http://yourhiddenpotential.co.uk/2012/04/16/4-lessons-in-life-and-business-from-50-cent/ http://yourhiddenpotential.co.uk/2012/04/16/4-lessons-in-life-and-business-from-50-cent/#comments Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:48:16 +0000 Isaac Lewis http://yourhiddenpotential.co.uk/?p=14088 If you like this post, why not stay updated to our contents as soon as they are published. Subscribe to our RSS Feeds, Facebook Fanpage and Twitter.

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After reading Robert Greene’s The 50th Law, I wanted to learn more about the life of Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson from the man himself.

So I ordered his autobiography, “From Pieces to Weight”, which is focused mainly on his days as a drug dealer and gangster in Southside Queens, New York. His entry into the music industry and rise to fame is left until the end of the book. It’s a shame; I’d have liked more details about how he applied the hustler’s mindset to the rap music game. Still, there’s a lot to be learned from both parts of his life story.

It turns out the drugs business is a lot like any other business. Marketing, finance, manufacturing and strategy all come into play. In addition, operating in a ruthless, Darwinian environment like the ghetto forced Fifty to be resourceful and scrappy to survive. Although I don’t condone Fifty’s behaviour in general, there’s a lot to be learned from his approach.

Here’s 4 lessons I took from his life story.

Lesson 1: Understand Your Master’s Motivations (and your Master’s Master’s Motivations)

One of the funniest stories in the book was about how Fifty got out of rehab.

He was in rehab, not because he was doing drugs (most crack dealers won’t touch their own product), but because, according to him, he’d ingested it by accident. In his own words, he’d be so busy cutting up and preparing crack that he wouldn’t have time to wash his hands when he grabbed lunch. When Fifty and his partners were arrested, his partners were imprisoned, but the cocaine in Fifty’s bloodstream got him sent to rehab for 18 months.

Fifty didn’t enjoy being in rehab, mainly because, as a non-drug-user, he didn’t appreciate being patronised by the stadd. Protestations that he didn’t have a drug problem were seen as a failure to leave the “denial” stage. More patronising feel-good “support” from the genuine addicts didn’t help. But Fifty eventually learned he’d have to play the game if he wanted to get out.

So he pretended to be an addict with a real desire to recover. He learned to speak the jargon of the programme, and he learned low-level conversation hacks that made him appear trustworthy and honest (like sheepishly looking at his shoes, then directly into the other person’s eyes). Soon he was seen as a model patient, enlisted to support and mentor the other addicts.

His tricks worked because Fifty understood the motivations of the people with power over him. To the staff at the rehab centre, he looked like a good patient, and that was good enough. The centre’s boss was more concerned with looking good to visiting politicians than whether the programme was truly effective.

That changed when the centre got a new boss. Suddenly, there was someone at the top who realised that the programme wasn’t working. Sure, it looked like it was working, but it wasn’t getting results. She began paying more attention to the addicts’ progress, and she saw through Fifty’s tricks. He was close to the end of his 18 months in rehab, but she suggested that his time there be extended.

The case was taken in front of a judge. Fifty brought his “model patient” A-game. She brought detailed evidence that the programme wasn’t doing what it was supposed to, that the programme pumped addicts full of buzzwords and bullshit, but produced no results, and that this young man was an example. The judge didn’t buy it. He didn’t want to buy it. It was too inconvenient to be true.

He told the centre leader that she’d only been on the job for six weeks, and how, in that time, could she have found flaws in a programme that had been running successfully for years? He praised Fifty as a model patient, and ruled that he be released on schedule.

Within a day Fifty was back on the corner hustling.

Lesson 2: There’s Less Competition For the Big Opportunities

At one point, Fifty and his partner were amongst a bunch of small-time crack dealers working the same estate, all competing for the custom of the same drug fiends. With so much competition, profits remained modest.

Then Fifty remembered a relative of the local drug kingpin, who a few years ago had succeeded — if only for a brief period — in taking over the drugs trade for the entire estate. The strategy was simple. Sell top quality crack at a low price, sacrificing short-term profits, but ensuring the fiends only want your product. Once that happens, suggest that the other dealers become your resellers. If they’re still inclined to scratch out meagre profits as independents, a few armed threats might persuade them otherwise. (Business can be easier when you operate outside normal regulatory frameworks).

It was a simple strategy, but it required boldness and ambition. Any one of the other dealers could have attempted it. But they didn’t. It was Fifty who realised that he had the resources and capabilities to pull it off. Taking over the neighbourhood wasn’t easy, but it turned out easier than expected. Why? Because no-one else had the guts to try. There was no competition.

Selling drugs on the corner is doable, so everyone does it, so it’s hard. Conquering the whole estate seems impossible, so no-one does it, so it’s easy.

Lesson 3: Sometimes the Winning Move is Changing the Game

Fifty was finally moving up from small-time hustling to building a drugs empire, and making a name for himself as an aggressive gangster, someone not to be fucked with. But his life was never safe. The higher he rose, the bigger target he became.

He realised that there were few good endings to the drugs game. If by chance he didn’t end up in jail or shot, even as a kingpin he’d be in constant danger. That’s when he made the decision to switch to hip-hop.

It turned out he was quite good at rap. After years of hustling, he wasn’t afraid to work hard, either, and this work ethic meant his music fast became really good. Strategic self-promotion and mixtape campaigns helped build his name when his record label repeatedly dropped the ball. A fortunate encounter with Eminem and Dr Dre was his big break, and he took advantage of it, moving to their label and rapidly rising from obscurity to international super-stardom.

And of course, he made far more money along the way than he ever would have selling drugs.

One frustrating thing about the book was that Fifty doesn’t go into much detail about his rise to fame. It only takes up a few chapters. But then again, I’ve read a few autobiographies like that. Malcolm X’s autobiography involves years spent as a petty criminal, and then he quits and joins the Nation of Islam. It turns out he’s pretty good at building a movement — and BOOM, soon he’s the organisation’s number two guy and an international political figure.

So I suspect that lots of success might be just as rapid. You get someone who’s floundering and struggling for years, trying to win at the wrong game. Then they switch to the right game, and BOOM. Rapid success.

Lesson 4: Consolidate

This isn’t a lesson I learned directly from Fifty’s life story — rather, he made the major mistake of not consolidating, and it almost killed his rap career before it started. Let’s trace the steps backwards to see where he went wrong…

How was his rap career almost killed? When Fifty himself was almost killed, shot 9 times by a drive-by assassin.

Why was he shot?  He’d pissed off too many people, and most notably, lost the favour of the local drugs kingpin, so he wasn’t protected.

How did he fall from favour? The kingpin had tried to engineer a meeting between Fifty and a rival dealer, but Fifty didn’t attend the meeting. He was too busy trying to build his music career.

If he was moving into music, why was he still involved in the ghetto? This is the key part. Fifty had tried to make a clean break from the drugs game. But when the record company repeatedly dropped the ball, he found himself low on funds (at one point he was forced to live with his mother-in-law) and so was pulled back into hustling.

If he was a drug dealer, why was he so short on money? He’d blown the profits made from dealing on cars, clothes, jewellery — he wanted to look good. He’d assumed he be dealing forever, and so hadn’t bothered to keep any savings.

This, here, is the fatal mistake. If Fifty had put some money aside during his years of hustling, if he’d consolidated his gains just a little, he’d have been able to quit drug dealing for good when he made the move into music. But he didn’t, and he was forced to to stand half-way between the two worlds. Hustling didn’t work, couldn’t work, as a part-time commitment, and it almost got him killed.

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If you enjoyed this, I suggest you check out these stories from the man himself — here’s his autobiography for sale on Amazon. The 50th Law is also good.

I read a lot of biographies and autobiographies, so I write more of these “life lessons” posts. I’ve just finished Steve Jobs biography and I’m working through a book about the Medicis, so they’ll probably be next.

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Written by : Osei

Chief editor of : http://www.flyprints.co.uk/blog

Last month I was reading 50 cent and Robert Greene’s ‘50^th Law of power’. I found it to be too dark and Machiavellian, however, it had many good principals. One which stuck with me was making sugar out of sh*t.

A while back when I was trying to think of ways to incorporate printing into my blog FLYPRINTS. I thought of an Idea called T-shirt Tuesday, where in which I would release a new T-shirt design to my readers and give them the opportunity to buy them. Needless to say they didn’t sell very well. However, being resourceful guys we decided to go to brick lane (known for fashion) a sell them (illegally) on the road side, something we’ve seen many people do and on the day we sold out. By adopting this very simple principal we managed to make a profit and increase awareness off our blog.

PICTURES FROM THE DAY

THE FOLLOWING WEEK

Feeling like pirate superheroes, we thought we were onto something here. So again we didn’t sell out online and we thought we’d make our way down to Brick lane. This time things weren’t selling and on top of that we were caught by the police. The police promptly gave us a warning, stating that if we were caught  trading illegally again we would be fined £5000! Remember we were fresh out of Uni so were already up to our necks In debt. So what where we going to do!?

