Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Brian Tracy is a successful businessman and one of the top professional speakers in the world. He has started, built, managed, or turned around 22 different businesses. he addresses more than 250,000 people each year throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and Asia.
Brian's Keynote speeches, talks and seminars are customized and tailored for each audience. They are described as "inspiring, entertaining, informative, and motivational." He has worked with more than 500 corporations, given more than 2,000 talks, and addressed over 2,000,000 people.
Some of his talks and seminars include:

• Leadership in the New Millennium - how to be a more effective leader in every area of business life. Learn the most powerful, practical leadership strategies ever discovered to manage, motivate, and get better results than ever before.
• 21st Century thinking - how to outthink, outplan, and outperform you competition. Learn how to get superior results in a fast-moving, fast-changing business environment.
• The Psychology of Peak Performance - how the top people think and act in every area of personal and business life. You learn a series of practical, proven methods and strategies for maximum achievement.

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"Save yourself ten years of hard work. Read Brian's powerful book and let him show you the shortcut to success. He'll show you the fastest way for you to get rich."
Robert Allen bestselling author, Multiple Streams of Income

"Millions of people start with nothing and become wealthy as the result of doing certain things in a certain way, over and over again. This book by Brian Tracy shows you how you can achieve all your financial goals, starting from wherever you are today."
Jack Canfield coauthor, Chicken Soup for the Soul® series and The Success Principles

"This is the only book you need to read to become wealthy! It is loaded with practical ideas and strategies to propel you onwards and upwards."
Nido Qubein Chairman, Great Harvest Bread Company, and founder, National Speakers Association Foundation

"Another great book from Brian Tracy. Tangible, practical ideas that will make you money and make you rich!"
Bill Bachrach President, Bachrach & Associates, Inc.

"Brian Tracy has put together a masterpiece of common sense for getting rich. If you wish a different life, commit now to different actions read this book!"
H. J. (Jim) Graham President and CEO, Cyber Broadcast One, Inc.

"Brian Tracy shows you how unlimited wealth starts in the mind, and how anyone can focus their time and energy to earn millions. It's the readable, riveting primer for countless new American fortunes."
Peter Montoya CEO, Peter Montoya Inc.

Aus dem Klappentext

"Save yourself ten years of hard work. Read Brian's powerful book and let him show you the shortcut to success. He'll show you the fastest way for you to get rich."
—Robert Allen bestselling author, Multiple Streams of Income

"Millions of people start with nothing and become wealthy as the result of doing certain things in a certain way, over and over again. This book by Brian Tracy shows you how you can achieve all your financial goals, starting from wherever you are today."
—Jack Canfield coauthor, Chicken Soup for the Soul® series and The Success Principles

"This is the only book you need to read to become wealthy! It is loaded with practical ideas and strategies to propel you onwards and upwards."
—Nido Qubein Chairman, Great Harvest Bread Company, and founder, National Speakers Association Foundation

"Another great book from Brian Tracy. Tangible, practical ideas that will make you money and make you rich!"
—Bill Bachrach President, Bachrach & Associates, Inc.

"Brian Tracy has put together a masterpiece of common sense for getting rich. If you wish a different life, commit now to different actions—read this book!"
—H. J. (Jim) Graham President and CEO, Cyber Broadcast One, Inc.

"Brian Tracy shows you how unlimited wealth starts in the mind, and how anyone can focus their time and energy to earn millions. It's the readable, riveting primer for countless new American fortunes."
—Peter Montoya CEO, Peter Montoya Inc.

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Getting Rich Your Own Way

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

"When your desires are strong enough, you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve." -Napoleon Hill

If someone with limited abilities can become rich, why is it that so few people become wealthy? Even though we live in the most affluent country in the world, where most people earn and spend a fortune in the course of their working lifetimes, why is it that the majority end up dependent on Social Security, pensions and relatives when they retire?

If a person earning $25,000 per year would just save $2,500 per year, 10 percent of his income, and invest it carefully to earn a return of 10 percent compounded over the course of his working lifetime-the years from age 21 to age 65 (44 years)-it would grow to $1,794,762 through the miracle of compound interest.

If a mentally retarded young man without a single advantage in the world can become wealthy (see Introduction), and a person earning $25,000 a year, saving 10 percent of his income, can become a millionaire or a multimillionaire, then almost anyone can become rich who wants it badly enough.

