The Next Millionaire Next Door: Enduring Strategies for Building Wealth

by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D. and Sarah Stanley Fallaw, Ph.D.

There are countless books available about “how to get rich”: Invest in this fund, buy this piece of real estate, whatever. Don’t you find them all a bit… out of reach? I know I do.

That’s why The Next Millionaire Next Door (a revised version of the classic, The Millionaire Next Door) is such a terrific read. It provides an important, albeit not-so-sexy, reminder that building wealth does not happen overnight!

The main idea of the book is that wealth — a secure and sustainable financial well-being — is the product of a lifetime of positive habits. Concretely, this means watching money as it flows in and out of your bank account. As a financial planner, this speaks volumes to me! When I work with my clients, I emphasize a focus on cash flow as a critical building block for financial planning success. If we can’t master our cash flow, we can’t go anywhere.

Read more: Create a Personal Cash Flow Management System That Works for You!

I find the message of Next Millionaire quite liberating; it dispels the myth that the vast majority of “the wealthy” are some special class of people. We tend to idolize the rich and think they have a secret to making millions: They got lucky winning the lottery or made a deal with Mark Cuban on Shark Tank for their genius invention. The book argues that, for the vast majority of millionaires, success is not a stroke of luck, but a result of thoughtful and deliberation action in their day-to-day lives.

In short, the ability to improve our financial conditions (and hence, our lives) lie within our hands.

How empowering is that?

Some other tips I took away from Next Millionaire were:

• Next Door Millionaires are disciplined when it comes to managing their cash flow! They are focused on saving and spending. They are sure to be saving a certain percentage of their income each year.  And most importantly, they stick to their positive, wealth-building habits.
• Next Door Millionaires know that income does not equal wealth!  We all need this reminder now and then. I think we all know this intuitively, but a high income does not equal high wealth. The same bad habits that exist when someone makes $50,000 are still there when that same person earns $500,000. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that the person making $50K actually has more in savings!
• Next Door Millionaires know that building wealth takes time. There is no get rich quick message here.

The Next Millionaire Next Door is an illuminating and practical read that demystifies the “secret” to building wealth. I encourage you to pick up a copy of the book and learn how becoming a millionaire is completely within your reach!

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