Me, Inc. - by Gene Simmons
ISBN: 0062322613Date read: 2015-05-01
How strongly I recommend it: 1/10
(See my list of 360+ books, for more.)
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I shouldn't have read this. I believed someone else's rave review about it. Slightly interesting to hear the quick thoughts of someone who's hyper-focused on money. But that's all.
my notes
Spend as little as you can, and spend only for those things you can’t live without, in order to have money left over.
A lesson that would save me, time and time again: Spread the risk. Play to win.
In life and in business, it’s always important to recognize what the predominant pattern is.
Intrinsically, everything is a business. Everything has, or should have, a balance sheet. Everything has, or should have, a budget. Everything has, or should try to have, a profit motive.
Jump in the deep end, and start swimming. It’s the way I’ve always lived. It doesn’t matter the task - if you’re not qualified, you can become qualified. If you have never done it before, you can do it a first time.
My first speaking engagement was offered. They made an offer, I countered, and we settled on $100,000. Since then, that’s been my minimum speaking fee.
Professionals can’t always help you where you want to go.
Don’t buy a home until you have amassed four times the value of the home in your net worth.
If you don’t live in a big city, move to one now. Period. Move to where the big dogs play. You will substantially increase your chances of climbing the ladder of success in a big city.
Whether this is a good or bad thing is not the point. The point is that, whatever system you are a part of (be it fair or unfair), there are ways to get ahead in it.
I decided long ago that I would adapt as best I could, and that I would conform, to the extent that I could, to the inferred rules.
“I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it.” - Charlie Chaplin
Don’t give your kids spending money. Give them a sense of pride by letting them create and run their own little business, hopefully making a profit. Let them become kid entrepreneurs.
It’s better to be an octopus than a fish. If an octopus loses a tentacle to a predator, the octopus will survive with seven tentacles left to fend for itself, and perhaps a few lessons learned that will enable it to avoid another such attack. If a fish loses a fin - or worse, its tail - it’s unlikely to fare as well and its survival will be questionable. So use the Octopus Business Model. Create non-cross-collateralized sections and/or businesses - which means that the cost of running a section of your business, and the potential profit of that business, should be self-contained, and not “cross over” to the other businesses.
A car comes with five wheels. You’ll get a flat tire at some point. But as long as you’ve got a spare tire in the trunk, you can keep going. In other words, you need to have a backup plan. Always.
The next venture, and the next, and the next, you must attack with the very same ferocity, the very same enthusiasm, and the very same delusional faith in yourself as you had when you began your very first. Never slow down, even for a moment. It only takes one success to make all the failures worthwhile.
Know when to double down. The key to ascending to the highest heights of success is to know when to increase your efforts toward an already successful enterprise.