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The problem with all these "how to get rich" books is that they're full of anecdotes, quotations, fictional stories, motivational bullshit etc. which make you f

The problem with all these "how to get rich" books is that they're full of anecdotes, quotations, fictional stories, motivational bullshit etc. which make you feel good while reading them, but as soon as you put the book back on the shelf, it's all gone. It's just a temporary boost of energy and motivation, because reading requires almost no effort and more often that not it's just another way of procrastination. Seriously, do you think the majority of rich people prepared for "getting rich" by reading hundreds of motivational and self-help books? It's not like you'll find some magical recipe in one of the books which you can just apply to your life and 10 years from now become a billionare. Each success story is so different and depends on so many factors - being in right time at the right place among the most important - that it's impossible to simply recreate any of them and just wait for the results.

ranko 11y ago
Absolutely - all mixed in with a good proportion of survivorship bias: all we learn (at most) is that someone behaved in a certain way and became "successful" (for some values of success). We never seem to hear about those who did the same things and never made it rich.
ZeroGravitas 11y ago
Possibly this is biased, but I'm not sure I'd ever seen this kind of financial self-help book till I saw them in the US. I flicked through a few books expecting basic info about compound interest or whatever but instead it was all "if you believe hard enough then the money will be magnetically attracted to you" and similar woo. A very strange experience.
- kaitai 11y ago
  The US: a mixture of economic fear, economic hope, and pseudo-Christian rhetoric that is stoked for gain by many. “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Ronald Wright "17 percent of Christians surveyed said they considered themselves part of such a movement, while a full 61 percent believed that God wants people to be prosperous. And 31 percent—a far higher percentage than there are Pentecostals in America—agreed that if you give your money to God, God will bless you with more money." Time magazine, Does God want you to be rich? Healthcare costs cause 62% of personal bankruptcies in the US; 72% of those who file for bankruptcy due to medical costs had health insurance at the time of illness. RomneyCare didn't change those figures in Massachusetts much even though everyone had health insurance, and ObamaCare has not made much of a dent there either. What will an average person do in the face of such market forces? One (God-given) illness will wipe away everything they ever had, and just getting a better job won't in general help -- it's not a big enough pay bump. And collective political action is for socialists. So... pray! edit in response to some downvotes: I'm not saying anything anti-religion or anti-Christian here; read carefully.
  - bittercynic 11y ago
    This comment adds clarity to a new angle on the discussion. Not sure why the downvotes. There is a huge class of working poor, who earn just enough (or not enough) to cover real necessities. For this group, there's not much value in advice on economic strategy. Even in the event of a moderate-sized windfall, the history of scarcity makes it impossible to use a windfall to improve your situation in a lasting way. However, there is another huge class of people in the US who earn more than enough to be free from economic worries and start building serious wealth, yet they squander their huge paychecks each month. For this group, maybe books like this can have some value.
petercooper 11y ago
Sort of. I find reading other people's stories gives me "permission" to do and try things. I'm naturally quite a retiring person, but getting candid explanation of people's techniques and approaches has given me the "if they can do that, I can try it too" attitude numerous times (as has HN and numerous blog posts, to be fair - I can pinpoint certain things I've done to being inspired by specific pieces of content).
- varlock 11y ago
  Could you give examples of things you've done and the HN posts that triggered them, please? I'm familiar with the feeling you describe (They can? Then I can too!) so I'm just curious to see what is in those posts that can inspire someone (content, semantics, anything).
  - ams6110 11y ago
    I can't remember where I first read this, but one basic piece of advice I've carried in my head for at least three decades is "if you want to be good at something, find a person who is good at that thing, and then do what they do" This helped me a lot in my first few jobs, i.e. identify a person who is successful and well respected, get to know them and try to do things the way they do. Works in school too -- if you want to do well, do what the successful students are doing. Usually boils down to pretty simple stuff, e.g. studying a lot more.
  - petercooper 11y ago
    http://jasonlbaptiste.com/commentary/email-newsletters-business/ http://jasonlbaptiste.com/commentary/email-newsletters-busin... was on HN 6+ years ago and inspired me to get into email newsletters, which I was very skeptical about. Now we're a company of 9 doing it :-) It's not a very self help style post, but just seeing examples of something was enough to inspire.
withdavidli 11y ago
I liked the 4 hour work week. Sure many here have probably read it. Title sounds cheesy, and I was ready to think it belongs on an infomercial. But throughout the book a step by step process on testing products, figuring out whats the best channel for ads, then how to negotiate better deals on the ads. It's a lot of work that many aren't willing to put in. Read Rich Dad Poor Dad before. There are criticism online about how they aren't real people. But it does display different mindsets, and how that mindset will change the perception of an event -> action taken because of the event. And to your question of the majority of rich people reading these books. Meh. Not sure the majority, but the more interviews I read/listen/watch from wealthy people there are certain books they have in common, for example Tony Robbins (haven't read any of his books yet). Not to say the majority of self help books aren't total fluff.
bitL 11y ago
RDPD seemed to me as parasitic - the "solutions" there work only if somebody gets into trouble, like foreclosures etc. Not a "wealth creation" book, rather a misfortune-of-others exploitation one.
