Getting Rich In America: Eight Simple Rules For Building A Fortune--And A Satisfying Life

Identifies eight rules for amassing fortune based on case studies of people who became millionaires while earning an average income

Rule 1

Think of America as the Land of Choices

Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, renowned for being the country's most successful nerd, has really made it in America. In the process of creating the world's most widely used operating system for personal computers, plus a growing array of other programs, he has amassed a fortune exceeding $50 billion. At the same time, he has created an unprecedented amount of wealth for other Americans (plus hundreds of millions of citizens of other countries around the world) who either workfor Microsoft or have benefited from its products at work and at home.

By making it in this country, Gates has all the trappings of business power and personal fortune that even his well-to-do parents could never have imagined. When he speaks, everyone listens--the business public, the media, and (because of his presumed computer industry market power) the antitrust lawyers in the U.S. Department of Justice. He lives in a modern-age electronic castle on a hillside outside Seattle. Few Americans would not want a portion of his good fortune, which he continues to, build. Neither should they want him to stop building his fortune. There are, gains for everyone in his efforts to improve his products and best the competition.

Chicago Bulls basketball star Michael Jordan has also definitely made it in America. And while he has no where near Gates's vast fortune, he isn't worried about his financial future. He has bankrolled his considerable basketball prowess into a sizable empire of business projects and endorsements, including soft drinks, cologne, a chain of restaurants, and, of course, his signature footwear and apparel line, making him worth 'hundreds of millions of dollars. Like Gates and just about everyone else who makes it big, he has surely given more value to his consuming--and adoring--public than he has taken in accumulated wealth.

Ordinary Americans, Extraordinary Accomplishments

When we think of people who have made it in America, the names of Gates and Jordan-and maybe other less widely known Americans on Fortune, magazine's list of the country's four hundred richest--come quickly to mind. We've heard and read a great deal about the usual cadre of truly wealthy business and entertainment celebrities, such, as Warren, Buffett, Michael Dell, Barbra Streisand, Ted Turner, Linda Wachner, Garth Brooks, Donald Trump, Sharon Stone, and Tom Cruise.

This book, however, is not about how the financial elite, made it in this country-nor is it about how you can live like them, or be as rich as they' are. Wish on!

The, focus of this book is on ordinary people of far more modest, means and talents and how they have "made it" and will continue to do so. Rather than the rich and famous, the people you will meet in this book are, people like Ron and Pam Jones, owners of Handy Andy,Janitorial Services in Plano, Texas, who have done well with their business mainly because of the principles they were taught as children. Ron Jones notes that he grew up in a family where hard work was an ethic: "I guess it goes back to what my uncle, used to tell me all the time when I was growing up: If you want your prayers answered, get off your knees and hustle.

The book is also about the Huynhs, Le Thi and Hai Minh, immigrantsfrom Vietnam, who, started from scratch and developed Fulton Seafood business in Houston. They believed in the American Dream, that hard work pays off; as it has for them.

It's about-what Patrick ]Kelly has accomplished. He grew up in a Virginia orphanage to go on to build one of the country's largest medical supply companies and then to start peeling off the resulting fortune for the benefit of his orphanage home and other charities. And it's about how it was possible for Donald and Mildred Othmer to lead fairly ordinary and unassuming lives, only to leave their extraordinary estate, valued in 1998 at close to $750 million, to a host of charities (see the nearby box for details, on how they did it).

But this book is also about and for many other Americans, like Alex, Grumsky, a young man from Irvine, California, who has for three years worked the early morning shift (starting at 4-30 A.m.) at one of the city's Starbucks, Coffee houses and the late, evening shift (starting at 4 P.M.) at another Irvine restaurant. He puts in a total of sixty-five hours a week to pay off educational expenses and to help his father out of bankruptcy. After he has helped to settle his father's and his own, debts, he plans to return to school. Alex has yet to make it in America, but along the way he has learned several very important lessons, not the least of which are the dangers of easy credit and the value of hard Work and saving for those rainy days. With those lessons in mind, no one should doubt that he will do well.

More importantly the book is really about you, and what you can do to get rich in America, making the world a better place for others as well as yourself.

If we were concerned solely with how the truly wealthy elite in the country have, made it, this book would be much shorter than already is--and we have kept its length to a minimum, mainly because we know you want, to get on with the business, of building a fortune, rather than spending All your time reading about it. If this were a book only for the super-rich-to-be most readers would likely figure it was not for them. And we would be, the first to acknowledge that few readers of average income will actually rival the likes of Gates, Jordan, and Buffett. Their substantial talents are exceedingly rare, and each played their talent cards with unique effectiveness, if not with a considerable measure of luck. This book is for you, to whom much has been given and for whom much is possible.