Why People Don't Become Rich

The question I began to ask was, "Why is it that people don't become wealthy?" In a country like ours, with the opportunities that we have, why is it that so few people retire financially independent? And I eventually found the answers. Here are what I consider to be the five reasons why people don't become wealthy.

Who, Me?

First, at the top of the list, is that it never occurs to them. The average person has grown up in a family where he has never met or known anyone who was wealthy. He goes to school and socializes with people who are not wealthy. He works with people who are not wealthy. He has a reference group or a social circle outside of work who are not wealthy. He has no role models who are wealthy. If this has happened to you throughout your formative years, up to the age of 20, you can grow up and become a fully mature adult in our society without it ever occurring to you that it's just as possible for you to become wealthy as for anyone else.

This is why people who grow up in homes where their parents are wealthy are much more likely to become wealthy as adults than people who grew up in homes where their parents are not wealthy. Wealth achievement is part of the worldview of children of wealthy parents.

Therefore, the first reason why people don't become wealthy is it never occurs to them that it is possible for them. And of course, if it never occurs to them, then they will never take any of the steps necessary to make it a reality.

Make a Decision!

Another reason that people don't become wealthy is that they never decide to. Even if a person reads a book, attends a seminar, or associates with people who are financially successful, nothing changes until she makes a decision to do something different. Even if it occurs to a person that she could become wealthy if she just did certain things in a specific way, if she doesn't decide to take the first step, she ends up staying as she is. If you continue to do what you've always done, you'll continue to get what you've always got.

The primary reason for underachievement and failure is that the great majority of people don't decide to be successful. They never make a firm, unequivocal commitment or definite decision that they are going to become wealthy. They mean to, and they intend to, and they hope to, and they're going to, someday. They wish and hope and pray that they will make a lot of money, but they never decide, "I am going to do it!" This decision is an essential first step to becoming financially independent.

Maybe Tomorrow

Procrastination can prevent people from becoming wealthy. People always have a good reason not to begin doing what they know they need to do to achieve financial independence. It is always the wrong month, the wrong season, or the wrong year. Business conditions in their industry are no good, or they may be too good. The market isn't right. They may have to take a risk, or give up their security. Maybe next year.

There always seems to be a reason to procrastinate. As a result, they keep putting it off, month by month, year by year, until it's too late. Even if it has occurred to a person that he can become wealthy, and he has made a decision to change, procrastination will push all his plans into the indefinite future. Procrastination is the thief of time, and of life.

Pay the Price

What economists refer to as the inability to delay gratification is another reason that people retire poor. The great majority of people have an irresistible compulsion to spend every single penny they make and whatever else they can borrow or buy on credit. If you cannot delay gratification and discipline yourself to refrain from spending everything you make, you cannot become wealthy. If you cannot practice frugality as a lifelong habit, it will be impossible for you to achieve financial independence. As W. Clement Stone, founder of Combined Insurance Company of America and one of the richest men in the world, said, "If you cannot save money, the seeds of greatness are not in you."

Take the Long View

The last reason that people retire poor is perhaps as important as, if not more important than, all the others. It is lack of time perspective. In a longitudinal study conducted in the 1950s and published in 1964 as The Unheavenly City, Dr. Edward Banfield of Harvard University studied the reasons for upward socioeconomic mobility in the United States. He wanted to know how you could predict whether an individual or a family was going to move upward one or more socioeconomic groupings and be wealthier in the next generation than they were this generation.

Banfield studied and compared his findings against the most common explanations for economic success in the United States and in other countries. Was it education? No. Many people with good educations actually moved down economically. Was it intelligence? No. A lot of very intelligent people were poor and unable to earn a living. Was it being born into the right family? No. Many people born into affluent families did poorly as adults, while many people with poor educations became very successful. Was it being in the right part of the country? Was it being in the right industry? Was it luck? What factors were best at predicting that a person would move up economically over the years?

Project into the Future

All Banfield's research brought him to a single factor that he concluded was more accurate than any other in predicting success in the United States-time perspective, defined as "the amount of time that you take into consideration when planning your day-to-day activities, and when making important decisions in your life." Time perspective referred to how far you projected into the future when you decided what you were going to do or not do in the present.

An example of a long time perspective is the common habit of upper class families in England to register their children at Oxford or Cambridge as soon as the children are born, even though the youngsters will...