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The Trick: Why Some People Can Make Money and Other People Can't
Some people can make money. Other people can't. It's a thought that makes William Leith wake up in cold sweats. He doesn't know why it makes him feel anxious. After all, money isn't real. We created it. Humans did. It's our masterpiece. But the desire for it is killing us. It is this dilemma that sets William Leith off on an adventure into the bizarre, morally dubious yet highly desirable world of the mega-rich. He spends a day with the real-life Wolf of Wall Street who, not content with his hundreds of millions, devised a fraud so he could make hundreds of millions more. He visits a Baroque mansion where a Russian half-billionaire lives alone with his butler. He tours the estate of Felix Dennis, the maverick tycoon who commissioned an avenue of statues to tell the story of his life. He flies to private islands on private jets, meets private men in private clubs, experiencing the dizzy highs of a life without limits - but all it does is give him crippling anxiety. Throughout it all he asks what makes these people wealthy? And how come I'm not?
- GenresNonfiction
224 pages, Paperback
Published April 16, 2020
7 people are currently reading
171 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 16, 2020
Leith has a bloated writing style that makes most of this book feel like filler. It's littered with Leith’s extraneous, and sometimes pretentious, thoughts which makes it incredibly frustrating to read.
July 24, 2020
I read this book at the same time as 'Notes From The Apocalypse' by Mark O' Connell. They both suffer from exactly the same problem -
A really fantastic premise and ruined by the writer falsely believing they are more interesting than the subject matter. It's full of pretentious self examination that makes for a dull read.
A really fantastic premise and ruined by the writer falsely believing they are more interesting than the subject matter. It's full of pretentious self examination that makes for a dull read.
May 15, 2024
I’ve talked to alot of people who got rich. And there’s one thing that separates them from the rest of the population. They know they need to take that risk.
And when you start doing things, what will happen? You’ll do them wrong. But then you’ll do them a bit less wrong, and a bit less wrong.
Taleb says that when you learn, you evolve. In other words, learning is a process of getting rid of bad ideas, in the same way that evolution is a process of killing off the life forms that are less fit. It’s a battle Royale. You must kill off your bad ideas until what you’re left with is the one good idea - the idea that works.
You’ll find the right path by taking many wrong paths. That’s the trick.
If comfort makes us feel bad, what if the opposite is true? Does discomfort make us feel good? Turns out it does. De Sena agrees with Steven Pressfield. If you actively seek discomfort, if you learn to take hard choices, instead of easy ones, you will start to feel better. You will be happier. You will be more successful.
The people who I interviewed that got rich: Dennis, Sugar, Gilmour, Schultz, Belfort, Max. They all focused on something until they could see it very clearly, they spotted something others had not noticed, and then they did something novel and unexpected - they acted - and rode along on a cascade of events, all of which worked in their favour.
They had innovations that came out if the blue, that changed whole market sectors. But people in those sectors will tell themselves they should have seen it coming. (Taleb Black Swan).
What Taleb totally gets is the way the modern world is all about booms and crashes. Every so often, the market booms. People join in. Then everyone wants to join in. At some point, the boom stops being rational. It’s like a playground craze; I want it because you want it; I want it more because you have it. People start to behave like automatons. Their minds are gripped by mania. They can’t help themselves. Then there is a crash.
In a world of uncertainty, Extremistan, according to Taleb, you must make progress by tinkering - by embracing risk. Conduct small experiments; make bets you can afford to lose. Be like the early scientists. Engage with the world. Try to feel your way, always knowing that your understanding is provisional. And then, when you see an opportunity with more upside than downside - a convex graph - grab it. You will fail often. But failure isn’t shameful. You need lots of it if you’re going to succeed.
When you have skin in the game, you are responsible for your own losses and gains. You’re a player. You are taking risks. You’re truly alive.
You can study, but there comes a point when you can’t learn anything more without doing something. You can’t move forward without permitting an action. Like Joe Simpson, you can’t stay on the ledge. At first, the ledge might look like the safest option. But it’s not. It’s the most dangerous option. You can’t learn anything on the ledge. On the ledge, all you can do is die.
So: there are to states of mind. There’s thinking. And then there’s acting. You need to think. But you also need to act.
Mental disorder; driven by a mechanism designed to prevent me from being rich. Worse, it masquerades as a mechanism designed to do exactly the opposite. Lies deep in the wiring of my brain; and I don’t know how it works.
Selling - persuading. Finding the wound and selling the bandage. Creating scarcity.
