No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers
of acting and reasoning as fear.
EDMUND BURKE, THE SUBLIME A ND BEAUTIFUL
Fear nothing
Another easy-to-say and impossible piece of advice. Tough luck, chum. Life’s a bitch and then you die. Get used to it. It isn’t going to change any time soon.
What is there to fear? Everything and nothing.
Try looking at it through my eyes:
I am an insignificant little worm on an insignificant planet which circles an insignificant star in a big (presumably) bad universe. A universe I will never comprehend, nor can ever hope to comprehend.
Just like everything that walks, breathes, grows, flies, crawls or swims, I am going to die. One day, my planet will die. Long after, the sun it still circles as a dead rock will die. Then there will be darkness on the face of the earth — that is, if there were any creature left alive to see it.
The power of knowing you’re doomed
Armies and governments fear men or women who know they are going to die soon — and they have good reason to. Such people have nothing to lose. They will commit any atrocity and take as many others with them as they can if driven to it.
You must now become that doomed man or woman. You are going to die. Nothing can alter that fact. It is immutable, incomprehensible, unfair. All those things.
But it sets you free, don’t you see? It sets you free.
Why nothing matters
What does anything matter if you are going to die? Nothing matters. Nothing at all. Get that through your terrified mind and you will wake up in the morning ready to rip the throat out of the first gazelle unfortunate enough to cross your path.
Why would you rip its throat out? Because you can. Not for breakfast. Not for the thrill of the chase. But because you can.
The pact with fear
If you want to be rich, you must make a pact with yourself about fear.
You cannot banish fear, but you can face it down, stomp on it, crush it, bury it, padlock it into the deepest recesses of your heart and soul and leave it there to rot.
Just try. Try for just a single day — a whole day when you refuse to acknowledge:
- fear of failure
- fear of making yourself look like an idiot
- fear of losing your lover
- fear of losing your job
- fear of your boss
- fear of anything and of any kind
Fear will creep back, usually at three in the morning. Laugh at it and tell it to take a hike. Smash it in the teeth. Spit on it. Put your arms around it and make nicey-nicey. Then slip a sharp blade into its stinking throat just as you’re French-kissing it.
The transformation
Go on. I dare you.
If you can do it, this will transform your life. Not for the better. I didn’t promise you that.
But you will instantly perceive (among many other things) just how much money there is in the world and how pitifully easy it is to obtain it. Money that already has your name on it.
All that is stopping you is fear. I do not know of what kind. It may even be fear of succeeding.
But if you want to be rich, gentle reader, and if you can read these words, then all that is stopping you is fear of one kind or another. You have no one to blame but yourself.
The world is full of gazelles with diamonds in their guts. Look! There’s one over there, right now! Let’s go rip its throat out and take the diamond. Maybe there will be two diamonds. If there isn’t, then I’m keeping the first diamond, you understand? Otherwise I’ll rip your throat out, too.
Come on! There’s nothing to fear. Let’s get rich!
The predator’s mind
That is what getting rich is going to be like. You will become a predator. A killer. You will cease to be prey. You will not succumb to fear. Others will fear you. Especially gazelles bearing diamonds.
This will make no difference to an insignificant worm on an insignificant planet circling an insignificant star. No difference whatever.
Nothing can hold back the coming dark. Nothing can alter the fact that you will cease one day to breathe and think. Nothing can amend the truth, that within a few million circlings of a rock around a dying sun, there will remain no trace of you, your tribe, your race or your diamonds.
Nothing can alter that.
The brief moment
But just for a moment (just for one moment, you understand?) just for a heartbeat in the life of the planet, one little worm, who thinks he is a tiger, will be rich.
Fear as fuel
To be rich, if that is still your desire, you must somehow learn to harness fear to your own advantage.
Is that what I have done in my own life? Was all that rage and fierceness and drive and stamina rooted in my own fear? Have I used fear as a fuel in the getting of money?
Perhaps I have, although I never thought of it that way before. In any case, I’m not certain I want to know. I have never trusted armchair psychiatry.
The final lesson
But I do know that you must make an accommodation with your fears if you are to succeed. At least, I know that to be true in my own case.
As to how such a trick is to be accomplished, I cannot help you. We each, in turn, must face down our secret demons, if we can — whether we wish to be rich or not.
To succeed in the game of piling up material wealth, it becomes a necessity.
Shakespeare’s echo
In the words of the wisest of men, William Shakespeare:
“Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.”
Aye, that they are, William, that they are.
‘Horrible imaginings’ will rule all our lives if we are fools enough to let them.
GO! GO! GO!
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That puts it not unto the touch
To win or lose it all.
JAMES GRAHAM, MARQUESS or MONTROSE, 'MY DEAR AND ONLY LOVE
You have little time to waste
Even as you read these words, a clock is ticking and time is streaming by, governed by the speed of light, racing toward a point where you will have no more need of clocks, or light, or money.
So many hundreds of millions of dollars to make — so little time!
What are you waiting for?
Start NOW
You will never start unless you start NOW!
That’s right. Right now.
Even as your eyes scan this page, your brain should be plotting and planning ideas and possibilities, weaving a web to ensnare what you could achieve, if only you will cease this endless prevarication and commit yourself.
Commit yourself heart and soul, mind.
Heart and soul.
No half measures or lukewarm approach is likely to succeed in what William Butler Yeats called “this pragmatical, preposterous pig of a world.”
A mad quest
Your quest is mad.
What use to muddy the waters with logic and statistics — bugaboos that will only serve to discourage you from taking the plunge?
There is a place for impetuosity and leaps of faith. A place for belief.
That place is here.
And the time is now.
Begin or burn it
You must take your first steps on the long, lonely road to wealth by beginning now — or you must hurl this book into the fire, or out the window, for all the good it will do you.
Pounce on opportunity
When opportunities come, you must pounce.
Whether you are just starting out or have been at it for a long while.
If an opportunity should arrive just as you are taking your family on vacation, for example — do not weaken.
Let the family go on without you, or cancel the trip altogether.
I can tell you a true story of a man who lost millions and millions of pounds that were his for the taking because he went on vacation.
YOUR QUEST IS MAD
That clock is still ticking
It’s been travelling at the speed of light while you read all this.
Now is the time. Now is the hour.
Let’s go
Come on, brother and sister, up off your idle butt.
Let’s find ourselves a gazelle with diamonds in its entrails.
Time to move
Time to go. Let’s GO! GO! GO!
Let’s get rich
Let’s go and get rich!