You Can Build Your Own Wealth

We’re all searching for that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, whether it provides capital to launch a dream or allows us the freedom to have what we want, while keeping all of the bills paid.

The Internet is filled with empty opportunities, promising get rich quick schemes with little or no work. Book stores have grown from shelf sections on the topic to complete departments filled with ‘get rich’ how to's to Trump University. The real principles that build wealth haven’t changed for centuries. According to Benjamin Franklin, your journey can begin with reading his book, “The Way to Wealth”, where you may find all the wisdom you need to amass a fortune. Granted, it’s still going to take hard work, focus, and discipline, but do you have the passion?

Franklin’s book is a quick read, just 30 pages and filled with financial wisdom. "The Way to Wealth" is an essay first published in 1758 as a preface to Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanac". Just 78 maxims, written by our beloved kite-flying, electricity-discovering, founding father himself. Here are just a few: "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" . . . "Never leave that till tomorrow, which you can do today" . . . "God helps those who help themselves" . . . “He that lives upon hope will die fasting” . . . “There are no gains without pains”.

On the importance of saving, Franklin’s Father Abraham said, "If you would be wealthy, think of saving, as well as of getting. Away, then, with your expensive follies, and you will not have then so much reason to complain of hard times." These words still resonate true today. On the constant need to buy clothes and goods: "What use is this pride of appearance, for which so much is suffered? It cannot promote health, nor ease pain. It makes no increase of merit in person, it creates envy, it hastens misfortune." Father Abraham then asks the crowd, "what madness it must be to run in debt for these superfluities?"

I wonder, shouldn't the "The Way to Wealth" be required reading at the high school level? It's great to have Franklin’s image on the U.S. one-hundred dollar bill, but his timeless advice is priceless.