World, Writing, Wealth discussion
Book and Film Discussions
>
Can books teach you how to become rich?
date
newest »
newest »
How about that Honore de Balzac observation: "Behind every great fortune, there is a crime."
Nice, Honore didn’t waste time on lengthy explanations and went straight to the core :)
Is crime always a requisite for building (or maintaining) a fortune?
No, Honore exaggerates, especially since one can simply inherit a fortune and an infant can't commit any crime.On the other hand, the dimension of crime in moneymaking is way bigger than we may think. Also, who defines what crime is, what a legit civil dispute is or simply something immoral? For example, stealing a loaf of bread or smoking weed would be a crime, while a wage theft may often go unnoticed or not even defined as criminal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft
Many years ago, there was a book called "The Millionaire Next Door" that basically told what habits some average workers had that helped them become wealthy. It was not about people born into wealth or who won the lottery, but the habits of thrift and good money management that let middle class people become wealthy.
No matter what advice is given, it has to be followed to have a chance of being effective.
It really all comes down to what you define as rich. That was the original question in this topic thread: Can books teach you how to become rich? BUT there is a huge chasm between rich -- and really, really, stinking Bezos-type wealthy? For most people, I hazard a guess that rich means being comfortable and not having to worry about where your next cent is coming from. And, in that case, no, that doesn't need to be based on a crime. Prudent money management could lead to a person being rich. And, yes, you could conceivably get that advice from a book.
Very interesting video. The crux of it is at the very end where he says that a rich person's mentality is always to say : "How can I afford this??? What can I do to get this?" whereas a poor person will say immediately. "No, I can't do it, I can't afford it."Hence, according to him it really boils down to vision and a self-confidence that allows one to think that all is possible
Joanna wrote: "It really all comes down to what you define as rich. That was the original question in this topic thread: Can books teach you how to become rich? BUT there is a huge chasm between rich -- and reall..."I agree. Thanks for your ideas. I consider myself rich because I have everything I need, can afford some luxuries, and owe no one. It depends on your definition of "rich".
If any of the the books can make you rich, then why are there not more rich people? Maybe that is the biggest argument against the question from being yes.
It seems to me that some people just have a knack for turning dollars into more dollars. Many of them are just regular people with no business education. I wish I had the knack.
A knack seems more important than education. Don't have the stats, but intuitively I'd expect more of those not having biz education (some having no higher education at all) to be businessmen than those who properly studied Masters of Business Administration
Bringing this up again because I heard about a book - maybe it was on a goodreads group - called s"The Art of Money Getting" and it was written by P T Barnum. Apparently, even though he was known mainly as a showman, he was a hard worker, very charitable and had a sound philosophy about how to earn an honest living and create wealth. I checked it out and it's on some "free read" sites like Project Gutenberg.
The thread well revived - a pertinent lead!
Interesting, Barbara. I've always heard that he said, "There's a sucker born every minute," but according to Wikipedia, there's no evidence that he said it. If you Google quotes by him, there are some good ones. "Literature is one of the most interesting and significant expressions of humanity." "There is scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt." "No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else."
For some reason, I don't recollect Bill Gates reminiscing something like: "Yeah and then I read this book and knew exactly how to conceive and monetize windows" or Mark Zuckerberg referencing his success to a book or two. But maybe my memory is faulty.
What do you think?