Rating: Summary: Good teaching points; interesting analytical methodology Review: The value of this book lies in its attempts to quantify and encapsulate in a standard research methological approach ideas many of us have been told by mentors or know through "common sense". On pg. 45 the author presents factors that each of his respondees have rated as being of relative importance to meeting one's personal career goals.
I particularly like his idea that one's likelihood of achieving above average net worth will exponentially increase if one focuses on services vs. products. The fact is that just as only 10% of Americans hold graduate degrees, only 1% will reach millionaire status. In other words, it is an elite status that is gained through careful planning and execution not "luck". The author stresses that one's relationships with others not just schooling, job, etc. play a critical role as well. For instance, some researchers purport that one's yearly income will be the average of his/her 10 closest friends.
In sum, this book is an interesting guide to substantiate what many of us have been told time and time again about what it takes to acquire, maintain or increase one's financial liquidity. Further, I am a huge fan of the author's relentless attempts to distinguish between being wealthy vs. being rich. Wealth truly is having total control of the most valuable, finite and irreplaceable asset of all: time. Through owning assets that generate passive income however, you truly are wealthy in that you have the resources + the TIME to do whatever you desire. On the other hand the income-rich, exchange their time for money. With only 24 hours a day, you are destined to be behind in this game. Sadly, many highly-educated people of whom I am lucky to be one of (or unlucky--depending on the little known negative correlation between amount of education one has and likelihood of becoming a billionaire), fall into the trap of chasing prestige jobs/careers as opposed to wealth building lines of work that are sometimes less prestigious.
Finally, I suggest a careful reading of chapter 6. Here, the author completes an insightful analysis of the issue of partner selection and its impact on one's financial life. According to the author, it literally does "pay" to marry an "unselfsh, caring, forgiving, patient, understanding, disciplined and virtuous" individual (pg. 246).
I hope you find this commentary useful.
Rating: Summary: Buy this book with "Lying with Statistics" Review: Is it better to be balance sheet rich or income statement rich? Let's construct a survey targeting the balance sheet rich and find out. Guess what? They say that it's better to be balance sheet rich, so it must be true.
Do you get rich by being honest and hard-working, or dishonest and lucky? Hmmm. We'd better ask some rich people to describe themselves and find out. What's that? The poor people say that they are honest and hard-working too? Well then, we'd better not interview them.
Rating: Summary: A look into the millionaire mind Review: Hmm....I guess you can technically take the same material, rearrange it and then publish it with another title if you really want to but I kind of thought that was looked down upon in the literary world! This is a 10 star book only they wrote it already and it was titled The Millionaire Next Door. This is literally and I mean LITERALLY the same exact book only rewritten, rearranged, retitled and republished. It really doesn't matter which of the books you read. Either will do. Both are 10 stars on their own but I gave it 3 because all in all I thought it was rather rude to scam people out of their money by selling the same exact book under a different title all in the name of some dough! But then again maybe they were millionaire minded, saw an easy way to make some more bucks and went for it!
Rating: Summary: This book will bore you if you read the first one Review: A whole lot of nothing is in this book. I was very dissapointed because I thought there would be something new. But if you already read the first book, then I suggest to you to stay away from this one. There were a few interesting stories like the guy who sold salvaged truck parts and became a millionaire, but other than that, it is a total loss. It is basically a paper weight in my house now. Very dry reading as well. Like many other reviewers have said. Dryer than the first book, and that is hard to top.Also, someone is inflating (and deflating) the helpfullness votes for most of the reviews here. Take a look: If the review is a positive, then it would get over 50-100 helpful votes. And if it was a negative review, it would receive the opposite, 50-100 unhelpful votes. Can you guess which votes I'm going to get? If it's the author himself doing this, then you are a sad sad man.
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