There is a science to getting rich. Its methods have been tested and it’s guaranteed to work because it harnesses the natural workings of the universe.
The first step to understanding the science of getting rich is to learn about the fundamental working of the universe. There are a few main concepts:
The second step to the science of getting rich is to follow a three-step process called the “Certain Way.” The three steps are:
The final element of the science of getting rich is to understand its application on a global scale. There are two concepts:
There is a guaranteed method—a science—to getting rich. By nature, God and the universe want you to be rich, so all you have to do is:
The author intended for The Science of Getting Rich to be a practical guide, so it’s short and doesn’t go into detail about the philosophy behind the methods. He writes that his recommendations are tested and they work, so you can take everything he states as fact. (If you are interested in the philosophy, he recommends you read Hegel and Emerson.)
(Shortform note: The Science of Getting Rich was originally written in 17 chapters. We have rearranged the information for concision and clarity.)
Chapter 1 will cover some fundamental concepts and myths about the universe. We need to understand how the universe works before we can understand how to become rich.
Everything in the universe—you, your house, the planets—is made out of the same stuff, “Original Substance.” Original Substance is God. It is alive and intelligent. It manifests thoughts into tangible forms. For example, when the Original Substance thought of planets, physical planets formed.
By nature, Original Substance and God favor the advancement and improvement of every intelligent being, from oak trees to dolphins to you. As a result, it’s perfectly natural, even dutiful, for you to pursue wealth. You need money to buy the resources that will help you improve yourself. Your advancement is Original Substance expressing itself vicariously through you. You need to be rich in the same way a seed needs to grow into a flower. If you’re not rich, you’ll never have enough access to resources, and you’ll never achieve a full and successful life.
There are three main aspects of our existence, all of them equally important, and all of which require money to develop:
For example, if you want to paint something beautiful, and therefore develop your mind, you’ll need an easel, paints, and other art supplies, all of which require money to purchase.
God isn’t done. He didn’t create the world and then step away, leaving the planet with limited resources. Because life is always advancing, and everything is made up of limitless Original Substance, resource limitation is a myth.
There are plenty of resources for everyone, and if the planet ever did run out of something, Original Substance could simply create more. If there are existing channels for creation, Original Substance will work through these. For example, diamonds are formed by applying heat and pressure to carbon, and Original Substance works through this existing process to create diamonds. If there is no existing method for creating something, the Original Substance creates it from its own substance.
Because Original Substance is limitless and there’s more than enough to go around, no one has to compete with anyone else to become rich.
In fact, competition is an unfavorable method for becoming rich. The Original Substance will never give you things by taking them away from others. Therefore, if you compete, you can only succeed via luck, and your success won’t last.
Creation is the guaranteed method for becoming rich. Instead of competing with someone for something, go in a different direction. Original Substance will favor you with opportunities. For example, if you’re the employee of a railroad company, don’t try to become the owner. Instead, look for opportunities elsewhere. You might find success in another industry.
To find harmony with and relate to the Original Substance, you need to be grateful. Gratitude allows you to cultivate a close relationship with Original Substance so that it can most effectively favor you.
There is a law of gratitude, which is the same as Newton’s third law—for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. If you strongly and gratefully reach out towards the Original Substance, it will respond to you equally as strongly. The more grateful you are, the faster and more often you’ll receive responses from Original Substance.
In addition to improving your connection to the Original Substance, gratitude has an additional benefit—it keeps you from becoming dissatisfied with your current state. If you’re grateful, you’re always focused on positivity.
Faith stems from gratitude. If you’re continually grateful, you continually receive positive responses from the Original Substance. You come to expect responses and come to have faith that they will keep coming. This allows you to be grateful for gifts in advance.
Everything in the world contributes to your advancement (because everything is formed from Original Substance and Original Substance favors your advancement), so you should be grateful for everything. Be grateful even for things that seem negative. For example, be grateful for the superrich or corrupt politicians. They have flaws, but ultimately, they contribute to your and others’ advancement—the superrich start businesses that you make use of, and politicians create order, both of which create new opportunities.
Gratitude requires continuity. If you stop being grateful the moment you receive your first response, your connection with Original Substance will break.
You can strengthen your connection with Original Substance by working on your gratitude.
What are some positive things in your life that you’re grateful for? Why are you grateful for them?
What are some things that you’d like to have in your life but don’t currently? Why would you be grateful for them? How can you manifest the things you want?
How could you practice gratitude regularly in order to strengthen your connection with Original Substance? For example, you might give thanks before meals or keep a gratitude journal.
What are some negative things in your life? What aspects of them could have a hidden positive impact on your life? How?
What is an area of your life in which you feel like you have to compete for limited resources? Where could you look for opportunities instead?
