Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen
Published by Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2004, hardcover, 356 pages, condition: new.
"Most Americans are not free. They are chained to their paychecks............The women profiled herein will not tolerate such an existence. They are a different breed. They are free. They are cultivators of wealth and satisfied with life."
Dr. Thomas J. Stanley first swept aside the mythical magic curtain of wealth with The Millionaire Next Door , revealing just who and how common the truly wealthy were in this country as well as the characteristics and habits that made them so. With Millionaire Women Next Door , he now focuses on one of the least understood but increasingly rich demographics.
"Why write another book that profiles millionaires?" Stanley asks. "The vast majority of the millionaire respondents (92 percent) in The Millionaire Next Door were men............ I felt that it was indeed time for successful businesswomen of the self-made variety to be heard." And heard they are in this book that is every bit as informative and inspirational as the author's earlier works. Stanley's thoroughly researched findings and conclusions will fascinate readers everywhere. They'll definitely come away more knowledgeable and greatly inspired by women who have found the key to riches.
After The Millionaire Next Door made me feel so down on myself, I wasnt as enthusiastic about reading Millioniare Women Next Door as when I first ordered it from my library. But when it finally arrived a few weeks later, I figured I might as well bite the bullet and have another unpleasant look in the financial mirror. Surprisingly, the book turned out to be much more inspirational than the first. The author does revisit many of the same themes the importance of thrift, the dangers of economic outpatient care on adults but he also includes the success stories of numerous millionaire women. And who doesnt love success stories?
More important is how the book has impacted my own life. I can name four specific ways:
(1) The most practical, real-world change is that Ive created a spreadsheet of all my credit cards and used the chart function to turn it into a graph. Now Ive got a clear, visual summary of how much I owe, and my goal is to reduce that debt by 25% or more by December. I dont know whether or not I can become a millionaire , but I do know that my first step to financial solvency is to wipe out that debt.
(2) Though I havent done it every day, Ive taken to writing down specific goals. Some are daily and some are long-term, but setting specific goals is one of the things successful women do routinely.
(3) This one is a change of mindset. Early in the book, it states that most of these successful women dont spend much time, if any, thinking about how their lives could have been different, and not all of them led charmed existences before becoming rich. Unfortunately, regret, specifically about sabotaging my future by messing up in college, occupies so much of my own mental energy, Ive determined it to be my mid-life crisis. And its deep-seated, too. Because of the book, I began to stop these thoughts whenever I caught myself, but they came back in such a powerful dream, I woke up at 3 am from it. In the negative part of my dream, I again met the college official who interviewed me for the college I didnt go to and now wish I had. In a positive part, though, my family members agreed that I should have a second chance, so I was going to go back to being 18 again. But when I woke up, I realized that if Im ever going to get a second chance at college, it wont be by going back in time. It has to be now. Thats as close to a never look back attitude as I can get to.
(4) This is another mindset change, and its connected with the previous one. Most of the millionaire women profiled in the book run their own businesses, but most of them didnt become millionaires until they were in their forties or fifties and usually with a few failed businesses behind them. I found that incredibly comforting in light of my own age and mistakes. Who knows what the future might hold for me?
With insights like that, is it any wonder Ive rated this book a 5?
