Call the Midlife (17 page)

I remember having to attend meeting after meeting when I was ‘flying high’, while all the time wondering, hang on a minute, when I was skint I never had to involve myself in any of this nonsense. Sitting at white and shiny tables which did little except remind me
of how much I hated school and my O-levels.

I swear, as long as I live I will never sit in a board meeting again. I don’t care what the financial benefits might be. I’m not interested, it’s not for me. I’ve been there and done it. Consider me permanently unavailable.

Aside from the bother of looking after whatever cash you might have made, the actual process of making money is rarely glamorous. And not only that, but the fact remains that those who take up an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to amass a great life from outside in have less and less time and energy to live life from the inside out.

That’s where the real goldmine lies.

Top Ten Modern-Day Snappy Business Maxims:

‘Fake it till you make it’ – this is my favourite of the countless mantras I’ve heard the big boys of business utter in my encounters with the good, bad, the sad, the permatanned, the cool, the affable and the ugly of the best of them. This, I’ve heard, has long been their battle cry, even though it’s fatally flawed. ‘Faking it till you make it’ suggests that you are going to make it anyway, in which case you’re not actually faking it at all. You are merely faking it as part of making it.

As for first profit, best profit and first loss, best loss – well yes, that can also be true. And my goodness, how my bank account would have benefited from such a philosophy if only I’d taken it on board. But, hey, we are where we are and there’s no place I’d rather be.

The thing about all these theories is they are all too often spouted by individuals, usually blokes, who have already become successful. These guys then somehow backdate an intellectual framework and narrative as to how they were always a genius and it was only a matter of time before they hit the jackpot.

I see it a lot in the entertainment business. People who have had hit shows standing up in front of packed audiences of eager eyes and ears desperate to know their secret. And then out it comes, the reconstructed ethos of how they always knew exactly what they were doing and why. Total bollocks, most of it.

How do I know?

Because I’ve even heard myself doing it.

My retrogressive thesis on how I made Terry Wogan’s old show my own is a work of utter fiction, frankly. But as long as I keep telling myself it’s true then I, along with everyone else, will probably start believing it.

Some ‘rules’, however, do turn out to be true. Like the really successful hedge-fund managers, for example.

One such dude came to me to buy a couple of cars from me, their combined cost well over a million pounds. The cars were water-tight with regards to their provenance, condition and investment potential, but because he’d never done anything like this before, he was petrified. Even though this guy was worth bundles – and I mean absolutely loaded. But to say he was nervous would be like saying Osama Bin Laden didn’t much fancy his chances when the US military popped up at the bottom of his bed.

I cannot tell you the number of phone calls and hours of my life I will never get back, I spent reassuring him that it was going to be OK, that he was doing the right thing. In the end I guaranteed him a buy-back clause to put his mind at rest. And what happened? Both cars doubled in value within eighteen months before he sold
them and bought the ultimate car of his dreams.

The two cars I sold him were a Ferrari 288GTO and a Ferrari 275 GTS. The car he effectively swapped them for was a Ferrari 275 GTB. The fact that the 288GTO alone is now almost worth the same as the 275 is neither here nor there to him, because he got what he wanted with the minimum amount of risk. I would look at the lost profit in the original deal, whereas he is from the little-and-often school of thought. And that’s the point. The billionaires of this world never bet the ranch.

While I was getting to ‘know’ Mr Safe, he told me that hedge funds have been around since the Sixties, a lot earlier than I’d realized. He then went on to explain that most successful hedge-fund dealers deal within a profit/loss window of 55–45 per cent, but the most successful managers, i.e. those who are still around, deal in only a 1 or 2 per cent swing.

‘That is the absolute difference between sustainability and success, or ending up on the front page of the
Daily Mail
,’ he told me.

Like pilots, there are old hedge-fund managers and there are bold hedge-fund managers, but there are no old, bold hedge-fund managers.

Big, long-lasting and secure fortunes are built on the bedrock of conservatism and considered speculation, with the utmost attention always being paid to the finer detail. This is the true calling card of what makes big business tick. It’s grey and unexciting, it’s highly repetitive. It’s a life I wouldn’t want in a million years.

Some of the most dynamic, pioneering and cutting-edge companies in the world, and certainly those I have had personal dealings with, are run by the human embodiment of binary, predictable pragmatism. It’s baby steps all the way, water and edamame beans for lunch and black coffee in the boardroom to stop them falling asleep, collapsing on to their Mont Blanc and puncturing a lung.

Risk aversion is the air they breathe.

The bottom line beats a headline every day of the week.

So how come they amass such unthinkable wealth with such a glacial attitude towards growth? Simple. Because they hardly ever
sleep, they have few if any passions, they never see their family and most importantly they operate within a world chiefly populated by comparative idiots, shirkers and chancers.

I know five billionaires, two of whom I consider friends, the others I have had personal dealings with but no more. And they all, without exception, work harder for longer than anyone else I’ve ever met. They are 100 per cent focused 100 per cent of the time. And they will argue every dime, every dollar, every minute of the day – and night. It’s not in their nature to ever let anything go, leave any i undotted or t uncrossed.

