"You earn money as opposed to being paid money..."

I think the original of this goes to Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad where if you have your own business you "make" money; if you work for someone you "earn" money. But I may be wrong; correction is welcome.

Wealthy people tend to have different attitudes about money than others, which has a strong influence on their ability to accumulate wealth. This is expounded upon in the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad". It's worth a read, especially for people who are not wealthy but aspire to it.

Outliers, definitely the freakenomics books, I enjoyed Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Lean Startup, Power of Habit, Defining Decade (if your in your 20's, fantastic book), The Happiness Advantage, Great by Choice from Jim collins...

Very interesting idea. I need to figure out a way to teach my kids about money and cashflow using something like this method.
However, as cool as this story is, I swear I read it in one of Rich Dad Poor Dad books. Maybe this is the source of the books story. I'm not sure.

I recommend Felix Dennis' book "How to get Rich" as a good alternative to Rich Dad Poor Dad. Felix doesn't sugar coat his advice, he points out the sacrifice that will typically be involved in getting rich if that's what you want.

Maybe the problem definition can be changed a bit. Instead of asking "am I good enough to work for a top company?" you can ask "how can I create a business where smart people compete to get into?"

I highly recommend "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert T. Kiyosaki (Author)

Wow, you might actually be right - so I was wrong. I think I got that idea from "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Kyosaki. Well, it's never too late to learn you were wrong. http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/66379/whats-the-l...

> best personal finance book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”

Lost me right there. That is such a stupid book.

This. GV is like a LinkedIn virus, really annoying. Also the guy is like the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, getting rich by selling advise on how they got rich, which is all pretty much useless for others (or at least very disingenuous)

Rich Dad Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki

Rich Dad Poor Dad is a classic. If you want to live comfortably, you need multiple income streams.

Volunteer for a fundraiser. Firefighters, or whatever.

Low pressure. Fast past. You’ll get used to rejection quickly.

Rich dad poor dad book had a whole chapter on it.

Is it me or does Guy remind you of the guy who wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad?

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

It's the same story as "rich dad poor dad" from Robert Kiyosaki. My dad is very detail oriented, not a risk taker and all about security and education. My in law is the complete opposite. Guess who made a lot of money in life ;)

Rich Dad Poor Dad ain't exactly peer-reviewed research or even solid advice for that matter. It's a lousy self-help book at best.

Thanks! I've officially added it to my reading list, along with Rich Dad Poor Dad and The Richest Man in Babylon. I wish I had done more to become financially literate earlier on--I don't think anyone ever talked to me in school about financial literacy and now I'm in catch up mode.

The 9 books mentioned in the video are as follows:

1. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

2. The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

3. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

4. The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

5. The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida

6. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

7. Mastery by George Leonard

8. Mindfulness for Beginners by Jon Kabat-Zinn

9. The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday

The author of rich dad poor dad is Robert Kiyosaki. Guy Kawasaki is the former chief evangelist at Apple as well as author of some other books.

Read this some years back during the "Rich Dad Poor Dad" craze. It opened my eyes I can tell you that.

Kiyosaki may be just a talented storyteller, but his book was highly recommended to me by an undeniably successful source: a friend's father who emigrated to the US with nothing and built a fortune in real estate while working as an ER surgeon and raising a family.

I advise people to ignore Kiyosaki's other products, but the message of the books Rich Dad Poor Dad and Cashflow is pretty sound.

I wouldn't necessarily read "Rich Dad Poor Dad" or "The richest man in babylon". You might find better books about personal finance by:

- searching recommendations on HN, e.g. with a Google search like "site:news.ycombinator.com investing book recommendations"

- searching recommendations on the various subreddits like https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/ (search for book recommendation threads, or read their wikis)

- on the BogleHeads website : https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started

Good luck :)

Some of the lighter business books are great to listen to as audiobooks while you are travelling - while walking through airports, waiting in line, on a plane. If the book is too complex, then you are better off reading the book yourself.
Outliers, Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Lean Startup, How to win friends and influence people.....