FLYMARKET

With Robert Greene and 50 cent’s principal still freshly in my mind I thought let me try and do this legally so I emailed the authorities of the market in Brick lane and requested I’d be given a stall. In the email I stated what we did and most importantly I stated what was in it for them, this being free publicity of the market on the blog. They then gave us a stall.

To conclude the attitude of making things happen, when circumstances aren’t ideal is what lead us to having this stall. We went for selling on the road side to having a stall… who knows where we’ll be next year. When was the last time you turned a bad situation on its head?

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I hope you guys remember Jason O’Neill, I did an interview with him a while ago, and he has released his new book called Bitten by the business Bug.

Make sure you support and purchase a copy of the book

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I will seriously recommend everyone, anybody, every poet, aspiring to be, to get a copy of the master piece that has being put together by George Obizulike( Poet Ivy )…

I have actually just finished ordering 2 copies of this masterpiece just before writing this post..
Of course i am looking to give a copy to one lucky reader on YHP…Stay Tuned for that and connected!

He is an inspiration to young entrepreneurs, young poets that aspire to take their craft, creativity, feelings, turning it into art…This is art…I have been given a preview of some of the poems in this book and all i can say is that this dude will take your breath away…

He is also having his BOOK SIGNING IN WATERSTONES AT KINGSTON UPON THAMES, LONDON, ENGLAND ON 17TH APRIL 2010; I encourage everyone to be there, getting a signed book from the author himself.

The Great Depression is a collection of 38 heartfelt, relative and thought-provoking poems written by, Poet Ivy, who is a philosophical poet that seeks to capture and feed the human soul with different emotions through his unique heartfelt poetry.

These poems are a reflection of the bittersweet realities that life presents to us. Some are fictional and some are factual.

He has been kind enough to provide YHP and its reader with some of his poems, something that has been building the hype to the debut.

Some of his poems..Some of his thoughts…Some Teasers…

There’s nothing

Let me know, Let me Know

Earthquake.Heartbreak.Haiti

Going in for the kill

HE, SHE, YOU AND I, ARE ALL LOST(My Favourite just because i believe 80% of the population of the world are lost

Get a copy of the Book from Waterstones…

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This book brings back memories to when i first read rich dad, poor dad, something that gives you a reason to become an entrepreneur, a reason to question your current lifestyle, a reason to live a life that others were too scared to dive into, and a reason to ask questions others failed to simply ask.

The Title of the book is spot on as it relates a lot to entrepreneurs looking to start a business, those that have a million and one ideas running through their mind and need that something to give them a kick up their backside, this book is that kick.

It shows the necessary or should i say ingredients we need to make it as an entrepreneur.
Hurrying us to stop complaining about our dream but instead work towards it, it makes us realise that we are the only one responsible for our life’s outcome.

It gets us to question our motivation for success, he covers a lot of basic grounds for entrepreneurs, and he even introduced a formula for success called PALMVI (Passion, Ability, Luck, Motivation, Vision, Ideas) which he gradually breaks into details, explaining each qualities and ingredients we will need to make it to our destination.

It immediately makes you check your life and re-evaluate your priorities; do you really have a clue what you’re doing? What are you plans? It gives you a lot of questions to ask about your life.

I know how hard it is to write and finish a book, and also get it published while still doing well at the university, it shows a lot of character and discipline, and I applaud you on that Adrian.

CONCLUSION

I guess what i realised was that he was not trying to be an expert in entrepreneurship but simply asking those questions that most people fail to ask, especially those people with a thirst for entrepreneurship, those with the entrepreneurial bug.

Let me know your thoughts on the book, you can buy it on Amazon, also check out his website Entrepreneurial Bug

An Book for every Young and Aspiring entrepreneur.

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Twitter.

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Twitter.

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Twitter.

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So you ask, what is so special about this book?
All I can say for myself after reading this book is that it was an inspiration, something that really shook me up.

The book got my adrenaline pumping, couldn’t wait each day to continue reading it, not that I have never heard about it, I just couldn’t be bothered to read it like most of you, but my reading habits changed that day, I truly understood the true meaning of knowledge.

This book gives you an insight about someone that tries to break the barrier, the cycle, getting out of the rat-race, a rat-race is a race that you can never win in, and that’s the race that most of us are in.

It makes you think outside the box, I’m not saying if you read the book, you are entitled to wake up from your slumbers straight away or become the smartest person right away, but it does give you an insight of being caught up in the rat-race, what it takes to break the barrier.

It makes you see things from different perspectives. It acts as a stepping stone into the world of freedom and self-actualisation, breaking you free from the chains of limitation.

