Product Description

This text aims to show how anyone, no matter what their current station in life, can become a millionaire. The advice in this book is based on an analysis of the habits and practices of hundreds of self-made millionaires, and the results have been put into a 21 step-by-step process.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #231163 in Books
• Published on: 2001-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 83 pages

Customer Reviews

Eloquent and Practical
Long ago while growing up in Chicago, I read two books which have had a lasting impact on my personal and professional development: Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People and Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. I make it a point to re-read both at least once a year; also Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. My guess (only a guess) is that these three books have also had a positive and lasting impact on Brian Tracy. Their influence is suggested in this book as are the Four Gospels and Saint Paul's various Letters in the New Testament.

However, we all realize that each of us must assume full responsibility for our successes and failures in life. The most valuable lessons we learn are from our own experiences, especially from failures. Tracy notes that "more than 90% of all financially successful people today started out broke or nearly broke. The average self-made millionaire has been bankrupt or nearly bankrupt 3.2 times." Hmmm. He chose self-made millionaires as the focal point of this book "because these people had demonstrated social qualities and behaviors that were observable and measurable." He offers 21 "success secrets," most of which are really not secrets. I would be very surprised if any one of them is unfamiliar to anyone who reads this book.

For me, this is the key point: No matter what we read and how carefully we read it, now matter how much wisdom is provided by what we read, NOTHING beneficial will result unless and until we embrace appropriate values, then make decisions and take appropriate actions which are guided and informed by those values.

Tracy insists that success is predictable. I presume to add, that the same is true of failure. "Your greatest responsibility is to dream big dreams, decide exactly what you want, make a plan to achieve it, practice the strategies in this book, take action every single day in the direction of your dreams and goals, and resolve [as Churchill urges] to never, never, never give up." Throughout his book, Tracy does indeed recommend specific strategies to follow and includes a series of Action Exercises to complete. In that event, "You become unstoppable and your success becomes inevitable."

Hill, Carnegie, Franklin, and countless others do indeed share the credit for whatever I may have achieved in my life thus far but only I am responsible for what remains of that life.

It is not enough to read and admire Tracy's book. As I have previously indicated, the challenge is to embrace appropriate values, then make decisions and take appropriate actions which are guided and informed by those values. The extent to which we respond to that challenge will determine whether or not we succeed or fail when pursuing whatever our dreams may be.

Very Abridged Version of a Library on Personal Success
This book will mainly be valuable to people who love to read books about personal success, and want to have one brief volume that reminds them of everything they have read on the subject.
For those who do not know much about achieving success, the lessons here are usually presented in such a simplified way (without explaining much about why they work) that the meaning will be elusive.

Also, these rules "maximize" the opportunity for those who are truly obsessed about success and/or money. If you are interested in love, happiness, relationships, or having a great family, I think this book will put you out of balance and cost you in those areas.

Mr. Tracy is a very admirable man, and someone from whom we can learn. He is a self-made millionaire. In his comments here, I got one new idea for why. He grew up in Pomona, California. Every person I knew of his age who grew up in that town became extremely eager to overcome their childhood poverty. You may not be so obsessed.

Two things, however, annoy me (as usual) about Mr. Tracy's book. First, he doesn't ever choose to credit anyone whose work he draws on in another book. A great deal of this material (almost verbatim) comes directly from Anthony Robbins' books and courses. Second, the book is often an advertisement for Mr. Tracy's many tapes, seminars, and other books. I get 90 pages-long advertising paperbacks in the mail all the time that are written much like this book. The main difference is that I don't have to pay for those. I think that this advertising is out of place in a book that people purchase.

I graded the book down two stars for these flaws.

The strength of this book is that it contains many brief exercises that will help you begin to develop more useful habits. I hope you will do them. If you do the exercises, you can virtually ignore the text, except for where you want a little insight into why you are doing the exercise.

Without the exercises, I would have graded the book down to two stars to reflect the overly minimal exposition in the 21 essays.

A fundamental weakness of the book is that the 21 rules here could have been boiled down into about 9 points. Many of the concepts overlap one another more than they differ.

Rather than give you the list of the 21, let me distill the book for you instead. It basically says: dream of something that excites you, do things that you enjoy that you are great at, establish goals in writing, keep focused on those goals, develop your skills (Covey's Sharpen the Saw) regularly every day, put the needs of others ahead of yourself, be a decent human being, connect with others, don't entirely ignore your health, work very hard, save some money and invest it, and take action as soon as possible!

You could read Benjamin Franklin and find the same points and have more fun. If you are a young person, that's exactly what I recommend that you do. Old Ben knew how to enjoy life along the way, and was one of the greatest Americans of all time. You will find yourself admiring him. Poor Richard's Almanac is often very pithy on these subjects, so you'll save reading time in the process. People will be more impressed if you quote Ban than Mr. Tracy.

After you finish reading and applying Mr. Tracy's exercises, ask yourself how you can organize your day to have time for all of these activities and whatever else is important in your life. I suggest that you use Life Strategies and the workbook that goes with it to put it all into perspective. Those exercises will help you accomplish these results as well.

Be sure to take care of your health, happiness, and peace before you start focusing too much on prosperity!

Follow these laws and you will be successful!
Inside are 21 unbreakable laws to use and improve your financial life, based on Brian's research into how regular people (many who start with nothing) become millionaires.

It's the book that I buy most often for my friends interested in creating a successful life- whether they choose to rise up the corporate ladder, set up their own business or retire early.

Its an easy-to-understand book (can be read in a day or on the morning commute) and will probably be one of the 5 most influential and essential books you will ever read.

Thanks Brian!