How to be Rich and Happy – A Totally Biased Review

Back in November of ‘09, Tim Brownson sent me a copy of the new book he had written with John P. Strelecky – “How to be Rich and Happy.”

I thanked Tim, saved the book to my hard drive, and it sat there for a while next to the 300+ other ebooks that I’ve downloaded and never opened again.

(I know, shocking! You’ve never purchased and/or downloaded something that could potentially change your life, and never touched them again, have you?)

I’m just glad that I do have a relationship with Tim through his blog and on Twitter. Every time he or someone else would mention the book, I’d think “I really should get around to reading that.”

I finally did. I read it on my laptop, transferred it to my iPhone so I could read it on my lunch hour at work, and even printed out and did quite a few of the exercises.

Let’s get this out of the way – there’s no way I could write a completely unbiased review of “How to be Rich and Happy.” I like Tim (no, I don’t like like him), and the links to the book in this post are affiliate links – which means that I get a percentage of the sale when you purchase the book through the links in this review. No matter how much of a saint I think of myself as, with cash and friendship at stake – let the reader beware. (I’m no longer a How to Be Rich and Happy affiliate… the Million Book Giveaway is on! Click here for my update.)

I will say this, though… I wouldn’t be writing this if “How to be Rich and Happy” hadn’t both taught me some major lessons on living the life that I want to live, and motivated me to take action to make that possible.

A Definition

In the book, Tim and John define Rich and Happy this way:

“Rich and Happy is the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you want.”

Take a moment to really think about that…

Whatever you want.
Whenever you want.

To be honest, my first reaction to that was “You’re kidding, right? Impossible.”

I started to wonder if this was one of those “You’re going to be made of money, thin, and master of your domain in under six weeks” kind of books.

It isn’t. As a matter of fact, there’s a whole chapter – “How to be Patiently Realistic” – about how long it can take before our goals can come to fruition.

Rich and Happy Minutes

While you are working on making that fruition happen, you can use one of the concepts that John and Tim describe in the book. You can log some “Rich and Happy minutes” throughout your life. The more of these minutes you rack up, the more of a Rich and Happy life you have.

Here’s an example:

Sitting in front of the T.V. because you’re dead tired from working a 12 hour day at a job you hate? No Rich and Happy minutes for you. (duh.)

Watching Lost on T.V. because you really love the drama, mystery, and intrigue – and don’t really care what your wife thinks about the fact that you’ve seen every episode at least three times? Now those are some Rich and Happy minutes! Come on, February 2nd!

Frivolous? I think not.

The point is that no one but you can decide what a Rich and Happy minute is for you. Since reading the book, I find myself asking “Is the time I’m using right now ‘Rich and Happy’ time?” If it isn’t, just the awareness motivates me to find something more rich and happy to do. Or think. Or be.

When you invest your time in ways that both rack up Rich and Happy minutes and move you toward completion of your goals… double extra win!

This was a very powerful concept for me personally. When I used the value ranking exercise in the book to determine exactly what was most important to me, I could see much more clearly what activities were adding to my Rich and Happy life, and which ones were not.

The Rich and Happy Matrix

Another great way to determine how close or how far you are from your Rich and Happy Life is to take a look at what the authors call the “Rich and Happy Matrix” – a 3×3 matrix, with the horizontal-axis tracking money movement from going out, to not moving, to coming in, and the vertical axis tracking happiness from not happy, to average, to happy.

(Believe me, it’s a lot simpler than it sounds, and the pretty pictures and diagrams in the book make it much clearer than I ever could here.)

It was fascinating to see where I am currently in the Matrix, and to consider where I’ve been in the past. Just over 10 years ago, I was deep deep deep in the poor and unhappy quadrants – 7 and 8, sometimes in 9, but not often enough. For about five years after that, I spent about half of my time in the poor and unhappy, and the other half in the “quiet desperation” quadrants (hat tip to Thoreau) 4, 5, and 6.

Now, I feel like I’m dancing between the Rich and Happy Quadrants and the quiet desperation quadrants… with more and more time in the 1, 2, and 3 areas.

At this very moment, I’m in quadrant 2 – doing what I love to do (writing/publishing), and not spending or making any money (ok, the electric bill will need to get paid, so maybe 1). Once this article is actually published, I’ll be in 3.

Reading the book was Rich and Happy Time, and writing this review is Rich and Happy Time.

The Bad

So this is the part of the review by the affiliate where I’m supposed to talk about what I didn’t like about the book and what the authors got wrong, but I can overlook it and am more than happy that I forked over X amount of dollars and so should you!

Well, since Tim was kind enough to send me a copy gratis, I forked over exactly zero dollars for the book, so that’s a no go, and I can’t honestly say I would have spent 47 dollars on a self-help ebook. That’s mainly due to my current finances, but with a conflict of interest here, who knows?

I did just spent about 10 minutes taking a break from writing this so I could specifically think about stuff that I could bash.

I came up with nothing when it comes to the content. I’ve read other reviews of the book that said the title set the bar too high, but I’m not sure that the writers of those reviews really got the concept of logging Rich and Happy minutes.

Probably the only thing that I had trouble with was the layout.

On a standard computer screen, it’s beautiful. Printed out, also great.

Reading it on my iPhone on my lunch hour at work… not so much greatness. The beauty of the 2-column layout didn’t translate well to the small screen. My only suggestion to the authors would be to create a secured plain text pdf version that a person could download along with the original for easy, on the go reading.

[side note for iPhone/iPod Touch users: GoodReader did do a passable job of reformatting it in it's PDF Reflow mode – actually, it was more than passable, maybe even excellent, considering the markup the book has.]

The Wrap-Up

So, recommended or not?

Have you read this review?

Yes, 47 dollars (the asking price at the time of this writing) may seem high to some for an ebook.

But Tim and John are doing exactly what another personal development writer of a similar book suggested:

“Give every man more in use value than you take from him in cash value; then you are adding to the life of the world by every business transaction.” – Wallace D. Wattles in The Science of Getting Rich

I know that in the short time I’ve already spent reading and applying (light waves hitting our eyes on a screen won’t make anyone Rich and Happy) the concepts, principles, and exercises in How to be Rich and Happy I’ve logged more Rich and Happy minutes than in the nearly two months that it sat, unread, on my hard drive.

And that’s worth 47 bucks to me. If you aren’t sure if it would be to you, you can download the first three chapters for free on the book’s web page.

And if you still aren’t sure, consider this from the book’s page:

GUARANTEE: Purchase and read the How to be Rich and Happy manual. If within twelve months after putting the formula to work in your life, you aren’t living the Rich and Happy existence you defined for yourself – let us [Tim and John] know, and your investment will be returned in full.

So you’re out zero money if the principles in the book don’t work.

Final Note

Tim and John also have set a huge goal for themselves when it comes to this book – they’d like to get in the hands of people who really need it, but may not have the financial resources to obtain it. If you are interested in helping out, be sure to read Tim’s blog post: Call That A Goal? THIS is a Goal!

Thanks for reading… now go buy the book and start racking up some serious Rich and Happy minutes in your life.

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• “So Why Aren’t We Rich Yet?”
• Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude Principle Four – Accurate Thinking

Tagged as: Books, download, ebook, Goals, happy, happy life, john p. strelecky, Personal Development, review, rich, Success, tim brownson