Don’t Be the Flag, Be the Wind
I’m trying to free your mind, Neo.
But I can only show you the door.
You’re the one that has to walk through it.
—Morpheus in The Matrix
You can have the best knowledge, the best skills, the best conditions, but as long as you don’t take action, nothing will happen, and you will never succeed.
Take Action!
So take action!
You can make money only if you act, and sometimes when opportunities are abundant, to act is enough. Michał Sołowow took advantage of such a period in Poland’s history in the 1990s. “The opportunities that emerged, almost a free market, were used by many people back then. And then the important thing was to do something, to make something happen. If one was acting, if one was active, then the effect was an opportunity for making money.”
As long as you don’t take action, nothing will happen, and you will never succeed.
— Rafael Badziag @BillionairePal #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Action is as simple as that, and it really doesn’t require a great philosophy. When I asked Tim Draper about advice for people who would like to be as successful as him, he answered: “Choose a goal, and go after it.” He should know it as one of the most successful venture capital investors in the world.
But even Tim sometimes fails to act. He told me this story:
I got into a bidding war over Facebook. Facebook was very clever. Sean Parker came to me and said, “How about a $20 million valuation?” I said, “Yeah, great.” Then they came back a week later and said,“It’s going to have to be $40 million.” I said, “Okay, great.”
Then they came back another week later and said, “It has to be $80 million,” and I said, “Pfft.…” I went back to my partners and I said, “What do you think?” They said okay. I said, “Okay, we’ll do it at $80 million,” and then Facebook came back and they said “No, it’s got to be $115 million valuation.” I thought “forget it.” So by saying “forget it,” I left a thousand times [return on investment] on the table.
Most of my failures were failures to act or failures to invest in companies. We were outbid for Yahoo, too. I made the first offer into Yahoo; I should have just gone ahead and written the check with a note and let them convert it into whatever. I almost did that.
You can make money only if you act.
— Rafael Badziag @BillionairePal #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Most people are afraid to fail when they act, so they don’t act, and this way they fail by failing to act. Don’t let it happen to you. Mohed Altrad, the World Entrepreneur of the Year 2015, recommends to do it instead of trying to excuse why you didn’t.
Choose a goal, and go after it.
— Tim Draper #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Recognize and Seize Opportunities
You can’t become a billionaire if you don’t show up when opportunities arise. Frank Hasenfratz told me an insightful story about his almost partner when he was starting his business that clearly explains this principle.
I wanted to have a partner because I was five years in the country, I didn’t speak much English. Enough to get by. I thought to partner with a good friend of mine, and I said, “Bert, do you want to be my partner?” “Okay, how much?” I said, “Well, it looks like we can get the machine for $2,000, so you’ve got to put a thousand dollars down, I’ll put a thousand. 50-50 partner.”
But it was only words. Bert was a chemist. He had a very good job and didn’t want to quit. On top of that, his check bounced, so their partnership didn’t go through.
His thousand dollars would be worth two billion today.
Not showing up to the opportunity can come extremely expensive. You may think, such opportunities never occur in your life. But think about it! How many opportunities have you missed in your life? How many opportunities have passed before your eyes that you haven’t noticed? How many opportunities may exist right now that you are not aware of? Are you sure none of those could turn out to be a billion-dollar opportunity?
Most of my failures were failures to act.
— Tim Draper #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Lirio Parisotto is often known to say, “Saddled horse does not pass twice.” I asked him what it meant. “I think sometimes it actually passes two, three, four times, but probably not every year. You need to know where your feeling tells you it’s time to take the chance. So don’t lose the opportunity. Maybe you won’t have another.”
And sometimes, like in the case of Michał Sołowow, it is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” where there is a system change in a country and land is up for grabs for those who take it.
Do it instead of trying to excuse why you didn’t.
— Mohed Altrad #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Of course, in order to take advantage of an opportunity you need to be able to recognize it as such.
Naveen Jain was right about several developments in business and was able to capitalize upon them, building several billion-dollar companies. I asked him what quality was instrumental for this. “I think what you really need is good eyesight, not good foresight and not good hindsight. Every one of us has great hindsight. I can tell you exactly what you could have done. Some people claim to have foresight. I can tell you what’s going to happen in the future. But I can tell you as a great entrepreneur, what you need is good eyesight. See what’s in front of you and be able to say, here’s an opportunity.”