- miseg 11y ago
  Interesting, I learned from it from a non-misfortune stance. E.g.: Work your job, but move towards income from a business. (Not that I've gotten very far yet ;) )
- breitling 11y ago
  I don't get it - you're not causing the foreclosure, so why feel guilty about it?
  - bitL 11y ago
    Morality aside, it's not a book that would teach you how to found a new Google, rather how to exploit social structures in place assuming most people would keep their way of thinking/doing. Exaggerating, it's like when you identify how an ideal member of a religion would behave (because of archetype and social conformity pressure put on them), and then exploit what they aren't allowed to do. Imagine though if every single member of your nation followed RDPD strategy - when everybody is doing that, nobody wins.
    - ansible 11y ago
      In other words... it is not scalable. We all need to seize good opportunities we get, but we also need to focus on creating wealth. Something that can benefit society as a whole. The quintessential example of this is a guy like Dean Kamen, working on the Slingshot clean-water project. I hope he gets rich from that... because he'll have done it saving millions of lives per year.
breitling 11y ago
> it's all gone Well, that depends. The core lessons really stuck with me and changed the way I thought about money. Especially about the cash flow differences between poor people vs rich people (income goes into assets and the income generated by assets is what can be spent). I would directly credit this book for my start in real-estate investments and for changing my mindset. I used to be blind to the opportunities around me. As with most things in life, it's what you get out of it. If you want to forget it, you probably will.
- charlesdm 11y ago
  Funnily, not many people think about money this way. Most people see it purely as something that needs to be spent.
  - miseg 11y ago
    Indeed, that's the point of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Its framework of the four quadrants that define where your money is coming from stuck with me.
watmough 11y ago
This is such a great point. The bottom line, as I've always thought about it, is that if you can usefully create significant value, then you will always have a livelihood, and just basic common sense will get you to your goals. "Creating significant value" is a pretty high bar though, and a different story.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
allwein 11y ago
> do you think the majority of rich people prepared for "getting rich" by reading hundreds of motivational and self-help books? No, I don't. But you know what they do have? They've grown up in a household and a culture that teaches them thousands of small lessons in being and staying rich. They don't have to read about it, because their parents and friends and lawyers and accountants and country club associates have all been reinforcing those lessons their entire lives.
- reboog711 11y ago
  According to The Millionaire Next Door; I am not sure this is true. Many children of 'rich people' have their lifestyle funded by their parents and only learn how to spend beyond their means; which does not accumulate them wealth in the long-term.
  - surge 11y ago
    That's basically the difference from what used to be referred to as 'new' rich vs 'old' rich back in the day. The old rich were families whose wealth passed down or perpetuated through generations specifically because they taught their kids the discipline needed to build and keep wealth. Where as new rich fizzled out fairly quickly.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > The old rich were families whose wealth passed down or perpetuated through generations specifically because they taught their kids the discipline needed to build and keep wealth. No, the old rich were families whose wealth was secured by long-established bonds of connection with other old-rich families who constituted the ruling class and dominated politics and business and acted together, for protection of their mutual interest, as a tribe jealously defending against outsiders, the new rich were those who had secured money but not yet been admitted to the ruling tribe. (This is still the case, though "old rich" and "new rich" aren't particularly popular terms for it; if your family has connections where, e.g., the Saudi royals will bail out your failing enterprises for the value of maintaining a useful network, and you wealthy establishment donors will pour fortunes into your brothers campaign for office for the same reason despite being willing to say that they think the whole thing is a waste as long as they can be anonymous while doing so, what your parents have given to you is connections more than discipline.)
pmorici 11y ago
When I was a kid I remember the Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy doing tv specials or perhaps they were paid tv segments to sell his book where he would preach the lessons of his book. I remember him being a very talented motivational speaker but when I got done watching as a kid I remember thinking it was all more or less BS because while his over arching message isn't wrong; for someone who is working class or inexperienced it is a HUGE leap and the general tone of his delivery is much more miracle cure than practical steps. For that reason I've always sort of lumped this guy in with televangelists.
reboog711 11y ago
It has been a long time since I read it; but I don't consider "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" a 'how to get rich' book. The real benefit I got from that book was how it draws a line between a liability and an asset. For example, a car is not an asset; especially if you had to take a loan to pay it off. That is something that takes money away from your cash flow every month; not add to it. A rental house that brings in money every month is an asset. The book goes on to say you should never get rid of an asset unless you are replacing it with another 'more valuable' asset.
- TooSmugToFail 11y ago
  That was the only take-away for me, back when I read it maybe 15 or more years ago. But in addition to that, I can't say I got more out of it...
  - spdionis 11y ago
    Sounds important enough. It changed my view of things too.
xutopia 11y ago
That depends on your temperament. I read Automatic Millionaire by David Bach and started saving money right away. I maxed out on tax savings through the advice in that book and used that money to bootstrap a company which I sold for a hefty price.

