Book Review : Killing Sacred Cows
This is a review of a book that I read called Killing Sacred Cows.
It was written by Mr. Garrett B. Gunderson and it also gives credits to Stephen Palmer for his contributions.
What is a Sacred Cow?
In the books introduction Mr. Gunderson says that that a "sacred cow" is an individual, organization, institution, teaching, or belief which is considered exempt from criticism or questioning.
Then through out the book he gives examples financial these Sacred Cows that shape our thoughts about money, wealth, success, and prosperity.
The book starts out with a logical premise, framed as a question:
If only a minority of people are wealthy, why don’t we copy what they do, instead of copying what the majority of people do?
Herd Mentality
- Apparently, the majority of people are not wealthy, yet the majority of people do whatever the majority of people are doing.
- This is called herd mentality and when your surrounded by predators, it keeps you from being eaten.
Copy Success
- A minority of people are wealthy, yet only only a minority of people find out what this wealthy minority are doing and follow what they are doing.
- This was a wake up call for me.
He then lists things that the majority of people do, that the wealthy don’t do.
While I don’t know if everything he says is true, it made me think about these ideas and the simple logic that supported them.
If everyone doing X,Y, Z is poor, and everyone doing A,B, C is rich, simple logic or curiosity should cause us to analyze A,B and C.
Fun stuff: Quotes.
This book is littered with great quotes, but one of my favorites was one from John F. Kennedy:
There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the risks and costs of inaction.
A recurring thematic element is the author challenging the reader to find our Soul Purpose, which he defines as our way of adding value to the world and I quote him:
"if our new goal is to create value in the world, not simply build our net worth, then how we go about becoming prosperous changes forever.
"Another great quote from the book is:
"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value." - Albert Einstein
Book Organization
- The chapters of the book are labeled with one sentence summaries, such as this one:
How the scarcity paradigm, which is at the root of so much common financial advice, limits our financial success.
And this one
How the "accumulation theory" of wealth that most of us subscribe to destroys our potential.
Why "investing" in the stock market for most people is little better than buying lottery tickets
How most people are in a security dilemma caused by avoiding things they fear, which actually decreases their security
- and how to find true security yourself
Other chapter topics of great interest to me.
Why the most lucrative investments are by nature the lowest risk
Why the best way to reduce the cost of insurance is to buy the most you possibly can
How false beliefs about "getting out of debt" may keep you from financial freedom
Why value is infinitely more important than price.
His underlying questions for all of us, as he asks in the beginning of his Introduction, are
"What if everything you thought to be true about money and finances was actually completely false? How soon would you want to find out, and what would you do about it?
Conclusion
The book is about Financial Rules that the author believes are considered Sacred Vows as in everyone believes them to be best practices, but the author believes them to be myths.
In fact if you asked me what one central theme ran through the entire book, it would be this.
Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying your Prosperity.
The book is 282 pages long and is divided into separate chapters for each myth.
The author gives the myth, identifies why he feels it is a myth, explains why it’s a bad move for you financially and offers some evidence.
The book was a fun, and enjoyable reading experience because of illustrative and narrative structure.
After reading the book I decided that I agreed with many of his ideas and I plan to implement them.
I give this book four stars out of five, only because I am saving five stars for something monumental.
I reserve the right to come back later and increase my rating.
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