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Have you ever talked to the energy of money? The energy of money happily makes contact and can tell you what it likes and what it doesn’t. How to behave correctly to become her favorite.
The following story happened to me once:
I sat down to write an article and suddenly realized that from the other room they were calling me... money! They are trying to tell me something. I brought them to my place, placed them near the computer and prepared to write down everything they would tell me.
Here is only what the money itself was telling me at that moment. “I am the energy of money! And I don’t care what you call me: rubles, euros, crowns, dollars... Today I was given the opportunity to say. And I will say everything that hurts in my soul... Some love me, others are afraid, others hate me... But I’m just energy! Strong, powerful energy! Someone scolds me because I don’t come to him... I’m glad to come to each of you! I love you ! I love being in constant motion! I love bringing you joy and pleasure! I love helping you in your creative endeavors! I love it when you care about my growth! I love it when you give me free movement! I love it when you know what you want! I am living and moving energy!
So that you always have enough money, I ask you to follow my very simple rules.
I love you, you love me too!
I don't like it when people live in the past!
I don't care if it's a win or a loss! When you live in the past, I just don’t know where to come to you! In your past you had a different energy address, and even in the past you simply didn’t need money anymore... I ask you - live today and now! You can use past victories as fuel for future victories, past defeats as your lessons. And go ahead! Then I will be with you!
I don't like it when you live in the future!
There you will have other amounts and other goals! Use me in the present! There is no need to pull your potential out of the future! I remain unclaimed today! And if you don’t need me today, then I won’t come to you in the future!
I love it when people enjoy life and get pleasure from it.
If you love to travel, travel, if you love collecting stamps, collect and enjoy it! Do only what you really love! I am there with those who do what they love! I am there, in more than necessary numbers! I love funny people! I can’t be with those who go to work like they’re doing hard labor, do things they can’t stand... For me, this is like death!
What money loves
Author: Svetlana Ivanova
Boris Titov calls himself an entrepreneur, a “man of action.” What worries these “people of action” now? What is their entrepreneurial ambition aimed at - not only within their business, but also within the state? What morals and philosophy do they profess?..
Boris Titov
Please remember what your first income was?
– Well, I started receiving my first money when I was ten years old. Then my grandmother took me to a dacha in the Moscow region, to the village of Myakinino. We rented a small house there. Now everything there is built up with huge villas, but then it was a village. And the boys and I transported people on boats from one side of the Moscow River to the other. This is Soviet-style transportation. They took ten kopecks per person. They weren't greedy.
And what did you spend the earnings on?
- Oh, in Soviet times there were a lot of opportunities to spend money beautifully - ice cream, cinema. At that time we did not allow ourselves any other liberties. At that age, I also didn’t have any thoughts of giving the money I earned to my grandmother so that she could spend it on the household.
Did you steal change from your parents’ pockets?
- I took what was lying badly. It happened... Of course, I didn’t try to take it from where some family valuables were kept. But when they sent me to the store to buy bread and sausages, I never returned the change.
At what age did you decide on your future profession? Was it your childhood dream to become a millionaire?
– In the Soviet Union, no one had a dream of becoming a millionaire. We had a dream to somehow succeed in life, we had our own concepts of career growth. For example, to enter the prestigious university MGIMO, where, by the way, I entered. But the university was not easy. My political ambitions arose there, although there was a saying in use at MGIMO: the word is not a sparrow, if you catch it, you’ll fly out. And I also had a nickname - “opportunist”. For organizing discussions on political topics at lectures.
At what age did you earn your first million?
- How he left for free bread. I already earned a little money in college. True, this was not entrepreneurship; we sold discs at MGIMO. Andrei Brezhnev, by the way, bought discs from me. Then I worked at the Ministry of Foreign Trade - it was a good distribution, I was responsible for Cuba. I had to fly there often. So on the way to Cuba there was a short stop at Shannon Airport in Ireland. We stood there for an hour. During this time, you had to run to the store, buy an electronic wristwatch for a dollar, and in Moscow you could sell it at a second-hand shop for 150 rubles - that’s more than a month’s salary. You didn't even have to trade. But this is all speculation, not entrepreneurship. And I earned my first million in the production and export of fertilizers.