I got some well paid work. So I had a lot of money. So I upgraded my life, mostly in the area of services. After a while, being able to have better services changes your outlook - changes you - even though you don’t see it at the time.
Everyday of your life, you avoid some kind of confrontation by buying you way out of it.
The more you get, the more you need, because the thing you get is itself a creator of need.
Gangster problem - killing people is stressful , so he spends to de-stress. But that results in him needing more money, so has to kill more. It’s a vicious cycle. He’s at the point of burnout, but he can’t stop. It’s what happens when you can’t see the big picture anymore. It’s when you’re not the cowboy on the horse on the hill taking in the view, but the guy on the treadmill, going nowhere, tunnelling into the closed world of your own mind.
What does Treasure Island tell us about the human condition? You’ll have more fun hunting for treasure than you will after you actually find it. Being rich is OK. But getting rich - that’s the thing.
Belfort: you always get rich quickly. There’s just a lot of work that has to happen before you get yourself in a position to get rich.
The hardest you are ever working is when you are not making any money.
When you’re doing really well, the money pours in quickly.
4 things that made Belfort rich. 2 that made him crash.
1. Create a compelling vision - not a goal, there’s a level above goals, which is vision.
2. Learning to manage your emotions
3. Getting to the bottom of the beliefs that are holding you back, and rooting out those beliefs.
4. Strategy- learning about something, how it’s made of different parts, and then manipulating the parts, tirelessly, until some kind of magic happens. And then you’re in a different world.
We tell a brilliant story about why we can’t get what we want. What stops you from getting what you want is the bullshit story you tell yourself about why you can’t get it.
Take responsibility: wealthy people believe: I am responsible for my world. Success challenges people - the world happens to them. Act.
Rely on compounding. Belfort made $50m, 95% while being honest, 5% by doing the wrong thing. If he accepted less initially, say $30m, he’d be worth billions now.
When you get exorbitant amounts of money, the money has no meaning. Do you try to attach meaning to the money by buying possessions. Bigger houses, more cars.
Getting rich is not about working hard. It’s about avoiding work. You can’t get rich by working. This should be obvious, but it isn’t.
It is about seeing a way to do things that hasn’t been done before. It’s about inventing something new. It’s about making new tools. And what’s a tool? A tool is a way of avoiding work. A tool is a device that will give you an unfair advantage.
At first new tools look wrong. It’s a new way of doing things. It looks like a trick. People will tell you why it can’t work. But that’s the point. A tool is something that changes the odds in your favour.
Don’t stop learning. Don’t stop improving. Don’t stop believing. Don’t stop acting.
Marlowe and crossing to the dark side: if you take one step, you’re doomed. Not exactly because you won’t be able to cover your tracks, but because you will no longer be the same person. When you take that step, it’s already too late - you’ve already turned into somebody else.
Can create a supply chain. Normally one person in the supply chain gets very rich.
Most markets are efficient, except for those related to money and assets.
Linden Method for dealing with anxiety - ignore your anxieties, starve them of attention. Stop looking for safety an reassurance, the safe haven the anxious brain yearns for.
And when you start doing things, what will happen? You’ll do them wrong. But then you’ll do them a bit less wrong, and a bit less wrong.
Taleb says that when you learn, you evolve. In other words, learning is a process of getting rid of bad ideas, in the same way that evolution is a process of killing off the life forms that are less fit. It’s a battle Royale. You must kill off your bad ideas until what you’re left with is the one good idea - the idea that works.
You’ll find the right path by taking many wrong paths. That’s the trick.
If comfort makes us feel bad, what if the opposite is true? Does discomfort make us feel good? Turns out it does. De Sena agrees with Steven Pressfield. If you actively seek discomfort, if you learn to take hard choices, instead of easy ones, you will start to feel better. You will be happier. You will be more successful.
The people who I interviewed that got rich: Dennis, Sugar, Gilmour, Schultz, Belfort, Max. They all focused on something until they could see it very clearly, they spotted something others had not noticed, and then they did something novel and unexpected - they acted - and rode along on a cascade of events, all of which worked in their favour.
They had innovations that came out if the blue, that changed whole market sectors. But people in those sectors will tell themselves they should have seen it coming. (Taleb Black Swan).
What Taleb totally gets is the way the modern world is all about booms and crashes. Every so often, the market booms. People join in. Then everyone wants to join in. At some point, the boom stops being rational. It’s like a playground craze; I want it because you want it; I want it more because you have it. People start to behave like automatons. Their minds are gripped by mania. They can’t help themselves. Then there is a crash.
In a world of uncertainty, Extremistan, according to Taleb, you must make progress by tinkering - by embracing risk. Conduct small experiments; make bets you can afford to lose. Be like the early scientists. Engage with the world. Try to feel your way, always knowing that your understanding is provisional. And then, when you see an opportunity with more upside than downside - a convex graph - grab it. You will fail often. But failure isn’t shameful. You need lots of it if you’re going to succeed.
When you have skin in the game, you are responsible for your own losses and gains. You’re a player. You are taking risks. You’re truly alive.
You can study, but there comes a point when you can’t learn anything more without doing something. You can’t move forward without permitting an action. Like Joe Simpson, you can’t stay on the ledge. At first, the ledge might look like the safest option. But it’s not. It’s the most dangerous option. You can’t learn anything on the ledge. On the ledge, all you can do is die.
So: there are to states of mind. There’s thinking. And then there’s acting. You need to think. But you also need to act.
Mental disorder; driven by a mechanism designed to prevent me from being rich. Worse, it masquerades as a mechanism designed to do exactly the opposite. Lies deep in the wiring of my brain; and I don’t know how it works.
Selling - persuading. Finding the wound and selling the bandage. Creating scarcity.
I got some well paid work. So I had a lot of money. So I upgraded my life, mostly in the area of services. After a while, being able to have better services changes your outlook - changes you - even though you don’t see it at the time.
Everyday of your life, you avoid some kind of confrontation by buying you way out of it.
The more you get, the more you need, because the thing you get is itself a creator of need.
Gangster problem - killing people is stressful , so he spends to de-stress. But that results in him needing more money, so has to kill more. It’s a vicious cycle. He’s at the point of burnout, but he can’t stop. It’s what happens when you can’t see the big picture anymore. It’s when you’re not the cowboy on the horse on the hill taking in the view, but the guy on the treadmill, going nowhere, tunnelling into the closed world of your own mind.
What does Treasure Island tell us about the human condition? You’ll have more fun hunting for treasure than you will after you actually find it. Being rich is OK. But getting rich - that’s the thing.
Belfort: you always get rich quickly. There’s just a lot of work that has to happen before you get yourself in a position to get rich.
The hardest you are ever working is when you are not making any money.
When you’re doing really well, the money pours in quickly.
4 things that made Belfort rich. 2 that made him crash.
1. Create a compelling vision - not a goal, there’s a level above goals, which is vision.
2. Learning to manage your emotions
3. Getting to the bottom of the beliefs that are holding you back, and rooting out those beliefs.
4. Strategy- learning about something, how it’s made of different parts, and then manipulating the parts, tirelessly, until some kind of magic happens. And then you’re in a different world.
We tell a brilliant story about why we can’t get what we want. What stops you from getting what you want is the bullshit story you tell yourself about why you can’t get it.
Take responsibility: wealthy people believe: I am responsible for my world. Success challenges people - the world happens to them. Act.
Rely on compounding. Belfort made $50m, 95% while being honest, 5% by doing the wrong thing. If he accepted less initially, say $30m, he’d be worth billions now.
When you get exorbitant amounts of money, the money has no meaning. Do you try to attach meaning to the money by buying possessions. Bigger houses, more cars.
Getting rich is not about working hard. It’s about avoiding work. You can’t get rich by working. This should be obvious, but it isn’t.
It is about seeing a way to do things that hasn’t been done before. It’s about inventing something new. It’s about making new tools. And what’s a tool? A tool is a way of avoiding work. A tool is a device that will give you an unfair advantage.
At first new tools look wrong. It’s a new way of doing things. It looks like a trick. People will tell you why it can’t work. But that’s the point. A tool is something that changes the odds in your favour.
Don’t stop learning. Don’t stop improving. Don’t stop believing. Don’t stop acting.
Marlowe and crossing to the dark side: if you take one step, you’re doomed. Not exactly because you won’t be able to cover your tracks, but because you will no longer be the same person. When you take that step, it’s already too late - you’ve already turned into somebody else.
Can create a supply chain. Normally one person in the supply chain gets very rich.
Most markets are efficient, except for those related to money and assets.
Linden Method for dealing with anxiety - ignore your anxieties, starve them of attention. Stop looking for safety an reassurance, the safe haven the anxious brain yearns for.
Read
May 10, 2020Not rating this since it was for work!
