I picked up this book thinking it might help me. But I found it mostly a collection of miscellaneous tips of financial disciplines. All of them make sense but nothing really earthshaking. The “Without Risk” title attracted me but I don’t think the author really delivers that, at least in the normal sense of “risk free.” A few interesting things: the author were taught affirmation at his young age by his Dad. It doesn’t hurt to start this as early as possible. The author is a lawyer and he was modest enough to seek the advises from his wealthy clients on how they became rich. The author’s father is a real estate developer and he was taught the investment benefits of the real estate investing. The book is full of individual strategies that may serve as a good reference source. A summary of the book is as follows:

Escape from the artificial wealth trap with the ESCAPE plan:
E. S. C. A. P. E.:
Envision wealth for your life:
There are 15 strategies here for you to envision your wealth. The more important ones include 1. determine what you want and create a dreams list, 2. use positive affirmation, 3. eliminate negative thoughts, 4. create a “values” list. 5. create a visions board to visualize daily, 6. write out your goals and pledge statements, 7. eliminate destructive values, 8. spend the majority of the time on those goals and objectives that are most important to you, 9. being each day and end each evening with a visualization of your goals.

Strategize: Planning your work and then working your plan
There are 18 strategies suggested by the author: 1. determine your current fiscal condition and where you stand financially, 2. create a good record management system, 3. give yourself a complete fiscal fitness examination, 4. prepare a family financial statement, 5. identify and evaluate your expenditures, 6. prioritize your expenses and rank them by necessity, 6. determine which expense can be reduced (or eliminated) immediately, 7. identify negative money mindset obstacles (like deprivation of food diet), 8. set goals for eliminating any negative spending habits, 9. establish wealth accomplishment objectives for yourself, 10. create a cost estimate for accomplishing your dreams and objectives (order from the left side instead of the right side of the menu), 11. measure the distance for the trip to your real wealth destination, 12. set reasonable timetable for arriving at your destination. 13. spend at least one hour per day brainstorming your voyage to Real Wealth, 14. plan your work, and then work your plan.

Create:
Winning the credit game and dealing with debt.
Lots of tips on handling debts

Creating immediate income:
Understand the differences between making money and building wealth and then focus on doing BOTH. Create more income streams and by making good choices on where and how you send your money.

Increasing cash flow with money-saving strategies:
Some good advises: Don’t establish a budget; follow an “expense plan” instead. Don’t buy wants on credit. Avoid adopting the “arrogance of poverty mindset.” (status-minded). Stop financing vacations that you can’t afford. Tie in vacations with business trips.

Saving money by managing insurance:
Purchase life insurance only to replace the lost income or services of a provider. Buy only term life insurance and devote the rest of your financial plan to prosperous living. Never buy universal or variable life insurance as an investment vehicle.

Making your life less taxing.

Making money while you sleep on the internet and eBay:
Affiliate yourself with other companies to make money as the middleman if you have not yet developed a products or services of your own.

Create income with real estate:
4 kinds of profit in real estate: 1. appreciation, 2. principal reduction, 3. cash flow, 4. tax deductions.

Accumulate
Decide on a particular investment area and develop a fundamental understanding of that area. (Put all good eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.) Work to increase your “wealth sustainability level.” (ability to sustain the level of wealth that a person enjoys over an extended period of time.) Adopt an attitude of wealth inevitability.

Investor mindset means having a comfort level with, and emotional detachment from, the process the investing. 1. Have a solid understanding of the stock market. 2. Set your objectives effectively. 3. Invest safely. 4. Make a commitment to working your plan for investing and to not let emotions get in the way. Save 20% of your annual salary as “attitude” money. Do not fall for Roth IRA conversion.

Preserve
Create an estate plan. Form a legal entity for operating your business. Change the nature of your income from earned to unearned. Protect your wealth by protecting your health. Hire your children “tax-free.” Zero out your corporation at the end of the year to avoid double taxation (pay salary instead of dividends). Use S-corporation to avoid self-employment taxes. Establish a revocable living trust to provide for your beneficiaries, avoid probate, and reduce or eliminate the estate tax.

Execute
“The secret to happiness is freedom. And the secret to freedom is courage.” Make small changes that can yield big payoffs.

Lots of research into human sexuality including orgasm, penile enlargement/implants, hormone effects, clitoris stimulation, and etc. Most of them are overly detailed and researched. Author’s comments in the footnotes are often full of tongue-and-cheek to draw quick laughs. It’s good to be not too serious about this topic. I’m not sure I’ve gotten much except the following: human sexuality is a lot more complicated than our primate relatives, the science behind impotence and the functions of erectile penis, orgasm and the G-spot, orgasms for paraplegic seems gives us clues how it’s connected to the brain, sexuality experiments in Islamic countries could be a risky undertaking and even in a free country like USA it could be problematic, and etc.

Daniel Pink came up with this comic version of career help book. It’s rather interesting to read a self-help comic book. Instead of a big genie from rubbing an oil lamp, the hot Asian girl can do just as well by the cracking noise of breaking away the bamboo chopsticks. I like the fact that I can finish the book in an hour or so and it was entertaining as Johnny kept running into difficulties at work. And the Dianna genie, kept coming out to give a lesson and have it written on the whiteboard.

The key teachings are as follows:

1. There is no plan. No need to plan too much ahead. It’s not flexible enough for today’s ever changing world.
2. Think strengths, not weaknesses. Don’t try to work on improving your weaknesses but instead work on making your strengths stronger.
3. It’s not about you. Try to serve others instead of serving yourselves.
4. Persistence trumps talent. Persistence will get you ahead more than talents can. In a way, this sort of contradicting with #1.
5. Make excellent mistakes: Learn from your mistakes and make the best of them.
6. Leave an imprint: Seek meaning for your life.

I thought this book was going to teach me how to control the mass behavior to my liking. I was a little disappointed from the book that there are just a few things you can control: your beliefs, behavior, and influencing the words of mouth out there. In a way, this trend works to the favor of social networking like Facebook and Tweeters, who really have the channels to the words of mouth. No wonder Facebook is worth $50B as of today.

A summary of the books is as follows:

‘I’ is an illusion. We’re more ‘us’ than ‘I’ – our memory and decision-making have tricked us.

The 7 principles of Herd Marketing:
1. Interaction.
a. All mass behavior is the result of interacting individuals within a specific context. We do what we do largely because of other people. b. Organizations are built on the interactions of individuals. c. Understand the rules of interaction, which generate the complexity of the behavior that you are studying.

2. Influence
Peer-to-peer, consumer-to-consumer influences are more important than “persuasion.”

3. Us-talk
WoM (Word of mouth) Facts: 1. WoM is more important than other purchase influences. 2. WoM is getting more important over time. 3. WoM operates in both B2B and B2C. 4. WoM is a global – not just a US – phenomenon.

4. Just Believe
Be interesting and hold beliefs that engage us. 1. Be who you are. 2. What do you believe in? Find it and live it. 3. Act like you mean it (and don’t act like you don’t …).

5. (Re-)light the fire.
Make it personal to live your beliefs. Otherwise cynicism, within or without, will unpick your vestal virgin impersonation.

6. Co-creativity
Use the herd’s desire to co-create – it’s part and parcel of our human herd nature. It challenges our assumption of control; the warm, comfortable felling that we’re in control.

7. Letting go
Human herd behavior is complex and systemic, the illusion of control is both largely unhelpful and misleading. You have to get used to being out of control. The best we can hope to do is cast a pebble on the water. Choose the pebble wisely. Choose how to throw it but once the stone leaves your hand we have to let go.