The 50th Law - 50 Cent [71]
In the wake of the assassination attempt on Fifty in 2000, Columbia Records dropped him from the label, but by then he had outgrown his need for their expertise. He had accumulated so much knowledge and skill that he was able to apply it all to his mix-tape campaign, creating songs at an insane pace and marketing his music as smartly as any professional. Step by step he advanced, the campaign gaining the attention of Eminem, who signed him to his label at Interscope in 2003.
Years later he found himself in the corporate world, and he quickly discovered it was not much different from the streets. So many of the business people and executives he met had that same level of impatience. They could only think in terms of months or weeks. Their relationship to money was emotional—a way to impose their importance and feed their ego. They would come to him with schemes that seemed intriguing in the present but that led nowhere down the road. They were not attuned to the immense changes going on in the world and planning to exploit them in the future—that would take too much effort and time.
These business types came at him from all directions with endorsement deals that would make him some fast millions. They assumed he was like all the other rappers who grabbed at such opportunities. But endorsement deals would not help him build anything solid or real. It was illusion money. He would turn them down, opting to start his own businesses on his own terms—each business building on the other like links on a chain. The goal this time was simple—to forge an empire that would last. And as before, he would get there through his own grinding persistence.
The Fearless Approach
MOST PEOPLE CAN’T HANDLE BOREDOM. THAT MEANS THEY CAN’T STAY ON ONE THING UNTIL THEY GET GOOD AT IT. AND THEY WONDER WHY THEY’RE UNHAPPY.
—50 Cent
For our most primitive ancestors, life was a constant struggle, entailing endless labor to secure food and shelter. If there was any free time, it generally was reserved for rituals that would give meaning to such a hard life. Then, over thousands of years of civilization, life gradually became easier for many, and with that came more and more free time. In such moments, there was no need to work the fields or worry about enemies or the elements—just an expanse of hours to somehow fill. And suddenly a new emotion was born into this world—boredom.
At work or in rituals, the mind would be filled with various tasks to accomplish; but alone in one’s house, this free time would allow the mind to roam wherever it wanted. Confronted with such freedom, the mind has a tendency to gravitate towards anxieties about the future—possible problems and dangers. Such empty time faintly echoes the eternal emptiness of death itself. And so with this new emotion that assailed our ancestors came a desire that haunts us to this day—to escape boredom at all cost, to distract ourselves from these anxieties.
The principal means of distraction are all forms of public entertainment, drugs and alcohol, and social activities. But such distractions have a drug-like effect—they wear off. We crave new ones, faster ones, to lift us out of ourselves and divert us from the harsh realities of life and creeping boredom. An entire civilization—ancient Rome—practically collapsed under the weight of this new need and emotion. Their economy became tied to the creation of novel luxuries and entertainments that sapped its citizens’ spirit; few were willing anymore to sacrifice their pleasures for hard work or the public good.
This is the pattern that boredom has created for the human animal ever since: we look outside ourselves for diversions and grow dependent on them. These entertainments have a faster pace than the time we spend at work. Work then is experienced