In sports, technologies have already emerged that make it possible to determine whether a child will become a champion, and in which particular sport, or not? They take blood and DNA, conduct an analysis and come to a conclusion: the child will not become a swimmer, let him master tennis. Is it possible to somehow determine whether a child can become a millionaire or not?
– Running a business and becoming a millionaire are two different things. Of those who know how to do business, there are a lot of those who not only did not become millionaires, but became bankrupt. Business is an extremely risky endeavor. We only see success stories, but how many unsuccessful ones? Who has lost and is losing everything: fortune, family, even life. Let's take, for example, Roman Abramovich and several other oligarchs. Their main qualities at the beginning were serious enterprise, activity, and energy. But at the same time, they still did not really understand life. They didn't understand the risks. They simply pushed ahead - that's why they won. So, for one Abramovich there were probably a thousand aspiring businessmen, whom we don’t even remember, so they broke their arms and legs along the way, lost their heads, and as a result they were thrown to the sidelines.
Of course, you can become a millionaire, and you don't have to be an entrepreneur to do it. Well, we are not talking now about officials who fly abroad in clouds and live in five-star hotels. Previously, by the way, I saw only entrepreneurs abroad, but now only Russian officials. They fly on private jets and drive Rolls-Royces. Entrepreneurs behave much more modestly. I repeat, we are not talking about officials, these are people who violate the law and basic ethics. But there are many who earn a lot of money through honest work without being entrepreneurs. These are accomplished directors, artists, doctors who have golden hands. There are rich architects and designers. So to say that millionaires are always entrepreneurs is fundamentally wrong.
What qualities must an entrepreneur have to become an Abramovich? I already realized that I shouldn’t be afraid of risks, but what else?
– No, not “not to be afraid,” but to correctly assess the risks. This is a good Russian word – “entrepreneur”. The property of entrepreneurship is business. This means that a person is always doing something, moving something, changing something, he is burning with some ideas and trying to implement them. Although this is not enough for business. Nowadays young people often ask: what does it take to start a business? There are trainings going on all over the country, thousands of people are paying crazy amounts of money, they are training, but the main thing they are being told is that they need to create team building, form a management team based on the principles of positive thinking, and so on. This is completely insufficient. First of all, there must be professionalism and knowledge. If you are involved in mineral fertilizers, you should know everything about mineral fertilizers. If you build houses, you should know everything about the best construction technologies. Only your desire and creativity, when you come up with something, say a square tomato, is not enough for it to grow from a project into a real business. The left and right hemispheres should be used equally. Creative discoveries, ideas, and on the other hand – tough pragmatism, mathematics, calculation.
But it’s impossible to calculate everything. Besides adventurism and pragmatism, how much luck should there be in this formula?
– Luck, of course, is the third most important component in any business. Because every business is very dependent on the external environment. I have one farm, which is not entirely specialized - it is a poultry farm in the Moscow region. Well, who knew that there would be bird flu? Although this did not affect us, everything is in order with sanitation, thank God, but for many entrepreneurs this became a decisive factor. They burned out. Or who knew that Bush Legs or Brazilian Chicken would hit the market? There are many things that you cannot predict and foresee. Of course, luck matters a lot, and in business, lucky people win. But you know, luck is a rather complicated thing. Some people believe that it does not depend on anything - an absolute casino. But if you try to understand where life is flowing, in which direction, where the main trends, motives, historical processes are moving, if you want, then the risk becomes less and less. That is, you are cutting something off. Although some things still remain unpredictable. Luck is a great thing.
Money has some kind of magic that it sticks to someone, and flows through someone’s fingers like water. For example, does money love you?