They cannot risk the slightest crack in the armour of their absolute certainty that no one is going to get one over on them if they can do anything within their control to stop that from happening. Money is their violin and they will only ever draw their bow across it; plucking is not for them.

I remember thinking exactly the same when Lee Westwood once crept up on me from behind when I was hitting balls on a driving range in Portugal.

After he’d well and truly scared the granny out of me, I persuaded him to indulge the now small but not unsubstantial crowd that had gathered to a display of his sublime ball striking. Westy, being the affable guy he is, duly obliged, but not before he had taken the exact same number of practice swings he would have taken had he been playing an approach shot to the eighteenth green while leading the Open in the final round. He simply couldn’t. He knows no other way. Or if he does, he knows not to let it creep in the back door in case it affects what he does for a living at a make-or-break moment.

Fascinating and obvious all at the same time.

If you’re good at something – and I mean really good – allowing yourself to be just OK, even for a moment, is not the key to sustainability. Perhaps this is why Ian Botham has never once picked up a cricket bat since he called it a day. Be the best or don’t bother, and once it’s over don’t go back.

I’ve always suspected I could be a serious player, but I don’t see the point. This isn’t me falling on a faux sword of hedonistic apathy
to disguise my fear of failure but the outcome of a life of near-fatal research. I used to ‘make things happen’, and they do for the most part. The thing is, though, I have subsequently realized that you can hammer a square peg into a round hole if you’re hell bent enough in doing so but eventually, if you wait long enough, it will always pop back out again.

Almost everything we try to cajole and manipulate into doing what we want will inevitably end up outlasting us, our energy, or both. Which is exactly what happens to billionaires, their companies, their power and their mountains of cash when they run out of steam.

I honestly believe almost anyone can become stinking rich if they are prepared to burn the midnight oil, lead an extraordinarily dull existence, have barely any friends and end up either divorced or in a marriage that’s as dead as a doornail.

Having said all that, I know one guy who seems to have the billionaire thing sussed. Though I suspect he might have special powers – or at least a cape and a mask at the back of his wardrobe.

He is officially the most successful all-rounder I know.

Success

Top Ten Traits of Successful People:

Anyone born with a God-given talent is truly blessed, already halfway to having a fabulous existence. And not just obvious talents like singing and dancing or having an extraordinary capacity to understand quantum physics.

But look at energy, right up there at number two in the top ten. Energy is a formidable talent, an unstoppable force for good, available, plugged in and ready to go morning, noon and night. But then again, your eyes might be your talent, shining, engaging, exciting, able to help you to get what you want, make people feel better or safer, or know that you love them. ‘He’s a natural with kids,’ someone may say about someone else. Another talent. Basically, if you can be good at something, it should always be appreciated, or at least acknowledged, as a talent.

Not all talented people are successful, of course. The two don’t necessarily go hand in hand. Some talented people have terrible lives and even deaths, sometimes as a direct result of their talent.
The general rule is, however:

Moderate talent + the right attitude = success.

Bags of talent + the wrong attitude = failure.

Making the most of what you have is what really counts when it comes to being successful. It can be as much as 99 per cent knowing what to do and only 1 per cent talent. But that’s far more fruitful than having 99 per cent talent and only having 1 per cent of an idea what to do with it.

Look no further than Posh and Becks for the perfect case study. You can say what you like about this pair but the one thing you cannot accuse them of is not making the most of what they have. I am in constant awe of the way they continue to manage their respective careers, marriage and family.

Victoria, the ex-Spice Girl, not the greatest voice ever to attempt to hold a tune, meets and falls in love with David the footballer. A very good footballer, but by no means the best footballer England has ever produced.

They take part in some excruciatingly embarrassing photoshoots to begin with – remember the P. Diddy-style white Rolls-Royce convertible shots that still make anything Katie Price has done look positively tasteful by comparison? And the wedding thrones and Beckingham Palace an’ all that other sparkly jazz ’n’ nonsense? But they learnt with each mistake and now look at them: they have succeeded in becoming one of the most photographed, enigmatic and LIKED couples of modern times.

They are more famous now than they have ever been, than when Becks was still playing footy and Posh was still miming to backing tracks. It doesn’t matter they’re not particularly interesting, they hardly say anything and Victoria doesn’t even smile any more.

They are officially big news.

So how come?

It’s simple, they are a living and breathing work of PR genius.

I remember when Becks held a press conference in Spain, announcing he was leaving Real Madrid to play for LA Galaxy . . .

‘The who?’ we all gasped.

And for five years.

‘Five years???’ we all gasped again.

But in the blink of an eye, he’d done his five years, become best mates with Tom Cruise and been hosted at the White House by Mr and Mrs O’President. Becks has since gone on to become one of the world’s hottest advertising mules, while Vix has become one of the most successful fashion designers in retail history.

How the hell did they pull all that off?

Becks makes more money now than he ever did kicking a ball around. And Posh has made tens of millions of pounds from first singing and now
haute couture
. Incredible, truly impressive.