In Chapter 1, we learned how the universe works. In Chapter 2, we’ll learn how to use this understanding to become rich.
If the Original Substance favors everyone, and resources are infinite, why isn’t everyone already rich? Why aren’t you rich?
You might think it has something to do with your environment, industry, talent, thriftiness, or innovativeness. In fact, these aren’t critical factors, merely considerations. You can tell that these factors aren’t critical because the world isn’t full of cities composed entirely of rich people, or industries in which everyone is poor. All sorts of people get rich—smart people, stupid people, strong people, weak people.
There is one reason why you aren’t rich—you’re doing things wrong. To be rich, you need to do things in the “Certain Way.” Acting in the Certain Way guarantees that you will become rich, and anyone who follows the Certain Way, regardless of circumstance, will get rich. The Certain Way is the only natural, fundamental way to get rich. God will help you if you act in the Certain Way because it’s in his own nature.
Why don’t people act in the Certain Way?
The Certain Way has three main facets—think, will, and act:
In Chapter 1, we covered the fact the Original Substance is sentient and responds to thought. If you think about being rich or acquiring a particular possession, the Original Substance will impel a physical manifestation of your thoughts in your direction.
However, you must think in a particular way for this to work:
You must have a precise, coherent idea of what you want in order to transmit it to the Original Substance. If your want is vague, the Original Substance won’t know what to do with it—transmitting a vague thought would be like sending someone an email containing the letters of the alphabet and then expecting them to create the message.
You must have conviction that you will achieve what you want. You should have so much purpose and faith in your convictions that you act like you already have your vision.
You must constantly be thinking about what you want. The specific mental picture should always be present in your mind, the same way a pilot is always keeping an eye on her instruments. If you really want something, it shouldn’t be difficult to concentrate on it.
You must think truthfully. Anytime you see something, you’ll unconsciously observe it at the surface level. You must look deeper than what’s visible.
Take a moment to come up with a vision that encompasses these principles.
Your thoughts most likely won’t cause the Original Substance to form your want out of its own substance. Instead, the Original Substance works through existing methods of creation, spurred into action by your thoughts.
For example, if you want gold, gold won’t spontaneously come into being in your living room, or pull itself out of a mine and zoom into your hands. Instead, it’ll come your way via the usual channels: someone will mine it, transport it, and you’ll have the opportunity to access it.
Original Substance will send whatever you’re thinking about in your direction. Ideally, you’re thinking about getting rich, but if you get distracted and think about negative things, those are what the Original Substance will manifest.
For example, if you see someone poor, you’ll think about poverty, and the Original Substance will send poverty your way. Poverty is a particularly dangerous thing to think about because it’s the exact opposite of what you want.
There are a few ways to avoid negative thoughts about poverty:
In addition to avoiding poverty, specifically avoid thinking about:
The second facet of the Certain Way is to harness your will. You will use your will to maintain the vision you came up with in “Think.” It will take some effort to maintain the force of thought necessary to connect with the Original Substance.
However, make sure you only ever direct your will at yourself. It’s wrong to use your will on others, as wrong as physically forcing someone to do something would be. Don’t apply your will to things, either—this is the equivalent to applying your will to the Original Substance, which is also wrong.
If you apply your will only to yourself, forcing yourself to concentrate on your vision, the Original Substance will push things and people towards you.
The final facet of the Certain Way is to act in a way that sets you up to receive your vision. You can never know how exactly the Original Substance is working its ways. Therefore, do your best at everything you do every day to remain open to every opportunity Original Substance may use to manifest your vision.
Doing your best involves doing all your individual actions efficiently—efficient actions are successful actions. The Original Substance is always working in your favor, so if you make use of your purpose and faith while doing tasks, you can’t help but be efficient and successful.
Doing your best also involves considering your effect on others. Whenever you interact with others, be so strong in your convictions about Original Substance that anyone who encounters you can feel your purpose. Know that riches are coming your way, and lead by example. People are naturally attracted to those who follow the Certain Way, and many of your visions will manifest via other people.
Additionally, whenever you make a transaction, either personally or professionally, don’t drive hard bargains, compete, or take advantage of people. Other people will be involved in realizing your vision, and you may be involved in realizing theirs. Give more than you take. Consider usable value rather than cash value.
Example #1: If you sell someone a book you’ve written, they’re giving you money. In exchange, you’re giving them information that will improve their life, which is far more valuable than whatever they paid in cash for the book.
Example #2: If you’re an employer, people give you work more valuable than the cash value of their wages, so use your business to improve their lives.
(Shortform note: For more on how people fall onto a spectrum of giving vs. taking, see our summary of Give and Take.)