ranko 11y ago

Absolutely - all mixed in with a good proportion of survivorship bias: all we learn (at most) is that someone behaved in a certain way and became "successful" (for some values of success). We never seem to hear about those who did the same things and never made it rich.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago

Possibly this is biased, but I'm not sure I'd ever seen this kind of financial self-help book till I saw them in the US. I flicked through a few books expecting basic info about compound interest or whatever but instead it was all "if you believe hard enough then the money will be magnetically attracted to you" and similar woo. A very strange experience.

kaitai 11y ago
The US: a mixture of economic fear, economic hope, and pseudo-Christian rhetoric that is stoked for gain by many. “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Ronald Wright "17 percent of Christians surveyed said they considered themselves part of such a movement, while a full 61 percent believed that God wants people to be prosperous. And 31 percent—a far higher percentage than there are Pentecostals in America—agreed that if you give your money to God, God will bless you with more money." Time magazine, Does God want you to be rich? Healthcare costs cause 62% of personal bankruptcies in the US; 72% of those who file for bankruptcy due to medical costs had health insurance at the time of illness. RomneyCare didn't change those figures in Massachusetts much even though everyone had health insurance, and ObamaCare has not made much of a dent there either. What will an average person do in the face of such market forces? One (God-given) illness will wipe away everything they ever had, and just getting a better job won't in general help -- it's not a big enough pay bump. And collective political action is for socialists. So... pray! edit in response to some downvotes: I'm not saying anything anti-religion or anti-Christian here; read carefully.
- bittercynic 11y ago
  This comment adds clarity to a new angle on the discussion. Not sure why the downvotes. There is a huge class of working poor, who earn just enough (or not enough) to cover real necessities. For this group, there's not much value in advice on economic strategy. Even in the event of a moderate-sized windfall, the history of scarcity makes it impossible to use a windfall to improve your situation in a lasting way. However, there is another huge class of people in the US who earn more than enough to be free from economic worries and start building serious wealth, yet they squander their huge paychecks each month. For this group, maybe books like this can have some value.

petercooper 11y ago

Sort of. I find reading other people's stories gives me "permission" to do and try things. I'm naturally quite a retiring person, but getting candid explanation of people's techniques and approaches has given me the "if they can do that, I can try it too" attitude numerous times (as has HN and numerous blog posts, to be fair - I can pinpoint certain things I've done to being inspired by specific pieces of content).

varlock 11y ago
Could you give examples of things you've done and the HN posts that triggered them, please? I'm familiar with the feeling you describe (They can? Then I can too!) so I'm just curious to see what is in those posts that can inspire someone (content, semantics, anything).
- ams6110 11y ago
  I can't remember where I first read this, but one basic piece of advice I've carried in my head for at least three decades is "if you want to be good at something, find a person who is good at that thing, and then do what they do" This helped me a lot in my first few jobs, i.e. identify a person who is successful and well respected, get to know them and try to do things the way they do. Works in school too -- if you want to do well, do what the successful students are doing. Usually boils down to pretty simple stuff, e.g. studying a lot more.
- petercooper 11y ago
  http://jasonlbaptiste.com/commentary/email-newsletters-business/ http://jasonlbaptiste.com/commentary/email-newsletters-busin... was on HN 6+ years ago and inspired me to get into email newsletters, which I was very skeptical about. Now we're a company of 9 doing it :-) It's not a very self help style post, but just seeing examples of something was enough to inspire.

withdavidli 11y ago

I liked the 4 hour work week. Sure many here have probably read it. Title sounds cheesy, and I was ready to think it belongs on an infomercial. But throughout the book a step by step process on testing products, figuring out whats the best channel for ads, then how to negotiate better deals on the ads. It's a lot of work that many aren't willing to put in. Read Rich Dad Poor Dad before. There are criticism online about how they aren't real people. But it does display different mindsets, and how that mindset will change the perception of an event -> action taken because of the event. And to your question of the majority of rich people reading these books. Meh. Not sure the majority, but the more interviews I read/listen/watch from wealthy people there are certain books they have in common, for example Tony Robbins (haven't read any of his books yet). Not to say the majority of self help books aren't total fluff.

bitL 11y ago

RDPD seemed to me as parasitic - the "solutions" there work only if somebody gets into trouble, like foreclosures etc. Not a "wealth creation" book, rather a misfortune-of-others exploitation one.

