Page 53 - How To Get Rich

I’ve read many of Warren Buffett’s annual reports. In every case, what
fascinates me is that he is able to reduce things to the simplest of terms.
Many accomplished Wall Street gurus can make you dizzy with talk of
intricate financial maneuverings. They might impress you with their

sophisticated computerized trading results, their fifty percent returns from
options on products that may not even exist yet. Fortunes are won and lost
every day in these markets, but as far as I’m concerned, those folks would
be just as successful if they ditched their hedge funds and put all their
money on their favorite roulette number at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in
Atlantic City.
You paid good money for this book, and I know you’re expecting

sophisticated investment advice. The wisest thing I can tell you is to invest
only in products you understand, with people you know you can trust.
Sometimes the best investments are the ones you don’t make.

Get a Prenuptial Agreement
I’ve said it before—I even wrote a chapter on the art of the prenup in

one of my other books—but I’ll say it again for anyone about to propose:
A prenuptial agreement doesn’t mean that you won’t always love your
spouse. It doesn’t mean that you have doubts about the person’s integrity
or questions about the relationship. All it means is that you recognize that
life, especially the parts involving love and business, can be complicated.
People have a right to protect their assets. If you own your own business
and you’re facing a difficult divorce without having secured a prenuptial

agreement, your negligence could jeopardize the livelihoods of your
employees. I know plenty of women who are supporting their husbands,
and this advice applies equally to both sexes.
If I hadn’t signed a prenup, I would be writing this book from the
perspective of somebody who lost big. We needed a bus to get Ivana’s

lawyers to court. It was a disaster, but I had a solid prenup, and it held up.
A friend of mine is married to a woman who stands only five-foot-two,
but he’s petrified of what she will do to him in court, all because he didn’t
get a prenup. Before he met this woman, he’d had four unsuccessful
marriages, yet he told me, Donald, I’m so in love with this woman that I
don’t need a prenuptial agreement. I didn’t have the courage to tell him
what I was thinking to myself: Loser!