This 100 Year Old Book Still Teaches You How To Get Rich In 2025

Today, we're diving into one of the OG Business and money books, the Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles. Written back in 1910, over a century ago, this little short book has influenced just about every modern wealth and success expert out there, from Napoleon Hill, the author of Think and Grow Rich, to Tony Robbins, you name it. But in this book, I find that Wattles keeps things surprisingly practical and simple. So. So why is this book still worth reading more than a century later? Because it lays out the mindset and the method of wealth in a way that's timeless, in my opinion. In today's lesson, we're going to break down the big ideas of this book and how you can actually apply them in 2025. Let's see how we could do that right now. I just wanted to take a quick second to say thank you for being here. You're a learner, you're a doer, you're my kind of person. And if you want to join people just like you and our growing community of entrepreneurs, hit subscribe right under this video. You grow, we grow, we all win. Thanks. Waddle's core message is simple. In this book, getting rich is not about getting lucky or having a lot of talent or even cheating. Right? It's about doing things in a certain way. And he mentions this term certain way a lot in the book. What does certain way mean? It means using your thoughts or creatively and not competitively. You have to learn that in order for you to create wealth, you actually are creating things into the market that have value. What this means is that instead of you trying to grab your slice of the pie, you create more pie. You don't just focus on taking wealth from others, you focus on generating value that expands wealth for everyone. The best example I can give you of this is Apple. Apple adds lots of value into the market and creates wealth for other people with their products. Think about the billions of dollars that is made every year in the App Store. Other companies selling their apps in the App Store. Think about all the companies that create accessories. IPhone cases, for example, iPhone screen protectors. It's billions of dollars being generated because Apple created a product that can be served by these other products. You see what I'm talking about here? Apple made more pieces. This was radical back in 1910, and honestly, it's still radical today. Most people stay broke because they stay in a scarcity mindset. They think wealth is limited. And I can't tell you how many long winded discussions I've had with family members who really believe that there's a limited amount of money in the world, like there's a finite amount of wealth and nothing could be further than the truth. Wealth is generated and is created. The best way I can articulate this is you and I in modern societies. We live a better life than kings and emperors that live 500 years ago. We have penicillin, we have healthcare, we have technology and a snap of a finger. I can get a meal with Uber Eats. I can easily travel the world with airplanes and transportation. I have access to all the world's information on the Internet. There's so much wealth and refinement and lifestyle improvement because this was generated. This was created over time. Don't worry, I'm going to get to how this applies to your wealth and your bank account in a month moment. But just stick with me. There's an abundance of opportunity to make more wealth if you have an abundance mindset and not a scarcity mindset. What is this all about? Is this all woo? No, there's actually a science behind all this and the science of thought, it's actually called where we get really practical. And what Wallace says in the book is that your thoughts shape your results. But it's not just positive thinking, it's directive creative thought combined with action. This means you need to be aware of how you think, what you think about and what you do with those thoughts. There are three key practices from the book that we can follow that can allow us to apply this. The first one is gratitude as a daily practice. Gratitude is very powerful because it's very hard for you to have a scarcity mindset when you are in a state of gratitude. Gratitude keeps you creative and a creative state of mind because you're in an abundant state of mind. When you're grateful, you're tuned into abundance and not scarcity. That's really what you gotta remember. So always start your day as much as you can. What I like to do is I like to list three things I'm grateful for. It could be my health. It could be somebody that I love in my life. It could be the fact that I get to do my hobbies or use my body to exercise. It could be the fact that I get to work on the business that I love. This is great because you start your day with saying to yourself, I have a lot already, I have a lot to be grateful for and, and life has been great to me and I can continue to create abundance in my life. Practice number two, hold a clear vision. Don't just wish for wealth. You Gotta picture exactly what you want and the life you want to live. Clarity really directs your action. There is a huge power in this. A lot of people don't realize that our brain subconsciously will go after the things that it sees, the things that it's been told to see. This is why people don't understand the power of vision boards, right? Like where you create a board where you have a collage of things that you want in your life. The funny thing is I have a buddy of mine, Dale Beaumont, who's going