MBA2331 Must Read: How To Get Rich by Felix Dennis

0:09Heyo! Welcome to the$100 MBA show, giving you what you need to build the business you want with our practical business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. I'm also the co-founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started back in 2014. And today's episode is a must-read episode. On our must-read episodes, I share with you a book that I've read that has influenced me as an entrepreneur. I share with you its takeaways, its insights, and why you should read it too. Today's must-read is How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis. Now, I know that the title of this book sounds cheesy, How to Get Rich, but this is honestly one of the most interesting and entertaining books on money, finance, business I've ever read.

0:51This is a gem of a book that I will read and reread for years to come. The author, Felix Dennis, is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and the founder of Dennis Publishing, publishing some of the most popular magazines around the world. He also has a poet, and he shares some of his very cool poems in the book as he starts the chapters. His net worth at the time of writing the book? Nearly half a billion dollars. So, he knows a thing or two about how to get rich. In today's episode, I'm going to break down what this book is all about, my favorite chapters, some things that will really change your mind when it comes to building wealth, and of course, why you should read this book as well.

1:30One of my favorite things about this book is that Felix talks to you directly through this book, as if he's giving you personal advice. So interesting, so fun. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. How to get rich is not for the faint-hearted or somebody who doesn't have a sense of humor. It's raw, it's honest, and this is why I love it so much. He shares with you his mistakes, his failures, his flaws, how he's made money, how he's lost a ton of money, and what it means to be rich in the first place. The book starts out by talking about the three myths about getting rich. And those myths are people get rich by accident.

2:05They get lucky. The second myth, people get rich with a great idea. And the third is that people used to be able to get rich, but not today. In the book, he breaks down why these myths are so false and how he's proven it wrong over and over in his career. What I like about this book is that he starts out by just breaking down the idea of being rich. What does rich really mean? And he actually has his own criteria. I like the fact that he doesn't just leave it to you and say, hey, rich is whatever you want it to be. But he says, no, this is what I believe rich is in terms of unit of value, dollars and cents.

2:40And he starts off with like people who have two to four million dollars of net worth. And he calls that comfortably poor and then four to 10 million and so on and so forth. And here are some of the titles of these categories. Comfortably off, comfortably wealthy, lesser rich, comfortably rich, the rich, the seriously rich, the truly rich, the filthy rich and the super rich, which is over two billion dollars. Now, one of my favorite takeaways of his book is that he said if he could do it all over again, he would actually try to find a way to get to$20 to$30 million as fast as possible and then retire and write poetry.

3:15He would not go beyond that because in his experience, he says that life is not that much different beyond$30 million. There's not much you can do beyond$30 million that you can do before$30 million. He says, yeah, you can own a jet, but it's not really smart to own a jet. It's actually better to charter one. It's smarter. It's more efficient. It's better for the environment. So his sweet spot is like, if you can get to$20 to$30 million and just retire, your life is going to be grand. You're not going to want for anything. And you're just rich enough for you to be able to have total freedom and to be left alone, really.

3:47Beyond that, you're really on somebody's radar. He then goes into the book and says, I want to warn you, being rich does not guarantee happiness. Yes, money will solve your money problems, but they won't solve all your problems. One of the biggest problems that wealthy people have is protecting their wealth. Now that they have it, they are up all night stressing out about how not to lose it. When you don't have anything, you really have nothing to lose. And therefore, you probably don't stress too much other than just paying your regular bills. There's also the guilt of figuring out what to do with this money.

4:23You know, like, should I give to charity? Should I invest in it? Should I make sure that somebody inherits it? It's a lot of responsibility because people on the outside see this as a huge waste of opportunity if you don't do it right. So even money itself has its own problems. And he admits these are all good problems to have, right? People that have these problems, they shouldn't complain. But even with these money problems, it doesn't solve all your problems. Your insecurities, your health, your wellness. There's a lot of people that die young that are rich. Your happiness, your relationships, your confidence, your inner peace and contentment.

4:59These are all things that are really hard to buy with money. One of the things I really loved about this book is he talks about how those who are curious, who are open-minded, that are willing to try different things. These are the people that get rich. You can't be closed-minded. You can't be narrow-minded. You got to be curious because that's where you're going to find the opportunities that are untapped. Then he really hits the jugular and says, being rich requires you to have thick skin. You've got to be okay with failure, not just any failure, public failure. He asks you personally in the book, he talks to you directly, he says, are you willing to fail publicly to succeed?

