MBA2698 Must Read: The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D Wattles

Why do some people seem to attract money effortlessly, while others hustle nonstop and still feel stuck? Is success really just about talent and luck or is there a smarter way to build wealth? If you've ever felt like you're missing a key piece of the puzzle, this episode is for you. Omar dives into the classic book The Science of Getting Rich: Attracting Financial Success through Creative Thought by Wallace D. Wattles, unpacking its core ideas in a way that’s practical and easy to apply. You’ll learn how to shift out of scarcity thinking, build a daily gratitude habit, and take focused action that actually moves the needle. Wattles’ advice isn’t just theory, it’s a mindset and method that still works today. Want to start thinking and acting in that “certain way”? Hit the play button at the top of this page and let’s get into it. This one’s all about turning timeless wisdom into real-world results. Discover all our must-read book reviews at https://100mba.net/bookreviews. Watch the episodes on YouTube: https://lm.fm/GgRPPHiSUBSCRIBEYouTube | Apple Podcast | Spotify | Podcast Feed Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Small business owners, listen up. You started your business, but you can't do it alone. And that means you have to hire people to help. That's where Just Works comes in. Just Works is the payroll, benefits, and global hiring platform to unburden your brain from all the complicated small business stuff. They handle the things you can't afford to get wrong, so you don't have to worry. So you can focus on the parts of running a business that you enjoy, knowing everything else is running smoothly. You don't have to worry when it just works. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype? For example, I really wanted to love the show Mad Men. I really tried to watch it and love it, but it just didn't do anything for me. As a marketer and business person, the show was a little bit of a disappointment.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, like impressions. But then we don't see revenue. LinkedIn has a word for that: bull spend. Instead, you can get the highest ROAS of major ad networks with LinkedIn ads. Cut the bull spend, advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/MBAShow. Terms apply. Today, we're diving into one of the OG business and money books, The Science of Getting Rich, by Wallace D. Waddles. 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

• 1:28Speaker 00

  of Think and Grow Rich, to Tony Robbins, you name it. But in this book, I find that Waddles keeps things surprisingly practical and simple. This is what I love about it. You just have to be a little bit patient with the delivery. 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.

• 1:58Speaker 00

  Welcome back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host Omar Zenhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  Real quick, if these episodes help you in any way, hit the follow button on this podcast app. It helps us to keep bringing you practical business insights three times a week for free. Thanks. In today's lesson, we're going to break them the big ideas of this book and how you can actually apply them in 2025. What I love about the lessons that I learned is that it doesn't matter what's happening in the market, what's happening in technology, or whatever. These concepts are basically fundamentals. They're principles that just really never change. And it's good to know them so that you can apply them in your own life and your own business. Let's see how we could do that right now. The core message of Waddle's book is actually quite simple. Getting rich is not about getting lucky

• 2:54Speaker 00

  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 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, okay? Apple adds lots of value into the market

• 3:38Speaker 00

  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 pie. 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.

• 4:23Speaker 00

  Like, there's a finite amount of wealth. And nothing could be further from 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 lived 500 years ago. Right? 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 gonna get to how this applies to your wealth and your bank account in a moment. But just stick with me.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  There's an abundance of opportunity to make more wealth if you have an abundance mindset and not a scarcity mindset. If you're finding this a little bit mystical, or a little bit like, "What is this all about? Is this all woo-woo?" No. There's actually a science behind all this. And the science of thought it's actually called. Where we get really practical, okay? And what Waldo says in the book is that he's, "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.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  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, to be ungrateful 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. 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, right?

• 6:36Speaker 00

  I have a lot to be grateful for and life has been great to me. And I can continue to create abundance in my life. These days, you can get an answer from the internet, an influencer, or AI in seconds. But when it comes to legal matters for your business or your family, a quick answer is not the same as the right answer. With 25 years of experience, LegalZoom knows how to start you off right. When you need a legal hand, visit LegalZoom. Go to LegalZoom.com to get started. LegalZoom provides access to independent attorneys and its law firm, LZ Legal Services. LegalZoom is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Today's episode is sponsored by Whatnot. You've probably heard about live selling and it's taking off on Whatnot.