A nice list, except for Choose Yourself, which seems a rather typical 'be an entrepreneur, it's easy' message (or maybe I misunderstood the summary) and Rich Dad Poor Dad, which is a bunch of made up stories by a guy that himself has not actually had a healthy financial life (until the book became profitable) and introduces some nice ideas but is mostly nonsense.

So the funny thing is this article is the exact opposite of the two most influential financial books in my life: "The Millionaire Next Door" and "Rich Dad Poor Dad". The true wealthy don't ever think of spending money as if it isn't important. Instead they distinguish between spending on income generation vs spending on luxury. They only spend on luxury intentionally but will spend on income generation freely.

In other words, if someone is frivolously spending their money on luxuries they are very definitely not wealthy. They only want to appear wealthy. The true wealthy really don't look wealthy. They never really leave level 1 on the chart.

My favorite books...

> Deep Work https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/...

> Can't Hurt Me https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Hurt-Me-Master-Clean/dp/15445078...

> Talking to Humans https://www.amazon.com/Talking-Humans-Success-understanding-...

> Rich Dad Poor Dad https://www.amazon.com/Rich-Dad-Poor-Teach-Middle/dp/1612680...

> 4 Hour Workweek https://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live-Anywhere/...

> Steve Jobs https://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1451648...

> The Design of everyday things https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expand...

> Siddhartha: A Novel https://www.amazon.com/Siddhartha-Novel-Hermann-Hesse/dp/055...

> The Four Agreements https://www.amazon.com/Four-Agreements-Practical-Personal-Fr...

> Rework https://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745?dchi...

I would suggest starting with some books.
Specifically "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and "Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrant".

Once you understand the basics of assets, liabilities and cash flow it will be much easier to understand other concepts.

From there think about what would interest you and dive in.

If it's stocks then the ASX has some excellent PDFs explaining how it all works.

Rich parents also are more likely to show their kids how to handle money and get rich. See the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Kiyosaki.

Edit: Teaching kids how to manage money, the time value of money, the basics of running a business, how markets work, etc., is painfully neglected by the schools. Young adults often have little knowledge of this, and it definitely puts them at a serious disadvantage.

In your country do you have to register the business if your business does not make any money? In UK you can make money for 3 months before registering...

I feel for you, I can only give you an advice to try to turn your mind into anything positive. You are lucky you don't have kids to feed, or pregnant wife to look after.

Robert Kiyosaki has written in 'Rich dad poor dad' book, that it's good to default before 30 so you learn the lesson and can become millionaire. You started your venture and you learned your lesson, don't panic and you will be telling this story as good anecdote with big smile.

I liked the 4 hour work week. Sure many here have probably read it. Title sounds cheesy, and I was ready to think it belongs on an infomercial. But throughout the book a step by step process on testing products, figuring out whats the best channel for ads, then how to negotiate better deals on the ads. It's a lot of work that many aren't willing to put in.

Read Rich Dad Poor Dad before. There are criticism online about how they aren't real people. But it does display different mindsets, and how that mindset will change the perception of an event -> action taken because of the event.

And to your question of the majority of rich people reading these books. Meh. Not sure the majority, but the more interviews I read/listen/watch from wealthy people there are certain books they have in common, for example Tony Robbins (haven't read any of his books yet). Not to say the majority of self help books aren't total fluff.

Actually I think it's the sort of a mark of a good salesman that you see in 'modern' self help from Seth to Robert Kiyosaki.

Take some things that are trivial, true, powerful & seldom put into practice. Take the reader through the logical process of what can/will happen & sprinkle generously with motivational story telling. I think the secret sauce is in the chasm between trivial & seldom put into practice. You can say 'that's obvious' to which you/I can answer 'why haven't you done it.'

'Rich Dad Poor Dad' is the perfect example. Everything is either trivial or rubbish. Definitions & numbers are fuzzy & the writing feels like it was plagiarised from real estate flipping sales letters. The core 'message' is trivial, true, powerful & seldom put into practice. He delivers it by using accounting terms with his own definitions (I'm sure accountants like that) over several books, tapes, lectures board games & infomercials (coming soon I hope) but the ida can be represented in a sentence:

"Spend your time & money accumulating revenue generating assets."

