepreneurs tick?

Fourteen self-made members of the vaunted Forbes 400 shared candid, contrarian and even comedic answers to 20 thoughtful questions--ranging from what they eat for breakfast and how they pray to the importance (or lack thereof) of getting an M.B.A. and what advice they would give aspiring entrepreneurs. You can search the list two ways: Read each titan's responses to all 20 questions--or peruse the entire group's answers to each of the 10 most thought-provoking ones. (We will add more names to this list in coming months.)

If your own responses differ greatly from what you read here, don't fret: There probably are no right answers. Then again, these guys are on the List!"

Continued...

Of course, a willingness to take outrageous risks is equally part and parcel of the equation.

So, most of the Forum addicts apply? They read enough?

Good post Called up my wife to explain her how I have to follow my passion

 

[BSD]

Some great reads:

Amazon.com: Losing My Virginity: How I've Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way: Books: Richard Branson

Amazon.com: How to Get Rich: Books: Felix Dennis

Both are extremely well written, very funny and witty accounts of how they made it to the top, with quite a lot of valuable insights.

Here is an interview with Dennis:

"THE SUNDAY TIMES

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 **** 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 **** 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 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


Fear of failure, eh. I do agree that that is key, overcome that and sky is the limit. Be in constant fear of that, and you'll never achieve anything.

So, most of the Forum addicts apply? They read enough?

Good post Called up my wife to explain her how I have to follow my passion

Hehe, true that RE forum addicts, there is a great talent pool here.

RE passions and ambitions, good stuff, yes, they must absolutely be fulfilled !

Actually I think overcoming ones fears is one of the main objectives we have here on earth, I mean I don't for a second believe that you're happier with a billion to your name than without, but it is about the journey and the challenges, learning to trust in the future, that sort of thing.

 

[shadowninja]

Thanks for posting that.

 

[belflan]

Risk and Billionaires

Self made Billionaires share a key habit with people who are bankrupt

An appetite for risk

good book =

 

[FXSCALPER2]

Self made Billionaires share a key habit with people who are bankrupt

An appetite for risk

good book =

Exactly. The minute I saw BSD's post I thought of that. You see, what we are doing is so biased to be completely meaningless. You can do everything the billioniares do and still fail. We are just looking at the visible ones. In fact, I am certain there are probably 100 people who fail for every one that succeeds doing the same thing. We are taught to judge by results and there is a very good chance a lot of the people who make it are lucky fools. I love lucky fools, mind you. I have always maintained that you will never succeed in a big way without being fearless and taking risks that most people do not take, but I am also sure that you are infinitely more likely to fail than to succeed behaving that way.

Trading is a very good example. If you want to make huge amounts of money relative to what you have, it will come down to how big a risk you take and you are much more likely to blow up than make any money. Look at people like Richard Dennis. How do you make 200 million from a couple of thousand? By taking mind boggling risk, of course. This guy managed to make and living and build a fortune at the same time!

The secret to being a billionaire? huge balls and lots and lots of luck. Make it and you will be interviewed by Forbes and we will read it as if it is gospel. Fail and no one will ever know about you. You are the same person, but somehow the fact that you failed makes what you say unimportant. Funny, I reckon.

 

[DaxDestroyer]

Exactly. The minute I saw BSD's post I thought of that. You see, what we are doing is so biased to be completely meaningless. You can do everything the billioniares do and still fail. We are just looking at the visible ones. In fact, I am certain there are probably 100 people who fail for every one that succeeds doing the same thing. We are taught to judge by results and there is a very good chance a lot of the people who make it are lucky fools. I love lucky fools, mind you. I have always maintained that you will never succeed in a big way without being fearless and taking risks that most people do not take, but I am also sure that you are infinitely more likely to fail than to succeed behaving that way.

Trading is a very good example. If you want to make huge amounts of money relative to what you have, it will come down to how big a risk you take and you are much more likely to blow up than make any money. Look at people like Richard Dennis. How do you make 200 million from a couple of thousand? By taking mind boggling risk, of course. This guy managed to make and living and build a fortune at the same time!

The secret to being a billionaire? huge balls and lots and lots of luck. Make it and you will be interviewed by Forbes and we will read it as if it is gospel. Fail and no one will ever know about you. You are the same person, but somehow the fact that you failed makes what you say unimportant. Funny, I reckon.

Sometimes your fill is only few lots away and then your stop hits
Unfortunately trading has a luck component

 

[BSD]

Actually I think there is something to extreme success and extreme failure being closely related, but then I don't see bankruptcy as a major issue.

Failure is a given in a bipolar life.

Successful people accept failure as no more than a cost of doing business. (Which is really exactly our situation in trading, isn't it.)

They know exactly what they want, which is probably one of the single most important prerequisites to succcess, but on the way there they will fall off of horses just as much as everybody else.