You can’t become a billionaire if you don’t show up when opportunities arise.
— Rafael Badziag @BillionairePal #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
A surprisingly high percentage of self-made billionaires are immigrants. It may sound counterintuitive, but immigrants have much higher chances of becoming a billionaire than natives. Frank Hasenfratz believes that’s because newcomers can better spot opportunities. “As a newcomer in a country, you see a lot more what’s available and what you have to concede and what you can accomplish, much more so than a native, because he sees it every day. He doesn’t recognize the opportunities.”
Don’t lose the opportunity. Maybe you won’t have another.
— Lirio Parisotto #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
When you spot a great opportunity, don’t hesitate, don’t waste time, take action!
Tim Draper learned in his previous experiences as a VC investor how to recognize a great opportunity and quickly act upon it. Now, he doesn’t hesitate when he sees one.
When Kazaa got into legal trouble and had to stop the music sharing service and start with something different, Tim smelled a rat.
I thought, “Wow, that technology can be used for anything. File sharing is going to be really important. Not just music, it’s everything!”
I asked a guy who worked with my father to go hunt them down and find out what they’re doing. He said, “Hey, Tim, you’ve got to fly out to London. You’ve got to check this out.” So I flew out to London and I met with them, and I made an offer right there on the spot. The business was shared Wi-Fi. Then I brought it back to my partners.
And again the partners were against it. This time, Tim made the deal happen against their reluctance. The team had to change their business model several times. Eventually, they ended up building Skype, a several-billion-dollar company. Tim didn’t hesitate to bet on the team and won. He was their first investor.
What you really need is good eyesight, not good foresight and not good hindsight.
— Naveen Jain #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Several years later, the Bitcoin opportunity came around, and Tim again didn’t hesitate to show up.
He had been interested in virtual currencies since a Korean friend told him in 2005 that he had spent $40 on a sword for his son.
And he was talking about a virtual sword in the game League of Legends. [chuckles] It was the beginning of something really extraordinary.
Then the crisis of 2008 came.
In 2009, people were just running for the hills, and we needed more heroes. I thought, “Oh boy, maybe we need an alternative to fiat currencies.” And I said, “This Bitcoin is a really interesting alternative.” HTTP became the leader in Internet even though there were many other protocols, so I just figured there would be one leader, and that Bitcoin was the leader. So I backed it.
He invested in one of the first Bitcoin companies: Coin Lab. It was a mining company that unfortunately lost all the Bitcoin in the Mt. Gox crash.
But in 2014, the U.S. Marshals Office confiscated Bitcoin from Silk Road and was offering it in an auction. Tim didn’t hesitate to buy all 30,000 Bitcoin offered in the auction and paid around $20 million for it.
The price was about $600 at the time of the auction. There have been some technical snafus and the price went down to $180; lots of other things have happened. I looked very stupid for a couple of years there.
This changed dramatically in 2017 when the Bitcoin price started to skyrocket. And even after a decline in 2018, the value of these Bitcoin at the time of writing is around $200 million.
Immigrants have much higher chances of becoming a billionaire than natives.
— Rafael Badziag @BillionairePal #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Kim Beom-Su considers using the opportunities that arose his biggest success. He was able to capitalize on a paradigm shift when the Internet/web era was opening. He created popular Internet games and introduced a freemium business model that made them highly profitable. Then, when smartphone/mobile era was starting, he also took advantage of this opportunity and created the Kakao messenger, which practically monopolizes private communication in South Korea. “I jumped into that world and contextualized what was important, then worked as a team with gifted friends and grabbed a great opportunity, and did that two times. I think that is my biggest success.”
Better Fast than Perfect
In business, it’s better to be fast than to be perfect. Trying to be perfect keeps you from taking action. Don’t wait for the right conditions to come before you take action.
There is never a right moment to start a business or have a child. But if you don’t do it, nothing will happen. So don’t wait for the right moment. The sooner you do it, the better.
Ron Sim has a similar perspective:
When I first started the business, friends were always saying, “Business? Good times are over. This is not the time for business,” 35 years ago. Today, people still say the same thing. 1997 crisis comes, there you are. 2008 crisis comes, people say the same thing. To me, “No. Good or bad is a function of how you see things perspectively.”
