If you have never read the book ‘The Science of Getting Rich’ by Wallace D. Wattles, I highly recommend that you check it out. One of the best tests of the true quality of the written word is whether or not what is said will still matter generations later, and that is certainly the case with ‘The Science of Getting Rich’ which was written almost 100 years ago in 1910.
Another great thing about the book is that even as powerful as it is, the entire read is only 77 pages, and even at my painfully slow reading speed, I read it in less than 3 hours. Lyman Reed over at Creating a Better Life has a page on his site with a ton of free eBooks, including several different ways to get your hands on ‘The Science of Getting Rich‘.
This post is actually not about that book, although a recent discussion of that title struck a chord with me that I wanted to share with you.
Someone that I know is reading ‘The Science of Getting Rich’, printed out the .pdf version that was downloaded from the ‘net, and had the book out in public one day where it was spotted by a “corporate citizen”.
Now, for the sake of this discussion, I will define “corporate citizen” as someone who believes that getting a good job and being an employee in order to help someone else get rich is the only true path to success. This particular individual works for an American company, although I imagine a similar concept runs rampant through pretty much any industrialized country.
This corporate citizen saw the title of the book and said, “There is no science to getting rich”. Upon hearing this story, I was immediately reminded of why I disagree with corporate life so much.
The average corporate citizen may be a truly talented individual with the potential to accomplish huge things in the world, but they have been brainwashed by this total B.S. belief that working for someone else is the only way to truly create a future for yourself.
Any of you who have spent any time learning about self improvement or self development will recognize that type of attitude as what we call a “limiting belief”. Limiting beliefs are things that we believe to be true simply because “everyone else is doing it”, or because we were raised to believe in that concept, so we don’t know any better.
I’m not sure why, but the term “the blind leading the blind” comes to mind…
Once again referring only to the American economy, but recognizing that similar situations exist elsewhere, here is why this whole thing rubs me the wrong way:
In the United States, most children are brought up to believe that they have to do really well in school, go to a great college, and then get a job with a company that has a bright future.
Now, although that sounds good in theory, there are many reasons why that potential path might or might not work. The truly scary part, however, is that the largest part of that equation – getting that awesome job – is almost a crap shoot in today’s society.
There are people with college degrees working at fast food restaurants. I’ve seen ads in the employment classifieds that require a 4-year college degree, yet only pay $35,000 per year. You can barely even LIVE off of $35,000 per year in America, and we’re being taught to spend 4 years in college in order to get a job that only pays us enough to barely even survive???
I worked for a company once where I started out answering phones as a customer service rep (with NO college education), and I got promoted up through project management and eventually took over the company’s corporate intranet. Salary: $42,000 per year plus stock options
As a self-employed personal trainer, I worked part-time and made over $50,000 a year, and I could have made over $100,000 a year if I had wanted to apply myself more. My personal training certification cost me $595.
The point to all of this rambling?
There really IS a Science to Getting Rich, and it is available to each and every person no matter who they are, what their background is, or what “opportunities” are put before them – or NOT put before them.
However, in today’s society, we are surrounded by these loyal corporate citizens who have probably never even heard of Wallace D. Wattles, and they certainly haven’t read his life-changing book, yet they can say things like “there is no science to getting rich” and they can believe it with every fiber of their being.
Taking a quick look at the retirement options of the average American (college educated or not) will reveal that most retirees will end up giving you a shopping cart at the door of a certain large retail establishment that starts with “W” and ends in “mart”, and others will be sure – on every single visit – to ask you the very important question: Do you want fries with that?
So, at the end of my rant on this subject, I will throw one more question out there for you to chew on.
If our entire society is taught to do well in school, get a college education, and then work for some high-profile company for several years before being shafted out of their retirement options due to corporate down-sizing or blatant back-stabbing, the question that comes to mind is this:
Why the hell are we listening to people who advise us to do that???
p.s. – Since this Blog is mostly about self improvement and personal development, I feel obligated at this point to tell you that you HAVE the choice to not be one of the people that I just described, and in order to do so, all you have to do is reach out your hand and take hold of your life.
Because, after all, there IS a Science of Getting Rich!
The full text is available here http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Science_of_Getting_Rich
Sounds like a great book. I love the “Classics” of success literature. One of my favorite new “classics” is Ben Stein’s “How successful People Win. I loved it. My review is here:
http://successbooks.blogspot.com/2006/10/success-book-review-how-successful.html
This is the book that The Secret was almost entirely based upon.
I read this book some years ago, and also watched TheSecret a few months ago. I think both fail to convey an important message with regards to the Law of Attraction. The Secret makes this omission far more severely than The Science Of Getting Rich — what with being so incredibly capitalistic/materialistic in its approach (TheSecret that is).
