The Millionaire Mind

by Thomas J. Stanley

Overview

"Readers with an entrepreneurial turn of mind will devour The Millionaire Mind because it provides road maps on how millionaires found their niches."After its first publication, Dr. Thomas J. Stanley's second best-seller The Millionaire Mind spent over four months on the New York Times best-seller list, rising to position #2, and has sold over half a million copies. Here is the first paperback edition of Stanley's second groundbreaking study of America's wealthy.
The Millionaire Mind targets a population of millionaires who have accumulated substantial wealth and live in ways that openly demonstrate their affluence. Exploring the ideas, beliefs, and behaviors that enabled these millionaires to build and maintain their fortunes, Dr. Stanley provides a fascinating look at who America's financial elite are and how they got there.

• *What were their school days like?
• *How did they respond to negative criticism?
• *What are the characteristics of the millionaire's spouse?
• *Is religion an important part of their lives?

The author uncovers the surprising answers to these and similar questions, showing readers through concrete examples just what it is that makes the wealthy prosper when others would turn away dejected or beaten.

The Millionaire Mind promises to be as transformational as Dr. Stanley's previous best-seller. This book answers universal questions with solid statistical evidence in an approachable, and anecdotal style. The number of copies sold of this soon-to-be-classic will surely be in the millions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780740718588
Publisher:	Andrews McMeel Publishing
Publication date:	08/02/2001
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	117,244
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Dr. Thomas J. Stanley began studying the affluent in 1973. His coauthored best-selling book, The Millionaire Next Door, released in 1996, has sold 2,000,000 copies. Thomas followed his first book with Marketing to the Affluent, ranked among the ten outstanding business books by the editors of Best of Business Quarterly. In 1999, he published The Millionaire Mind, which explored America's financial elite and how they became so. The Millionaire Mind has sold 750,000 copies. The author lives in Atlanta, holds a doctorate of business administration from the University of Georgia in Athens and was formerly a professor of marketing at Georgia State University.

Table of Contents

	Tables	viii
	Acknowledgments	x
1.	An Introduction to the Millionaire Mind	1
2.	Success Factors	31
3.	School Days	87
4.	The Relationship Between Courage and Wealth	133
5.	Vocation Vocation Vocation	181
6.	Choice of Spouse	233
7.	The Economically Productive Household	277
8.	The Home	305
9.	The Lifestyles of Millionaires: Real vs. Imagined	361
10.	A Final Note About the Millionaire Mind	387
Appendix 1	In Search of the Balance Sheet Affluent	395
Appendix 2	Businesses Owned and Managed by Millionaires (National Geodemographically Based Sample)	399
Appendix 3	Businesses Owned and Managed by Millionaires (Ad Hoc Sample)	403

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
Who is the average millionaire? Does he eat gourmet or fast food? Does he drive fancy cars, take chic vacations, and indulge wherever and whenever he can? Or does he resole his shoes, turn off the air conditioning when he leaves the house, and spend a lot of time at home with close friends and family? Through his surveys of over 1,000 millionaires, Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D., answers these questions and provides us with further insight into the thoughts and lives of this wealthy segment of the population in The Millionaire Mind.

A follow-up to Stanley's New York Times bestseller, The Millionaire Next Door, The Millionaire Mind may surprise readers with its findings about the kinds of people that millionaires really are. Interestingly, many millionaires were not straight-A students in high school, nor did they attend prestigious colleges. Instead, they were often told when they were younger that they were not bright and that they would not be successful. These challenges taught them how to surmount obstacles and motivated them to try harder and to take risks to get ahead financially.

The major risks that these millionaires have taken and continue to take are financial ones. They must overcome the fear of taking risks, and they must maintain this courage throughout their adult careers. Stanley discovered that many millionaires share similarities in techniques to allay their anxieties and stay on track financially. Some of these include:

• Believing in myself
• Counting my blessings every day
• Countering negativethoughtswith positive ones
• Sharing concerns with spouse
• Visualizing success
• Outworking, outthinking, out-toughing the competition
• Hiring talented advisors
• Constantly upgrading my knowledge about my occupation
• Spending considerable time planning my success
• Exercising regularly
• Having strong religious faith

  Stanley also reveals that millionaires are very often successful in marriage as well as in work (the typical millionaire has been married to the same spouse for over twenty-five years) and that they usually lead relatively frugal, economically productive lifestyles. Perhaps most interesting to readers will be the section that Stanley devotes to how millionaires chose the career in which they would be most likely to succeed.

  So don't miss out on picking apart and analyzing the thoughts and habits of millionaires with Thomas Stanley and The Millionaire Mind, a book sure to be as brilliantly revealing and fascinating as his previous bestseller on millionaires.

  Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D., is a researcher, author, and lecturer. He has studied the wealthy for more than 25 years. The Millionaire Next Door, published in 1996, has sold more than one million copies in hardcover and nearly one million in paperback. The book has been on The New York Times Best Sellers list for more than 150 combined weeks.

  His previous books include Marketing to the Affluent, which Best of Business Quarterly named one of 10 outstanding business books, Selling to the Affluent, and Networking with the Affluent.

  Dr. Stanley lives in Atlanta. He was a professor of marketing at Georgia State University, where he was named Omicron Delta Kappa Outstanding Professor. He holds his doctorate from the University of Georgia in Athens.

In The Millionaire Next Door, read by Cotter Smith, Stanley (Marketing to the Affluent) and Danko (marketing, SUNY at Albany) summarize findings from their research into the key characteristics that explain how the elite club of millionaires have become "wealthy." Focusing on those with a net worth of at least $1 million, their surprising results reveal fundamental qualities of this group that are diametrically opposed to today's earn-and-consume culture, including living below their means, allocating funds efficiently in ways that build wealth, ignoring conspicuous consumption, being proficient in targeting marketing opportunities, and choosing the "right" occupation. It's evident that anyone can accumulate wealth, if they are disciplined enough, determined to persevere, and have the merest of luck. In The Millionaire Mind, an excellent follow-up to the highly successful first analysis of how ordinary folks can accumulate wealth, Stanley interviews many more participants in a much more comprehensive study of the characteristics of those in this economic situation. The author structures these deeper details into categories that include the key success factors that define this group, the relationship of education to their success, their approach to balancing risk, how they located themselves in their work, their choice of spouse, how they live their daily lives, and the significant differences in the truth about this group vs. the misplaced image of high spenders. Narrator Smith's solid, dead-on reading never fails to heighten the importance of these principles that most twentysomethings should be forced to listen to in toto. Highly recommended for all public libraries. Dale Farris, Groves, TX Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal