Masterminds & The Science of Getting Rich

I had dinner with some friends of mine a couple of nights ago. Being Wall Streeters, the conversation inevitably turned to how we would make our millions and retire by 40. Of course, my one friend who is 39, wanted us to up that number a bit. He is the only one of us that has made $130,000+ from just $5,000 in less than a year in stock and options trading, so we agreed. We decided to form a mastermind group – a group of like-minded people who support each other on the road to success. We each bring to the table, a variety of personalities and skills, but we share the same drive to succeed.

This isn’t the first mastermind group I’ve belonged to. The last one wasn’t successful because we couldn’t decide on which project to tackle. Two of us left that group, but the remaining members decided to invest in real estate. This was at the beginning of the real estate bubble burst. Ouch! I haven’t kept in touch with them, so I don’t know how badly they got burned.

The members of the new group are all Wall Streeters, but include traders, an IT guy, and a technical analyst, so I think we’ll have an easier time agreeing in which area to invest ourselves. We will all invest time, sweat, and money in our goal to reach financial security, or as the traders put it, “F*@# You!” money.

I’ll try to post regularly on our progress. The first homework we had was from the “senior” member of our group. He told us to read the book The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles. He says he has increased his income significantly after reading and following the advice in this book. It was written in 1910 and is a precursor to all the motivational books that are a dime a dozen today. Wallace believed becoming rich is a science, like mathematics, that can be reproduced and learned. He believed it has nothing to do with your environment, otherwise everyone in a particular city would be rich and in another city, would be all poor. It is not done by purely saving, as there are many savers that are still poor.

Since it is a public domain book, it is non-copyrighted and free to share. It’s a quick read at 66 pages. Here is the pdf version and audio book version.

The main points of the book are:

• Do things in a certain way
• Like causes must produce like effects. If someone else in your area is doing the same thing you are doing and they are rich while you aren’t – you’re not doing it in the same way
• You will do best in doing something you like to do
• There’s more than enough for all to be rich, the supply will never run out
• Don’t dwell on poverty. The only way to combat poverty is to become more rich and have an increasing number of practitioners of this book
• Altruism is the same as selfishness
• There is a force which permeates the Universe, which he calls “formless substance”
• We can form things in our thought and by impressing our thought on the force, we can cause the things we think to be created
• Create don’t compete
• We can become one with the force by feeling sincere gratitude for what the force can bring
• We must have a clear mental image of what we want, what to do, or what to become and spend every free moment visualizing this image
• Do everything that can be done each day, and in a successful manner
• Give unto others a use value in excess of cash value, so that each transaction will create more (I guess this is akin to the teach a man to fish proverb)