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Issue 60

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7 5 Issue 60 / 2014 GUESTLIST guestlist.net Six simple tips that will make you think like a billionaire. HOW TO THINK LIKE A BILLIONAIRE (Being a psychopath might help) No seriously, it might. According to Jon Ronson, author of 'The Psychopath Test', there is the possibility that many corporate and governmental leaders are psychopaths; whose brutal actions that seem to be lacking in empathy of any kind, can only be explained by taking that into account. Whether or not this is the case is questionable but if it is, then I'm not sure whether the devastating e ects are worth it. Formal education is not as important as you might think. Think Steve Jobs. He dropped out of university after 18 months and went on to found Apple, the company which his friend who fi nished university, now works for. However, educating yourself in the right way is important. I would guess that there is a strong correlation between Nassim Taleb's 40- 60 hours a week reading habit and the amount of money he now sits on top of; metaphorically! 3. Have severely unusual habits. This seems to be a common factor among Billionaires. Nassim Taleb for example goes to bed as early as 8pm (and still manages to fi t all those reading hours into his week!) while Steve Jobs wore the same outfi t every single day to save time. Think out of the box and go against the nor- mal. As Steve Jobs said "innova- tion distinguishes between a leader and a follower". You won't get anywhere if you can't think outside the box. The way that Nassim Taleb became so famous, was by doing exactly that. After working as a quantita- tive analyst, Taleb became convinced that the fi nancial system was so organised and complex that it was bound to implode upon itself. Based on his belief that there are some things that human kind will never know, he bet that the 2008 fi nancial crisis would happen, even though all the bankers were sure that their careful calculations meant that the odds would always be in their favour. Of course, he bet correctly. Thinking outside the box of our ratio- nal, systematic, fast paced society made Nassim Taleb a Billionaire. Although Russell Brand may not be a Billionaire, he still has a net worth of 15 million dollars, so I think we can still get a few ideas from him. The British Comedian takes going against the norm to another level as exemplifi ed in his article for the 'The New Statesman' on revolution. Not only does Russell Brand think that we should go against the government through disobedience, such as by not voting, he also decided to walk into the o ce dressed as Osama Bin-Laden the day after 9/11. Although unusual, and sometimes not so funny, these ideas make him stand out as a valuable individual in politics. They are also carving out his route to being another of the great rich intellectu- als of this century. Although, getting to be a guest editor for a magazine must have added quite a large amount of weight to his wallet as well. Use your time wisely. Like I have already men- tioned, Nassim Taleb spends his days reading super intel- lectual books, while Oprah Winfrey, one of the richest women in the world, spends her spare time working on one of her various philan- thropic projects. Russell Brand meanwhile, is appar- ently busy reading the clas- sics; "We've only got a short time here and I can spend my time stimulating my mind however I want. I can read whatever I want. I ain't ever reading another copy of the Sun until I've read the com- plete works of Goethe." Daniel Kahneman, the writer of 'Thinking Fast and Slow' discusses the issue of spend- ing your time to provide the greatest amount of produc- tion. Why this is relevant to thinking like a billionaire can be explained if you consider how much they get done in a day, compared to the average Londoner. I'm pretty sure watching Celebrity Big Brother is not part of their daily schedule. The main gist of the book is that our minds have two operating struc- tures; system 1 and system 2. System 1 is fast and instinc- tive, the system we use most of the time. Whereas system 2 is slower and more logical, this is the system that our brain struggles to use just be- fore giving up on that essay. However, if we use our sheer- determination to stick to our system 2 before our fi ght or fl ight mechanism kicks in and we give up, then we will develop the power to have a more productive day. Be endlessly positive. You should want to be the kind of person who is quoted for saying things that are as inspiring as Steve Jobs. Hon- estly, if you can come up with lines as simple but impactful as "I want to put a ding in the universe" then you're already half way there. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Some say that Billionaires are all just normal people, born into rich families, who have never worked for what they earn. Although that may be true for some, every so often we discover the rare individual who man- ages to rise up from out of the blue to discover their name splashed all over the cover of a magazine. The question that comes to my head at the rise of these great minds is 'what is their secret?' There must be something di erent that these characters are doing to make them stand out from the masses. After reading books like 'Antifragile' by the Billionaire, Nassim Nickolas Taleb, and the eye-opening one o edit of the liberal magazine 'The New Statesman' by Russell Brand and a few other psychologically emotional books, I've managed to whittle down these enor- mous texts into a few simple tips. This is how you can learn to think like a billionaire…

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