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How to Join the Top 1%
Matt Karamazov
January 31, 2024 ā¢ Estimated Reading Time: 19 minutes
YOUTUBE š THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE š PATREON
Read on The Reading Life.com | Read Time: ~8 Minutes
š Hey, Iām here with more books!
First, thank you to everyone who participated in the 50-book giveaway so far!
The deadline to enter is today, so depending on when youāre reading this it may already be too late, but the team and I will be announcing the winners shortly!
Today I want to jump right into a revealing conversation I had the other day about extreme wealth and greed.
It was strange to hear this question come out of this personās mouth, but when I mentioned that I was reading What It Takes, by the billionaire Steven A. Schwarzman, the other person asked:
āOh, did they write that book from prison?ā
Now, to my knowledge, Schwarzman has never even come close to going to prison, but this personās assumption was that because he had accumulated such massive wealth, he must have done something wrong to get it.
Very revealing.
But is that true of everyone whoās a member of the *hushed tones* āTop 1%ā?
Are they all crooks and scammers and mafia masterminds andā¦well, jerks?
Why assume that Billionaire = Criminal Past?
Personally, I believe that the difference between rich people and poor people is that poor people have less money.
The author of todayās book, The Top 1%, outlines a few other differences between people in the highest tax brackets and those below, and shows how where we start off doesnāt have to be where we end up.
He also categorically rejects the idea that we have to go back on our own values and principles in the pursuit of wealth and prestige.
In fact, he believes that if your journey towards becoming a member of the top 1% doesnāt make you a more compassionate, helpful, genuinely respectable human being, youāre wasting your time.
Below, I share a short summary of The Top 1%, as well as my best book notes, along with some additional recommended reading.
If youāre looking for a book that will teach you about the skills and character traits required to break into the top 1% without selling your soul in the process, then you might want to readā¦
My summary of this book and all my notes are available on Patreon, as well as my personal notes from more than 1,250+ other books. Updated monthly.
The support Iāve received on Patreon over the years has been nothing less than incredible and I just want to quickly mention two of my biggest supporters by name:
Jeremy Steingraber and Will Ramadan (KnowleDJ)!
Iāve been working 12- to 16-hour days for long stretches to build my business and grow my impact, putting in long, tough hours at the gym (and the library), and my Patreon supporters are among those who make it all worth it.
They make my days brighter, and the weights lighter.
I didnāt try to make that rhyme, but here we are!
Anyway, there are plenty of other cool rewards available there too, but the main thing is that you get more than 1,250+ summaries and thousands of pages of book notes for just $1! Also organized by year and by book.
Theyāre updated monthly with all the new books Iāve been reading and taking notes on, although, to be completely honest (as usual), Iām still a bit behind on my notes and working hard to catch up.
You can always just preview my notes here on this page though before you make that $1 leap :)
Now, letās get back to todayās book!
Never try to keep up with the Joneses. Because even when you do eventually catch up, they just refinance.
Thatās one of my favorite lines from this book, and it gives you a hint that itās not just another āhow to get richā book. Now, Iāve read and enjoyed more than a few of that type of book - donāt get me wrong - but this book is different.
Dan Strutzel is (or was, Iām not quite sure) the VP of Nightingale Conant Publishing, a publisher of personal development books bearing the name of a legend of the field, Earl Nightingale, whose book, The Strangest Secret, was also the first spoken word album to cross more than 1 million sales.
Naturally, they publish plenty of books about how to advance your career, earn more money, reach your goals, etc., which is fine as far as it goes. But Danās book goes further into the character traits of āThe 1%ā - into things like commitment, discipline, generosity, an attitude of service, and the like. As this other businessman, Dave Anderson says in the foreword:
āIf I became a part of this āTop 1%ā, it happened only because of my desire to serve the 99%.ā
Thatās very true.
From what I see, many people have this sort of āadversarialā view when it comes to those on the higher/lower ends of the economic spectrum, whereas the reality, as Strutzel explains so well, is that most wealth is created by people who provide value to the rest of the population in some way.
Think: Starbucks, Apple, Ford, Netflix - the reason why those companies generate such massive profits is because their customersā lives are improved (at least subjectively) by consuming what they sell.
None of this is to deny the reality of greed, avarice, hostility, and nastiness in the world, no matter where you look on the economic spectrum.
People treat each other horribly irrespective of their tax bracket, and brings me to one of the other things thatās so refreshing about Danās book. He states in no uncertain terms that wealth generated through the oppression of others isnāt worth the paper itās printed on.
Today, literally thousands of new millionaires are being created all the time; economic opportunity is exploding, enabled partly by the internet and social media. Wealth and financial security is within reach of more people than ever before in the history of humanity. But Danās belief is that just having money doesnāt put you into any top 1% worth being a member of. More is required.
In this book, yes, Dan Strutzel lays out practical methods and advice for attaining wealth and advancing your career. He walks you through all the success tactics and the strategies.
But in his view, if your journey towards becoming a member of the top 1% doesnāt make you a more compassionate, helpful, genuinely respectable human being, youāre wasting your time.
āIf I became a part of this āTop 1%ā, it happened only because of my desire to serve the 99%.ā
āWhy not spend the precious minutes of your one life on earth setting a goal that, regardless of whether you ever reach it, will make more of your potential than you could have ever dreamed?
