Critical Essay Sample on Millionaire Next Door

Introduction

"The Millionaire Next Door" is a book written by Dr. Thomas J. Stanley and Dr. William D. Danko. Many people dream of becoming millionaires and having a lavish lifestyle, this book will be helpful with its findings. The book is a collection of researches done to compile the profile of America's millionaire. It's comprised of personal and group of interviews of millionaires with high net worth or incomes. The authors defined what being wealthy is and their existing characteristics. The book teaches the reader of what is expected of a millionaire, their looks and how they behave (Stanley, 1996). It has many teaching and views from respondents which impacts a reader's life. This paper will review the book chapters and explore the lessons learned by the reader.

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The book defines the threshold of being a millionaire as a person who has a net worth of $1 million or more. The authors identify a millionaire as a person who has a significant number of assets like investments and cash. Unlike how many people consider a lavish lifestyle as a sign of wealthy, the book describes it as not wealth. The authors define a wealthy person as a person who gets so much pleasure from owning so many assets not displaying them to the public to see. The authors give very clear instruction on how to become wealthy. They describe characters that all the millionaires have in common. The characters and the definition of millionaire given by the authors completely disapprove many people beliefs of who a millionaire is in America. The book explains that millionaire's build their wealth by saving and good investments in thins or business that have high returns.

Although most chapters of this book focus on discussing the profile of an American millionaire, the author has provided several important lessons for the reader. One of the lessons learned is that there are seven characteristics of common denominators among millionaires in America. The authors say that they live well below their means since they make more money than they can spend. The millionaires also allocate their time and energy in conducive ways of making money. So to become a millionaire one have to ready to work hard and dedicate all the time and energy to making wealth. Another lesson learned is most millionaires do not display their wealth to the public because they believe financial independence is more important than social status or what people thinks about you.

Another important lesson learned for this book is that most of the people who earn high income are not wealthy. This is because although many Americans have a high income, not all of them are able to save much. The authors discuss this by saying that the wealthy are not the mass material procession but it is an increment of net worth by investing in rewarding assets. The books categorized these people into categories those who accumulate wealth by becoming financially independent and those who just display their wealth through living in lavish lifestyles. After reading this book you will be surprised to know that most millionaires in America earned their wealth by working hard and good investment other than inheriting it. According to the authors there two types of people, under accumulators of wealth (UAWs) those who spend most of their earnings and prodigious accumulators of wealth (PAWs) the people who save and invest wisely.

References

Stanley, T. J. (1996). The millionaire next door: The surprising secrets of America's wealthy. Taylor Trade Publishing.