TOP DRAWER BOOK REVIEW
by
HL Carpenter

 

The One Minute Millionaire
by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen
388 pages; Hardcover; $19.95
Harmony Books, New York, 2002

Will you be a millionaire by the time you finish reading this review?

Perhaps not, but Mark Victor Hansen, public speaker and author of the Chicken Soup series and Robert G. Allen, author of Nothing Down and other financial books, believe it's possible to become a millionaire one minute at a time.

The way to accomplish this feat, the authors say, is to make a commitment and take action. Techniques for taking action include visualization, setting goals, giving before you can expect to get, and snapping your wrist with a rubber band to interrupt negative thoughts and change your pattern of thinking. Those are not novel ideas.

What is different about the book is the way it combines fiction and nonfiction.

The fictional portion is a tale of a heroine (a woman who eventually becomes what the authors call a 'shero') who will lose her kids if she fails to raise a million dollars in 90 days. Nonfiction lessons on wealth building tie to the fictional story line, and you can read both together or each section separately.

The book is also full of vignettes about ordinary people who achieved millionaire status - including both authors - and also includes creatively coined words such as info-preneur, used to describe an information entrepreneur who markets and sells information.

The authors state in the introduction that their goal 'is to help create 1,000,000 millionaires', but they admit 'We can only provide you with the tools and a path (our system) that will make it easier for you to become a millionaire. However, you have to use the tools and travel the path."

As with all self-improvement, the real question is how much effort you’re willing to put forth to make the changes you envision in your life.

 

Review originally published June 2003