You can probably apply that kind of formula to many a self help book dealing with marriage, self esteem, sexor any other popular topic.

Here is a list of 200 most popular books sold at Ozon, the biggest on-line retailer in Russia:

https://www.ozon.ru/highlight/top-200-knig-po-mneniyu-chitat...

Of the Top-12, 6 to 8 are some form of a self-help book:

* 1st: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck.

2nd: Say Yes To Life, a self-help book from an Austrian Holocaust surviver.

* 4th: Ben Graham's Intelligent Investor.

* 5th: A Russian-author book on the art of "convincing" & "influencing" people (sound familiar?).

* 6th: Another American book, "Radical Forgiveness: A Guide to Spiritual Healing"

* 8th: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

* 11th: Women Who Love Too Much: If Love is Causing Suffering. Also a US book.

* 12th: Atlas Shrugged. I suppose it's not a self-help book, but it's very much in line with the spirit of "open-your-eyes" literature.

* If you go down the list, there is a bunch of other titles like Rich Dad Poor Dad, the full set of Nassim Taleb's quasi self-improvement books, etc.

We can sort of argue whether some of these books are self-help adjacent or not (like Ben Graham or Nassim Taleb), but the trend is clear: self-improvement literature is very popular in Russia.

This shows that the self-help cottage industry is not limited to the US. I think people just like the idea of self-improvement.

edit: formatting

RDPD is basically a fad diet book. There's some good advice, but it's mixed with bad advice and illegal schemes, slathered with a thick layer of inspirational bullshit.

For a better personal finance book, try "I will teach you to be rich", despite the clickbait title: http://www.amazon.com/Will-Teach-You-To-Rich/dp/0761147489

I don't have a replacement book, but Rich Dad Poor Dad is less well thought of now. I believe it has a strong push on property as investments.

It is maybe a better route to look at 'three fund portfolio' low cost ETF/mutual fund strategies.

Investment blogs such as Mr Money Mustache may also be a good road into a good long term investment strategy.

What a bizarre article. Who cares if the author is now an old annoying egotistical crackpot. Lots of people don't age well but that has nothing to do with their past works.

Rich Dad Poor Dad changed many lives, including mine and many of my friends, for the better. It sold 32 million copies in more than 51 languages across more than 109 countries, been on the New York Times bestsellers list for over six years. That doesn't happen unless it has valuable ideas.

It seems like a disservice to the current generation to dismiss this book. That is unless the current generation is so financially smart that the ideas now seem pedestrian. But I see no indication that is true.

Yeah, read this for a more thourough criticism of everything that's wrong with Rich Dad Poor Dad: https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-invest...

However, one thing that is actually valuable from the book: The cash flow for rich people vs. everybody else. The idea is to own assets that generate cash. This cash (and only this) should be used to buy luxury stuff.

But of course, you don't need a whole book for this idea.

*

I add another "red flag" for such a list: "The Richest Man in Babylon". This is easily the most overrated book I have ever read. There is only one idea in the entire book and stretched over 100 pages or so: Reinvest 10% of your income.

That's it. There is literally nothing else in this book. There are like 5 stories or so set in a middle-age arabian setting or whatever about people who do exactly this. Invest 10% of their income, favorably in stuff they understand.

It doesn't go any deeper, nothing concrete, nothing helpful.

Rich Dad Poor Dad has some interesting concepts. The book actually is really poorly written (and a bit scammy) but these video synopsis actually do a decent job of describing the concepts of passive income and differentiating between employee, self employed, business manager and investor:

- https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qdtzLMrb8zQ

- https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bC1ScfCny38

I like to think in a small way if you own any stocks/bonds, you are in a sense hiring employees (indirectly at arms length of course).

If you are buying SNAP, you are giving Evan Spiegel, the employee, his own business unit and promoting him. If you are holding SNAP and not buying more, then that's like putting Evan Spiegel on a PIP. If you are selling it, its basically like firing Evan Spiegel for poor performance.

