Book Review: 5 Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me

Richard Paul Evans is best known for his writing of "The Christmas Box" and founding The Christmas Box House - a charity which helps abused children. But his 5 Lessons books is the highest seller financial book at Costco (outselling even Oprah picks) and is the Business Book of the Month for February.

Here are my notes from a lecture he gave about his new book "Five Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me"

1. Decide to be wealthy!

Don't conform to the masses -- those who have little. If you're going to conform, find a millionaire and conform to what they are doing. Imagine what the world would be like if only the bad people had money. Money is not evil. There is much good that we can do if we have money. Think about the parable of the Good Samaritan -- he was only able to help because he had the means to pay for the care of the injured man. How many of us could do that?

The first step to having wealth -- is to deal with your own beliefs and feelings about money.

2. Take responsibility for your money.

Know your net worth -- there is a free financial calculator at TheFiveLessons.com where you can figure out your net worth. Know where your money is coming from. Know where your money is going. Know what your money is doing -- find ways to have your money work FOR you.)

3. Keep a portion of everything you earn.

"The Richest Man in Babylon" a book by George Clason taught this principle. Keep a minimum of 10-15% of everything you earn. Create a nest egg for yourself.

4. Win in the Margins.

The successful wealth builder finds additional ways to build their nest egg. You will find what you look for -- so look for ways to earn more money. Keep trying -- eventually you'll get it right. Carefully consider each expenditure -- "Do I really want it? What am I appeasing?" Use the phrase "Is that the best you can do?" -- save money on shopping and then any money you've saved add to your nest egg.

"Freedom and Power are better than Momentary Pleasure"

5. Give back

That is the fun of having money -- being able to serve and change lives -- to help those who cannot help themselves -- to make a difference in the world.

Writing Contest - Deadline May 1, 2007

If you have a self-published book, Writer's Digest is looking for the best self-published book from the past several years. You can win $3,000 in cash, get national exposure for your book and get the attention of prospective publishers and editors.

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ENTRY DEADLINE: Tuesday, May 01, 2007

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Penguin Books - Launches First Wiki Novel

Penguin Books has launched the first web-based wiki novel -- a collaborative novel which can be edited, written or read by anyone online. Using wiki software, this novel should be interesting. It's an experiment of sorts.

The novel will be entitled "A Million Penguins" and is available at www.amillionpenguins.com. It should be a very unique novel with many voices. Hopefully writers who contribute will do so for the purpose of creating a great novel, rather than just messing around.

Although there are no plans to publish the finished book -- if it gets as much publicity as expected, certainly all of the individual authors of the book would want to purchase a copy, so it would be worth publishing. Of course, that depends upon the experiment being a success.