About the Wealthy
 

Only a fraction of all people ever achieve wealth. Why? Because few have a plan on how to achieve it. Even fewer have the discipline to follow those plans. Financial independence is not a subject that is taught in school. Most people have grown up with role models who also didn't have a plan to become wealthy, nor the discipline to follow such plans. They simply aren’t prepared to become wealthy.

The world is full of people who want instant gratification. The enticements are all around us in the form of fad diets, fast food, lotteries (which are really only a tax for the uninformed), discount sales, get rich quick schemes, zero percent financing car sales, and so on. They are illusions. You indulge in them to satisfy temporary desires, but the satisfaction wears off quickly. Then you're back to square one having wasted precious time and money. It's a trap that many people buy into.

In order to avoid these traps you must think and act differently. The strategies and techniques contained within this book have been proven time and again by those who have succeeded. You won't have to sacrifice much. On the contrary it is rewarding and satisfying to be in charge of your own life and effect lasting change. You will become a happier, more successful person living a better, more fulfilling life. Money simply rewards those who nurture it. There are no shortcuts. But all you need to do is consistently follow these techniques, and you are virtually guaranteed to become a millionaire. It really is that simple.

Money is a tool to be used to meet your goals, a very important tool, but it is merely a means to an end. It is not an end in and of itself. I look at my money as a tub of water. Income is water flowing in, and expenses are holes in the tub out of which water leaks.

It is vitally important that the water flowing in is always more than the water flowing out. Otherwise you’ll never have more water. To accumulate water requires us to keep the leaks small and the faucets turned on high. But the reason to have water is because we all get thirsty.

Anyone in this country can become a millionaire. Many have done so. Forget what you think millionaires live like. Most do not have extravagant lifestyles, live in mansions, or drive a Rolls-Royce. That is the popular idea of what millionaires are like. It is what non-millionaires think it means to be wealthy. It is not an accurate portrayal of the wealthy.

In “The Millionaire Next Door” Thomas Stanley and William Danko share their findings of a millionaire survey. Most self-made millionaires do not appear to be wealthy. And that’s how they got that way. They didn’t blow their wads on materials possessions that lose their value, like cars, vacations, expensive clothes, and other frivolities.

Instead, they made decisions to forego some things that lose value for things that gain value such as investments in securities and real estate, and in their own businesses. What they gained was much more than money. They gained independence and satisfaction with their lives. They work because they enjoy it. Not because they need the money to support their lifestyles. They are not slaves to consumerism.

For some people wealth comes in a surprisingly short time. Either way it will happen eventually for anyone who consistently applies these strategies.

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