I'd recommend to the OP spending any remaining time after your side coding projects learning about businesses/cashflow. To just blindly hold S&P Index funds in your 401K is a bit a kin to hiring never doing an initial coding review and never doing an annual perf review on your employees.

It also stands to reason that the children of wealthy parents are also taught how to handle money, etc. See the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Kiyosaki. It's really too bad that public schools teach nothing about accounting, finance, the time value of money, the basics of how business operates, stock market fundamentals, taxes, etc. They graduate kids who are wholly unequipped to function in a free market economy.

Rich Dad Poor Dad is a great gift for those who are beginning their careers. It influenced my thinking and motivated me in many important ways. Today-- 13 years since my first reading -- I realize that what I'm doing today (4 years into entrepreneurship) is based on beliefs that took root during that first year out of university that I studied texts such as Rich Dad Poor Dad. Other texts included Tom Peters's books (The Brand You, Re-Imagine!), The Magic of Thinking Big, and The Millionaire Next Door.

I think these are fair assessments. I don't treat either or as gospel, and I'm always quick to invoke "all models are wrong, but some are useful". However, they both have some interesting insights that have helped my personal journey.

Rich Dad Poor Dad (Kiyosaki) helped me see debt differently. I grew up with the mindset that all debt is bad, it's slavery, and it should be paid off... and that money is meant to be saved. I now realize that money is meant to be deployed. Also RDPD has helped push me along to realize that debt is a tool, and like all tools there are ways to use it that can be advantageous.

There's other intangible benefits too. Buying a house is enforced saving. When people have money spare they typically spend it. If as the author suggests people instead invest in the stock market there is constant temptation not to put the money in there in the first place or take the money out because you want to buy something shiny.

You can use owning a home as a way of bringing stability. So instead of making plans for a year at a time you can make 5 year plans based on living where you are.

However there's a quote from 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' [0] that your primary residence is a liability. So where as it makes sense to buy there's no point in buying a massive expensive house because it doesn't bring in any income. Buy one that fits your needs with possibly some minimum room for expansion.

That's one of the further benefits of having bought - if you find the perfect area but your family expands you can modify the house that you're in and stay in exactly the same place.

[0]: http://www.richdad.com/Resources/Rich-Dad-Financial-Educatio...

Best way to make raise employee's wages: competition between employers. For that we need more employers. For that we need more startups. For that we need more founders and entrepreneurs.

Competition is great, but at all levels.

Wealth creation is not zero-sum. Read PG's essay: http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

Also some investment books:
"A Random Walk Down Wall Street"
"Rich Dad Poor Dad"
"The Millionaire Next Door"
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Bogleheads%C2%AE_investment_...

Have fun learning!

I disagree.. the most important message in the book is that business and entrepreneurship is the path to success, NOT being an employee and staying in the rat race. While it may be common sense to someone who's been in business for a while, or read a lot of similar literature, it's far from obvious to most people.

I'm not ashamed to say Rich Dad Poor Dad has been one of the most influential books I've read in my life. At 20, I had very little idea about business - I thought my path was clear: graduate with a degree, get a job, work up corporate ladder, etc. Reading this book was completely mind-blowing and eye-opening.

Yes, most of the advice is trivial, as I look at it now.. But there's certainly great value in the book - business vs "rat race", building assets vs liabilities, learning to sell, active vs passive income, what you can't afford your business can, value of financial literacy, and much more. But most importantly this: you can very rarely get rich working for someone else.

First, even Rich Dad Poor Dad gets an excessive amount of snobbish criticism. It's a book selling business. But, there's nothing really wrong with that. Either it's fluff and entertainment and no worse than a book about ice skating. Or, it's a self help book about money that is simple and written for an audience that has never thought about investing.

The main message is fairly basic. Spending money and effort on things like investment property is the way to accumulate wealth. He sprinkled in a healthy dose of self help woo and nonsense, but no more than life hacking, dieting, fitness or any other self help best seller type book.

