Millionaire Focus tonight on Felix Dennis

Tonight is another installment of Millionaire Focus. The goal with these weekly spotlights is to help provide inspiration and learning to those who are working at their own businesses. The Millionaires we look at had humble beginnings and became millionaires. Tonight we are going to briefly look at who Felix Dennis is and what his views are on developing a successful business. This is week two of our Millionaire focus, last week we focused on Elon Musk, the founder of PayPal. Felix Dennis had developed and owned Maxim magazine, which is the world's biggest selling men's lifestyle magazine.

According to Felix Dennis, he had wasted a good deal of his youth playing in R&B bands. He then became involved in co-editing and selling a counter-culture magazine in England, "OZ" in 1971. He and two other people ended up getting arrested for "Conspiracy to deprave and corrupt the Morals of the Young of the Realm". (Basically the government felt the magazine was obscene) After a lengthy trial he and his co-conspirators were found not guilty of conspiracy. In 1973 he went to set up his own publishing company, Dennis Publishing and begin publishing such items as Kung-Fu Monthly and Cozmic Comics. Due to the rise in popularity of Bruce Lee, Kung-Fu Monthly brought early success to Felix Dennis.

Dennis kept an eye out for emerging cultures, and set up personal computing magazines MacUser and Personal Computer World. He also launched Computer Shopper and PC World. He also diversified his income by creating a mail order company. The business model was extremely simple. It kept operating costs to a minimum and used direct marketing through high quality catalogs.

Felix Dennis is also an accomplished poet, and has written over 1,000 poems. He started his poetry after a "life-threatening illness". He has also published two books, "How to Get Rich", and the sister book, "88 The Narrow Road". His views on business are very helpful for those of us working to grow our own businesses.

As we have stated in prior blogs, Felix Dennis believes that you can never get rich working for anybody else. What is refreshing about the book is that Dennis provides practical advice for beginning businesses. He focuses on maintaining ownership of your own company. He feels that the key to eventual riches is maintaining that ownership. The reason is, when you ultimately sell your company, if you own most of it, you will receive most of the monies on the sale.

He admits that being in your own business will include a lot of failing and groveling, but you need to stay driven. He believes that if you are not driven by desire, you should not attempt to create and grow your own business. Even with your drive, you should still keep your eyes open to the possibility that your idea may not be good. You need to look at what the numbers in your business is telling you and continue to talk with other entrepreneurs.

What was interesting is that Felix Dennis strongly believes that you should develop passions outside of your business. It will help provide balance and grounding for you and your business. He believes that you should ultimately give away all the money you earned, help others get started. In 2008 his was worth somewhere between $400 and $900 million.

He believes that if you want to be rich, first stop being so frightened.

We can all use that advice in our own businesses. Felix Dennis has some wonderful observations about how to become successful, with hard work, cunning and a solid work ethic.

If you are looking to start up your own business and don't know where to begin, please check our out our website. We may have something that will interest you. We are also available for advice and guidance. You can always reach us through e-mail at hawgwash1@yahoo.com . We would love to help you to become the next self-made millionaire.

Until tomorrow...