How to get rich
During the Great Depression in the Big Apple, one of the games we played was choosing our role model among the comic strip heroes we all read. Dick Tracy, Superman and Batman got most voted. They scoffed when I picked Daddy Warbucks, the billionaire who adopted Little Orphan Annie. (“Yeah, how many bad men did he catch?”)
They had me there. My protestation that he was as rich as Rockefeller carried no weight. (“If he has all that much money, why doesn’t he give you some?”) I imagined his house full of chests of gold. What I was told along the way was that to become a billionaire, I had to invent a bigger and better mousetrap.
Which meant think of something people need and want, then make it or improve it. Alas I couldn’t, while others did. Rather, like my father, I became a working stiff. I recall the first time I saw a television set, a ballpoint pen, a computer, a jet plane, etc. I hadn’t thought of any of it before. Their inventors became billionaires.
Would it have inspired me had I read The Self-Made Billionaire Effect by John Sviokla and Mitch Cohen earlier? I’ve never been good at how-to books, which this is. These economy boffins inform the readers that there are 800-and-counting living the world over. Why not us?
They interviewed scores to learn the secrets of their success. We’re told little we don’t already know. Look around for what is missing in our lives, then come up with it. A health drink. Something to make hair more lustrous. How to get things done quicker, more accurately, easier. More reliable and more profitable investments.
Yes-men are detrimental to organisations. Encourage different, even opposing ideas. Innovation is sought after. But change for the sake of change isn’t progress. When you have an idea, don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t work the first time or second or fifth — keep at it.
The book gives thumbnail sketches of those from everyday life with the ambition to accomplish what they set out to do, regardless of obstacles. To be sure, some ideas aren’t worth the effort, but how will you know if you don’t attempt to see it through?