The slightly modified excerpt below is taken from Dennis, Felix. (2011). How to get rich. Random House. Image by Unknown.
“Once begun – the job’s half done. Because taking that first, irrevocable step has proved to be the most difficult part of nearly every venture I have been involved in.
There are so many reasons not to do anything, many of them highly persuasive, especially in the mouth of a Jeremiah. And the world is full of Jeremiahs. In the living room, in the pub, in the office, at the boardroom table. Everywhere you look, you will find men and women who appear to take perverse pleasure in pointing out the obvious: that is if a new venture does not succeed, it may result in failure.
They will say the company or the individual does not have the resources. That it has all been tried before. That ‘the light isn’t worth the candle’. That outside advice is required or that an individual should seek further counsel. That the individual or company is uniquely unsuited to such an enterprise. That it is too late, or too early, for such an idea to have any chance of succeeding.
Therefor you must grow a mental armor. 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.
- If you are unwilling to fail, sometimes publicly, and even catastrophically, you stand very little chance of ever getting 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.
After a lifetime of making money and observing better men and women than I 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. You either get over it, go round it, go at it, mount it, duck under it or cosy up to it. But you cannot surrender to it. That way lies paralysis, prevarication, ignominy and defeat.”