MBA2698 Must Read: The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D Wattles

0:00Today, we're diving into one of the OG business and money books, The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles. Written back in 1910, over a century ago, this little short book has influenced just about every modern wealth and success expert out there, from Napoleon Hill, the author of Think and Grow Rich, to Tony Robbins, you name it. But in this book, I find that Wattles keeps things surprisingly practical and simple. This is what I love about it. You just have to be a little bit patient with the delivery. So why is this book still worth reading more than a century later because it lays out the mindset and the method of wealth in a way that's timeless, in my opinion.

0:47Welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business. real quick if these episodes help you in any way hit the follow button on this podcast app it helps us to keep bringing you practical business insights three times a week for free thanks in today's lesson we're going to break down the big ideas of this book and how you can actually apply them in 2025 what i love about the lessons that i learned is that it doesn't matter what's happening in the market what's happening in technology or whatever these concepts are basically fundamentals.

1:27They're principles that just really never change. And it's good to know them so that you can apply them in your own life, in your own business. Let's see how we could do that right now. The core message of Waddle's book is actually quite simple. Getting rich is not about getting lucky or having a lot of talent or even cheating, right? It's about doing things in a certain way. And he mentions this term, certain way, a lot in the book. What does certain way mean? It means using your thoughts creatively and not competitively. You have to learn that in order for you to create wealth, you actually are creating things into the market that have value.

2:09What this means is that instead of you trying to grab your slice of the pie, you create more pie. You don't just focus on taking wealth from others. You focus on generating value that expands wealth for everyone. The best example I can give you of this is Apple. Okay, Apple adds lots of value into the market and creates wealth for other people with their products. You know, think about the billions of dollars that is made every year in the App Store, other companies selling their apps in the App Store. Think about all the companies that create accessories, iPhone cases, for example, or iPhone screen protectors.

2:44It's billions of dollars being generated because Apple created a product that can be served by these other products. You see what I'm talking about here? Apple made more pie. This was radical back in 1910. And honestly, it's still radical today. Most people stay broke because they stay in a scarcity mindset. They think wealth is limited. And I can't tell you how many long winded discussions I've had with family members who really believe that there's a limited amount of money in the world. Like there's a finite amount of wealth and nothing could be further than the truth. Wealth is generated and is created.

3:18The best way I can articulate this is you and I in modern societies, we live a better life than kings and emperors that lived 500 years ago, right? We have penicillin, we have healthcare, we have technology. In a stab of a finger, I can get a meal with Uber Eats. I can easily travel the world with airplanes and transportation. I have access to all the world's information on the internet. There's so much wealth and refinement and lifestyle improvement because this was generated. This was created over time. Don't worry. I'm going to get to how this applies to your wealth and your bank account in a moment.

3:56But just stick with me. There's an abundance of opportunity to make more wealth if you have an abundance mindset and not a scarcity mindset. If you're finding this a little bit mystical or a little bit like, what is this all about? Is this all woo? No. There's actually a science behind all this, and the science of thought it's actually called, where we get really practical, okay? And what Waddle says in the book is that your thoughts shape your results. But it's not just positive thinking, it's directive creative thought combined with action. This means you need to be aware of how you think, what you think about, and what you do with those thoughts.

4:35There are three key practices from the book that we can follow that can allow us to apply this. The first one is gratitude as a daily practice. Gratitude is very powerful because it's very hard for you to have a scarcity mindset to be ungrateful when you are in a state of gratitude. Gratitude keeps you creative and a creative state of mind because you're in an abundant state of mind. When you're grateful, you're tuned into abundance and not scarcity. That's really what you got to remember. So always start your day as much as you can. What I like to do is I like to list three things I'm grateful for.

5:09It could be my health. It could be somebody that I love in my life. It could be the fact that I get to do my hobbies or use my body to exercise. It could be the fact that I get to work on the business that I love. This is great because you start your day with saying to yourself, I have a lot already, right? I have a lot to be grateful for and life has been great to me and I can continue to create abundance in my life. Practice number two, hold a clear vision. Don't just wish for wealth. You got a picture exactly what you want and the life you want to live. Clarity really directs your action. There is a huge power in this.

