The Naked Millionaire

The Ultimate Fast Track Guide to Wealth, Freedom and Fulfillment

David Taylor

• Publisher: Capstone
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781907312434
• eBook ISBN: 9780857080356
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This is a book about becoming a millionaire. Not through investment, although you may invest the money that you make. Not through savings, although you will be able to have some of those. And not through betting on the 4.10 at your local race track. This is a 'how to' book like no other, with seven possible paths, all leading to the same outcome.

This is your book, not mine. If you do the things in this book you will become a millionaire - it's that simple.

So what do you want to do? Be an authentic millionaire? Design a global brand? Start and grow your business? Avoid pitfalls? See what others don't? Become a professional speaker? Write a bestseller? Your book, your choice.

This is a work of fact - if, and only if, you do something with it. Otherwise, it's a work of fiction.

Appendix 1

CASE STUDY: THE NAKED OFFICE

‘If people knew what shit DT talked, they wouldn’t go around with their dicks hanging out’

A fan on the Woking FC unofficial fans forum - www.cardsboard.co.uk

I remember the moment as if I was reliving it right now.

Sarah from Shine Television said that they were going to do a broadcast pilot (pilot for a series, which will be broadcast, no matter how it turns out) for television station, Virgin One, and they would like to audition me for it. Would I be interested?

This sounded exciting.

The idea was that I would go in and help a small company - yet to be selected - who were going through business difficulties, and they would film me coaching and advising and working with them through those difficulties. OK so far, I thought.

‘And to show that they have been turned around and that they are now working as a team, on the last day of the week, the Friday…’

Ah, I thought, here is the exciting part. Don’t tell me - I get them to jump out of a plane together, or to perform an air-sea rescue, or get lost in the Lake District…

No, I was wrong on all counts, as Sarah concluded her sentence: ‘…they will all come in to work, naked’.

At first I thought she had said something else - she must have done. When I realized what she had said, I was so thrown that I just blurted out, ‘OK, that sounds fine’. She said they would call to make the arrangements, and the call ended.

No way. You must be kidding. And so I did it.

The programme had the highest viewing records for Virgin One when it aired in 2009, and The Naked Office was shortlisted for a prestigious Royal Television Society award.

Throughout the whole process, I was focused on one overriding outcome: that the company I was working with, onebestway, would benefit from this, as a business.

So, did it work?

Over to Mike Owen, Managing Director of onebestway, in his own words, unedited…

ONEBESTWAY

Where we were before

onebestway, a creative agency, was born in June 2000. There followed five years of steady growth, three years of rapid growth, one year of devastating downsizing and one further year of careful rebuilding.

The Naked Office experience happened in the first quarter of the rebuild year, year ten, and informed so much of what I did and decisions that I made.

I craved simplicity, speed and a purer self-awareness. For years I had considered myself, and was considered by many, to be very successful. An innovator, driven and ‘a winner’.

And I often felt like a fraud. I felt like a cheap copy of ‘the real people’, just days away from being found out. My next move in business was rarely my own move. It was an imitation of something that someone else was doing. It took a kind of skill to choose the right people to emulate, and surely there was more to it than this?

If business or indeed life really is simply about taking a look at existing paths and choosing which one to follow, then all one can ever do is be as good as today’s best. One can never better than anyone has ever been.

Unless you are brave enough to establish a new path, of course. onebestway was good. And I really knew onebestway and I knew it was a flawed, imperfect, troubled beastie. I was unsure whether we were ready to start establishing new paths and whether the circumstances were right. I was unsure whether bravery was really stupidity, taking a team that was far from perfect on a brand-new and uncertain journey.

We did it anyway.

Where we are now

onebestway for the first time in almost ten years knows what it is. We have a clear market position, we understand what makes us different and better, we know what we are good at and we do it every day.

We are clever people with clever ideas and we are confident in our approach. We are clever marketing people with international award-winning design fulfilment capabilities too.

It’s funny how in life you sometimes wait for ‘permission’ or ‘just the right set of circumstances’ to do or say things when really you know all along what you should and could be doing.