You can succeed in any environment or business. You can start acting in the Certain Way, right now, wherever you are, and the process of following the Certain Way will change your circumstances. If you’re always doing your best, you’ll advance by outgrowing your current state. Success is cumulative—because the inherent goal of life is to advance, each step towards advancement creates momentum towards the next step.
You need to be in an environment where you can interact with people, but otherwise, your physical location doesn’t have a large effect on your ability to get rich. If you don’t like your current environment, as you follow the Certain Way, you’ll find opportunities to change it.
If you’re not currently in the business you dream of, following the Certain Way will help you change your situation. Usually, the best way to change your business is by improving your current business enough that you get new opportunities. For example, if you work hard at your current job and get a raise, you might be able to buy some land and pursue your dream of farming.
Note that you’re not doing a good job in order to get on your employer’s good side; your employer won’t advance you if it’s not in their interests. You’re doing a good job in order to harness Original Substance’s natural advancement. If you don’t get an opportunity to advance at your current job, you’ll get one somewhere else.
What business should you transfer to? You’ll typically do best in a business that you have a talent for. For example, if you’re going to be a music teacher, you need to understand music, and it’ll be easier to understand music if it already comes naturally to you.
However, you’ll also typically do well at a business you enjoy. If you want to work in the music industry, the Original Substance will help you develop the talent and tools to do so. Wanting to do something is your talent trying to develop and express itself.
It’s more important that you do what you want to do, rather than do something you have a lot of natural talent in. You’ll be most satisfied with your life if you’re doing what you want to do.
Note that there’s no hurry to change your situation. Hurry is a symptom of competitiveness, and we’ve previously disproved the idea that there is a finite amount of resources humanity has to share. If you’re uncertain about making a change, wait. No one else will steal your chance; you’ll get another opportunity later. Whenever you’re unsure, work on your gratitude. Spend some time thinking about what you want and your gratefulness that you’re going to get it.
However, don’t wait for the perfect opportunity—take opportunities that allow you to better yourself one step at a time.
Don’t do anything you don’t want to, except as a step towards doing whatever it is you do want. For example, if you made a mistake in the past, you might have to live with a certain circumstance for a while. You make mistakes when you act hurriedly, out of doubt or fear, or forget that the goal of being personally rich goes hand in hand with enriching others. As you live through a mistake, remember that the Original Substance will eventually advance you away from it.
No matter what your current business or dream business is, if you follow the Certain Way, you will attract others and you will get rich. For example, consider a doctor whose vision is that he’s excellent at his job. He specifically imagines each of the ways he expertly carries out procedures. He contemplates his vision with faith, purpose, and gratitude. As a result, he’ll be very good at his job, which will attract patients.
There are a couple of reasons people fall off the path of the Certain Way. First, some people don’t follow the Certain Way for long enough. If anything stops working towards advancement, it dissolves or dies.
For example, consider the parable of the talents (an old currency). A man gave each of his three servants talents. Two of the servants invested their talents and made more money. The third servant buried his talent in the ground, where it did nothing. The man took the buried talent away from the third servant and gave it to one of the other servants, who would actually do something with it.
Second, some people are tempted away from the Certain Way by other apparent methods of getting rich. There are examples of people in the world, such as Carnegie and Rockefeller, who have gotten rich by being competitive or shrewd, or by only accidentally using Original Substance.
People who get rich in a way other than the Certain Way aren’t truly rich. They’ll only stay rich for as long as it's useful to the Original Substance, for example, as long as it takes them to invent something that is related to the success of someone else’s vision. This kind of rich person is simply part of the evolutionary process, and God will do away with him when he’s no longer needed.
Don’ts
There are some don’ts to keep in mind when following the Certain Way:
Don’t concern yourself with any moment except for the present. More specifically:
Don’t act at the wrong time or in the wrong way. More specifically:
Don’t think negatively. More specifically:
The Certain Way has three steps: think, will, and act.
Think: What is a physical possession that you want? For example, consider a house or a car. Describe it in detail. Write down both what it would look like and how you would feel while using it.
Will: What are two or three events, people, or things in your daily life that could potentially distract you from your vision? How will you concentrate on your vision as you encounter these distractions?
Act: What are three specific ways you can do your best in your current environment, therefore increasing the opportunity of receiving what you want?
Think of the last time you made a transaction in which you took more than you gave, whether that was selling someone something or having a conversation. If you could redo that interaction, how would you change your actions so you increased the other person’s life by more than they increased yours?
In Chapter 2, we learned how to become rich. Chapter 3 explains how our personal wealth will contribute to enrichment on a global scale.
There are some entrenched myths about the financial situation of the global population:
The only way to get rid of poverty is to get more people following the Certain Way. Once enough people are doing it, anyone lagging behind will realize that all they have to do to catch up is start following the science of being rich.
The best thing you can personally do to help the poor is to become rich yourself. This is for two reasons: