Book Review - The One Minute Millionaire

The One minute Millionaire is a very different sort of book. Written by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen who also authored ‘The Power of Focus and The Chicken Soup series, the book is divided into two halves. One half presents Millionaire habits and techniques from in an instructional way and the other illustrates the concepts through a story.

Those with an analytical bent will prefer the instructional side, which is the one I read when I first bought the book. It covers such things as; Leverage, Mentors, Teams and Networks and then goes on to look at some vehicles one might use to accrue wealth such as Real Estate, conventional businesses and the Internet.

Highlights in the instructional half of the book would include the concept that ‘Thoughts’ are the most powerful things we have at our disposal because thought’s become things: “Look around you. Everything you see began as a thought in someone’s mind. The chair you sit on. The table you work at. The car you drive, The house you live in. The clothes you wear. The television you watch. First a thought. Then a thing – brought forth out of nothing. Voila! There it is. Everything begins as a thought.”

Another salient point made by these motivational authors is how ‘focus’ can expedite great results and they quote the famous golfer Jack Niclause to illustrate their point. “I never hit a shot, even in practice, without having a very sharp, in focus picture of it in my head. It’s like a color movie. First I see the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes and I ‘see” the ball going there: it’s path, it’s trajectory, and shape, even it’s behaviour on landing. Then there’s a sort of fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality.

The second half of the book deals with the harrowing story of a woman called Michelle, who having lost her husband in an accident, then loses her children to powerful in-laws who take them into custody and refuse her contact. But having connected with a kindly business mentor named Sam, who agrees to train her in the ways of the ‘Enlightened Millionaire’, Michelle grows in self confidence and decides to throw down a challenge to the officious in-laws.

“Lets say I make a million dollars in the next 12 months. If I do, you drop your suit for permanent custody and I get my kids back…and if I don’t you’ll never see me again.”

Changing the time-limit to 90 days and attaching numerous conditions; “You can’t borrow the money or win it”, the in-laws whole heartedly agree to this thinking that she wouldn’t have a chance of raising the money and look forward to never seeing her again. And this wager sets the stage for a journey in business practice which sees her assembling a team of entrepreneurs who collectively brainstorm ways to raise the money in the given time. Led by her Mentor Sam, the team engage in the business practices illustrated in the other half of the book and the reader gets to see how the techniques, strategies and mindsets work in practice.

So, illustrating the tips and tricks of a successful entrepreneur in these two ways concurrently is defnitely novel, however, if you’re feeling depressed, you might be well advised to read the instructional half of the book first.

Book Review - The One Minute Millionaire