Ownership! Ownership! Ownership!

 Ownership! Ownership! Ownership!

Being rich is fine, and at the very least is better than being poor. But it shouldn't be the be-all and end-all of your life, or anyone's life. If you can laugh in the midst of early poverty and in the face of real adversity, and if you can still laugh when you're coining it in, then you will almost certainly continue to coin it in.

But if you chase money desperately in the earnest belief that you can never be happy without it and seriously think that the chase is a meaningful occupation, I doubt very much you will succeed. You have to be fiercely determined, true. But an appreciation of the absurdity of the chase helps enormously.

To become rich you must be an owner. And you must try to own it all. You must strive with every fibre of your being, while recognising the idiocy of your behaviour, to own and retain control of as near to 100 per cent of any company as you can. If that is not possible, in a public company, for example, then you must be prepared to make yourself hated by those around you who are also trying to be rich. That is the dirty, rotten little secret of it all, my friend. Just like Gollum, it is your Precious and they are all 'filthy little thieves'.

To become rich, every single percentage point of anything you own is crucial. It is worth fighting for, tooth and claw. It is worth suing for. It is worth shouting and banging on the table for. It is worth begging for and grovelling for. It is worth lying and cheating for. In extremis, it is even worth negotiating for.

Never, never, never, never hand over a single share of anything you have acquired or created if you can help it. Nothing. Not one share. To no one. No matter what the reason - unless you genuinely have to.

Nothing counts but what you own in the race to get rich.

Except for your loved ones or closest friends, it's every man for himself in this world, in case you haven't noticed.

Ownership isn't the important thing. If you want to be rich, it's the only thing.

That's the best part of a true partnership. You always have a brother to help carry the load. And if things go wrong, you have a built-in drinking buddy with whom to drown your sorrows! And you have a built-in conscience, too. No bad thing.

A partnership is not a marriage. In a marriage, you should be willing to die for your partner. To share everything. To kill for them, if you have to. But in a partnership, the making of money comes first. Friendship and affection comes later - if you're lucky, as I have been.

Time is the only thing we cannot replace, apart from our health and our lives. I resent wasting a moment of it.

But if you want to be rich and you are forced to take minority shareholders on board, then I guarantee that, sooner or later, you will waste weeks or even months in the attempt to obtain mutual agreement. It is unavoidable.

If I was the majority shareholder, I would never permit the shootout to appear in the Articles of Association. If I was a minority shareholder, I might not invest without it being there.

Unlike a marriage, you must contemplate the end game before taking the plunge. Just how will it end? How can it be ended with least damage to the business and the hearts and minds of the partners? These are questions you must consider seriously before you sign the partnership documents.

In summary, unless you already own a successful business outright, then I do not recommend you enter into a partnership of any kind if you can avoid it. It's time-consuming and distracting. If you have any choice whatever in the matter, walk your narrow, lonely road to riches all on your little ownsome. As I mentioned before, it's a nasty, lonely business getting rich.

Insider trading is an easy one to understand. If you help to run a public company, nobody gets to know how you are doing before everybody gets to know.