Why not be the person who has the opportunity to create massive levels of value for millions of customers, thousands of employees, and most importantly, your loved ones?
Why not take the next five years of your life to see how much you can earn, how much you can grow your skills, how much you can increase your confidence, how much you can increase your resilience, how much you can increase your productivity, and how much you can develop your ability to motivate and influence others?
Remember, the next five years is going to pass either way - whether you decide to take the exceptional route, or the average route.ā
āThe future you dream about five years from now will surely arrive - as swiftly as your present day has arrived. The only question is: Will you arrive at a destination that makes you proud? And will the process of getting to that destination have made you a stronger, happier, more charitable, healthier, and wealthier person?ā
āLuck, at best, gives a major assist to the well-prepared person who is in the arena, playing the game of life to win. It wonāt carry a person sitting on their couch, wasting their time away, to the corner office. And it wonāt multiply a single uninvested dollar.ā
āDo what you have to do as quick as you can, so you can do what you want to do as long as you can.ā
āItās your well-defined reasons, charged with emotion, that will pull you toward your goals faster than you ever thought possible.ā
āIdentify the three key skills that are central to producing bottom-line results for your company. Create your own self-directed university around these three skills and begin to tackle each skill, one at a time, in three-month increments.
Do this by taking seminars on this skill, listening to audio programs on this skill, finding a mentor to coach you on it, et cetera. Nine months from now, you should graduate from your self-designed university with an A+ in results and a bulletproof career.ā
āI have learned that the confidence that precedes anxiety, terror, and any other uncomfortable emotion pales in comparison to the confidence on the other side, because the confidence on the other side is real. It is born of a real struggle, a real action, a real achievement. It is the kind of confidence that leaves you fully satisfied.ā
āNever try to catch up with the Joneses. As soon as you do catch up, they refinance.ā
āIn what areas of your life do you find yourself wasting an inordinate amount of time on choices that ultimately make very little difference and are not even close to your top five priorities?
Make the decision right now to limit your time investment choosing in these unimportant areas. The simplicity and focus it will bring to your life will be amazing.ā
āYes, health, exercise, and nutrition have far more to do with our success in life than we might realize. It is not just a nice thing to fit in if we can into an overloaded schedule. It is the key to accessing the best of who we are and to determining who we might become.ā
āMany of us spend a great deal of time planning for our retirement financially, but few of us ever plan for how healthy weāll be during retirement. A little thought shows how shortsighted this philosophy is. Can you imagine having a million-dollar net worth at sixty-five, but being too ill to enjoy it?ā
āAre you willing to make the trade-off? For some, the answer will be a resounding āyesā - itās well worth the trade-off. For others, it will be evident that they will need to revise their map of the good life to fit the trade-off that they are willing to make.
There is no one correct answer. The only incorrect answer is one arrived at from a place of unconsciousness. Looked at from this new perspective, money is too important a resource to be spent unconsciously.ā
āOn that fateful day of our car accident, it would have been easier for the doctor behind us to look with concern and then just drive along. We were not one of his patients, from whom he received any direct benefit.
It would have been easier for the local gentleman in his truck not to run to the store and bring back water for people he didnāt even know.
None of the Marriott staff would have been faulted for not emptying our car late at night and checking up on us regularly - it certainly wasnāt part of the official job description.
No, fortunately for us, we were touched by the hand of God, the elements of which were several people who made themselves totally available to an out-of-state family from Chicago.
My message is simple: Practice the concept of total availability in your own life. Witness the power of making yourself an open hand to others. Become a member of the divine conspiracy club.
But, you may ask, why should I even bother? Whatās in it for me? To paraphrase one of my favorite authors, M. Scott Peck, if you ask that question, perhaps you donāt know enough of joy.ā
Currently, I donāt have a complete breakdown of The Top 1% published on the Stairway to Wisdom (my library of expert book breakdowns), but below Iāve listed some similar breakdowns that you may enjoy instead.
When you become a member of the Stairway to Wisdom, youāll gain access to more than 100+ book breakdowns like these ones here, as well as a premium weekly newsletter that will help you build the kind of life for yourself that youāll love living.
By wanting to become rich, you are also saying that you want to accept the challenge to be better at making money than 99 percent of the people on this planet. Just by attempting this, you are going to have to accept the fact that you must not just be good, you must be incredible. Are you ready?
37-Minute Read | 9,800 Words
Never before collected in one place, this book is a valuable repository of the transformative wisdom of investing icon Naval Ravikant. He shares everything he knows about wealth and happiness, as well as what he believes is one of the most important skills.
29-Minute Read | 7,500 Words
Doing well in school has very little to do with how successful you become. In this new economy, the biggest factor in your success will not be abstract, academic learning but whether you develop the real-life success skills evinced by the people on these pages, and how early you do.
33-Minute Read | 8,600 Words
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Thatās it! I hope you found these book recommendations helpful, and Iāll be back with even more books for you very soon!
Mere āinformationā is everywhere today, but whatās going to separate you (and give you the life you desire) is consistent, meaningful action, backed up with the most powerful ideas from the greatest books ever written.
Thatās what I always aim to provide you with.
With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your day!
Until next timeā¦happy reading!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
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