Nice site by the way. Greatly enjoying reading through your blog entries. I’ll be reading more just as soon as I have some spare time for it. Thanks.
Jonathan
Jonathan,
I appreciate you stopping by and sharing your thoughts!
Yes, the movie was largely based on the book, and that is a good thing. Wallace D. Wattles knew what he was talking about.
However, I don’t agree that the movie was capitalistic/materialistic. Yes, they used money and possessions to demonstrate the concept of the Law of Attraction, but that is simply because those are tangible, measurable things.
Explaining a concept to someone is very difficult if you have no way of showing them in real life how it works. It is my belief that one of the reasons why the Law of Attraction is so hotly debated is because so many people think that it is all about money and material possessions, and that, of course, is ridiculous.
Hi Aaron,
I am not familiar with the debate pertaining to the LOA. Perhaps it’s not something that’s topical amongst the various circles of people I know here in New Zealand.
After watching The Secret perhaps 6 or 7 times (necessary as I am writing an eBook related to it), I saw very little in there that took the viewer beyond a rather limited material based approach to reality.
I agree the money and physical “stuff” is tangible to the majority of people. I agree that it is measurable. What I have found, however, is that I live in a highly intelligent universe, and that this highly intelligent universe is more than capable of taking care of my tangible/material/measurable necessities for physical survival and enjoyment — with very little conscious effort on my part.
In the ancient Hawaiian Huna tradition there is there is the prinicple that “as a divine being we have only ONE need. That is the need of a mirror”. (This follows on from the principle that “we are first and foremost Divine Beings”). The reality we construct and perceive within consciousness (our life here in Earth), is that mirror.
I have found, in working with myself and other people, that the key is in “decoding” the nature of what it is I am ALREADY attraction into my experience and hence mirroring to myself. There is a way of approaching my experience which results in every experience leading to an increase of Power (authentic Power). At a tangible/measurable level ONE (a fairly insignificant one) con-sequence of increasing Power and Awareness is greater and greater effortlessness with regards to financial sufficiency.
I do not personally judge there to be anything “wrong” or erroneous with the approach the makers of The Secret took in illustrating the Law Of Attraction. Rather, I simply feel that in my experience it was a relatively limited and potentially distorted approach when not put into the greater context through which things like the LOA are naturally and spontaneously revealed to a human being as he/she awakens to reality and his/her true nature.
I suspect the movie took the limited approach that it did either through ignorance on the part of the producers (questionable, but possible), or because they knew this is what would sell (especially in America and any other culture subscribing to the “American Dream”). The majority of people are not primarily concerning themselves with consciously waking up to their true nature. They are, however, deeply engrossed in the money-driven/orrientated mindset and “I am insufficient as I am” mindset that has been carefully impregnated into the human story for the last 400-600+ years by a tiny collective of people who presently reap the most benefit from a world that buys into these mindsets (i.e. the small handful of people who effectively own/possess/control a vast majority of the material wealth in this human world), at the expense of nearly every other nation/human being carrying interest bearing debt.
Stumbling around in the ridiculous seems to be human speciality. Of course, it’s all part of what helps Awareness evolve through the human experience.
With love,
Jonathan
Thing is “The Science Of Getting Rich” book is not about science at all but religion – it doesn’t really matter what label the author or anyone else put on it. And there is this religious community revolving around the book. And like any other group of people there are those taking advantage of others, and you usually find those at the very top. But it’s not easy to reason with people about their (religious) beliefs. As the Golden Rule is found in most religions, so are different strategies to work around it. In this case it boils down to the Law Of Attraction, which isn’t a scientific law btw. There are different ideas about this, but the one being popularly held in the community is that everything that happens to any person, whatever comes into that persons life, s/he attracted in the first place – no exceptions. To put it rough, you can gladly engage in any business that will ultimately harm people, all you have to do is not do any research or ask any questions. Whatever happens to people in the long run as effects of your actions, they asked for it! There are no no victims in this world according to this standpoint. Well of course you can’t do so with intent – but the key here is to not emphasize or focus on anything bad that could happen. Do you see where all of this is going? This isn’t something that can be easily brushed off with some slick comments, because behind all these fluffy clouds there’s still this rotten smell. And hopefully people will avoid it instinctively.
Jafo,
I appreciate you sharing your opinion about ‘The Science of Getting Rich’ as well as the Law of Attraction.
As with everything, each person will have their own views, and what empowers one person will not have the same effect for others.
It’s all about what each individual gets out of any given set of information, and there are no hard and fast “this is good or this is bad” rules.
James Arthur Ray says that we should surround ourselves with things that strengthen us and stay away from things that weaken us.
So, if something doesn’t give a person strength, inspiration, or empowerment, then no amount of other people saying that information is “good” will make a difference.
It’s all up to the individual.