What It Takes To Be A Billionaire: A Passion to Win by Sumner Redstone, Book Summary & Review
One of my life goals is to read all the books written by billionaires. That’s a tall order considering there are over 150.
If you want a quick book to start with on the list, A Passion to Win by Sumner Redstone, is a good choice.
Here’s a thorough book summary…
If you prefer listening to reading, I recorded a podcast episode you can listen to on this topic:
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Today’s billionaire case study is Sumner Redstone, who has a net worth of over $4.9 billion according to Forbes. Sumner owns a good portion of a company called Viacom. You may not have heard of Viacom, but you may have heard of some of its child companies and TV shows, like:
* Blockbuster
* Paramount
* MTV
* Nickelodeon
* Nick at Night
* Cartoon Network
I read his book A Passion To Win, which is a short read — maybe too short. I want to share with you some of the lessons I learned, some of which were shocking. Even though I’ve been studying billionaires for a while now and am used to many “success tips”, I was unable to unearth some gold.
For the average reader who isn’t digging for lessons learned, this book can seem frustrating to get success lessons from since Sumner doesn’t explicitly tell you. You have to draw out the lessons yourself.
A warning:
Even if you’ve heard of some of these tips before, don’t overlook them. They are great reminders and there are subtle details to these tips that make all the difference.
Live a frugal life
Once again, another billionaire (Sumner) confirms the billionaire behavior of living frugal. Contrary to popular belief, many billionaires live way below their means and that’s one key reason they got rich — so much so that some seem genetically wired to not care about luxury. Warren Buffett’s a great example. Arnold Schwarzenegger talked about meeting Warren on the Tim Ferriss show [time stamp 42:20] and mentioned how he was fine with rooming in an ordinary hotel room.
Sumner has lived in the same modest home he bought for 40+ years, just like Warren Buffett. He still wears a modest set of secondhand suits, just like Buffett.
He lives a modest lifestyle: no mansion parties, no super cars.
Other similar case studies include Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Sam Walton of Walmart. They both stayed at cheap hotels for business meetings even when they were worth billions.
It might seem a little extreme, but when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Unnecessary business costs and purchases each up your profits quickly. A single unnecessary stay at a fancy hotel can cost $1000 to $50,000 a night.
The more you save, the more you can re-invest into making even more money.
Having said that, there are exceptions and billionaires who have more normal urges to spend more lavishly, like Richard Branson and Bill Gates.
Have a deep passion to live and win
At age 55,