The Millionaire Mind
Being virtuous is a necessary quality for human flourishing, and economic success
My husband works in the collectibles business. He deals in collectible coins, stamps, sports cards, comic books, and so forth, as well as bullion (e.g., silver and gold rounds and bars). The business typically attracts older customers—those who are established in their careers and have money to invest in collectibles and those who are retired and collect for enjoyment—but, occasionally, young people wander into his shop with an interest in starting a collection or investing in silver and gold. A book that my husband often recommends to his young customers attending college or starting out their career is The Millionaire Mind. He recommends they read the book because the (mostly) young men have it in their mind that if they go to college, get their four-year degree (and perhaps an advanced degree), and then land a well-paying job that they will be automatically set on the path to becoming wealthy. The Millionaire Mind, as the title suggests, is indeed a book about men and women in America who have become wealthy, but how they got there is not how one might expect. My husband recommends the book to his young customers to disabuse them of the notion that earning a college degree, and then landing a job working for someone else, is going to necessarily lead to wealth, or even financial stability. He wants his young customers to not just purchase from him, he also wants them to understand what exactly contributes to success in life.
I was curious, so I read the copy we have at home—at the urging of my husband.
The Millionaire Mind is a book about balance-sheet millionaires. Those who retain their millionaire status even after you subtract their debts—mortgages, car loans, student loans, credit card balances, etc. The author, Thomas J. Stanley, a researcher and professor of business who spent his career studying millionaires, wrote The Millionaire Mind to illuminate how millionaires achieve such a status—how they think and behave in order to maintain a successful career and establish wealth. The book, and the others like it that he authored, could be understood as a business book or instructional manual on how to become economically successful and wealthy in America. But I think the book is more about how to flourish in the broader sense, not just in the economic sense.
The millionaires described in the book did not inherit their wealth, as many might assume, and the means through which they became millionaires is more closely related to how they have lived their lives than how they have earned their income.