RULE 5

Most people are too lazy to be wealthy

You have to get up early, work hard all day and go to bed still working on your objective. Yes, money does sometimes grow on trees – or so it seems. Yes, people do win the lottery, the jackpot, the big prize. People do get sudden inheritances from long lost relatives. Yes, people do suddenly find fame and fortune where they sought for none. But it isn’t going to happen to you. Well, the odds are that it won’t. If you set your objective as ‘Win the lottery and live in the lap of luxury for evermore’, then read no further. Put this book down and go and buy lottery tickets. If your objective is a little more realistic then read on.

Most people are too lazy to be rich. They may say they want to be, but they don’t. They may buy a lottery ticket as a sort of half-hearted gesture of wanting to be rich, but they aren’t prepared to put in the work. They aren’t prepared to make sacrifices, study, learn, work their socks off, put in the effort and make it a determined and concentrated focus of their life.

And for a lot of them – not you – it is because they believe that if you do so you are somehow tainted with evil (see Rule 7). But is it OK to work hard to make money? Is it a worthwhile thing to want? It depends on why and what you are going to do with it I guess.

Most people don’t want to do the work. Yes, they want the money but only if it comes to them by accident, by luck, by chance. Then it’s OK. Then it’s not tainted with sweat and work and passion and focus.

I think if you look at anyone rich enough to be a role model – Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Alan Sugar, Warren Buffett, Simon Cowell, James Dyson, Petr Kellner^* – you’ll notice only one thing in common...they work their socks off. They might make their money from computers, sales, business, the film industry, vacuum cleaners, pop music, radio stations, whatever. But the one thing they all share is the ability to do more in a day than most of us do in a month.

And that’s the wonderful thing about wealth – it’s lying around waiting to be claimed (remember Rule 1). And those who claim it are the ones who get up early, work hard and put in the hours.

And you are going to have to as well. I don’t have loungers, weight shifters or decorative spongers on my team. I want hard-working, dedicated, focused, ambitious, driven money makers. With a sense of fun of course.