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 change, 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 move toward becoming wealthy.
On reading the book, I had to agree with the author that such things as location, business, capital, education and so on – the things people normally associate with becoming successful – simply were not the causes of wealth. The book opens with a reasoned discussion on exactly that point; and I found the argument made by Wattles to be absolutely compelling.
Once he has dispelled many of the myths relating to the creation of wealth, he reveals his own assessment of the real cause which he says involves doing things in the right way. He draws this conclusion because there are people making money in every field of activity, just as there are people losing money doing the same things.
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.
The main principle he suggests you make use of, in operating in this certain way, might be called over-delivering or exceeding the expectations of those you deal with. You should provide more in use-value, he says, than you take in cash-value – you see how operating a business is implied by the use of those words.
Personally, I think it is self-evident that you need to have your own business to become rich. If you work for someone else, your income will rise to a level dictated by the market for your talent or skills – and thats it. You may earn slightly more than your market worth, but thats absolutely it, you can never, therefore, become rich by pursuing such a course.
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.
It almost seems as if Wallace D Wattles had written the Science of Getting Rich specifically for the age of the internet. Of course, he did not, but despite that, the principles he advocates do translate to doing business on the internet extremely well indeed. I firmly believe that, at the present time, there is a real opportunity for the average individual to become wealthy by applying these principles to doing business online.
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