– Money for an entrepreneur is a means of exchange, nothing more. He must sell to buy equipment or spend on himself. But the main thing is some kind of project, when something is produced. But financiers love money. They see their life in money, in the increase of money. And an entrepreneur loves assets, loves goods, loves to produce, loves to grow. Financiers start with money and end with money. They can buy some block of shares in some factory. But for them this is not the main thing. It doesn’t matter to them whether it is a poultry farm, or a factory for the production of soccer balls, or some kind of trading tents, the main thing is that the money must be invested and must bring maximum results. They started with a certain amount and must definitely increase it. It's the same with the bankers and moneylenders of the old days. They measure every step, every stage financially. This is exactly capital. If entrepreneurs thought the same way, then today all the money would be kept in deposits. We just put money in the bank and sat and waited for it to bring us interest. And these percentages, by the way, would be significant compared to what is invested in production.
It turns out that today it is not profitable to engage in production?
- No, it's profitable. But today it is safer, calmer, and less risky, as financiers argue, to keep money on deposit rather than invest in production. Today, interest on the same chicken, even in construction, is earned less than on bank deposits.
Boris Titov in Abrau-Durso
Why are you working at a loss?
– Because money is not the main thing. Much more important is life, interest, future. Well, you will earn another ten percent on your capital. What's the point? The entrepreneur has it. Why do we invest in champagne? All wine producers laugh at champagne makers.
Why?
– What is champagne made from? From wine. This is a huge process - secondary fermentation, additional money, labor, time - you have to keep it in the basement for three years for it to gain the required quality. And we sell it at almost the same price as wine, sometimes even cheaper. It would be much more profitable to sell everything we have like wine.
Do you love champagne that much?
- Not in this case. I bought not just a factory, but, one might say, a historical place. True, the plant was in a terrible state; it was impossible to call what they produced there champagne. There was no money, no equipment, no opportunities. But nevertheless, it was a legendary factory; it once produced champagne, which was known throughout the country! And that's why I bought this project. And I don’t regret anything. And increased production volume tenfold. Abrau-Durso has become the largest tourist wine center in the world - there are more tastings here than in any other, and on a global scale. More than 250 thousand per year! We both earn money and have fun. Together.
You said that in the 90s you kept weapons under your bed...
– For me, and for Putin too. In one of his interviews, he also admitted that he slept with a weapon. There were risks in the 90s. Our state has adopted an economic concept called “state withdrawal from the economy.” From the communist extreme, when the state was everywhere and controlled everything, they jumped to the other extreme, when the state left the economy and there was practically no economic regulation. This was a big mistake of the Gaidar school. But the fact is that when we started our business, the regulatory process began to be taken under control by people who knew how to do it and could use various methods to achieve their goals. A war and a fight began. The mafia, banditry, raiding appeared. We started going to the “arrows”. Yes, I, a graduate of MGIMO, went to the “shooters” with bandits. And he took his family abroad, to London, where he started his business, because he was afraid for them.
Have you been threatened?
“Then all life was a threat.” In reality, the protection of neither the police nor government agencies worked... And this happened throughout the country, and it had to be resisted. The risks were very high. God had mercy on us, we did not enter into any conflicts, but just in case we had a very serious protection system: a near-state structure of former Vympel employees...
What kind of business did you have then?
– We started with chemistry. The first thing we did was buy a terminal in Ventspils. Then it was the USSR, and now it is the Republic of Latvia. There we invested in the creation of ammonia, alcohols, and benzenes. Then we started buying factories; we had a large company producing mineral fertilizers. This corporation was called "Nitrogen". Moreover, there were branches in different cities of Russia. As you understand, we had to defend ourselves in every city.
And in what language did the MGIMO graduate communicate with the bandits?
– Of course, I cannot boast of extensive knowledge of thieves’ language, but I can say: it was not we who began to speak their language, but they switched to ours - normal, universal. Many of them are now respected people, billionaires. Reformatted...
Is wealth demonstrated by those who do not have a lot of money, or by those who have a lot of it?
– Poor people demonstrate wealth. Poor in ideas, talents and even money. The oligarchs dress most modestly. They are not the ones who drive Rolls-Royces. Many of them, by the way, don’t even buy an airplane, but rent it; it’s much more convenient than buying an airplane and having a headache with it. By the way, I had one of the first private jets in Russia, back in 1994. Back then it was justified, the scheduled planes were all rusty, sometimes they flew, sometimes they didn’t fly, and we had to constantly fly around Russia. But very soon I realized that my plane was an additional burden: either the device would break down, or the pilot would get sick, or something else. Even if you need to fly somewhere urgently, it is better to rent one. But now there are no problems at all: the most modern scheduled planes fly, and the food is good, and there are no headaches.
