7 Strategies for Wealth and Happiness by Jim Rohn: Free Business Book Summary and Review

Mastering these seven strategies throughout a lifetime could take your finances and personal life to a higher level.  I love that Jim Rohn always focuses on both wealth and happiness, not one to the exclusion of the other.  

Jim Rohn reminds us in 7 Strategies for Wealth & Happiness: Power Ideas from America's Foremost Business Philosopher, 1996,  Three Rivers Press, that success is no more than the natural consequence of consistently applying the fundamentals of success to our life. This principle applies equally to wealth and happiness.  About six fundamental things make up about eighty percent of the difference in each area.  Find these six things and master them. 

Discipline is essential to both wealth and happiness. Although many people view failure as one colossal event, many times failure comes after a long list of small failures based upon a lack of discipline.  Failure occurs when we fail to act, think, care, strive, climb, learn, or keep going today. Discipline is the master key that unlocks the door to wealth. 

Here are the 7 strategies. 

(1) Unleash the Power of Goals 

Goals will motivate you if they are well defined. The better you define goals, describe them and work on achieving them, the stronger they will pull you. The four great motivators are (1) recognition, (2) to feel like a winner, (3) family, and (4) benevolence.  The main purpose of goals is to compel you to become the person it takes to achieve them. Income rarely exceeds personal development. Remember to “ask” for what you want.  Learn to use the seasons of life and make certain you are planting when it is time to plant and harvest at the right time. Realize that you will likely not get all that you want all the time. 

(2) Seek Knowledge

If you want money, study the acquisition of wealth. Search for knowledge. 

Remember to capture special moments with a camera and to write what you learn in a journal. 

There are two ways to acquire knowledge.  The first is to reflect on your own life for the lessons you have learned. At the end of each day, ponder what worked and what didn’t work.  Do this again at the end of the week, month, year. The second way to acquire wealth is to learn from other peoples’ experiences.  You can read books written by others, you can listen to others, and you can observe others. Look at both winners and losers. 
        

(3) Learn How to Change 

Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. Instead of asking what you are getting from your job, ask what you are becoming.  To get more, you must become more. Income rarely exceeds personal development. It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development. 

You cannot create more time, so you need to work on creating more value. Whether you sell goods or services, you get paid for the value.  It is possible to become more valuable and, thus, earn more per hour.  

Life and commerce are like the seasons. You cannot change the seasons but you can change yourself. 

To be successful you must eliminate self-imposed limitations that hold you back. 

There are three areas of personal development: (1) spiritual self-development, (2) physical self-development, and (3) mental self-development. Start first by developing small disciplines and begin to string them together. Everything affects everything else.  Every low standard will affect the rest of your performance.   
  
Good people are found, not changed. But people can change themselves. 

(4) Control Your Finances

    
Our outer lives always reflect our inner lives. If you had a better plan, you could have more money. 

After you pay your taxes, learn to live on 70 percent of the money you earn.  Give ten percent to charity.  Set aside ten percent for capital investment: this money is spent on something you will fix, manufacture, buy, or sell. For example, buy a product wholesale and sell it retail.  The last ten percent should be saved. 

You need to have a financial statement. List your assets and subtract your liabilities (debts) and the balance is your net worth. Keep good books of your income and expenses. If your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall.       

(5) Master Time 

There are four types of people.  A drifter is someone who drifts through life like a tumbleweed keeping their time as unstructured as possible but you cannot drift to a better life. A 9-to-5 type of person manages time around their job.  The workaholic works all the time and there is never enough work but workaholics are not always the ones who earn the most. The fourth type of time manager is the enlightened manager who works smarter, not longer like the workaholic by looking for ways to leverage activity through the work of others and by delegating. 

You either run your day or your day will run you. One of the most important words to manage time is to say, “No.” Learn to control the telephone and to use it at your convenience. By always answering the phone, you allow others to control your time. Instead, use an administrative assistant to screen calls or use an answering machine. Know the points you want to make before you call someone. If you write the key points of the conversation down, you will have a record should you need one later.  

4 Tools to think on paper

(a) A daily journal helps you record and capture good ideas. 

(b) A project book that is a ring binder with tabs in it. 

If working with people, use a tab for each person and record and file pertinent information for each person If you are running a business, you may want a tab for each department and the important information for each department such as sales records or performance charts. The key here is to have a central place to store pertinent information where you can find it.  

(c) Calendar

 A Day-timer type calendar can record important appointments. Keep track of business expenses, important calls, business tasks, etc.  

(d) A Game Plan 

Don’t start your day until you have it finished on paper.   Also, don’t start the week until you have it finished on paper. Don’t start the month until you have it finished on paper.  If you are starting a project, use graph paper to make vertical columns for the number of days it covers. On the left side of the paper, list the activities that must be done. 
 

(6) Surround Yourself With Winners 

You become like the people you associate with so choose carefully. Think about who you hang around with and what they have you doing, listening to, where they have you going, what they have you saying, what they have you feeling. Ask yourself if your present associations are helping you to grow into the person you want to become.  If not, then decide to disassociate or limit those associations and find new associations with people who will help you get to where you want to go. Spending more time with the right people will speed up your progress to your destination. 
   

(7) Learn the Art of Living Well. 

Learn to design a lifestyle with the amount of money you have now. When you treat people who serve you well, you will feel better about yourself.  Treat your family well and find ways to be generous in spirit with them. Be happy and grateful for what you have while pursuing what you want. Master the art of lifestyle and happiness and when your money increases, your lifestyle and happiness will increase with it. 

 Love and friendship are important in life. Pay attention to those you love and your friends. Know who are the friends who will go the distance with you and those who are casual friends who won’t and never confuse the two. 

Faith without action serves no useful purpose.  Action is the last part of the formula for success. Action ensures results. Only action generates a reaction. 

We are all given the gift of life. It is up to each one of us how we spend it and whether we use the universal laws to prosper. 

Rating: $$$$$ out of five.  Excellent book. 


Copyright @ 2016 Christine Esser

This book was purchased, not a gift.   

This book can be purchased on Amazon by clicking the first link below. Disclosure: We may receive a small commission from your purchase, but this will not raise the amount you pay. Thank you for reading this review. Comments are welcome.  We have not received anything from the author or publisher of Rohn's book in exchange for this review. The second link is a full summary of Rohn's book by Money Book Millionaire, a family member. Comments are welcome.