Updated June 12th, 2023
How to Get Rich is the memoirs of the founder of Maxim Magazine. I enjoyed the read, and definitely gleaned some lessons from the book. As you can see from the title, he shares his journey to wealth with the assumption that the reader wants to get stinkin’ filthy rich. Like, tens to hundreds of millions of dollars rich.
Brutal Honesty
I appreciated Felix Dennis’ brutal honesty throughout the book. He tells us that money won’t necessarily make us happy, and How to Get Rich reads part business guide, part philosophy book, with some poems sprinkled in (one of Dennis’ passion is poetry.) He shares with us lessons and mistakes he’s made, as well as victories. One of my favorite chapters is titled “Ownership! Ownership! Ownership!“- the best (maybe only) way to get rich is to be an owner where smart and clever people work for you. He offers suggestions on how to motivate and reward managers and subordinates which is very valuable to entrepreneurs who are hiring.
On Negotiating
One nugget of value I got from the book is that Dennis tells the reader to find and exploit the balance of weakness when negotiating. One example is farmers vs. supermarket chains- farmers have to fix their broken tractor yesterday, while supermarkets have cash flow and lots of suppliers, so the scales are in the supermarkets’ favor. If for some reason there was a famine, then the scales would shift into the farmers favor. Make sense?
Another metaphor that Dennis uses that resonated with me was the story of the “elephant and the flea“. Think of an elephant as a big public corporation, or an institutional investor. The elephant’s “master” would be the shareholders then.
Think of the flea as a small company with a disruptive or competitive idea. The elephant needs to appear as if he knows it all, so he has to approach the flea (not because he likes the flea) but because if he misses out on the flea’s idea, there could be negative consequences like a drop in share price and the elephant’s “master” would be angry.
In normal times, the elephant obviously has the power. The weakness is with the flea. If the flea took the elephant heads on, the elephant would crush the flea. But.
When the elephant approaches the flea, the flea has the power for negotiation at that precise moment.
This is an important if not commonsense point about the art of negotiation, but Dennis’ story about the elephant and the flea was eloquent and an easy lesson to remember.
My Favorite Quotation from the Book
“The world is full of money. Some of it has your name on it. All you have to do is collect it.”
Felix Dennis, page 260
–> Click here to get the book <–
In Summary
I enjoyed this book, but I had a harder time relating than I originally anticipated. I guess everyone has a different definition of “rich”. I don’t really have a desire to own a company worth hundreds of millions of dollars with hundreds of employees. And Dennis acknowledges this- not everyone wants to be on the Forbes Billionaires List.
Nevertheless, most of the lessons and principles can be applied to any business situation. Maybe not all of them, but you will surely learn something from his business and life journey, whether your goal is be to the next Amazon or if you just have a corner store or a small website.
The reason I am giving it 3 stars, is because for whatever reason, I struggled to finish the book. It took a long time to get through and it’s less than 300 pages.
How Many Stars?
3 😐
As I said above, it took me a while to finish. It’s a good valuable book, but at the end of the day, in terms of all the books I’ve read on business, I thought it was average. There are tons of other business books out there to read, ya know?
BOOK DETAILS ONE MORE TIME
Title: How to Get Rich: One of the World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets
Author: Felix Dennis
Publish Date: June 12, 2008
ISBN: 1591842050 ISBN-13: 978-1591842057
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