Your Guide To Books

Wallace D Wattles’ classic work The Science of Getting Rich had quite an effect on me immediately after my very first reading. I can only describe what happened as a kind of attitude change, but that transformation, I believe, is absolutely critical for anyone interested in how to become rich. So in changing my attitude, I realised that I had indeed made the first step toward becoming rich.

It was difficult to disagree with the powerful argument of the author to the effect that the causes of wealth are not those that people normally associate with getting rich. For example, your level of education, access to opportunities or even the social circles you move within. In fact, the book begins with a comprehensive demolition of such erroneous thinking.

Having dismissed what many people would think of as the causes of wealth, he goes on to show that its real cause is what he calls doing things in a certain way. In other words, it ain’t what you do, its the way that you do it - and that’s what gets results.

The amazing proposition he advances is that absolutely anyone who can learn to do things in, what he calls, the ‘certain way’ can become rich. Although he does not really emphasise the matter, he also strongly suggests that to become rich, you really need to be in business.

You should give everyone more in use-value than you take from them in cash-value, he says; and, from that statement, we can immediately see that he is implying you should be in business. The principle is essentially that of continually exceeding your customer’s expectations.

It doesn’t take much thinking to conclude that, to become rich, you need to be in business. This is simply because whatever you do for a living - your job - has a market-value; and that’s what you are being paid. You will never be paid more than your market-value because it does not make economic sense for your employer to do so.

On the other hand, when you work for yourself, there is no top limit. There are plenty of challenges, of course, but theres no top limit on your income as there is at present. The time is right I believe, with the age of the internet, for ordinary people to seize the day and make their fortunes because it has never been easier to start a business than it is on the internet.

Wallace D Wattles’ ideas can easily be translated to doing business on the internet. Using his simple principles like being focussed on what you want, taking effective action and over-delivering in every business transaction, many people are applying the Science of Getting Rich to their lives and seeing quite a transformation.