Today, Ron is a billionaire, and his friends still complain about bad times.
Be first if you can. This will give you a competitive advantage.
Dilip Shanghvi told me, “One of the reasons why we are successful is that we entered all the businesses before our competitors did. They were all more difficult businesses. When we went into psychiatry, it was a very small market. Same with cardiology. So we never had big competition. It’s only when we became successful and started growing very fast, people started getting into these areas. So getting into business before it becomes fashionable is useful.” With this strategy, Dilip Shanghvi built the greatest pharmaceutical company in India and became the wealthiest person in pharmaceuticals worldwide.
For Kim Beom-Su, there are two decisive factors for success in the early business stage. “One is, can you be the best in the field you have started in, and the second is, are you the first in this field? You need to carefully consider these two things. If you are the first in the field, because it’s something no one has tried before you need to get in there fast and keep it up until the business grows.”
Speed is important. Speed of action is a quality of most billionaires. They follow the motto “act now and think later.”
Develop the attitude of urgency.
Chip Wilson doesn’t want to put away anything in his life.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re going to die in an airplane crash tomorrow or you’re going to die 80 years from now; you’ve got to treat every day and every second as though you’re going to only have a day to live. And there’s no time to waste. Especially talking to boring people, or to people that are complainers, or people that aren’t going to be great in life. There’s only one life to live.
I asked Chip about one message he would like to give to the world audience. His answer: “40,000 days and then you’re dead.” It should give you the right perspective on your life and provide the feeling of urgency. His life philosophy has two cornerstones: “There’s no time to waste. It’s got to be great or nothing.”
Treat every day and every second as though you’re going to only have a day to live. There’s no time to waste.
— Chip Wilson #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Make fast decisions. It’s better to be wrong fast than to be right too late. But there is a flip side: pay attention to carefully weighing the irretrievable decisions. What do I mean? Dilip Shanghvi explains it as follows:
There are retrievable decisions and irretrievable decisions. I don’t take irretrievable decisions fast, because once you take that decision, you have no ability to correct it. For example, investing $4 billion is a decision I can take. That is easy to take because I can live with it. But some decisions like firing a person or breaking a relationship—I reflect a lot before I take that decision.
40,000 days and then you’re dead.
— Chip Wilson #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Sell the Strawberries You Have
One of the most valuable lessons in this book is the Strawberry Philosophy I have learned from Petter Stordalen, the Hotel King of Scandinavia. When he was 12, Petter liked hanging out in his father’s grocery store. But one thing he loved even more was selling strawberries at the local marketplace.
The competition was very hard at that time because there were four or five other strawberry sellers. They had huge stands with roof, and I had this small round table which I had from my mother. I didn’t even have a shade. I was standing under a small personal umbrella, but I was selling strawberries with a lot of energy and a lot of enthusiasm.
I knew that I had to sell every strawberry, because the day after they were nothing. You couldn’t sell it. You need fresh strawberries.
But sometimes I would envy the other competitors because they had bigger sales stands; some had a camping wagon behind. Some had flowers on the side; they had apples and everything. I only had strawberries. That was my segment, strawberries.
I had long hours, the sun was burning, and sometimes I would complain to my father, “I envy them for all this, and my berries are smaller, my sales stand is smaller, and I don’t have this, I don’t have that.” One night, he told me, “Petter, I’ll teach you one thing: sell the strawberries you have, because they’re the only ones you can sell.”
That night, before I let my head on the pillow and fell into sleep, the last thing I was thinking about was, “My father is a genius, and one day I will take over his store.”
This advice was a game changer in Petter’s life.
At the age of 12, I was named by the local newspaper “the best strawberry seller in Norway.” It was not official, but they wrote it. And I felt I was the best strawberry seller in Norway. And probably at that time I was, because I was selling three, four, five times the volume of my competitors at that time.
On a good day, Petter was able to sell 2,400 strawberry boxes and make more revenue selling strawberries than his father did in his two grocery stores.
And I would be saying to you, “If you want to make jam, if you buy two cases, I’ll give you some extra.” My customers were coming back to me, and I was always treating them like: “I have some really nice here, super fresh, this is the biggest and best berries.”
