How to Become a Billionaire
You can forget about goals for most things in life because they just as often serve as demotivators as motivators. What you want to do instead is create and utilize systems. Think of systems as the business version of an individual’s habits. In The Tycoon Playbook we stress building systems for wealth accumulation through acquisitions.
In this video Scott talks about how he’s used systems to become a very wealthy man. It starts off a bit slow because he’s giving a talk to a group of patients suffering from a certain affliction but quickly gets very relevant and interesting for us. Pay close attention to the story about how he and a friend approached dating back in high school to grasp the principle. Scott being goal-oriented would pick a specific girl to ask out. Then when he finally worked up the courage to approach her she would inform him at least half the time that she already had a boyfriend. As a result he didn’t meet many girls. In contrast his friend was focused on building and refining a system for simply meeting as many girls as possible. At this he succeeded spectacularly.
By the way, Scott published a book called How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big a few years ago and is publishing a new one this fall o persuasion titled How to Win Bigly.
The rich are different than you and me. – F Scott Fitzgerald
There’s a brilliant scene in the first season of HBO’s Silicon Valley where the shy oddball Peter Gregory demonstrates how billionaires can quickly tie the dots together to make millions. In the scene Peter is being chased by two desperate executives from one of his portfolio companies for an emergency loan to cover payroll. To their consternation Peter is seemingly distracted by curiosity over Burger King and hilarity ensues as the two men are driven to panic. However, it all ends well for everyone as you will see in the clip.
I imagine billionaires such as Bill Gates and Elon Musk have a similar talent and thought process for spotting profit opportunities.
Are you a procrastinator? A fence sitter? Are you delaying taking action until you are absolutely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s the right thing to do? If you have this lethal problem, read this, and then think about it.
A former Delta Force officer says the elite military unit taught him that you only need to be 70% certain before you act — here’s why.
Showtime has released some more footage from its upcoming series Billions.
The new 12-episode series will star Damian Lewis, as hedge fund king Bobby “Axe” Axelrod, the CEO of AXE Capital, and Paul Giamatti, as US Attorney Chuck Rhoades.
“You will see your preconceptions constantly challenged—who’s good? who’s bad? And what people are prepared to do to get what they want,” Lewis said. (Sounds a bit like Homeland.)
Michael Lewis’s The Big Short
One of the very best business books I have had the pleasure to read is The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine which was written by one of the very best business writers working today, namely Michael Lewis. After starting it late last year I found it almost impossible to put down. Think of the book this way. It’s about a group of corporate world misfits, outsiders, and loners who after carefully analyzing the financial data available to everyone went out on a limb and bet the ranch on a housing market collapse of biblical proportions.
Now what makes the story so compelling is that after they laid their bets two or three years before the collapse, they then had to sit tight for 24 to 36 months while everyone else was scoffing and telling them that they were fools for being contrarians. Not many people have to backbone to stand up to public opinion for that long.
These guys did.
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