Why do oligarchs cover their planes with gold leaf?
– These are not oligarchs, not entrepreneurs. Not all oligarchs are entrepreneurs either. I have not heard of a single oligarch who would cover an airplane with gold leaf. There are oligarchs who love big yachts, like Abramovich. This is how he spends his time - he likes it. But an airplane with gold leaf, like a Bentley with rhinestones, belongs to a completely different category of people. The owner of one Bentley, as far as I remember, was arrested; he was not an entrepreneur. He was an intermediary for the builders. Yes, he made quick money, most likely associated with corruption and kickbacks, but is this really a business?
But Telman Ismailov had the “golden” plane.
- Well, Ismailov is not an entrepreneur. I wouldn't put it in this category. He made money in the markets, in relations with the authorities. But he is not a thinking entrepreneur.
Russian oligarchs can be divided into two categories. Some, like Prokhorov, who have Courchevel, planes with girls, they are not shy about demonstrating such a lifestyle. Others are family men who live quietly with their faithful and flocks of children and don’t really “go out” anywhere. Which category do you consider yourself in?
– Prokhorov spends eight hours a day in the gym. And I don’t think that girls and a beautiful life are any big incentive for him. It seems to me that this has very little meaning in his life, especially since he is not married yet. He is just not superficial, not loving this fanfare. He works equally seriously on both his body and his business. And for him a plane with girls is more of a fashion statement. Boris Berezovsky introduced this fashion. Then you had to take a bunch of girls with you everywhere. This was the norm of life for large entrepreneurs: yachts, airplanes... You know the wise saying: if you didn’t have a bicycle as a child, and now you have a Bentley, then you still didn’t have a bicycle as a child. Those people who did not have something, they are greedy for everything shiny. In France this is called nouveau riche, “new money”. And Prokhorov, as well as his partner Volodya Potanin, like many other rich people, they are all from intelligent families, and they, figuratively speaking, had bicycles in childhood. Therefore, nothing new opened up for them with huge amounts of money.
As for me, I simply have no time. My brain is wired this way; I only enjoy what I do. At the same time, many things, by the way, are absolutely not related to business. Many people don’t understand: why do I spend time on public work, on my “Business Russia”, or now I’ve joined the ombudsman - I even started working for the state, limiting myself in many areas, filling out some declarations, spending ninety percent of my time helping others, and not to yourself. But the thing is, I'm interested in it.
Are you such a quixote?
- No, what a quixote? This is just a certain project that I found interesting and necessary. Because I myself faced chaos. They tried to take my business away when I was still involved in mineral fertilizers and chemistry. This was in the early 2000s. And I had to live in England for six months without entering Russia. Because they warned me that they could arrest me, a criminal case was opened against me. I went to the prosecutor's office as if I was going to work. I fully experienced what the entrepreneurial community is like. His solidarity. My business friends and just comrades helped me a lot.
Are there really friends in business who help in times of need? Usually, all comrades disappear as soon as a criminal case is opened.
- This is wrong. My friends had no interest in helping. Although no, some still tried to extract personal interest from this situation; there were offers to sell everything cheap, but this came only from one “comrade”. And others really helped, tried to secure important meetings with government officials. In the overall result, we all won together. Although I was forced to sell the business, I still sold it and not gave it away.
I experienced first-hand how difficult it was, how threatening, so I decided to take up the task of protecting entrepreneurs myself. My first project is the ethics commission at the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. At that time, conflicts and raider takeovers raged among large businessmen. Serious wars broke out over assets. It was impossible to resolve issues through the courts... Therefore, we decided to create our own public court, public arbitration, where the main thing is not the execution of the court decision, bailiffs and bailiffs, but your reputation. That is, if reputation was valuable, the person had to comply with the decision of our court. This project does not bring money, but it brings satisfaction and the respect of your comrades. On the other hand, I invested in new projects in business, and it gave me the same satisfaction.
