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The secret of the super successful
Secret of the super successful ...they.re dyslexic
Ben Dowell
YOU don.t have to be dyslexic, but it helps. A study has revealed
that millionaires are significantly more likely to suffer from the
condition than the rest of the population.
Psychologists who analysed the mental make-up of business
winners found learning difficulties are one of the most important
precursors of financial success. About 40% of the 300 studied had
been diagnosed with the condition . four times the rate in the
general population.
Experts believe one reason may be that dyslexics, who tend not to
be good at details, learn to excel by grasping the bigger picture and
producing original ideas. They might also be more motivated
because of the social exclusion many feel.
The findings, by Tulip Financial Research, show a huge majority
of Britain.s estimated 5,000 self-made millionaires performed
badly at school and continue to perform poorly in aptitude tests.
.Most people who make a million have difficult childhoods or
have been frustrated in a major way,. said Adrian Atkinson, a
business psychologist who assisted with the tests. .Dyslexia is one
of the driving forces behind that..
Sir Richard Branson, head of Virgin, who made his first million
by the age of 18 after founding a record label, is a classic example
of the successful dyslexic. Branson, a billionaire, admits he did not
understand the difference between net and gross profit until it was
explained to him three years ago.
.One of the problems about being dyslexic is that you don.t
perform well at school and I knew I wasn.t going to pass my
exams so I did other things,. said Branson. .Being dyslexic means
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I am good at delegation and the bigger picture..
Lord Heseltine . the former Tory cabinet minister whose wealth
was put at £203m in this year.s Sunday Times Rich List, largely
from his Haymarket publishing empire . has also suffered
throughout his life from dyslexia.
He recalls his first entrepreneurial steps at Shrewsbury school: .I
wasn.t any good at games, so when all these very energetic fellows
spent the afternoon exhausting themselves on the soccer playing
fields of Shrewsbury I used to carry lemonade up the hill and sell it
at a significant mark-up..
The latest study was commissioned for a BBC2 series, Mind of a
Millionaire, to be shown on Tuesday. Ivan Massow, a former Tory
party adviser and businessman who made his first million at 21 and
is dyslexic, said the findings chimed with his experiences.
Massow, who came from a broken home and felt himself shunned
at school, insisted his traumatic early experiences were beneficial
to his career.
Small Business - The mind of an entrepreneur: Childhood
shapes the future whiz-kids
Rachel Bridge discovers the secrets of how to make your first
million
THEY are hugely optimistic, full of energy and extremely exciting
to be around. But they are also stubborn, single-minded and
selfish. And they absolutely hate holidays. Welcome to the
fascinating world inside the mind of the entrepreneur, where risk is
irrelevant, speed is vital - and failure is not an option.
In a bid to find out what makes them tick, a team of psychologists
and business experts spent a day putting a group of entrepreneurs
through a series of psychological tests for a new BBC2 series,
called Mind of a Millionaire, which kicks off this Tuesday at 9pm.
What they found was rather surprising. Adrian Atkinson, business
psychologist with the consultancy Human Factor International and
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one of the programme's experts, says: "Entrepreneurs are different
to the rest of us. They don't behave rationally in the way other
people do. They're willing to risk everything to start a business.
They pursue opportunities without regard for resources, preferring
to create the opportunity and then find the money later. "They
believe that everything that happens, whether good or bad, is due
to their actions."
The result, he says, is great for the economy, which thrives on
constant innovation and change, but not so good for dinner-party
conversation. "You wouldn't want to get stuck in a lift with an
entrepreneur because most of them are not tremendously enjoyable
companions," he says. "They have this amazing focus and single-
mindedness and they don't need relationships with other people.
They just talk about business all the time."
Atkinson says entrepreneurs can be divided into three distinct
types:
Social entrepreneurs, such as Paul Harrod, whose company
provides employment for the homeless. These are driven by the
desire to improve society;
Theme entrepreneurs, such as Anita Roddick, who start businesses
within a particular defined area; and
Serial entrepreneurs, such as Richard Branson, who look for
opportunities to create wealth anywhere and will often set up one
company after another in quick succession.
All three types are, however, motivated by one of three factors -
revenge, status or power. And the roots of that stem
overwhelmingly from their childhood experiences. Atkinson
explains: "Revenge entrepreneurs are driven to put right a social
injustice to their family or to themselves, which they experienced
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as a child.
"Status entrepreneurs are driven to create a situation where they
are highly respected by the people they think matter. Something in
their childhood has made them feel excluded and they are
determined to show the world that they fit in. "Power entrepreneurs
are driven by the desire to show people they can do whatever they
want to do. What drives all of them is the desire to create wealth to
appease their feelings of insecurity. It is not about money, it is
about providing security from slipping back into their previous
existence."
Rene Carayol, a business adviser and another member of the
programme's team of experts, says one of the most fascinating
characteristics of entrepreneurs is their absolute refusal to
acknowledge failure. He says: "They don't do failure, they redefine
it. Failure for them is a learning experience that will enable them to
be even better. If they fall over, they just come straight back up
again. I have never met such a bunch of optimistic people.
Everything is an opportunity, the glass isn't half full, it's spilling
over."
Carayol says there are several things traditional business people
can learn from the way entrepreneurs work. He says: "Number
one, making mistakes is okay. It's a necessary part of learning.
Number two, speed is the key competitive advantage when you're
in business now - it's not who does it better, it's who gets there
first. Time used to be the enemy. It's now an assassin. And number
three, play to your strengths." Sadly, for the rest of us, however,
Carayol thinks that ultimately entrepreneurs are born, not made.
He says: "If you don't have that drive, that energy, that focus, then
you can't make a chicken salad out of chicken s**t, no matter how
you try."
Case study: Alexander Amosu, 28, made his first million
composing ring tones for his friends. mobile phones. He began
selling them for £1 a time from his bedroom, but within four
months he had moved into offices and was employing 21 staff. In
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the first year his company, Rnb Wild, had sales of £1.3m. He sold
it for several million pounds this year to start up a new business
selling video downloads for mobile phones.
Amosu, who was brought up in Kilburn, northwest London, by his
grandmother, got his first taste of being an entrepreneur at the age
of 12 when he got a paper round so he could afford a pair of new
trainers.
He says: .The best way to make money is when you make money
out of nothing. There have been many times when people have said
to me, what the hell are you doing, you are just wasting your time.
But I don.t get put off when people are negative, it spurs me on. If
you don.t try something, then you have failed yourself..