Second (and far more importantly), Patio11 is about 12 rungs above any of that. His level of transparency and mystery-free writing is almost unheard of. This kind of "If you're so awesome why don't you.." criticism is such a pity. It can and does deter people from sharing (I know it would deter me).

You have the full story available to you. The history of this site/business. The stuff that it led to. The financials. The effort required. The eventual sell price. An underhanded comment implying self serving dishonesty is so unjustified and unfair, nevermind uncharitable. It's a cheap shot and it's depressing.

"Thou Shall Prosper" by Rabbi David Lapin. One of my favorites.

"Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki. Yeah, really. Both this book and the author have been the recipient of a good amount of criticism, but this book help me a lot to increase my thinking beyond a 9-5 job as the primary way of making money. That said, the book is more inspirational and vague than a concrete plan on how to do anything in particular.

I said nothing about wealth/opportunity inheritors being lazy. Many work hard and aren't bad people. I was commenting about the dream of success and how its skewed to tell people that they can do whatever they want, and that they can create a start up that will succeed on ideas and marketing alone...

There is much more at work in this society than whats written on paper, especially if you're reading Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Audiobooks I have Read Recently: (Sanderson is Awesome)

  * The Reckoners #1/#2
  * Stormlight Archive #1/#2
  * Mistborn #1/#2/#3
  * Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures As the World's Most Wanted Hacker

Digital Books:

  * How to Win Friends and Influence People
  * Malazon Book #1
  * The Forever War
  * The Martian

Things on my List:

  * Think and Grow Rich
  * Watership Down
  * Rainbows End
  * Snow Crash
  * What is Zen
  * Wool: Silo
  * Founders at Work
  * Light Bringer
  * Hyperion
  * The War of Art
  * Atlas Shrugged
  * The Demon Haunted World
  * Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
  * Joe Abercrombie's books
  * Rich Dad Poor Dad
  * Founders at Work
  * Fear the Sky
  * Daemon -- EDIT ADDED

Things I recommend:

  * All of Brandon Sanderson's Books
  * The Kingkiller Chronicles
  * How to Win Friends and Influence People
  * Issac Asimov's short stories and Foundation series
  * The Forever War
  * Gentleman Bastards
  * Ready Player One
  * The Martian
  * A Wizard of Earthsea

EDIT:
Short Reading I Recommend:

  * http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

I have read many of the recommend books. Here are my two pence.

Books on Wealth

    1. "Rich Dad Poor Dad"
     and find out exactly why someone becomes rich.
    (if you like this one, at some point you may also
     want to quickly scan through "Cashflow Quadrant
     Rich Dad's Guide to Financial Freedom".)

     2. Also "chapter 6 - How to make wealth"
     from "Hackers and Painters's chapter 6 - "

     3. "The Way to Wealth by Benjamin Franklin"

Investing books in this order

    1. Peter Lynch's One Up on wall street
    2. The Intelligent Investor  (Ben Graham)
    3. Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits
    4. Security Analysis (Ben Graham)
    5. The Warren Buffet Way is a famous business read not exceptional but read it if you have some time left
    6. A Random Walk Down Wall Street (Read it for a good laugh)

Do NOT read

    1. AA- The Motley Fool Money Guide
    2. How Gerge Soros Knows What He Knows
    3. Investing Online For Dummies
    4. Malkiel Burton - A Random Walk Down Wall Street
    5. Cracking the millionaire code
    6. Joel Greenblatt - You Can Be A Stock Market Genius

I'm trying to read as much as I can about the topic too so here's what I'm reading:

-Books-

Lifecycle of a Technology Company by Edwin Miller

The Game by Neil Strauss (you laugh but it's basically all about getting more confident)

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyasaki

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell

They Call Me Coach by John Wooden

-Magazines-

Entrepreneur

Fast Company

BusinessWeek

Fortune

Money

Inc.