to be on the podcast in an extended interview soon. He talks about in the interview about him creating a vision board with his wife. And they found it years later and realized, wow, they accomplished everything on the vision board, right? It's pretty impressive. The funny thing is that his reaction was not, wow, these vision boards are powerful. His reaction was, I didn't shoot high enough. If I accomplished everything, I should have had been more ambitious. I need to be more ambitious. So that's really incredible. So be clear about what you want in life. Picture it. Whether it's the beautiful home, whether it's great relationships, whether it's great health, whether it's being able to travel the world in retirement, whatever it is, really picture it. Even if you want to create a collage, a digital vision board on your computer, using a note taking app or whatever it might be, or canva do it, you might feel a little silly, but at the same time, what do you got to lose? At least you have some clarity in your head about what you're going for. One of the practices Nicole and I have done over the years is create just a list of things that we would feel like would be the perfect life. Like if we had all these things in our life, we get to travel X amount of times, we get to have these types of investments, we can have these types of luxuries in life. This would be our rich life, right? And just going through all that and actually figuring out how much this will all cost, you know, you'll be surprised how much it is. Sometimes it's not as big as you think it is or how expensive it might be. This is where most people miss the mark, really. They miss the point. You can't just visualize. You need to act every day effectively. You need to act upon these things that you want out of life and with the faith you have in yourself that the vision is coming true. Number three, act in the certain way. One of the things that I've learned along the way that's really helpful is Say, for example, I want to be a successful podcaster with certain accolades and accomplishments. What does a person like that do every day? What do they do? How do they show up? What events do they go to? How do they walk? How do they talk? How do they present themselves? I should do those things if I want to become that person. That's really what it's all about, right? That mix of vision, gratitude and, and taking action. Implementing act as if you are successful is the formula that Waddle lays out. Now, this is not for you to be like overly pretentious or think that you're great when you haven't accomplished anything. No, it's you understanding that in order for me to accomplish great things, there's certain actions I gotta do, there's certain things I gotta live. I have to have a certain lifestyle, a certain approach to life in order for me to. To do this. A lot of people don't understand that things won't change by themselves. You must change. And you must change what you do every day to get different results. Whatever you're doing right now is getting you the results you're getting right now. So if you want different results, you gotta change what you're doing. All right, so let's see how we can apply waddles wisdom in 2025 in our business, in our life. Number one, the concept of creative versus competitive. If you're running a business, stop obsessing over competitors. One of the things I always tell our students inside the 100 LBA is be aware of your competitors. But. But don't obsess over them because then you become like them. You can't help it. It's like osmosis, right? You are influenced by what they do. Instead of copying or undercutting pricing, create something unique that expands the market, that rises you above them. That's how great companies really stand out. That's how creators stand out. That's how SaaS companies stand out. That's how E commerce brands stand out, right? Is that they create something that, that is above and beyond. It doesn't have to be revolutionary. It doesn't have to be some sort of crazy invention. It just could be just better quality or better service or just a better experience online. The best example I can give you is like the best restaurants in the world. Think of the three Michelin star restaurants. All these restaurants that are doing amazing work, they're dealing with the same ingredients. They're not sourcing like brand new food out of outer space. We're all sourcing the same fruits Vegetables, animals that they can source in order to make food. They're dealing with the same type of environment, like it's a restaurant with a table and chairs. There's waiters, there's food, there's drink that they're all dealing with the same ingredients. But some restaurants do better than others because they just do certain things better. Whether it's the service, whether it's the presentation, whatever the atmosphere. They focus on something that they can just be above and beyond other people and stand out and be something special for certain people. Some people really love a great presentation. A lot of people just don't love it. Like, oh great, dry ice and some smoke when you open up my food. Some people don't love that. Some people absolutely love it. Right? And they just, this is theater. It's wonderful. This is why I go and dine out. So restaurants that know that will just focus on presentation. So you can focus on an area of delivery, of, of service, of the how you show up for your customers and become unique and rise above the competition. What else? How can you apply this to your