The strawberry philosophy is the biggest reason for my success. Because you can always say, “If I had that hotel, if I had that shopping center, if I had that car, if I had that much money, if I had.…” I mean, it’s endless. You can always envy your competitors. Sell your hotel; everyone can sell the Ritz.
My success thinking is to always start with what you have. Never focus on what you don’t have. Focus on what you have and make the most out of it. Do the best out of what you have.
This mindset became Petter’s Strawberry Philosophy, and it led to his extraordinary business success. His companies carry the name Strawberry, and his life motto is “Sell the berries you have, because these are the only ones you can sell.” Petter likes to refer to himself as “The Strawberry Seller.” The Strawberry Philosophy is also one of the Stone Rules of Gothenburg.
Be like Petter; sell the strawberries you have instead of waiting and saying “If I only had.…”
Sell the strawberries you have, because they’re the only ones you can sell.
— Petter Stordalen #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Other billionaires call It resourcefulness. Ron Sim considers it one of his strengths to be able to do something with nothing, or as he puts it, “resourcefulness without resources.”
Focus on what you have and make the most out of it.
— Petter Stordalen #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Don’t Be the Flag, Be the Wind
Most people think life happens to them, that they are the product of circumstances. A billionaire sees himself as the driving force, the creator of circumstances, and not their victim.
Frank Hasenfratz is quite cocky. His favorite saying is: “I don’t get headaches, I give headaches.” It describes his life attitude well.
I don’t get headaches, I give headaches.
— Frank Hasenfratz #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Billionaires are proactive, not reactive.
Jack Cowin’s motto is, “Don’t wait for your ship to come in; row out to meet it.” It manifested itself in numerous situations in his career, and it applies also to negative events. In his life lessons, Jack says: “Don’t wait until the dogs are barking at the door to do things.”
Don’t wait for your ship to come in; row out to meet it.
— Jack Cowin #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Being proactive takes less time. It will become clear to you if you calculate the time cost of being reactive. You will realize that being proactive is actually easier than to react.
Don’t wait until the dogs are barking at the door to do things.
— Jack Cowin #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Proactivity is also how billionaires approach the future of the world.
Tim Draper wants to see Bitcoin succeed, so he invested in over 50 Bitcoin companies to help this future to come. “You can actually drive something to happen if you have a strong enough force behind you.” At the entrance to his Draper University, he features Elon Musk’s quote: “Instead of witnessing the future, you can create it.”
I often get the question how much luck is involved in a billionaire’s success. How important for the billionaires was it to be in the right place at the right time? This element certainly plays a relatively big role in the fast-living tech industry, but keep in mind that the vast majority of my interviewees became winners in traditional industries against strong incumbent competitors.
Nevertheless, if you ask me, “Do you need to be lucky?,” I will have to give you an unsatisfactory answer: “Yes.”
Yes, you need some luck in order to succeed in this extraordinary way in business as billionaires do. Success can’t be guaranteed; only failure can. Even billionaires themselves admit they were lucky, although in a different way than you may assume.
When asked about his success secret, Hüsnü Özyegin said, “I believe that success is not down to one single secret or factor but a combination of several things. In my case, hard work and luck would be up there at the top of the list.”
Frank Stronach sees luck and knowledge as the main differences between a millionaire and a billionaire.
Also, Manny Stul considers luck as the main difference between them, but he stresses you can make your own luck. “Difference between a millionaire and a billionaire? Luck. Being in the right place at the right time. But you make your own luck through hard work, through perseverance, passion.”
Instead of witnessing the future, you can create it.
— Elon Musk #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
You can make luck happen if you take a chance. And the more chances you take, the higher the probability of a lucky strike. So, taking action drives your luck.
This is how Hüsnü Özyegin got involved in banking:
I very much believe in the film Sliding Doors. You can open one door versus another one in a building, and they’re different. Your life can change completely. I also very much believe in luck. Being lucky is important. Whoever tells you about sell when the market is high or buy when the market is low, that is all baloney, as Americans say. It’s luck that drives you through success.
It was luck that I became a board member of a bank at 29.
When I came back from the States, I had written job application letters to three prominent businessmen. One of them offered me a job, and I was on my way to sign the employment contract when I looked up and saw a building that said Cukurova Holding.
