Be Patiently Unrealistic

What do you think the single biggest criticism we have received regarding How To Be Rich and Happy is? Take a guess.

Cost maybe, because even though it started off life at $97 for a week or so before we dropped it to $47, it’s still not cheap. How about not providing the formula to being Rich and Happy? That would be a fairly damning indictment if people were telling us that, wouldn’t it? Or maybe it’s boring and doesn’t flow well? That would certainly concern me as I'm sure it would John.

As you can imagine, it’s none of those. In fact, I can say with my hand on my heart that we haven’t had a single response like that from the several hundred people that have bought and read the book.

Actually that’s not totally true. The day after the book originally launched on September 22nd I did get one guy ask for his money back saying it didn’t work. Well c’mon he gave it his best shot and if it doesn’t work in 24 hours, it’s not likely to is it?

The single biggest complaint I have received and I know John is in a similar situation, is that there is too much information in How To Be Rich and Happy and that a few people have felt overwhelmed.

That’s actually quite a nice problem to have for us as authors, but nevertheless it still needs to be taken seriously, because for those people it is a real issue.

When we were writing the book we had a few goals in mind, but one front and center was that we didn’t want any filler whatsoever. We believed that if our book could be condensed into a small pamphlet then we should sell it as a small pamphlet.

With that in mind we stripped 25,000 words out during the last 2 or 3 re-writes and that equates to about a third the length of the current book or a tad longer than my first book, ‘Don’t Ask Stupid Questions’.

So what we really want to discourage is ‘skimming’

The book really will not help people if they skim it, especially the exercises. We know only a fraction of people that buy a book such as this bother to do the exercises, but we know our readers are smarter than average

There’s a chapter in the book that John wrote entitled, ‘Be Patiently Unrealistic.’ In it he talks about overnight successes that are seldom overnight successes. We see people catapulted into the public limelight, but seldom see the years of work they’d put in prior to that.

TV leads us to believe that one day they were walking the streets and the next walking down the red carpet. The reality is usually somewhat different and we urge people to take it easy, enjoy the ride and feel relaxed in the knowledge that things will work our Rich and Happy.

We really do not expect anybody to blitz through the book and when they turn the last page discover their life has moved into a permanent state of bliss, that comes with How To Be Rich and Happy - The Magic Kit and will retail at $9,997.00.

I was only exposed to the financial side of the book in any meaningful sense after the book was published when I could sit down and read it at my leisure. As such, 40 years of being a completely laissez faire attitude toward money hasn’t miraculously disappeared.

In fact, I’m still at the conscious competence stage in which I have to think about how I deal with money rather than instinctively making the wisest choices.

But and here’s the rub. I’m being patient with myself and as long as I am moving in the right direction, I’m cool with that because I know I’ll get to be where I want to be. I know you can too, if that is you adopt the same approach.

If you have the book and it’s overwhelming to you, slow down! It’s not a race and we know nobody can absorb it all in one go, that’s not the point. We called it a manual for life for a good reason, it’s for life!

There is nothing wrong with doing one section per week or even one per month until you have fully grasped it. Equally, there’s no problem with putting it down for a period of time whilst you read other books or just contemplate your brilliant future.

There’s no need to be overwhelmed, although if you are, there is help in the book about how you deal with that.

Remember, it’s only life and none of us get out alive.