miseg 11y ago
Interesting, I learned from it from a non-misfortune stance. E.g.: Work your job, but move towards income from a business. (Not that I've gotten very far yet ;) )
breitling 11y ago
I don't get it - you're not causing the foreclosure, so why feel guilty about it?
- bitL 11y ago
  Morality aside, it's not a book that would teach you how to found a new Google, rather how to exploit social structures in place assuming most people would keep their way of thinking/doing. Exaggerating, it's like when you identify how an ideal member of a religion would behave (because of archetype and social conformity pressure put on them), and then exploit what they aren't allowed to do. Imagine though if every single member of your nation followed RDPD strategy - when everybody is doing that, nobody wins.
  - ansible 11y ago
    In other words... it is not scalable. We all need to seize good opportunities we get, but we also need to focus on creating wealth. Something that can benefit society as a whole. The quintessential example of this is a guy like Dean Kamen, working on the Slingshot clean-water project. I hope he gets rich from that... because he'll have done it saving millions of lives per year.

breitling 11y ago

> it's all gone Well, that depends. The core lessons really stuck with me and changed the way I thought about money. Especially about the cash flow differences between poor people vs rich people (income goes into assets and the income generated by assets is what can be spent). I would directly credit this book for my start in real-estate investments and for changing my mindset. I used to be blind to the opportunities around me. As with most things in life, it's what you get out of it. If you want to forget it, you probably will.

charlesdm 11y ago
Funnily, not many people think about money this way. Most people see it purely as something that needs to be spent.
- miseg 11y ago
  Indeed, that's the point of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Its framework of the four quadrants that define where your money is coming from stuck with me.

watmough 11y ago

This is such a great point. The bottom line, as I've always thought about it, is that if you can usefully create significant value, then you will always have a livelihood, and just basic common sense will get you to your goals. "Creating significant value" is a pretty high bar though, and a different story.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

allwein 11y ago

> do you think the majority of rich people prepared for "getting rich" by reading hundreds of motivational and self-help books? No, I don't. But you know what they do have? They've grown up in a household and a culture that teaches them thousands of small lessons in being and staying rich. They don't have to read about it, because their parents and friends and lawyers and accountants and country club associates have all been reinforcing those lessons their entire lives.

reboog711 11y ago
According to The Millionaire Next Door; I am not sure this is true. Many children of 'rich people' have their lifestyle funded by their parents and only learn how to spend beyond their means; which does not accumulate them wealth in the long-term.
- surge 11y ago
  That's basically the difference from what used to be referred to as 'new' rich vs 'old' rich back in the day. The old rich were families whose wealth passed down or perpetuated through generations specifically because they taught their kids the discipline needed to build and keep wealth. Where as new rich fizzled out fairly quickly.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > The old rich were families whose wealth passed down or perpetuated through generations specifically because they taught their kids the discipline needed to build and keep wealth. No, the old rich were families whose wealth was secured by long-established bonds of connection with other old-rich families who constituted the ruling class and dominated politics and business and acted together, for protection of their mutual interest, as a tribe jealously defending against outsiders, the new rich were those who had secured money but not yet been admitted to the ruling tribe. (This is still the case, though "old rich" and "new rich" aren't particularly popular terms for it; if your family has connections where, e.g., the Saudi royals will bail out your failing enterprises for the value of maintaining a useful network, and you wealthy establishment donors will pour fortunes into your brothers campaign for office for the same reason despite being willing to say that they think the whole thing is a waste as long as they can be anonymous while doing so, what your parents have given to you is connections more than discipline.)

pmorici 11y ago

When I was a kid I remember the Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy doing tv specials or perhaps they were paid tv segments to sell his book where he would preach the lessons of his book. I remember him being a very talented motivational speaker but when I got done watching as a kid I remember thinking it was all more or less BS because while his over arching message isn't wrong; for someone who is working class or inexperienced it is a HUGE leap and the general tone of his delivery is much more miracle cure than practical steps. For that reason I've always sort of lumped this guy in with televangelists.

reboog711 11y ago

It has been a long time since I read it; but I don't consider "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" a 'how to get rich' book. The real benefit I got from that book was how it draws a line between a liability and an asset. For example, a car is not an asset; especially if you had to take a loan to pay it off. That is something that takes money away from your cash flow every month; not add to it. A rental house that brings in money every month is an asset. The book goes on to say you should never get rid of an asset unless you are replacing it with another 'more valuable' asset.

TooSmugToFail 11y ago
That was the only take-away for me, back when I read it maybe 15 or more years ago. But in addition to that, I can't say I got more out of it...
- spdionis 11y ago
  Sounds important enough. It changed my view of things too.

xutopia 11y ago

That depends on your temperament. I read Automatic Millionaire by David Bach and started saving money right away. I maxed out on tax savings through the advice in that book and used that money to bootstrap a company which I sold for a hefty price.