business? Well, gratitude as a strategy. Gratitude isn't just personal. In business, it looks like appreciating your customers and your team. You get to serve people. You are incredibly lucky that you have something that people want. And you get to serve people that appreciate what you have, that want what you have. Right. Companies with a culture of gratitude, they retain their customers, but they also retain the talent they have in their team. So they don't have a lot of turnover. People stay longer and therefore they have a more stable culture, but they also have customers that stay a long time. That means you have more profit, you have more ltv, more lifetime value. And the thing is that you can't fake caring. Right? When you have gratitude, you appreciate your customers, you naturally care for them. What about clarity of vision? How do we apply that to our business? Well, if your revenue goals are fuzzy, you don't know what you're shooting for. Your actions are going to be fuzzy as well. So be specific. I want to reach 20k mrr by December. And here is how I'm going to do it. This is the action I have to take to get to that mrr to that monthly recurring revenue. The funnel is going to be this. Here's the offer, this is the traffic plan. That's what we're talking about here is having clarity. And then how are we going to reverse engineer that goal and get there? That's doing things in a certain way means. And then lastly, he Talks about faith and action in business. Faith isn't blind belief, it's commitment to the process. When you launch a product, you don't just stop at the first flop or things don't work out. You pivot, you change, you improve. You get feedback from your customers so you can understand how you can fix this issue and be more successful. You hold the vision that you have and you keep taking intelligent action. You keep taking calculated risks to improve your business. So why should you read this book, the Science of Getting Rich? It's not that long, it's about 90 pages. You can finish it in a weekend. But this is why I believe it's a must read. Number one, foundational thinking. One of the things I noticed when I read this book was that this feels very familiar but very pure. It's where all the modern business books I've read kind of come from. This way of thinking has come from this book. Number two, second reason why you should read this book. It's a mindset reset waddle shows you that poverty is not noble. I think this is such an interesting, kind of humorous side of the book. It's a mind trap. Being in a scarcity mindset is a mind trap. Wealth is created by service, by creation, and not by hoarding. The funny thing is that I could think about specific people in my family when I'm reading this book who grew up with scarcity, didn't grow up with much, and therefore they have this mentality where they don't want to give, they want to keep, they want to save, and they don't realize that in order for you to continue to grow, you need to create and give and be generous with what you have. Number three, this book is very action oriented, despite its age. Published in 1910, it's not just philosophy. It's a call for you to act, to take action today. It's a new way of thinking about, hey, you can't just think about things. You gotta actually take action on the things that you want. So here's my recommendation. Grab a copy of the Science of Getting Rich. Mine was on my Kindle. I think it's part of Kindle Unlimited and you'll really love it if you get the hard copy. You're gonna be highlighting like crazy because there's a lot of things that just pop out as wisdom and great quotes and great ideas. But what I encourage you to do is when you read it, reference your business. Look at your business, where are you competing and where are you creating wattles? The author was right. You don't get rich by fighting for scraps. You get rich by creating new value in the world. And if you want more value in the world, then you need to create it. You need to be the one that presents it. Thanks so much for listening to the hundred RMBA show. If you want more real, raw and actionable insights for growing your business, you want to join our three Things Newsletter Our three Things newsletter is exactly what it sounds like. We give you three things every single week. Something to think about to grow your mindset, something to do so you're taking action and something to learn so you're growing every single week. Just go to 100mba.net newsletter and sign up. It's absolutely free, it's value packed, it only takes five minutes a week to consume and over 800 people have signed up for it just last week. That's 100 NBA.net newsletter before I go, I want to leave you with this. I love these little short bite sized books that take a few hours to consume. They change your outlook. They really remind you of what's important. You should have a healthy injection of these types of books throughout your year. I would say a book like this once, twice, three times a year can really help give you a boost and really give you some motivation and really give you the shot in the arm you need to remind you that hey, this is what you need to keep your eye on. Keep your eye on the price, keep your eye on what's important. So I encourage you to pick up this book. Fantastic book. I love the style, I love the insights and I'm sure you're going to love it too. And of course I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks so much for subscribing, listening and being a part of our community. Take care.