Wallace D Wattles’ classic work The Science of Getting Rich had quite an effect on me immediately after my very first reading. I can only describe what happened as a kind of attitude change, but that change, I believe, is absolutely crucial for anyone interested in how to become wealthy. So in changing my attitude, I realised that I had indeed made the first move toward becoming rich.

It was difficult to disagree with the powerful argument of the author to the effect that the causes of wealth are not those that people normally associate with getting rich. For example, your level of education, access to opportunities or even the social circles you move within. In fact, the book begins with a comprehensive demolition of such erroneous thinking.

Having dismissed what many people would think of as the causes of wealth, he goes on to show that its real cause is what he calls doing things in a certain way. In other words, it ain’t what you do, its the way that you do it – and that’s what gets results.

Anyone, he says, who can learn to do things in this certain way can become rich – what a promise that is! However, in his explanation of how to do things in the certain way that always produces results, there are a few things he only lightly touches-on. For example, he never says that you need to be in business for yourself, but it is heavily implied.

The main principle he suggests you make use of, in operating in this certain way, might be called over-delivering or exceeding the expectations of those you deal with. You should provide more in use-value, he says, than you take in cash-value – you see how operating a business is implied by the use of those words.

It is self-evident, when to come to think about it, that you are very unlikely to become rich whilst you are working for another person. Quite simply, you are being paid the market-rate for your job; if you are lucky, you are being paid the market rate for your skills – but that’s it. You will never be paid more than that while you have a job.

On the other hand, when you work for yourself, there is no top limit. There are plenty of challenges, of course, but theres no top limit on your income as there is at present. The time is right I believe, with the age of the internet, for ordinary people to seize the day and make their fortunes because it has never been easier to start a business than it is on the internet.

The Science of Getting Rich was written, in my opinion, for the age of the internet. Of course, Wattles didn’t do that deliberately, but still, his teachings translate very well to the world of the internet. There really is nothing standing in the way of the average person applying this thinking and changing their lives for good.