Felix Dennis, a publishing tycoon, is filthy rich. What with about $400m -$900m in net worth, five homes, three estates, private jets and so on, he's written a book saying If You Want to be Rich, First Stop Being So Frightened.
Making money was, and still is, fun, but at one time it wreaked chaos upon my private life. It consumed my waking hours. It led me into a lifestyle of narcotics, high-class whores, drink and consolatory debauchery. As a philosopher might have put it, all the usual dreary afflictions of the seeker after wealth.
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After a lifetime of making money and observing better men and women than me 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. Trust me on this.
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Becoming rich does not guarantee happiness. In fact, it is almost certain to impose the opposite condition — if not from the stresses and strains of protecting it, then from the guilt that inevitably accompanies its arrival.
If I had my time again, I would dedicate myself to making just enough to live comfortably (say £30m or £40m) as quickly as I could, hopefully by the time I was 35. I would then cash out immediately and retire to write poetry and plant trees.