5:49A lot of people don't realize that our brain subconsciously will go after the things that it sees, the things that it's been told to see. This is why people don't understand the power of vision boards, right? Like where you create a board where you have a collage of things that you want in your life. The funny thing is I have a buddy of mine, Dale Beaumont, who's going to be on the podcast in an extended interview soon. He talks about in the interview about him creating a vision board with his wife and they found it years later and realized, wow, they accomplished everything on the vision board, right?

6:20It's pretty impressive. The funny thing is that his reaction was not, wow, these vision boards are powerful. His reaction was, I didn't shoot high enough. If I accomplished everything, I should have been more ambitious. I need to be more ambitious. So that's really incredible. So be clear about what you want in life. Picture it, whether it's the beautiful home, whether it's great relationships, whether it's great health, whether it's being able to travel the world in retirement, whatever it is, right? Really picture it. Even if you want to create a collage, a digital vision board on your computer using a note-taking app or whatever it might be or Canva, do it.

6:56I mean, you might feel a little silly, but at the same time, what do you got to lose? At least you have some clarity in your head about what you're going for. One of the practices Nicole and I have done over the years is create just a list of things that we would feel like would be the perfect life. If we had all these things in our life, we get to travel X amount of times, we get to have these types of investments, We can have these types of luxuries in life. This would be our rich life, right? And just going through all that and actually figuring out how much this will all cost. You'll be surprised how much it is.

7:27Sometimes it's not as big as you think it is or how expensive it might be. So it's really helpful to just like put down what you want. Sometimes we don't even ask ourselves what we want. Number three, act in the certain way. This is where most people miss the mark, really. They miss the point. You can't just visualize. you need to act every day effectively. You need to act upon these things that you want out of life. And with the faith you have in yourself that the vision is coming true. One of the things that I've learned along the way that's really helpful is, say for example, I want to be a successful podcaster with certain accolades and accomplishments.

8:08What does a person like that do every day, right? What do they do? How do they show up? What events do they go to? How do they walk? How do they talk? How do they present themselves? I should do those things if I want to become that person. That's really what it's all about, right? That mix of vision, gratitude, and taking action, implementing, act as if you are successful, is the formula that Waddle lays out. Now, this is not for you to be like overly pretentious or think that you're great when you haven't accomplish anything. No, it's you understanding that in order for me to accomplish great things, there's certain actions I got to do.

8:47There's certain things I got to live. I have to have a certain lifestyle, a certain approach to life in order for me to do this. A lot of people don't understand that things won't change by themselves. You must change and you must change what you do every day to get different results, right? Whatever you're doing right now is getting you the results you're getting right now. So if you want different results, you got to change what you're doing. All right, so let's see how we can apply Waddle's wisdom in 2025 in our business, in our life. Number one, the concept of creative versus competitive. If you're running a business, stop obsessing over competitors.

9:20One of the things I always tell our students inside the $100 MBA is like, be aware of your competitors, but don't obsess over them because then you become like them. You can't help it. It's like osmosis, right? You are influenced by what they do. instead of copying or undercutting pricing, create something unique that expands the market, that rises you above them. That's how great companies really stand out. That's how creators stand out. That's how SaaS companies stand out. That's how e-commerce brands stand out, right? Is that they create something that is above and beyond. It doesn't have to be revolutionary.

9:55It doesn't have to be some sort of crazy invention. It could just be better quality or better service or just a better experience online. The best example I can give you is, like the best restaurants in the world. Think of like three Michelin star restaurants. All these restaurants that are doing amazing work, they're dealing with the same ingredients, right? They're not sourcing like brand new food out of outer space, right? We're all sourcing the same fruits, vegetables, animals that they can source in order to make food. They're dealing with the same type of environment, right? Like it's a restaurant with a table and chairs.

10:26There's waiters, there's food, there's drink that they're all dealing with the same ingredients. But some restaurants would do better than others because they just do certain things better. Whether it's the service, whether it's the presentation, whatever the atmosphere, they focus on something that they can just be above and beyond other people and stand out and be something special for certain people. Some people really love a great presentation. You know, a lot of people just don't love it. Like, oh, great, dry ice and some smoke when you open up my food. Some people don't love that. Some people absolutely love it, right?

11:00And they just like, this is a theater. It's wonderful. This is why I go and dine out. So restaurants that know that will just focus on presentation. So you can focus on an area of delivery, of service, of the how you show up for your customers and become unique and rise above the competition. What else? How can you apply this to your business? Well, gratitude as the strategy. Gratitude isn't just personal. In business, it looks like appreciating your customers and your team. You get to serve people. You are incredibly lucky that you have something that people want. And you get to serve people that appreciate what you have, that want what you have, right?

11:40Companies with a culture of gratitude, they retain their customers, but they also retain the talent they have in their team. So they don't have a lot of turnover. People stay longer, and therefore they have a more stable culture. But they also have customers that stay a long time, that means you have more profit, you have more LTV, more lifetime value. And the thing is that you can't fake caring, right? When you have gratitude, you appreciate your customers, you naturally care for them. What about clarity of vision? How do we apply that to our business? Well, if your revenue goals are fuzzy, you don't know what you're shooting for, your actions are going to be fuzzy as well.

12:13So be specific. I want to reach 20k MRR by December. And here is how I'm going to do it. This is the action I have to take to get to that MRR, to that monthly recurring revenue, right? The funnel is going to be this. Here's the offer. This is the traffic plan. That's what we're talking about here is having clarity. And then how are we going to reverse engineer that goal and get there? That's the doing things in a certain way means. And then lastly, he talks about faith and action. In business, faith isn't blind belief. It's commitment to the process. When you launch a product, you don't just stop at the first flop or things don't work out.

12:49You pivot, you change, you improve, you get feedback from your customers. so you can understand how you can fix this issue and be more successful. You hold the vision that you have and you keep taking intelligent action. You keep taking calculated risks to improve your business. So why should you read this book, The Science of Getting Rich? Well, number one, it's not that long. It's about 90 pages. You can finish it in a weekend, right? But this is why I believe it's a must read. Number one, foundational thinking. One of the things I noticed when I read this book was that this feels very familiar, but very pure.

13:24It's where all the modern business books I've read kind of come from. This way of thinking has come from this book. Number two, second reason why you should read this book. It's a mindset reset, right? Waddle shows you that poverty is not noble. I think this is such an interesting kind of humorous side of the book. It's a mind trap. Being in a scarcity mindset is a mind trap. Wealth is created by service, by creation, and not by hoarding. The funny thing is that I could think about specific people in my family when I'm reading this book who grew up with scarcity, didn't grow up with much, and therefore they have this mentality where they don't want to give, they want to keep, they want to save, and they don't realize that in order for you to continue to grow, you need to create and give and be generous with what you have.

14:17Number three, this book is very action oriented. Despite its age, you know, published in 1910, it's not just philosophy. It's a call for you to act, to take action today. It's a new way of thinking about, hey, you can't just think about things. You got to actually take action on the things that you want. Quick disclaimer, this book does have some old fashioned language, but if you read it with today's lens, it's actually surprisingly tactical. It's actually a little bit fun to to read a book that's a little bit old fashioned. So here's my recommendation, grab a copy of the science of getting rich.

14:51Mine was on my Kindle. I just read it off my Kindle. I think it's part of Kindle Unlimited and you'll really love it. If you get the hard copy, you're going to be highlighting like crazy because there's a lot of things that just pop out as wisdom and great quotes and great ideas. But what I encourage you to do is when you read it, reference your business, look at your business. Where are you competing and where are you creating? Waddles, the author, was right. You don't get rich by fighting for scraps. You get rich by creating new value in the world. And if you want more value in the world, then you need to create it.

15:27You need to be the one that presents it. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I love these little short bite-sized books that take a few hours to consume, that really change change your mood. They change your outlook. They really remind you of what's important. You should have a healthy injection of these types of books throughout your year. I would say a book like this once, twice, three times a year can really help give you a boost and really give you some motivation and really kind of give you the shot in the arm you need to remind you that, hey, this is what you need to keep your eye on.

16:00Keep your eye on the prize. Keep your eye on what's important. So I encourage you to pick up this book. Fantastic book. I love the style. I love the insights and I'm sure you're going to love it too. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically and it's the best way to support the show.

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