I remembered this as the company of my classmate Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, whom I hadn’t seen since high school. I still had time until my appointment and decided to see if Mehmet was around to say hello to him. By chance he was in and welcomed me enthusiastically.
When I told him that I was about to sign a contract, he said, “Why don’t you come and work with me, I need smart people like you, you can be a board member of Pamukbank, we can learn together.” I was struck by his enthusiasm and made the decision then and there to accept his offer.
Imagine, I knew nothing about banking, I hadn’t seen Mehmet in 12 years, but I accepted. That is why I say luck. Some people may say fate or kismet. If I hadn’t walked down that street that day and dropped in on Mehmet, my life may have been very different. Who knows?
But Hüsnü did take action, did act upon this opportunity and did visit Mehmet. What was the outcome of taking this chance? After three years on the board of the bank, he became the managing director at the age of only 32 and was earning millions. And after four more years, he took a chance to become a shareholder. As his request was rejected, he then again took action, sold his houses, borrowed money, and founded his own bank.
In 2006, 19 years after founding Finansbank, he again “got lucky,” selling it for $5.5 billion.
The timing was meticulous. Banking, especially in an emerging market, is sometimes like a roller-coaster business. The market value of Finansbank was $711 million in September of 2000. Only nine months later, we had a financial crisis in Turkey, and in June 2001, the market value was $84 million. At the end of 2004, it was $3.5 billion. It went from $84 million to $3.5 billion. I decided to sell. By the time we closed the deal, it was $5.5 billion, after another eight months.
This was the highest company sale in the history of Turkey, and it made Hüsnü a billionaire
Taking action drives your luck.
— Rafael Badziag @BillionairePal #BillionDollarGoldNuggets
Even if the probability of success is low, you should take the chance. It may work out. But only if you try it.
Billionaires believe they are lucky and assume everything will work out well. Tony Tan Caktiong, the World Entrepreneur of the Year 2004, told me, “I think I am born with luck, so everything I do it will be okay. It will turn out okay. And then we do things, and if it’s not okay we just keep on tweaking along the way.”
And yes, sometimes you will have bad luck, like Manny Stul during his first stock market experiences. Manny was into gambling in his youth, and that’s why the stock market had this magical attraction for him.
I was playing the share market. At that time, nickel stock went from 20 cents to $280 in a matter of months. Everyone else was doing it. It’s pretty hard to go wrong in a market where the shares go through the roof like that. I was actually making quite a lot of money.
And then I decided I wanted to get involved in the stock market directly.
First step would be the chalkie. In those days, it wasn’t electronic. There was a chalkie that would write on the board. I was living in Perth; I got a job in Melbourne as a chalkie. So I sold out all my shares, and I shifted to Melbourne.
It wasn’t big bucks. Maybe five, six thousand dollars. But I’m going back 45 years ago, so for me, then, that was a fortune.
While I was traveling from Perth to Melbourne to settle into Melbourne, the stock market collapsed. I thought, “Wow, how clever am I? I sold out at the top of the market and I got out before it crashed. What a brilliant investor I am.” It’s utter nonsense. I just happened to be in transit. I just happened to be out of the market. I would’ve been in the market. If I’d have been a couple of weeks later, I would’ve been in the market. But in my mind I thought how clever I was.
I arrived to Melbourne and the job was gone. There was no job because the market collapsed. So I didn’t want to go back to Perth, because that means that I’ve failed. “The boy comes to Melbourne and then goes back to Perth.”
The stock market collapse shattered all career dreams of Manny, and the money he made ran out after eight months. But it didn’t stop him on his way. He got up, got a day job auditing, and a night job pulling beer at a pub. He started earning and trying to save up enough money to start a business. Forty-five years later, he became a billionaire and the World Entrepreneur of the Year, the best entrepreneur in the world if you will.
And you, dear reader? Will you let bad luck stop you on your way?
Are you taking action or waiting for life to happen to you? Are you the flag or the wind? Can you see the opportunities around you? Are you taking advantage of them or waiting for the right conditions? Are you selling the strawberries you have? How are you helping your luck?
- Drifters see themselves as products of circumstances, don’t take action, and let life happen to them.
- Millionaires wait for right conditions to take action.
- Billionaires never wait; they sell the strawberries they have.
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