5:40And that's what is required. A lot of entrepreneurs fail miserably in public in front of everybody. And yet we tend to forget about that. Are we willing to go through that? Whether it's Elon Musk seeing hundreds of millions of dollars blown up because the rocket blew up and was unsuccessful in SpaceX, or Richard Branson, where a third of his brands and companies don't really work out and fail. Do you care what your friends will say, your colleagues in business, or even your neighbors? If you failed so bad, you had to move and downsize your home. You need to be willing to fail. And he goes on and on about what you need to be willing to do if you want to get rich.

6:20He goes on and explains that you will not get rich by working for other people. You have to build your own asset, your own business, invest in a business, be a part of a business, be a part of some sort of asset like real estate. You have to have money working for you while you're sleeping. It's too hard for you to just try to make money when you're awake. You don't have the advantage of compounding and passive income or the power of leverage, leverage of your time and labor and code and all the stuff we talked about before. He talks about the fallacy of a great idea. There are so many great ideas out there that don't mean anything.

6:54They're not worth anything. It's all about execution. It's all about how you execute an idea. In fact, he says a poor idea executed well will always be a great idea executed poorly. A great example of this is McDonald's. McDonald's don't make the best burgers or fries or shakes or anything like that. In fact, if you went home and made your own burger and fries, you probably can make them better and they'll taste delicious and they'll be more healthy and all that kind of stuff. But it's their execution that makes them successful. The fact that it's fast and convenient and affordable. One of my favorite chapters in this book is when he talks about you've got to know how to quit when something's not working.

7:32You can't be so stubborn where you just don't see the writing on the wall. where you don't see that this business is just not making it happen. It's not helping you get rich. He talks about getting rich is a mission on its own. All the different businesses, the ideas, the products, the partnerships, all the things that you do is how you get rich. It's a means to an end. And if there's a business on your hands that you're working on right now that is kicking your butt, that you are not in control of, that is not profitable, that is not making you money, but you're digging in your heels because you fall in love with the idea and you really believe this is going to happen, But all the data proves that it's just not a good one.

8:07It's not a good business to hold on to. You are asking for trouble. You got to know when to quit and move on to something else because your time is their most precious asset. He talks about a business idea that he thought was brilliant. All the critics thought were brilliant. The customers loved it, but it just didn't make business sense. And if he quit when he was supposed to quit, he would have saved about$3 to$5 million. He imagines I could have had$3 to$5 million in the bank extra right now, but I was stubborn. and I fell in love with the idea. And that's dangerous when you're trying to be rich.

8:37Another concept I absolutely loved is think big, act small. Think big about your business. Try to go for the moon. Try to get that partnership that's gonna blow up your business. Try to get that big client. Try to get that reach. Try to get published on a big newspaper or article online. But act small. Act like a small startup. Don't overspend. Be scrappy. Be as profitable as possible. Be as lean as possible. And that's how you can grow quickly, by thinking big, but acting small. There's so much in this book that I absolutely love. I will reread this book definitely because it's so entertaining.

9:09I highly recommend you pick up the audio book. This is one of the best audio narrations I've ever heard. It's narrated by Roy McMillan. It's unbelievable. It's available on Audible if you want to check it out. That's where I get all my audio books. An absolute killer of a book, a must read for sure. Guys, thank you so much for listening to The$100 MBA. If you're looking for all the different books I recommend, you can just head on to 100mba.net, our website. And on the top of the navigation, you'll see my book reviews. Over 140 book reviews I've done in must-reads where I have all the books there, links to them, a little summary, as well as an audio podcast episode reviewing the book.

9:50So if you're always looking for a good read, just head on over to 100mba.net. Go to our book reviews up on top in the navigation. I got your back. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Some books just hit you in the gut. This is one of those books that are a gut check. It's okay to feel a little pain when you're reading a book or listening to a book because it means it's resonating. It means that, hey, I got to make a change. I got to think differently. I got to do differently. That's how you grow. They say no pain, no gain. It's true. This book is filled with gut punches because he went through them and had gut punches and he's sharing with you and you're probably going to have a few of your own just listening or reading what he has to say and say, man, I'm making these mistakes.

10:30I got to stop doing that. That's okay. Embrace the pain. Understand that, hey, that's just part of the journey. I can get better. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in Wednesday's episode Q &A Wednesday. I'll see you then. Take care.

10:59Thank you.