Reading this book requires you to put up with a lot of name dropping while you search for the few interesting nuggets of insights sprinkled within.
Two Key Take Away
- To get rich, you need to get used to risk – Understanding it, taking it, getting comfortable with it, being good at using it.
- You have to try and fail, learn, try and fail, learn. This process will get you better at knowing what not to do as you stumble on what to do. It will take time.
The book is a story of when the author, William Leith, met with the Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort, interviewed him and went on his courses all in an attempt to learn the ‘Trick‘ to become rich.
It weaves through all of the other famous, super-rich, or super famous people Leith has met. It isn’t a coherent piece of writing where each section detail’s the ‘Trick’. So instead of breaking down each chapter, I am just going to highlight the interesting points.
Page 15 – Money, which society is built up, is created through loans. Loans are based on interest rates. Interest rates are set on understanding the risk in the loan (the probability that the borrower can pay it back or default on the loan.) Probability is expressed in the form of odds. So the money that makes society function is based on odds, so gambling.
Page 15 – Aaron Brown, risk analyst discusses risk. He said All rich and poor people are essentially gamblers. Rich people are good at gambling and poor people are bad at it. The middle class are clean and don’t gamble, which is why they don’t become rich.
Page 79 – Belfort’s Straight Line system involves having a vision of the future and taking action towards it. Being a scientist and trying and failing. You are making discoveries, failure is not a bad thing, just part of the journey. Take action. Learn, Take more action, Learn again. Action is fuel. Action will fuel you.
Page 157 – Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan, talks about that we, human beings, don’t understand how the world works. The deeper problem with that is that we think we do. We see patterns and think we understand the rules. But these rules don’t work. The turkey idea is that the turkey sees the farmer bring them food every day until one day they don’t have food but an axe. The rules of the world were incorrect.
Page 170 – Taleb had a theory on being Anti-fragile. Something that gains from disorder. How do you make yourself anti-fragile? Being tested helps make you anti-fragile. You get stronger when you work out and your muscles are torn apart and grow back stronger.
Page 173 – Steve Jobs talking about getting your thinking clean.
Page 193 – You feel safe not doing things. But it is where you die. You need thinking and you need acting. You need both at the same time. You need to know your stuff, but then you need to make forceful, confident decisions – Patrick Veitch.
Page 193/194 – The word decision comes from the Latin to cut. Cuts are risks. In order to know something, you need to make a decision – those cuts.
Page 196 – Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art talks about the force that stops us from doing something, he calls it Resistance. It is the force that stops you from doing what you want to do. It is the voice in your head telling you to do anything but the thing you want to do. Because the thing you want to do involves failing over and over again in order to improve.
Page 197 – Pressfield goes on to say that thinking is hard. What is harder is thinking clearly. It is a hard thing to clear your thoughts. It is a hard choice to get your thoughts clear every single day but if you think hard every day and act on them something magical happens. It might not happen straight away but over time it is like compound interest.
Page 198 – The ‘Trick’ is that you only find the right path by taking many wrong paths. Take the hard choice. Think clearly. Try and Fail. Try again and fail again. Act and learn.
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Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe 