Two Perspectives on Success
Felix Dennis and 50 Cent do not at first glance appear to have a great deal in common. One is a flamboyant English publisher who has made hundreds of millions of pounds from magazines, and the other is a controversial and highly successful hip-hop artist and music deca-millionaire. Yet both have produced compelling and highly readable accounts of their rise to riches and the lessons of success that ensued.
In “How to Get Rich”, Felix Dennis sets out to publish the antidote to the all common type of “get-rich-quick” airport best-seller. In the tradition of the very best self-help books, he publishes a success guide that rings true because he has walked the path he describes. First he defines the principal categories of wealth and then, in a lyrical, wry and poetic style, explains that wealth is as much a curse as blessing. In the view of Dennis, youth is an unparalleled gift and to spend it in the pursuit of lucre could be a terrible waste. Dreams may fail, or even if achieved money can become a division and a barrier, separating its owner from friends and family and placing the rich person in the servitude of an army of lawyers and accountants.
Dennis is unsentimental about the sheer drive required to mine money from the mountain and the metaphors he uses are bright and powerful – a tiger attached to the ankles, or ripping diamonds from the throat of gazelles. He is a man who really has seen and does it all, and he has written the book not for money but rather, we feel, as a kind of legacy.
Robert Greene and 50 Cent’s collaboration, “The 50th Law“, narrates the tale of 50′s ascent from Southside Queens to music industry stardom. This is interspersed with some incisive and revealing anecdotes from history,with examples of power politics and image projection from Renaissance Florence to the Hollywood film industry. The breadth and scope of the insights contained in this book are impressive. Both the Greene/50 Cent collaboration and Dennis’s memoirs are worthy additions to any collection of motivational books.