• 7:18Speaker 00

  Sellers on Whatnot don't need a storefront or paid social media ads to reach customers. This is what I love about it because with live video, you interact and engage with your customers. You just need your phone and buyers can ask questions, they can make purchases in real time. On Whatnot, you could see people selling from living rooms and warehouses, selling sneakers, electronics, vintage, even a guy on a boat selling lobsters he just caught. Thousands of items are sold every minute because customers get to know sellers and see the products live. For many sellers, it's gone from side hustle to full-time job since they're selling 10 times here than on other marketplaces. I've personally shopped on Whatnot and found the whole experience actually pretty fun. I got to bid on a product that I was looking at, which was a little tripod for my phone.

• 8:03Speaker 00

  And when I won the bid, the seller gave me a shout out and gave me a little demo of how the tripod works. In a couple of days, the tripod was at my front door. It couldn't be easier. Search Whatnot, W-H-A-T-N-O-T, in the App Store, download and start selling right away.

• 8:22Speaker 00

  Practice number two: Hold a clear vision. Don't just wish for wealth. You've got to 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 brains, 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

• 9:07Speaker 00

  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 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, right? 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. I mean, you might feel a little silly, but at the same time, what have you got to lose? At least you have some clarity in your head about what you're going for.

• 9:52Speaker 00

  One of the practices that 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'll be surprised how much it is. Sometimes it's not as big as you think it is, or how expensive it might be. So, it's really helpful to just, like, put down what you want. Sometimes we don't even ask ourselves what we want. Number three: Act in the certain way. This is where most People miss the mark, really. They miss the point.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  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. 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? Right? 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 taking action,

• 11:17Speaker 00

  implementing, act as if you are successful, is the formula that Waddle lays out. Now, this is not for you to be 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 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. Right? 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. Alright, so let's see how we can apply Waddle's wisdom in 2025 in our business and our life.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  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 $100BA is like, be aware of your competitors, 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 is above and beyond. It doesn't have to be revolutionary. It doesn't have to be some sort of crazy invention.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  It could be just be 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 like three Michelin star restaurants. All these restaurants that are doing amazing work, they're dealing with the same ingredients, right? They're not sourcing like brand new food out of outer space, right? 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, right? Like it's a restaurant with a table and chairs. There's waiters, there's food, there's drink. 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.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  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. You know, 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 like, this is a 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 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?

• 14:11Speaker 00

  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?

• 14:55Speaker 00

  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, right? 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 the 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

• 15:40Speaker 00

  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? Well, number one, it's not that long, it's about 90 pages. You can finish it in a weekend, right? 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, the second reason why you should read this book. It's a mindset reset, right?

• 16:25Speaker 00

  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. They 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.

• 17:08Speaker 00

  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've got to actually take action on the things that you want. Quick disclaimer, this book does have some old fashioned language, but if you read it with today's lens, it's actually surprisingly tactical. It's actually a little bit fun to read a book that's a little bit old fashioned. So here's my recommendation. Grab a copy of The Science of Getting Rich. Mine was on my Kindle. I just read it off my Kindle. I think it's part of Kindle Unlimited and you'll really love it. If you get the hard copy, you're going to be highlighting like crazy because there's

• 17:48Speaker 00

  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? Okay. 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. 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, that really change your mood. They change your outlook. They really remind you of what's important.

• 18:31Speaker 00

  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 kind of 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 prize. 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. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically and it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. It starts with our approach. Every Mazda comes standard with proactive safety features. So you're more aware of what's around you, more focused on the road ahead, and ready before problems ever start. Mazda, more of what matters most to you. Go to MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse or promote any product.