Review of Invest in Yourself: Six Secrets to a Rich Life (Hardcover)

"Our goal for Invest in Yourself is to motivate you to take charge ofyour life and make the most out of your time, energy, and money." That's a novel and valuable perspective that's worth five stars for thisbook.

Too many self-help books focus on helping you get more money ormore out of your money, but ignore the costs in terms of the time,attention, effort and stress involved.Invest in Yourself looks beyondthat overly-narrow focus.That's the good news about this book.

The badnews about this book is that it has taken on more than one book can hope tofully deliver on.I hope the authors come out with sequels that expand andmagnify what is here.

The six secrets are:

(1)Make your ownlifestyle decisions.

(2)Put your family first.

(3)Wherever youwork, be in business for yourself.

(4)Make the most of the money youbring home.

(5)Turn your debts into golden investmentopportunities.

(6)Map out your financial future.

The three authorshave an unusual perspective.They have dropped out of the "get aheadat the office" rat race and "shop until you drop" lifestylesmuch more than most.As a result, they have lots of money-saving ideasbased on their own life experiences.Much of what is in the book, WaltDisney's Uncle Scrooge would approve of.If you are like me, you will findmoney-saving ideas that would never have occurred to you, otherwise.Myparents have always shopped are yard sales, but it had never occurred to meto use these routinely for the kind of around-the-house items that I willseldom use like unusual garden tools.

One of the strengths of the bookis that it is not a "one size fits all" approach.They realizethat each person will have a different set of life goals, and the advice iscouched to accommodate that.

I also liked the way that the bookchallenged the automatic assumptions that many make:Career comes first;job comes first; exciting consumer experiences are a main reward forsuccess; and only the best will do.

By having three authors, theperspectives and ideas were much more varied than I have seen in other,somewhat-similar self-help books.That also was a strength.

The weakestsection was the last one on mapping out your financial future.Almosteveryone will need more guidance than is here.That's the bad news.Thegood news is that there are lots of books about creating financial plansthat you can use to supplement this one.

On the other hand, those who buyinto the traditional American Dream and will happily pay the price foreconomic success will find less in this book than will those independentsouls who listen to their own intuition for guidance.Despite ideas formaking penny-pinching fun, it's not going to be fun for everyone.I doapplaud pointing out how saving money for essentials is far more valuablethan expanding income due to the income tax effects on progressive income. The advice about paying off your expensive debt is pretty standard, but Iliked the way it was couched in terms of thinking of it as a high returninvestment.

I hope you will not only read this book, but apply itslessons.As you do, I encourage you to expand your perspective even morebroadly than the book does.What other areas do you have important valuesin, besides time, money, and energy?How can those values be honored inyour tradeoffs?The more you do this, the better life you will have . . .the richer your life will be in terms of its effect on those around you.

Enjoy, live long, and prosper!

Click Here to see more reviews about: Invest in Yourself: Six Secrets to a Rich Life (Hardcover)