The Ten Roads to Riches: The Ways the Wealthy Got There (and How You Can Too!)

This is not your typical financial self-help read. It is an intriguing and fascinating introduction to various ways that others have accumulated wealth and you can too! I higly suggest this book if you're thinking of starting a business or are unsure of what you would like to do with your future. The author also offers suggestions on other books for each topic should you choose to do further research on one of the 10 roads. This was an easy and provocative read making it very hard to put down!

I wish I had read this book in high school; it honestly would have made a great impact on my life going forward and the choices I made in college regarding my career. Fisher doesn't pull any punches here. He lays out the pro's and con's for 10 wealth building occupations in an easy to read manner. Highly recommended. One caveat is that I wish Fisher had written more on the pro's and con's of the professions (doctor, lawyer, investment banker) instead of lumping them in to the final road to wealth ("the road more traveled").

This is a fun, breezy read, as investment advisor and long-time Forbes columnist Ken Fisher has written a serious, but humorous book about how to build wealth. And at 216 pages a quick read. Fisher's last book, "The Only Three Questions that Count", was superb. This latest book is very different from "The Only Three Questions...", which is all about personal investing but which also has application to other areas of a person's life. "The Ten Roads to Riches" is about the varied ways a person can build personal wealth. Fisher draws from his own experience of meeting many successful people, as he charts the paths. The chapters are insightful and written in a tongue-in-cheek style with ideas that can be easily visualized. Some examples: The first chapter "The Richest Road", which is founding your own business and building it into the next Microsoft, Nike, or Charles Schwab. The third chapter, about the "Ride-alongs", people who hitch theirselves to the Bill Gates's or Warren Buffett's of the world and rise as they and their firm rise. If you are Warren Buffett's longtime sidekick, there's got to be wealth in that, right? (Yup. Charlie Munger is his name and his net worth is $2 billion.) Chapter four is "Rich ... and Famous". Some tips: compose songs, don't sing them, and star high school baseball players have slightly better odds of making the big leagues then star football players. Chapter five is "Marry Well, Really Well", which is very amusing, but also serious. Hey, if you want to get married, hang around with rich people and fall in love with one of them! Plenty of examples including John Kerry (twice) and John McCain. Chapter six is "Steal It - Like a Pirate, But Legally", making a career as a plaintiff's lawyer and suing companies. Enough said.... And chapter nine is "Trumping the Land Barons" - all about real estate. The last chapter is "The Road Most Travelled", about doing it the old-fashioned way - get a good job, work hard, save and invest wisely. Each chapter is a survey, giving multiple examples of people who took the particular road, and offering ideas, but no detailed plan. At the end of each are brief reviews of suggested additional readings for anyone who might be inclined to follow that particular path. I was surprised that there are actually serious books about how to "Marry Well", but maybe I shouldn't have been? An enjoyable, quick read about one aspect of the business of life.

Everyone knows its best to save your money and invest wisely, but here's the straight scoop on how the really rich got that way. This book was part no-nonsense career coach, part cheerleader, part cautionary tale. There's something for everyone here. And yes, it was a fast, inspiring, funny read.

A fun, fast (read it in one day) and eye-opening read on the real roads to real wealth. This was very different from Fisher's last book, the Only Three Questions that Count, which I also liked, but did not disappoint. This book is not about stocks per se (although Fisher does cover stock investing in one of the chapters as a path to wealth) but rather is a sort of frank public service announcement about the most realistic paths to wealth. And, it helps you figure out how to improve your odds of getting down the path you choose more successfully. The book uses real life, and often very funny examples to show what to do and what to avoid doing if you want to build real wealth. Highly recommended.