Unsuccessful people will take falling off a horse as a lesson, and not get back on the horse again because they will be afraid of what they erroneously perceive as the humilation of potential renewed failure, of the potential of embarrassing themselves in front of others again.

Rather than trying again and again until they get what they want, they will instead choose a life of mediocrity where they need no longer expose themselves to self-committed failure as they renounce any ambition of being masters of their own destiny.

Rather than proactively taking their lives into their own hands they will instead choose a life of reaction where they will never again need to assume responsibility for their future, they will take the easy way out, never again attempt anything, and, on top of that, always blame external circumstances on their fates, seeking pity from others in a similar state of affairs.

What a contrast to those who end up achieving their dreams - and these dreams can be anything at all, and need by no means be related to material objectives.

Life's success stories simply don't accept failure as a final state, they simply do not accepot that all you have in life is one go, and that then that is it..

They see failure as all it is, just another inevitable and not particularly important hurdle that needs to be overcome on the road to eventual success.

It really is all in the head.

You have big dreams, and maybe go bankrupt enroute, maybe even more than once. (Jesse Livermore anyone ?)

Is the glass half full or half empty now ?

As long as you still have ideas and as long as you still have a firm faith in your future the glass is decidely half full.

That's my take anyway.

 

[FXSCALPER2]

BSD,

That is pretty much my take, too. I don't give a toss whether I go bankrupt or not. Does that help me to succeed? Yes, of course. But it also makes me highly likely to actually go bankrupt. That is my point. If many people with the same attributes try the same thing in the same way, it then makes no sense to put those that end up with the money on a pedestal. That is my beef. When you think about it, it is bolloc'ks. I am not afraid of failing, and I am not embarassed to fail completely and publicly. The trouble is, if I do fail, no one wants to know, whereas if I have money everyone wants to know. WTH?!

 

[DaxDestroyer]

Actually I think there is something to extreme success and extreme failure being closely related, but then I don't see bankruptcy as a major issue.

Failure is a given in a bipolar life.

Successful people accept failure as no more than a cost of doing business. (Which is really exactly our situation in trading, isn't it.)

They know exactly what they want, which is probably one of the single most important prerequisites to succcess, but on the way there they will fall off of horses just as much as everybody else.

Unsuccessful people will take falling off a horse as a lesson, and not get back on the horse again because they will be afraid of what they erroneously perceive as the humilation of potential renewed failure, of the potential of embarrassing themselves in front of others again.

Rather than trying again and again until they get what they want, they will instead choose a life of mediocrity where they need no longer expose themselves to self-committed failure as they renounce any ambition of being masters of their own destiny.

Rather than proactively taking their lives into their own hands they will instead choose a life of reaction where they will never again need to assume responsibility for their future, they will take the easy way out, never again attempt anything, and, on top of that, always blame external circumstances on their fates, seeking pity from others in a similar state of affairs.

What a contrast to those who end up achieving their dreams - and these dreams can be anything at all, and need by no means be related to material objectives.

Life's success stories simply don't accept failure as a final state, they simply do not accepot that all you have in life is one go, and that then that is it..

They see failure as all it is, just another inevitable and not particularly important hurdle that needs to be overcome on the road to eventual success.

It really is all in the head.

You have big dreams, and maybe go bankrupt enroute, maybe even more than once. (Jesse Livermore anyone ?)

Is the glass half full or half empty now ?

As long as you still have ideas and as long as you still have a firm faith in your future the glass is decidely half full.

That's my take anyway.

100% agreed

 

[belflan]

Actually I think there is something to extreme success and extreme failure being closely related, but then I don't see bankruptcy as a major issue.

Failure is a given in a bipolar life.

Successful people accept failure as no more than a cost of doing business. (Which is really exactly our situation in trading, isn't it.)

They know exactly what they want, which is probably one of the single most important prerequisites to succcess, but on the way there they will fall off of horses just as much as everybody else.

Unsuccessful people will take falling off a horse as a lesson, and not get back on the horse again because they will be afraid of what they erroneously perceive as the humilation of potential renewed failure, of the potential of embarrassing themselves in front of others again.

Rather than trying again and again until they get what they want, they will instead choose a life of mediocrity where they need no longer expose themselves to self-committed failure as they renounce any ambition of being masters of their own destiny.

Rather than proactively taking their lives into their own hands they will instead choose a life of reaction where they will never again need to assume responsibility for their future, they will take the easy way out, never again attempt anything, and, on top of that, always blame external circumstances on their fates, seeking pity from others in a similar state of affairs.

What a contrast to those who end up achieving their dreams - and these dreams can be anything at all, and need by no means be related to material objectives.

Life's success stories simply don't accept failure as a final state, they simply do not accepot that all you have in life is one go, and that then that is it..