-Websites-

Hacker News

Fred Wilson's Blog (www.avc.com)

FoundersSpace (www.foundersspace.com)

A lot of these titles are more focused on leadership or business in general, but I think a successful entrepreneur should have a general knowledge of a lot of stuff out there. I'm sure that I'm forgetting some, and these don't include the books I've got for the MBA program I'm taking. I'd have to dig those up, but I can post the titles if you'd like.

[Edited because the formatting was really screwy]

> I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, we’ll use the definition from one of the best personal finance book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”

I was trying to understand the perspective of the article, and that gave me the major clue.

RDPD is one of many books that basically says the key to financial success is real estate investment.

For a few people, and at certain times, maybe, but it is better for most people to make it a (small) part of a wider financial investment plan.

Your first house (or any house) should be first and foremost though if as a place where you will live, and “primary residence as investment” is almost never a good thing.

I think you need to become more independent from the 'system' you describe; i.e. go freelance / contractor / consultant / remote etc., some variation of these.

I think I really don't trust the author of Rich dad poor dad but the one thing he got right is the ESBI system ("cashflow quadrants"). — I'll let you google but the gist of it is simple: there are only two limited resources, money and time, and any work is a trade of one for the other. You want to be in a position wherein you generate 'enough' money to 'buy back time' essentially. That means being either a business owner (B quadrant) and/or an investor (I quadrant).

Freelancing is the "S" (specialist) quadrant, you don't want to be there forever — because revenue only comes from putting in hours, it's a neverending grinding wheel, however profitable it seems. What you want is to setup your 'freelancing' as a 'specialist' to grow into hiring people and thus become a business.

Never forget that more than 80% of GDP in rich countries is made by small businesses. Groups of 2, 5, 10, 20 people make up the effective wealth of our economies.

Deep down that's what The Millionaire Fastlane or The 4-Hour Week expose to the general public, this idea of relative independence combined with a business model that cumulatively earns you ever more time — and hiring is key to unlocking that, multiplying manhours around your activity, sharing the load, not being "required" yourself for the business to run. A group of well-organized devs could probably wrap 30-hours weeks and still make a ton of money.

You might want to check out the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Kiyosaki. It's about how the values and attitudes of parents about money are transmitted to their kids, and how that has an outsized influence on the financial future of those kids.

Not how much they did or did not inherit.

Of course, having sensible attitudes about finance corresponds with having more money, but RDPD suggests the attitudes produce the money, rather than the other way around.

It's hard to find good statistical evidence one way or the other, but there's anecdotal evidence that suddenly dropping large quantities of money on a poor person does not automatically confer an ability to manage it effectively, and that they revert to being poor.

- The first one, even with all its well-known shortcomings, was "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert Kyosaki. It opened my eyes to "there's another option out there".

- Benjamin Franklin's autobiography (translated into modern English).

- PG's "Hackers and Painters" (why I joined this forum).

- Tim Ferris's "Four Hour Work Week" (has to be taken with a gigantic grain of salt, but has many very helpful and practical tips and ideas.)

- "Mastery" by George Leonard

- "Good to Great" by Jim Collins

And finally (and I don't want to turn this into a political flamewar, "grain of salt" applies here as well, etc, etc) but the book that had the most influence on me was "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. Unlike all the others on the list above, it's a work of fiction, but I think it is the best at capturing and romanticizing the joy and euphoria that you feel when you build something that works.

Haven't read Rich Dad Poor Dad but from what I got out of this article and several of the comments here is that the main point is disconnecting your personal time from your wealth generation.

Your time is better spent generating products/investments that generate wealth independent of your own input. It's really really hard to get rich as a consultant or even as an employee (though both can generate the capital to kick-start the real wealth generation).

A concept that was illuminated quite brilliantly to me when I read How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis.

However, I personally think intelligence and "balls" play a far bigger role in our ability to generate wealth for ourselves then anyone seems to give credit for. You can read all the books on finance you want, if you're an idiot, you will probably fail to get the returns you want. Same goes if you're a coward.

Personally, I'm lacking a bit in the balls, and hope I'm smart enough. We'll see in the next 10 years or so.