The situation is similar with Delovaya Rossiya. I saw that there is big business, it has the same attitude towards the economy and how it should be developed, and there are small and medium-sized businesses growing from the ground. Therefore, when I was offered to look at “Business Russia”, I looked with interest. I’m not an oligarch, I’m closer to the psychology that medium-sized businesses have. In short, I took on the project. He led it for ten years, creating an organization that represents the interests of not the raw materials, but the processing business. Then I saw that there were serious problems of corruption and criminal pressure on business and got the idea to create a system that would help entrepreneurs. We proposed to the president to create an institution of business ombudsmen because we understood: we need state powers if we want to achieve results.
And How? Happened?
“The hardest thing was deciding on a government job.” After all, I never obeyed anyone, never came to work at a certain time, did not receive a salary - my earnings were always determined by me. But I had to change myself.
Is money freedom?
– The main freedom is when you don’t count money. That's how much you need - you have that much, and you don't think about it.
At what amount does freedom begin?
– Everyone has their own limit. Although I have it very high now. I need so much money - it’s just terrible!
So you are not a free person?
- Never free. Because, firstly, I am developing the institution of commissioners, and this is a big expense. But here we work more to help, and the reward is that people appreciate it, it’s worth working for. Secondly, we are developing the Abrau-Durso business project, which requires a lot of money. And this is where we invest and invest, although it all pays off and brings profit, but first we need to find money to invest. Every project requires investment capital, and there is currently a terribly short supply of it. There are a huge number of ideas. We are developing Abrau-Durso not only as a wine project. Also as a tourist center: hotels, restaurants, shops, a museum, which we have already created. And now there will be another museum - the “Light” gallery, interactive art, people go there too. We're on fire with this now.
Donald Trump seems to have been bankrupt four times and started from scratch. Is this normal for a businessman?
– It seems to me that he was bankrupt fewer times. But I wouldn’t classify Trump as an entrepreneur.
Who is he?
- Financier. Politician. But politicians never speak in essence, they speak in form. For them, form is more important than content. I don’t mean serious politicians who think about the future of the country, but professional politicians who appear on television. Trump is not a deep person, and all the businesses he was involved in were PR campaigns. Starting with his construction business, where he attracted money with his TV image. Well, like Polonsky. Sergei will excuse me, but it was about the same story. When he was able to convince the banks to give him money based on his charisma, his image. Which, by the way, I never counted. That is, it was a pyramid. Then these casinos that Trump bought. Of course, at some moments he was presented with all the bills for payment, because the creditors were tired, they had already stopped enjoying his charisma and humor, and sweet speeches. But every time he managed to slip out of this situation. Therefore, Trump is not an entrepreneurial figure.
Have you ever had to start a business from scratch?
- Well, completely from scratch, thank God, no. But it was necessary to be in a pre-bankruptcy state and really not sleep at night. We were practically bankrupt twice. One time - when I sold all my chemical assets. Of course, there were certain resources, but this is no longer zero. But these were monetary resources. But you had to figure out how to make money? I can say that when Mikhail Prokhorov sold all his assets and came out with clean money, the majority of serious Russian entrepreneurs decided that he was an unsuccessful businessman. Although at one time he was number one on the Forbes Russian list. But that's not important. It’s not the money that matters, I repeat. The main thing is to have an asset that brings money. Here is Pavel Durov - he is a real entrepreneur who pulls out projects one after another. He comes up with it himself, he pulls it out himself. Business as such is important to him. Projects that bring money are important. So yes, I was in a completely pre-bankrupt state, I had money, but no assets. At that time, we sold almost everything, began to look for where to invest, it seemed that nothing was impossible, everything was taken. And here we were helped by both chance and the correct understanding of where to go. Now we have Abrau-Durso, we entered the wine business and believe that it was a very good investment.
Tell me, is 1 billion 800 million rubles a lot of money for you?