They see failure as all it is, just another inevitable and not particularly important hurdle that needs to be overcome on the road to eventual success.

It really is all in the head.

You have big dreams, and maybe go bankrupt enroute, maybe even more than once. (Jesse Livermore anyone ?)

Is the glass half full or half empty now ?

As long as you still have ideas and as long as you still have a firm faith in your future the glass is decidely half full.

That's my take anyway.

Hi BSD,

i don't really have alot of time in the minute to get into this, and i wasn't having a go at your books, i just think books about the supersuccessful should always be read in conjuntion with the book on my post. it was a real eye opener for me, just wanted to pass on what little i can.. as this BB has been so useful to me

cheers
glen

ps i havn't read your books, have you read my one?

 

[DaxDestroyer]

BSD,

That is pretty much my take, too. I don't give a toss whether I go bankrupt or not. Does that help me to succeed? Yes, of course. But it also makes me highly likely to actually go bankrupt. That is my point. If many people with the same attributes try the same thing in the same way, it then makes no sense to put those that end up with the money on a pedestal. That is my beef. When you think about it, it is bolloc'ks. I am not afraid of failing, and I am not embarassed to fail completely and publicly. The trouble is, if I do fail, no one wants to know, whereas if I have money everyone wants to know. WTH?!

I think, the trick is, not to care what others think
Do it for yourself.
No reason to be to euphoric because somebody achieved something. Especially as a trader you know ONE thing for sure. You start to celebrate and a loss follows

So it is good to see, what makes others successful, then pick up, what fits your style. The rest is TRANSPIRATION

 

[FXSCALPER2]

I think, the trick is, not to care what others think
Do it for yourself.
No reason to be to euphoric because somebody achieved something. Especially as a trader you know ONE thing for sure. You start to celebrate and a loss follows

So it is good to see, what makes others successful, then pick up, what fits your style. The rest is TRANSPIRATION

Are you sure you understand what I am saying?

 

[BSD]

If many people with the same attributes try the same thing in the same way, it then makes no sense to put those that end up with the money on a pedestal.

Absolutely. Actually putting anybody at all on a pedestal isn't particularly enlightened, it's just pretty demeaning to the one doing the bowing, and just plain nonsensical at the end of the day. People are and always will remain just people, bank accounts or power don't change the person, deep down the person is exactly the same person he or she was when they were starting out penny- and power less, with the same desires and fears like all of us all over the world.

Only thing that changes however, and pretty massively at that, is the extremely unseemly kowtowing from others around them, reacting to all that wealth and / or power.

Just go visit the Côte d’Azur in yacht season and witness the amazing amount of sycophancy on display on piers when some of the yacht owners show up. (Unfortunately and to my great detriment right now I'm still one of those admiring boats from the perspective of piers myself, and not from the owners deck, hopefully sans sycophancy though ;-))

But basically anybody with half a sense of perspective on life won't let adulation and obsequious sycophancy fundamentally change their own personality. Making it against extreme challenges necessitates a strong personality from the outset after all, one that doesn't change it's position with every burst of the wind and one that isn't that prone to adulation, seeing that as the fleeting phenomenon that it is.

Different story maybe if you inherit the stuff, character buidling doesn't really play a big role in that.

In Germany they say the first generation builds it up, the second maintains it, and the third opens the flood gates to eventual self destruction, aka bankruptcy.

100% agreed

So, think we need to start a hedge fund now eh !

 

[BSD]

ps i havn't read your books, have you read my one?

Hi Glen, no haven't yet, will be sure to do so.

 

[belflan]

Hi Glen, no haven't yet, will be sure to do so.

no book has changed my approach to trading more than this book (and not a chart to be seen,)

great read
glen

 

[shadowninja]

Some woman wrote a book on how she lost all her money on the stockmarket. I wonder if that is actually useful. It might give insight into what not to do.

 

[DaxDestroyer]

Are you sure you understand what I am saying?

Absolutely, Sir.

Thanks for asking just kidding

 

[DaxDestroyer]

So, think we need to start a hedge fund now eh !

QUOTE]



We are evaluating exactly this at the moment. But seemingly, we missed the better times

 

[nkruger]

Unsuccessful people will take falling off a horse as a lesson, and not get back on the horse again because they will be afraid of what they erroneously perceive as the humilation of potential renewed failure, of the potential of embarrassing themselves in front of others again.

Rather than trying again and again until they get what they want, they will instead choose a life of mediocrity where they need no longer expose themselves to self-committed failure as they renounce any ambition of being masters of their own destiny.


That's my take anyway.

Read the other day, after Hilary died, that his mate (Sherpa) Tenzing, tried SEVEN times to get that hillock we call Everest, before eventually making it with Edmund ~ most people would give up half way up the first attempt. What a gutsy guy. That's what life's about.

So get out there, sort your trading out, earn some money and go adventuring