Looking Out For #1 by Ringer Robert

Looking Out For #1 by Ringer Robert

Author:Ringer, Robert [Ringer, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781869509002
Publisher: Paperless Publishing
Published: 2013-03-03T00:00:00+00:00


BEWARE THE SHEIKS

Being a writer has taught me the importance of not becoming sidetracked, regardless of how appealing an opportunity may appear to be. There is much wisdom in General Patton’s advice about single-mindedness and relentlessly in striving toward your main objective.

As I said in Chapter 1, no one can have all the candy in the store, and the sooner you face up to that reality, the sooner you can focus on the business of making money instead of bringing chaos into your life. Through the years, I’ve managed to develop the self-discipline to concentrate on one deal at a time and leave all the other deals to the rest of the world’s entrepreneurs. For the past two decades, my motto has been: Success means doing what you do best and letting others do the rest.

It’s also important to be highly selective about the deals you work on. There simply are too many “ifs” and “buts” and “maybes” in most deals. Worst of all, too many deals require becoming involved with a lot of people, and one of your main objectives should be to deal with as few people as possible. People problems complicate your life, and complications mean roadblocks between you and the freedom that lies on the other side of the Financial Hurdle.

When I was a master at complicating my life, every over-hyped deal in the world seemed to find its way to my desk—condominiums in the Mohave Desert, bank charters in the Aruba, a process for converting cow dung into bricks in Bombay—you name it. Whatever it was, I probably saw it—and probably seriously considered it.

Then there were the sheiks. I still have nightmares about those waves of sheiks coming at me—wearing Armani suits and Arabian head scarves and boasting about all the “Arab oil money” they claimed to represent. The result? After years spent looking at, and working on, hundreds of deals, I never once saw any Arab oil money change hands. Maybe such exotic capital is out there somewhere, but, if so, you can be certain it is changing hands on a level that is far above your head and mine. The Saudi royal family has all the bases covered. They hardly need you or me to come up with safe and lucrative places for parking their money.

Though Americans are way out front when it comes to the number of flakes per square foot of geography, we certainly don’t have a monopoly on con men. The Arabs, Indians, and Chinese all have more than their fair share of flakes. Because we live in a world of delusions, a person’s status as an expert (along with his air of legitimacy) tends to increase in direct proportion to the distance he travels from his home country—especially if has a white scarf wrapped around his head and is wearing a three-piece suit. Bottom line: All other things being equal, it’s a good idea to focus on simple deals close to home. Don’t allow yourself to get sidetracked by every exotic deal that comes floating by, no matter how the guy presenting it is dressed.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.