Between 1999 and 2021, serial tech entrepreneur Patrick Grove took six companies from start-up to an IPO. He’s worth an estimated $335m, and within seconds of meeting him it’s easy to see why. He’s one of those dudes who mooches around his superyacht pretending he doesn’t own it. He asks me if the buffet is any good and does a great job of blending in. It’s as if no one is above him, but no one is below him either. He’s playing the entire guest list, and he’s entitled since he’s absorbing the expense like it’s a pasty party at Greggs.

How can you do it then? Get rich, like properly rich. Not having to choose between the boat in Cannes or the mansion in Bali. Buy them both and throw in a place in Oz for good measure. Stop the frantic financial phone fingering and scrap those stupid ‘six steps to success’ videos you keep watching on socials. Take real advice from someone with real money who actually knows his shit. Surprisingly simple shit.

“Let’s tell our life stories,” Patrick says. We’re in Monaco with Amber Lounge, famed for throwing the world’s most exclusive afterparties. As Chairman, Patrick sells tables at 100k a pop. Not a bad day’s work if you can get it. I’m really not up for sharing my secrets to an 8m fishing boat, so I suggest he goes first. I want that upgrade! 

“I was raised by a Tiger mum,” Patrick tells me. Champagne in hand, he’s wide open for real talk. “My mum always wanted me to be a doctor, a lawyer or an accountant. I don’t like the sight of blood, so the doctor option was out. ‘You’d make a million dollars a year as a lawyer,’ she used to preach to me. I’d always cut her off by saying, ‘No mum, I’ll pay the lawyer a million dollars to work for me.’ And that’s exactly what I did. When I was at Uni, I started out with absolutely nothing and got the smartest students together in my dorm. From that day onwards, we lived and breathed my start-up. The room became our office, bedroom and social space. I was totally focused on reaching my goals. It was just a case of finding the right people to do the right jobs.”

If you’ve ever read Branson’s autobiography, parts of Patrick’s story might ring a few bells. And if you’re an unhappy accountant stuck in the nine to five grind (because we don’t believe happy accountants actually exist), the easiest secret is yet to come.

“The real secret to success is journaling,” Patrick says. “From day dot I visualised my goals every single day and wrote them down with a pen and paper so they were imprinted in my mind. That’s the only way to really create a meaningful sense of direction. Forget the Google calendar or good intent. I tried meditation, it doesn’t really work for me. The moment a thought comes into my head I use my journal. Visualisation is great, but if you don’t write it down, it’s just a thought, not a solid intent. My daily diary is my secret to my wealth and happiness in all aspects of life. Success isn’t just about money. I live an amazing life between Asia, Australia and Europe, I have a great family and look where I’m sitting right now. That all happened because I wrote things down. The famous Harvard (or Yale) Goals Research Study is evidence of this.”

Whilst the Harvard study was then claimed to have taken place at Yale and subsequently could still not be proven, there is hard evidence of the effectiveness of penning your goals and many an entrepreneur, like Patrick, attribute this simple daily technique to their impressive fortunes. 

In 2017, Patrick invested in Amber Lounge, responsible for holding the world’s most opulent afterparties imaginable. Trust us, we went and they deserve the platinum label. 

“When I told my mum I wanted to be a club promoter she was so disappointed in me,” says Patrick. “Look at me now. Amber Lounge makes me multi-millions. The doctors, lawyers and accountants save up to buy tickets. That’s how you really do business.”

This year, Amber Lounge celebrated its 20th anniversary as Charles Leclerc took a historic win on home turf for Ferrari in Monaco. Loaded decided to take a victory lap, so we’ve created just 20 special edition journals to help you on the ladder to true success. Stop scrolling, start journaling. 

You have to get in it to win it! Your 90-day free trial of all things Fully Loaded is waiting (with subsequent automatic entry to this draw). We will announce the winners on 1st July.

In 1953, Harvard conducted a study on goal-setting which has since been quoted and referenced in countless articles and books. The study found that people who wrote down their goals were more likely to achieve them than those who didn’t. This became known as the ‘Harvard Study on Goals’.

Here is the gist of the study’s results. A 1953 graduating class of Harvard MBA students was asked about whether, or not, they had goals. The following were the responses:

• 3% said they had clear, written goals.
• 13% had goals, just not written down.
• 84% did not have goals at all.

Ten years later, it was discovered that the 13% who had non-written goals earned on average twice as much as the 84% who did not have goals at all. The 3% who had written goals outperformed everyone altogether by earning ten times as much as all of the other 97% combined.