– For a business, the money is small, for a person, in terms of his own needs, the money is very good, I would even say, excellent money. Why is this particular amount of interest to you?
Last year, ordinary people donated this amount to one charity fund and saved 2,839 sick children. Why don’t you come to an agreement with your fellow entrepreneurs and close the issue of treating such children in Russia for several years?
– Many of my friends do this. Where does this money in the funds come from?
People transfer 100, 200, 1000 rubles - whoever can.
- It also happens. What does it mean to agree? Large entrepreneurs keep their funds. Some help sports, some invest in the humanitarian sphere, some help foundations that save children. But some help adults, pensioners and lonely old people. Now it has become very popular to save children - this is, of course, an important task. But pensioners sometimes need our help more. Therefore, every wealthy entrepreneur has his own charitable programs. It’s just that many people don’t flaunt it and don’t tell it at every turn.
Although charity also comes in different forms. Now all of Russia, especially Moscow, is being built up with churches. I myself am not a churchgoer, just a baptized person, but I don’t like it. Because that's the kind of deal it is. These churches are built with the money of those entrepreneurs who at one time earned it in the markets, and now decided to “make” a deal with God in the hope that their past and present sins will be forgiven. This is somewhat incorrect thinking.
But you also built a church in Abrau-Durso.
- This is completely different. People asked us about it. And by the way, it turned out to be a beautiful church on the shore of the lake.
Let's return from heaven to earth. Do you know how much money you have in your wallet now?
- Cash? On cards? Look? I'm interested myself. The rich, if you count me among them, don’t carry money in their wallets at all. They don't have a wallet, but I have a wallet. ( Counts.
) ABOUT! Much money. Ten, twenty, thirty, thirty-two thousand rubles. And forty euros, probably. I often travel abroad and always need cash for taxis, although cards are more common there now. By the way, there are also fewer cards, have you noticed? We all used to wear a whole fan of them. And now, for example, I have only two. One is from Sberbank, the other is from Rosbank. One has a dollar account, the other a ruble account, that’s quite enough.
Do you know how much a stick of butter costs in the store?
- Uff, this is a question for filling. Don't know. But I know how much a kilogram of chicken costs. Depending on the store - from 100 to 150 rubles, although it can be cheaper. I know this as a manufacturer. Naturally, I know how much champagne costs. We also have a large range. The hit of the season is a very economical drink, called “Abrau-light” for young people - it costs no more than 300 rubles. If we are talking about classic champagne, an expensive drink, it can sell for three thousand. This is our “Imperial Brut” - the highest level. But we are trying to work for all market segments so that everyone finds something they like.
How long have you been on the metro?
– To be honest, I don’t go to the subway often. But sometimes, when the traffic jams are crazy, I dive in... Once I was just terribly late for the Business Russia forum, which I myself hosted and where deputy prime ministers and ministers were supposed to come. It was in the new building of Moscow State University, but I couldn’t get through the city center, and I had to take the metro there. I ran like that - incredible. I came all wet and went straight to the stage because I was fifteen minutes late. And there are 900 people in the hall. Then I paid about sixty rubles for the journey, but that was several years ago. I even left a card for myself as a souvenir. How much does it cost to travel now?
A bit less. By the way, what clothes are you wearing? How much does your shirt cost, for example?
- I think it's Brooke Brothers. About a hundred euros. I don't spend a lot of money on clothes.
If money could buy everything, what would you buy: immortality, health?..
– This is a complex philosophical question.
It was expressed very well by Sharma, who is probably not the wisest person in the world, although he is profound. There is an American coach who conducts all kinds of trainings and has written many books. He said that a happy person is one who, when he is born, everyone rejoices, and when he dies, everyone cries. A person must make everyone feel sad when he dies. Then there... there will be peace of mind. Every person should be in peace of mind. He must be sure that he has completed all the tasks that he set for himself, then he is satisfied. If you carry some kind of anger, negativity within yourself, it won’t be very good. And you can’t take the money with you... photo: Anna Isakova; Svetlana Kholyavchuk/TASS; Alexey Danichev/MIA “Russia Today”; personal archive of B. Titov