October 5, 2020
It isn't a life changer, but It's a good read with occasional gems, but I felt like the author never answered the question of ”why some people make money and others can't” or at least not in sufficient depth. It examines the lives of the rich people he has interviewed such as Jordan Belfort, Felix Dennis, Stewart Resnick, Alan Sugar, Matt Ridley and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, to name a few. The idea went off track after chapter 3; although the writer attempted to connect it to the goal of the book, I don't think he accomplished a good job in doing so. It veered into an autobiography of someone who can't make money, i.e. the author.
The first three chapters had me anticipating a promising close, but it didn't happen. I enjoyed when the author went into the lives of Belfort, Dennis and Patrick Veitch (wanted more here). Also, where he referred to the Linden method to anxiety, although I felt it was a bit out of place as several factors in the book.
The first three chapters and the last quarter of the last chapter are the reasons I gave the three stars; the rest of the book went spiralling into Pluto. The TRICK is to eliminate the force within that prefers to keep you poor, and to immerse yourself in the difficult tasks and resist your comfort zone - overall a decent read, and there are a few good takeaways.
The first three chapters had me anticipating a promising close, but it didn't happen. I enjoyed when the author went into the lives of Belfort, Dennis and Patrick Veitch (wanted more here). Also, where he referred to the Linden method to anxiety, although I felt it was a bit out of place as several factors in the book.
The first three chapters and the last quarter of the last chapter are the reasons I gave the three stars; the rest of the book went spiralling into Pluto. The TRICK is to eliminate the force within that prefers to keep you poor, and to immerse yourself in the difficult tasks and resist your comfort zone - overall a decent read, and there are a few good takeaways.
January 31, 2021
Good story book.
Key lessons at the final chapters.
“You’ll find the right path by taking lots of wrong paths.”
Key lessons at the final chapters.
“You’ll find the right path by taking lots of wrong paths.”
February 14, 2025
This is unlike any non-fiction 'How-To' book I've ever read before, and I found it utterly fascinating. The author is a journalist who interviews either beautiful people or rich people. He, however, is utterly useless with money. He meets a selection of ultimate entrepreneurs, looking for their secret formula for wealth, and discovers that ultimate wealth and fortune does not automatically lead to happiness. Far from it. In fact, the richer some of the billionaires became, the poorer they felt. It is a tricky concept to get your head around but Leith helps us by examining the mind sets and motivations of his interviewees. He is also insanely introspective, micro-analysing his own failures and fears to a microscopic degree. This might put some readers off, but I found him refreshing, amusing, and captivating. This isn't just interviews and introspection, Leith introduces other ground-breaking concepts about our evolution and world-wide mindset. A lot to think about here.
January 13, 2026
This book is way too long, way too many unnecessary details of the authors process or thoughts that don’t tie into the point of the book. The first 2 chapters were forgettable, 3rd chapter not bad, 4th forgettable and 5th decent.
Of course there are good takeaways but most of them are reminders of popular and already widely known principles. A good point that I’ve been thinking about since I read it is ““The thing is, it’s not about working hard. It’s about avoiding work. You can’t get rich by working.”
Even with that, interesting read but borderline worthwhile.
Of course there are good takeaways but most of them are reminders of popular and already widely known principles. A good point that I’ve been thinking about since I read it is ““The thing is, it’s not about working hard. It’s about avoiding work. You can’t get rich by working.”
Even with that, interesting read but borderline worthwhile.
October 25, 2020
Painful until about page 50 and enjoyable after.
I was expecting greater sub-text on interviewing rich people — the falsifications, the conditional clauses in getting interviewing access, off-limit subjects, how they answer when questioned on unethical parts of their money etc. There isn’t much of that.
I was expecting greater sub-text on interviewing rich people — the falsifications, the conditional clauses in getting interviewing access, off-limit subjects, how they answer when questioned on unethical parts of their money etc. There isn’t much of that.
July 15, 2020
Fun Book
This book won’t make you rich but you will get a lot of stories along the way from people who have and the tricks they used.
This book won’t make you rich but you will get a lot of stories along the way from people who have and the tricks they used.
February 20, 2022
You have to go in without expectations of what you think it will be like or what it should be. Just enjoy the ride.
May 31, 2023
The writing style got me wondering if this was a fiction book or non-fiction. So many flashbacks which was unnecessary.
July 23, 2023
Nice read. The author really brings you into the multiverse of his thinking. Not many people writes like William, which makes it an interesting read
September 6, 2024
Useless book . Waste of time
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews