The Formula for Success Read online

  Joe Frazier

  If Mike Tyson created a pre-fight impression of intimidation, then surely ‘Smokin’ Joe Frazier's relentless fighting style was even more irresistible as the first bell rang. From the moment the fight started, he would just keep moving forward, swinging his arms and never letting up, giving his opponent very little room to rest, breathe or recover.

  Frazier reigned as undisputed Champion of the world from 1970 to 1973 and was involved in many of the great fights in boxing history, including legendary bouts with Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Like all great fighters he was likened to those who had gone before him, and in Smokin' Joe's case these were Henry Armstrong and Rocky Marciano. But I think this sort of comparison, while representing a great compliment to the subject, has the potential to overshadow the truth of the matter. And in doing so, it hides one of the biggest secrets to success.

  You see, it is not an accident that fighters (or any sportspeople for that matter) resemble superstars from bygone eras. Because it is not resemblance at all, it is imitation and inspiration that is at work. Whether knowingly or not, any student of a subject will be influenced to copy or build upon those whose work they admire. This is true in the music industry, throughout the history of art, across political systems and ideologies, at the core of all religions, and, most importantly (for the purposes of this book at least), in the lives of the commercially successful and mega-wealthy.

  When I was studying my boxing heroes, in between pushing my body to the limit at the gym, I was massively attracted to the style of Joe Frazier. He just kept coming forward. Whatever defence his opponent threw at him, however determined to stand their ground they were, he just kept walking forward, swinging overhand blows as he advanced. He was relentless and – combined with his strength, resilience, and famous left hook – it made him a very hard man to beat. And he could only fight like that because he worked harder than anyone else in the gym when no one else was looking.

  ‘You can map out a fight plan or a life plan, but when the action starts, it may not go the way you planned, and you're down to your reflexes – that means your [preparation]. That's where your roadwork shows. If you cheated on that in the dark of the morning, well, you're going to get found out now, under the bright lights.’

  Joe Frazier

  So, whenever I got in the ring, I just stepped into the Joe Frazier part of the boxing persona I had created for myself and I determined in my heart and mind that I was going to keep walking forward. I am like this in business and in the other important areas of my life too – if something has value for me, I will just keep moving towards it until I get there. And I owe much of this attitude to Smokin' Joe Frazier.

  My biggest lesson from Joe Frazier is never to stop advancing. The ability to react to circumstances is critical if you want to be successful in boxing or business. But it is far better to be in control of the pace, the momentum, and the direction of a project or a fight.

  George Foreman

  I've left George Foreman till last, for two reasons. First, because his training routines were so intelligent and focused on a particular purpose; and second, because he discovered a simple way to turn his name into a healthy profit after he had finished boxing.

  His legacy includes being the two-time Heavyweight Champion of the World and having an incredibly long career for a heavyweight boxer. After winning the Olympic gold medal in 1968, he fought his final professional fight in 1997 aged 48. He did have a 10-year break in the middle of that period, but in my book that makes his achievement even more impressive.

  Foreman was known for his outrageously strong big-hitting style in the ring, and his bag work (using the punch-bag, during a training session) in the gym. He even created his own training routines to help him prepare for specific fights and fighters. You could even liken these to a type of algorithm that he employed to increase his efficiency. As an obsessive student of boxing, I was always able to recognise these patterns and would often open conversations in the gym with comments like: ‘I see you are a fan of Foreman's bag work then.'

  One particular routine that he designed was purely as a defence against Muhammad Ali's jab. He would hit the bag 10 times on one side, then once with his heavy hand (his strongest punching arm) on the other side. Then he would repeat the 10 on the first side, followed by 2 on his strongest, then 10 and 3, 10 and 4, and so on. He was determined that his hands would not drop during the fight and leave him exposed to Ali's jab, and so he just kept on training until he was ready. I used this a lot in my own routines and loved being able to learn from another of my heroes.

  George always gave the credit for his longevity and great physique to his healthy eating style, and it was this that attracted Salton Inc. to ask for his endorsement and name on their fat-reducing grill. It is estimated that he has earned over $200 million from sales of ‘The George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine’, simply by turning up for a few days' filming and photo shoots. If that is not monetisation of an asset (in his case his name and reputation), then I do not know what is. Foreman simply identified, like many other famous sportspeople and celebrities do, that their brand has value.

  ‘Money is a good thing, but every morning you have to get up with something no one else in the world gets up with – that's that image. That face you see in the mirror, you got to love it, and you better do some things that you feel good about inside of you. Of course, money is going to come, but make certain that you do some good with it.’

  George Foreman

  My biggest lesson from George Foreman was copying his bag work routines when I was training as a boxer myself and understanding the value of a strong brand as I learned to trade. In very simple terms, bad news and uncertainty often cause the share prices of well-known companies to drop quickly and significantly. Having done your research into that business (caveat: this is not 100% guaranteed strategy) – and identifying that its reputation, culture, resilience, and structure is sound – I would expect that brand to revive over the short or long term. If people believe in a brand, and smart people recognise that belief, it will always make money.

  Box clever and learn

  There are, of course, many other boxers who have graced the ring and left their unique and indelible mark upon the canvas. But the ones I've shared with you here are some of my favourites.

  You will notice that I have added quotes from each of the boxers I've profiled here, and perhaps it is more traditional for inspirational one-liners to be uttered by world-changing leaders, influential orators, or poets. But you don't need to look far to find enormous wisdom from the heart and minds of great boxers because these people are not brutes – they are thinkers, analysers, and risk managers who know how to channel their love and hate into however many 3-minute rounds it takes to get the job done.

  I officially retired from my amateur boxing career five years ago, and one of the biggest impacts that it had on me was that when I started, I was intensely angry – and by the time I'd finished, I wasn't angry anymore.

  ‘All I needed to add was my energy, self-belief, and 100% commitment.’

  Chapter 4

  TRADING FATE FOR FORTUNE

  Despite my Bushey Hall experience, something inside me still made me think that there would be value in getting an education. So, I applied for college and happily set off for the entry interview without even considering that I might not meet the requirements. Everything went well and when they asked if I had the achieved the required GCSE exam results I simply said ‘yes’ and promised to bring them in another time.

  The college required a minimum of five GCSE passes (level C or higher). I had just two and, in all honesty, I think I was lucky to have been awarded them. Clearly, there were a few rules to be broken here, so I called on the services of Photoshop to replace five years of misspent schooling with two hours of meticulous design work. As far as I was concerned I had nothing to lose and, although I still feel I little bit guilty to this day, it did teach me another big lesso
n: most people are far too lazy to double-check anything.

  So, in September 2007, I started an IT and Networking course at college. My first day was great, meeting new people and feeling like I might actually learn something, then it all went downhill from there. My education mindset had become ‘turn up when you want to’ and ‘sleep in’ when you don't, so I just let this continue. The only difference with the college's approach to discipline was that they didn't chase me up or check where I was – it seemed they expected me to take responsibility for my own behaviour. Well, I was nowhere near that level of maturity, so I was quite surprised when, after a couple of months, I turned up late one morning only to be thrown off the course.

  I still remember the resigned look on my Dad's face when I came home and told him the news, before disappearing into my room to play Call of Duty for the next 12 months. (I learned so much more than you will believe during that time, but I'll share some Black Ops wisdom with you in the next chapter). Years later, my Dad explained that he had just got to the point with me where he felt the best thing was to let me get ‘whatever it was’ out of my system.

  But even I never thought it would take me a whole year of virtual reality war games to get there.

  Taking my second chance

  After my year of Xbox exploits was up, and I realised that it would never become my career (even though I came close to landing a £30k a year job from it), I decided to go back to college. I'm not sure who laughed louder at the idea: my Dad or the same teacher who had previously dismissed me as a ‘no show’ when I called to ask if I could discuss it with him.

  But, to give this teacher his due, he humoured me and agreed to talk it through. The meeting didn't start well as he was keen to explain how his performance was judged on a points system, based on how many students passed or completed each course. I was firmly in the category of having cost him a bucketload of points and, quite frankly, making him look incompetent. He was in no mood for charity and had clearly just agreed to the meeting so he could vent some frustration. But then something happened. From somewhere within me, I just decided that I could not fail again. I had failed this man sitting in front of me once – this man who had decided to devote his life to educating young people and giving them a chance to make something of themselves; I had failed me; and I had failed my parents' faith in me. So, I made him a promise – and it was a promise that I believed from deep down within my heart that I would keep. It was the sort of promise that I would have made to Mr Nicholson, had he been sitting in front of me that day. I promised that teacher that I would succeed.

  I told him that I would never be late, I would always be at the top of his class, and I would make him proud to have taught me – this time I would earn him points. And I will forever be grateful that he believed me and gave me my second chance. Thank you, Kurt.

  That year, everything changed for me. I worked hard, I studied outside of school, I stayed late, I arrived early, and I even learned how to be humble. On the one hand, I was thoroughly enjoying the feeling of being a success, but the other side of that shiny coin was the demoralising experience of seeing the people from my previous year progress on to their second and final year. Obviously, it wasn't quite a Bushey Hall level of being left outside of the cool gang, but it hurt all the same. And pretty much every day I had to deal with the knowledge that I was an entire year behind everyone else because of the decisions that I – and I alone – had made. If anything, however, this now had the effect of making me try even harder.

  Another motivation to keep my word and succeed was when I learned that the top performer in each year would get a £2k bursary if they then went on to attend their local university. At that time, I didn't even know what a bursary was, but I liked the idea of having £2k to spend.

  At the end of the year, I passed the course with three distinctions and finished where I promised – at the top of the class. What's more, I also achieved higher marks than any of the people in the previous year. I had achieved what I set out to do, and it felt great.

  Attracted to wealth and enlightened by a liar

  With my IT qualification under my belt, accompanied by an overwhelming feeling of being a success and the promise of £2k to go and study some more, the idea of earning real money also caught my attention. So, while my fellow college leavers were clear about the career path they would be pursuing, or the universities they would be applying to attend, my mind was torn. The £2k was appealing, but so was the idea of a well-paid job and a supercar.

  Google told me that oil rig workers earned the most money, so I did some research and started to apply for positions drilling out on the open sea. I desperately tried to translate my limited experiences into transferable skills that might appeal, and I must have sent off dozens of application forms. Most of the roles asked for two, three, or five years' experience as a basic requirement, but I just figured that unless I started somewhere, I would not even set foot on the experience ladder. So, I just sent off application after application – with no reply. It seemed that, despite the attraction of £200k per year, the oil industry and I were never going to get along. Little did I know then that after gathering a handful of years' experience as a trader, I would soon be putting a few oil companies in their place. (I'll come back to that story in Chapter 10 a bit later).

  During my search for the highest paid jobs going, I was also attracted to the banking sector. But my applications there met with the same silent response and my lack of experience wasn't opening any doors. While researching this area, however, I came across a seminar claiming to teach you how to trade the stock market and promising big returns. By now, I was determined to learn how to unlock this world of creating wealth, so I went off to hear what they had to say (persuading my slightly apprehensive Dad to come with me).

  It was an enormous eye-opening revelation, and I could clearly see that there was an opportunity there somewhere. The only problem was that the people running that particular seminar were out to make money from suckers, not turn them into traders. Looking back, I am almost embarrassed to tell you just how far I got taken for a ride that day. But I made you a promise at the beginning of this book, to be honest and tell you everything, so here goes. The main speaker started by boasting how he had just flown back from a salmon fishing trip in Scotland, in his helicopter, just to run the seminar. As he talked about his life, career, and the trading secrets he had to share, pictures of his fast cars, big houses, exclusive family holidays in far-flung places, and exorbitant wealth flashed across the screen above him. The only bit of credit I'll give that man is that he sold well – and he sold me big time.

  To get a piece of the action and find out all that he knew normally cost £3.5k, but as a special offer we could secure our future for just £2k – for one night only. Yes, I know, ‘If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!’

  Wise, wary, and sensing-a-scam Dad said, ‘I don't know about this Sam, I really don't think it is a good idea'. But enthusiastic, naive, and hungry-for-success Sam begged for the chance to change our lives forever. It turned out that Dad was right in the end – but maybe if he hadn't lent me pretty much everything he had that evening, I wouldn't have gone on to learn how to trade myself. Who knows? But he did get his dream boat out of it eventually. I must point out at this point that while Dad supplied the credit card on the night, he later petitioned my Mum to cover half the cost and, between them, they also bought me a laptop so I could start trading.

  That course taught me one thing, and one thing only – that everything I needed to learn about trading was readily available on the internet. All I needed to add was my energy, self-belief, and 100% commitment. Generating the motivation for that was easy – I felt like I owed my parents big time, and nothing was going to stop me from paying them back.

  Buying stock with my bursary

  In 1993, a paper called ‘The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance’ was written by Anders Ericsson, a professor at the University
of Colorado. In it, he presents a concept suggesting that doing anything for 10 000 hours will make you an expert – practice makes perfect. I was unaware of this study at the time, but I soon found myself proving it in practice.

  I finished college in May that year and, after my failed attempt at landing a high-paid job, I started at the University of Hertfordshire in September. After realising that there was an opportunity in trading, but also grasping the fact that I needed to learn how to do it for myself, I set about doing just that: I began to study. And I studied every hour I could find. I had a few months of uninterrupted study time before starting university, and then found a way to combine the two. As Arnold Schwarzenegger once said, if you are tired and you haven't got enough time – sleep faster.

  During my first year at university, I would be working 100–120 hours per week, spread between my academic studies and my quest for trading mastery. I devoured everything that the internet had to tell me about trading; I read books about, and by, traders, I downloaded and consumed literally thousands of PDF documents explaining the markets (some of them I even translated from Chinese first), and I began to trade.

  Mum and Dad had already given me more than they could afford, so my bursary money became my down payment on a future that I could only start to imagine back then sitting in my university campus digs. I didn't just invest wildly – everything was considered and measured. It was so important to me that I got this right, and the fact that the risk was always on my side meant I became obsessed with knowing everything about each business I was researching. In fact, sometimes I got so involved in the stories behind the companies I was investing in that I even started using Tate & Lyle sugar in my tea and ordering Domino's pizza. Often, the cost was more than the return, but I was investing, and I have never believed in half measures.