Pickens heaps praise on his allies and scorn on those who stood in his way, offering comeuppance to Rainwater and his wife Darla Moore, who engineered

By Chris Baltimore

HOUSTON (Reuters) - You've seen T. Boone Pickens on "Larry King Live," watched his commercials exalting the "Pickens Plan" to build windmills and listened to him warn of a looming energy crisis.

Now the Texas oil tycoon shares hints at how you can attain a modest measure of his success -- which includes a 68,000-acre ranch teeming with quail and deer and a Gulfstream 550 jet -- and head off an energy crisis while you're at it.

In his new book, "The First Billion Is the Hardest" (Crown Business, $26.95), the "Oracle of Oil" tells how he learned the basics of capitalism as a paperboy, founded an oil company, and eventually struck pay-dirt as an energy hedge fund manager.

It's a Horatio Alger story with deep roots in the American rags-to-riches theme, written with a late-career Baby Boomer in mind. His message to the aging careerist: It's never too late to recreate yourself and find resurgence.

"Wake up every morning believing you're going to live forever," the 80-year-old former corporate raider writes. "No limits. No restrictions." The "T" is for Thomas but his friends call him "Pick."

The straight-talking Texan offers up his career as testament to the regenerative powers of the U.S. capitalist system.

After building Mesa Petroleum into the largest independent U.S. oil company from a $2,500 investment, Pickens was nudged out of the chief executive's chair by powerful financiers like Richard Rainwater.

At age 69 Pickens found himself embroiled in a bitter divorce proceeding while trying to run a money-losing energy fund and suffering from undiagnosed depression. But Pickens gritted his teeth, focused on getting in shape, and eventually maneuvered his energy fund, BP Capital to take advantage of the biggest one-year run-up of natural gas prices in history. From 2000 to 2007 the fund made a total profit of $8 billion.

"Things will get better if you hang in there and believe in yourself," Pickens writes.

Pickens heaps praise on his allies and scorn on those who stood in his way, offering comeuppance to Rainwater and his wife Darla Moore, who engineered Pickens' exit from Mesa. Pickens Moore as a "wolverine" who came between Pickens and Rainwater.

There's a chapter devoted to management theory, interspersed with declaratives like "DON'T MANAGE, LEAD." Another chapter lays out Pickens' treatise on how to make America energy independent by building windmills and powering cars with electricity and natural gas, not gasoline.

And there's a long-winded chapter devoted to his college alma mater -- Oklahoma State University.

On one of the bigger energy topics of the day, he disputes the idea that Saudi Arabia -- the world's top oil exporter -- can boost output at the drop of a hat.

"The Saudis say they've got 260 billion barrels," Pickens writes. "I don't believe them."

(Reporting by Chris Baltimore; Editing by Eddie Evans)