Anthony F. D’Silva (Issues)
28 August 2010
All of us want to be rich and successful. The trouble is most of us don’t know the steps needed to accquire wealth and achieve success.
But, no need to worry, help is at hand. The bookshelves are lined with hundreds of self-help books and get-rich-quick bestsellers that promise to make you a successful person with little effort. Some even promise to make you a millionaire in no time.
As far as I know, no survey has been done on what percentage of today’s millionaires made their fortunes after reading self-help books. Certainly
Bill Gates, Larry Page, Mukesh Ambani and Lakshmi Mittal are not among them.
Writers of self-help books tend to believe that they have discovered the recipe for amassing wealth and achieving success. Many of them, including the authors of Think and Grow Rich and The Magic of Thinking Big, have this common thread: we become exactly what we programme our minds to be. A prosperous person programs prosperous thinking into his or her mind. A miserable person instructs his or her mind to ‘make him or her unhappy, mediocre, boring and average.’
There’s more. As a first step, you must start imagining the target amount you want to have in your account in a few years and work towards that goal, and, hey presto, you would have joined the millionaires’ club.
Deep philosophy, and good for impressing an audience at a party, but is it practical? Not really. As advised by the author, you set a target of making, say, half a million in two years, and jot down a detailed strategy, as per the 13 steps to success outlined in the book. Then you suffuse your mind with positive thoughts and form a picture of a plush office, a sky villa, a luxury holiday home in a resort island and several other possessions that only the super-rich can afford. Inspired by powerful new ideas, you step into the world with new vigour. Sadly, the ideas when tested against the real marketplace literally turn to stone. On reaching the office, you learn your pitch for a lucrative account was unsuccessful. A long-standing client is upset about a negative media story, and threatens to terminate the contract. The value of two of your prize properties has crashed by 70 per cent.
You turn to Step No. 7 in the self-help book, which says: ‘never let disappointments and setbacks break your resolve.’ You re-read the book and try again. By month-end, your business has dropped by 40 per cent and the future looks as hopeless as Eurozone during the Greek crisis. The experience is enough to shatter your faith in self-help books. You form a firm opinion that one cannot become a millionaire by reading a book. Though the reverse is true: you can become a millionaire by writing a self-help book.
You say to yourself, what’s wrong being what I am today. The credit cards may be hurting, EMIs may be extending to eternity, loans may be accumulating and investments may be shrinking. But you have something most millionaires don’t have: peace of mind, a good night’s sleep and a bank balance that is easy to track.
You stop complaining about not
being a millionaire when you meet a millionaire with five luxury homes
and no hope. Victim of the property crash. Then you begin to count your blessings. Millionaires are more
vulnerable to fortune’s reverses than mere mortals like you and me.
What the heck? Leave the millionaires alone. Let me be me. After all, not all can be rich and successful. The world would be very boring if all of us were millionaires, with everybody driving Lamborghinis, Maseratis and Porsches. It is nice to have some Nissan Sunnys and Tiidas thrown in. The tapestry is richer, if you know what I mean. The world needs failures and non-so-successful people too.
So, I have stopped reading get-rich-quick books. At my bedside, there is now a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking and The Tough-Minded Optimist. And in my side-drawer I keep my last Mashreq Millionaire certificate.
Anthony F. D’Silva is a Dubai-based writer and media relations consultant
From Khaleej Times Online published on 28 August 2010
