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How to become a billionaire in one easy step

The secret to health, wealth, and happiness won’t cost you a dime.
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(Clockwise from top) Max Francis, Henry McDowell, Alicia Morse, and Celeste Reynolds get an early start on the road to riches. (Photo submitted)

You probably think I want to sell you some get-rich-quick gimmick, another pyramid scheme or self-help racket to bilk you of your money and waste your time.

But I promise you, the secret to health, wealth, and happiness won’t cost you a dime.

Don’t believe me? Think the librarian has spent too much time around the book-repair glue? Well, read on and see!

Warren Buffet knows the secret, and when the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway visited a class of business students at Columbia University, he freely shared it.

“All of you can do it,” he said, “but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”

Multibillionaire Mark Cuban gets it too: “[It is] available to anyone who wanted it. Turns out most people didn’t want it.”

Oprah Winfrey calls it her “pass to personal freedom”, something she would “go barefoot for”, if necessary.

It’s free, but takes time. “This is not the kind of thing you can do five minutes here, 10 minutes there,” explains Bill Gates.

So what is this great secret that all of these super rich folk credit for their vast riches and worldly success?

The simple answer is: they read books. Lots and lots of them. Warren Buffet reads 500 pages a day. Bill Gates reads a book a week. Mark Cuban reads three hours a day.

“Walk into a wealthy person’s home,” says Steven Siebold, author of How Rich People Think, “and one of the first things you’ll see is an extensive library of books they’ve used to educate themselves on how to become more successful.”

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk explains, “I was raised by books. Books, and then my parents.” His dad adds, “”Where a lot of people would go to a great party and have a great time and drink and talk about all sorts of things like rugby or sport, you would find Elon had found the person’s library and was going through their books.”

Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet’s lieutenant at Berkshire Hathaway, makes the pointed observation, “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time – none, zero.”

Now you are probably wondering, “Aaron, if you know all this, why aren’t you a billionaire too?” Well, the truth is, I found something worth even more than money. Just send me a self-addressed stamp envelope with a cheque or money order and I would be happy to share it with you.

All kidding aside, would you hire somebody to run your company who wasn’t a reader? Would you vote for a political leader who couldn’t remember the last book they read? Would you marry someone who doesn’t have a library card? I wouldn’t!

A library card is free, and gives you access to book collections at every library in BC. That’s millions of books, including all the latest bestsellers, non-fiction titles on every topic under the sun, picture books and chapter books, books with extra large print, audiobooks, downloadable ebooks, and much more.

And it won’t cost you a penny.

Happy reading!

Aaron Francis is the Chief Librarian at Creston Valley Public Library. He is currently reading Into the Sun by Deni Ellis Béchard.