BEN’S BLOG: ‘How to become a Mega: A lesson from Tom Bower’

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]log, I spend my days pacing the streets, wondering why, I’m not the world’s first trillionaire. And in an effort to remedy this situation, I try to take counsel from people in the know.

Tonight, in this vein, I had dinner with my favourite writer, (joint with Jonathan Franzen), ‎the biographer; Tom Bower. And I really must say; it was a fascinating evening.

We live in a world where people gain credibility and recognition, for shows of no substance, or by using/spending money they have been given. They’ve had a massive boob-job. Sung a song that someone else wrote. Or they are enjoying relationships with several other uninteresting and bizarre 15-minute-wonders.

I am a bookmaker and a professional-gambler. I produce nothing. I make no addition to society. I am a non-creator. It was a privilege though, to speak to a man of genuine and proper substance.

Anyway, onto the meaty stuff… I asked Tom, what qualities all of the megas had, that he had written about?

He answered: ‘Endless hard work. MASSIVE self-belief. Courage. And ruthlessness.’. I noted that he didn’t list ‘intelligence’.

I then asked him what weaknesses, the ones had, who fell? He said just one word; ‘Dishonesty’. He then followed up, by saying that ‎they were so arrogant, they thought they could endlessly pull strokes and treat people badly, and it would never come back to them. THEY WERE TRAGICALLY WRONG.

Over and out, B x​