When answers come easy it can be off-putting. Surely big questions are only answered with painful, lengthy exploration?

Not so. Pause, think, get excited, believe in it then do it. Properly.

What we did to get from one to the other

onebestway knows what it is and how it is better because we understand the environment in which we exist now. We know who occupies the same space in the market; we know how to position ourselves differently and how to beat them.

We have taken the lead and we have created a new onebestway.

Moving from a position of feeling uncertain and sometimes afraid of taking the lead, to one of confidence and excitement, was actually quite a short journey. Arguably it wasn’t a journey at all. It felt like going through ‘that door’ as opposed to ‘this door’. It was that simple.

One door was the way you’ve always done it; the other door - a tiny step to the right - is more interesting and new.

There was no-one primed to give us permission to do things differently. And there was no perfect set of circumstances either.

There are always ‘blockers’ and obstacles of course and I chose to ignore them.

onebestway is now described as follows:

onebestway is a clever, confident and results-focused marketing and design studio. If the work we do with clients isn’t uncommonly clever and of obvious and immediate value, then it simply doesn’t get through.

In saying this we’ve made a promise to our clients and to ourselves.

Other differences include talking to each other more quickly and more openly. We have fewer systems and we get more done. We understand more about each other’s jobs because we talk more and we listen better. The empathy means that we are more understanding, more supportive and more flexible.

The Naked Office was a unique and unusual experience, of course. It was not about nakedness at all. It was about going somewhere new and a little scary with a group of people that you think you know. We were going on the journey together and we saw it from each other’s individual perspectives too because we listened to each other, watched each other and looked out for each other.

Looking back, ‘Naked Friday’ has become symbolic of this new market position and braver business approach that we have adopted for ourselves. Naked Friday was simply a destination, the same as our new onebestway. They are so similar.

New, scary and, perhaps most significant of all, is that on a practical level, at least, they are so within reach.

Removing one’s clothes is something that we do every day. Easy.

Under unusual circumstances of course it can become very difficult, traumatic and frightening. And with a shift of mindset, a togetherness, a ‘why not?’ attitude (‘why not?’ is a much better question than ‘why?’) then things just happen.

Whatever ‘it’ is, we did it!

Mike Owen
Managing Director
onebestway

www.onebestway.com

SEVEN BUSINESS LESSONS FROM THE NAKED OFFICE

The results for onebestway have been astounding: increased customers, morale, recruitment and revenue. There are four common-sense reasons for this, and three that I did not anticipate. Perhaps you can apply these in your organization, or for yourself.

Four common-sense tips

1. Know where you want to go. Have a vision for your organization that is understandable by a ten-year-old. (If they can’t, your customers won’t.)

2. Know where you are now. Bring the truth into the room (stab people in the stomach, not in the back).

3. Know what you have to do to get to where you want to go. Unlock the potential of the people you already have by using their natural and learned strengths every day.

4. Just do it! Take action - your success comes down to what you actually do. What you, your people and your organization do, every day.

Three unexpected factors that helped onebestway’s extraordinary success

5 Have a common enemy. In this case it was me and the prospect of Naked Friday. In your company it may be a competitor, or the prospect of going bust.

6 Treat your key projects like...

Table of contents

• Praise
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• PROLOGUE
• Introduction
• I - YOUR SELF - BE AN AUTHENTIC MILLIONAIRE
• II - YOUR BRAND - DESIGN A GLOBAL BRAND
• III - YOUR BUSINESS - START AND GROW YOUR BUSINESS
• IV - YOUR WARNING! AVOID THE PITFALLS THAT I DIDN’T
• V - YOUR SECRETS - SEE WHAT OTHERS DON’T
• VI - YOUR SPEAKING - PRESENT AS A PROFESSIONAL SPEAKER
• VII - YOUR BOOK - WRITE A BESTSELLER
• THE NAKED TEN
• Appendix 1 - CASE STUDY: THE NAKED OFFICE
• Appendix 2 - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, RESOURCES AND SUSTAINABILITY
• INDEX