The Millionaire Mind

What do you do after you've written the No. 1 bestseller The Millionaire Next Door? Survey 1,371 more millionaires and write The Millionaire Mind. Dr. Stanley's extremely timely tome is a mixture of entertaining elements. It resembles Regis Philbin's hit show (and CD-ROM game) Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, only you have to pose real-life questions, instead of quizzing about trivia. Are you a gambling, divorce-prone, conspicuously consuming "Income-Statement Affluent" Jacuzzi fool soon to be parted from his or her money, or a frugal, loyal, resole your shoes and buy your own groceries type like one of Stanley's "Balance-Sheet Affluent" millionaires? "Cheap dates," millionaires are 4.9 times likelier to play with their grandkids than shop at Brooks Brothers. "If you asked the average American what it takes to be a millionaire," he writes, "they'd probably cite a number of predictable factors: inheritance, luck, stock market investments.... Topping his list would be a high IQ, high SAT scores and gradepoint average, along with attendance at a top college." No way, says Stanley, backing it up with data he compiled with help from the University of Georgia and Harvard geodemographer Jon Robbin. Robbin may wish he'd majored in socializing at L.S.U., instead, because the numbers show the average millionaire had a lowly 2.92 GPA, SAT scores between 1100 and 1190, and teachers who told them they were mediocre students but personable people. "Discipline 101 and Tenacity 102" made them rich. Stanley got straight C's in English and writing, but he had money-minded drive. He urges you to pattern your life according to Yale professor Robert Sternberg's Successful Intelligence, because Stanley's statistics bear out Sternberg's theories on what makes minds succeed--and it ain't IQ.

Besides offering insights into millionaires' pinchpenny ways, pleasing quips ("big brain, no bucks"), and 46 statistical charts with catchy titles, Stanley's book booms with human-potential pep talk and bristles with anecdotes--for example, about a bus driver who made $3 million, a doctor (reporting that his training gave him zero people skills) who lost $1.5 million, and a loser scholar in the bottom 10 percent on six GRE tests who grew up to be Martin Luther King Jr. Read it and you'll feel like a million bucks. --Tim Appelo

Building on his research from the best-selling "The Millionaire Next Door," Dr. Thomas J. Stanley delves further into the psyche of the American millionaire with a groundbreaking new study, "The Millionaire Mind." In an easy-to-understand and often anecdotal style, "The Millionaire Mind" tells the stories of how people--a bus driver, a second-quality-textile entrepreneur, a Fortune 500 CEO--adopted the millionaire mindset to become financially independent.

Dr. Stanley takes a close look at the top one percent of households in America and tells us what makes them tick. His findings on how American millionaires attained financial success are based on in-depth surveys and interviews with more than 1,300 millionaires. Inside "The Millionaire Mind," millionaires share their experiences, thoughts, and beliefs on the following topics:

--Memories from their school days --Personal thoughts on being "the smart kid in the dumb row" --Finding the courage to make difficult financial decisions --How they select a vocation --Driving factors behind their success --Tips for running economically productive households --What they look for when purchasing a home --Where they spend their money and free time

While we tend to think of millionaires in terms of luxury and expense--i.e. Brooks Brothers, Jaguar, or month long jaunts to Paris and Rome--millionaires admit they are more likely to spend their money at J.C. Penney or Wal-Mart and enjoy their free time with family and friends, or raising money for charity. Dr. Stanley places fact ahead of fiction and reveals the traits, qualities, and characteristics inside "The Millionaire Mind."