But, as much as I like this book, there are some points which I totally disagree with, that’s why we all have to make up our own minds, the books we all read are beliefs, opinions of different individuals, trying to give us an alternative, an option, the opportunity to see things from their point of view, the same thing I am trying to achieve here, but at the end of the day, you will have to make your conclusion.

Back to the book, He includes many vague stories about buying real estate properties for cheap with little or no money down and flipping them for great profits.
Don’t for one second; believe that because you read a good book, or you woke up inspired, with your adrenaline pumping, it makes everything easier, or you can just read a book and become rich the next month, it takes more than that.

Education is a good thing, and you have to just see if education is for you or not.
You need to work for your money before it works for you; even though he makes it sound way easy to become a millionaire.

I’d recommend this book as an excellent way to challenge your thinking about work and money,
Even though most of his points he points across, comes out vague, what do you suppose he say, he needs to make everything look easy so that we all can buy his books, but at the end of the day, the book does inspires us in some way and at the end of the day, we did buy his book, even though it was criticised or loved.

I wouldn’t advise people that want to learn about finance to read the book, or think deeply into it, not saying that when he says things like you should buy assets, not liabilities, saying assets such as real estate, stocks, and bonds, makes you money. Liabilities, such as your house, car, gadgets, takes away your money, that it is useless, but look elsewhere for advices on financial literacy

What do you think of the book; let me know your views?

Till next time

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This Movie is a masterpiece.

So you’re wondering, what is there to learn from this movie.
An open-minded person that has watched it will probably say, “Yes this movie is in a league of its own”, a whole different existence.
Someone that went to the Cinema on a bad date would say yeah its ok.

I probably could not summarise or give you in-depth conclusion on this movie, maybe because I don’t know how to , or maybe I just can’t be bothered and I would rather focus on the part that touched me, or just maybe it wouldn’t matter anyway because I think it will mean different things to different people.

I would say this is the kind of movie, you either love or don’t

I am not saying watching this movie makes you any smarter or wiser, or just because you watched it your kind of smarter that the rest of the world, but if you truly appreciate it, it will affect you deeply, giving you a brutal realism and honesty, it has to be one of the most deeply moving movies I’ve seen in a long time, although till I finished watching it, I still didnt know who Charlie Kaufman was or his previous projects, so it was of little surprise when I realised that he was the main man behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, All films that I truly admire.

Let’s me make it clear that this movie will not be for everyone, But if you’re willing to go into it with an open mind, you might just find yourself amazed.
Maybe, the reason why I like it so much is because it is full of the uncomfortable, brave truths about what it means to be human, and it goes places most movies don’t dare to.
It took me a night just to come up with my own conclusion on the movie.

In fact, this film made me uneasy because of how much everyone can relate to it.

The movie suggests that too many of us spend too much time trying to make sense of the world and not enough time living in it. We pull back in loneliness and fear when faced with things bigger than ourselves rather than turning to those who can actually help, namely the other human beings with whom we share our time on this planet.

The Movies goes everywhere from Illness, death, transience, love, relationships, passion, devotion, art, theatre, identity, hope, several topics touched in a painfully genuine way.

Or does this movie show that bits of life might slip away from you, or be taken from you, when you’re not paying attention, “you tell me”.

Do we want things that only fit within our conventional range of pace, dialogue, limitations, and cinematography? Well you need to re-evaluate.

One Moment that left in admiration has to be when the preacher begins to talk, during the burial shot. It was unbelievable, that part summarised everything I needed to understand in this movie.

I have written that part word for word for your thoughts.

The Reverend Says:

“Everything is more complicated than you think, you only see a tenth of what its true, they are a million little strings attached to every choice you make, and it can destroy your life, every time you choose.”

“But maybe you won’t know for 20 years and you may never ever trace it to its source, and you only get one chance to play it out.
Just try and figure out your own divorce and they say there is no faith but there is, it is what you create.”

“Even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of second, Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born.”

“But while alive, you wait in vein wasting years for a phone call or a letter, or a look from someone or something to make it all right but it never comes.”

“It seems to but it doesn’t really, that’s why you spend your time in vague, regret or vague hopes that something good will come along, something meaningful, to make you feel connected, to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved.”

“And the truth is “I feel so angry”, the truth is I feel so f*****g sad, the truth is I felt so f*****g hurt for so f*****g long. And just for long, I have been pretending that I’m ok; just to get along, just for “I don’t know why, maybe because no-one wants to hear my mystery, because they have their own, Well! F**k Everybody.”

I hope this analysis, or the movie itself relates to you, gives answers to your questions, and also creates meaningfulness to your curiosities.

Do not hesitate to leave your thoughts relating to this post.

Till next time, Have a wonderful day.

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