June 27, 2010
Living the Wealthy Life:
18 Principles to Achieving Success, Prosperity and Happiness
Lauren Raysor
Aviva Publishing (2010)
ISBN: 9781935586128
New Book Testifies that Living a Wealthy Life Requires Ethics and Common Sense
***** (5 stars)
New York attorney Lauren Raysor has gone from poverty to success, and she has done it legally and ethically. From working for the New York State Attorney General’s office to helping senior citizens with credit card debt and watching young people get themselves in trouble with the law, she has learned quite a few things about what the wealthy life entails, and money is far from the last word.
Raysor does not pull any punches but gets right to the point by explaining what the wealthy life is not and setting Ground Rules for what it is. She then leads readers through the 18 Principles for Living With Success, Prosperity and Happiness. Never one to mince words, Raysor presents the bottom line in living a wealthy life, and that bottom line is all about choice. Whatever your background, whatever your situation, you always have a choice. People like Bernie Madoff make the choice not to be ethical. Other people choose to follow the rules; they may have to struggle a bit more as a result, but in the end they find true happiness—precisely because they are ethical and can be proud of their achievements.
One of Raysor’s strongest statements regards leadership. She asks why we have turned sports figures into leaders. Why do we expect Tiger Woods to be a role model, or President Clinton to be a moral as well as a political leader? Should we expect spiritual guidance from someone who is not a spiritual leader or never intended to be? We need to redefine what real leadership is, and we need to put the right people in leadership roles—being a movie star does not make you a role model.
The 18 Principles Raysor offers are full of variety and vitality, but ultimately, they come down to common sense. A few of my favorite principles include:
Principle #4: Wealthy Living Requires Letting Go of the Desire to Control Others
Principle #5: Wealthy Living is Living without Unnecessary Drama
Principle #11: Wealthy Living Requires Surrounding Yourself with Positive People
With each principle, Raysor provides a common sense discussion illustrated with personal stories and examples from the real world of how the principle leads to living a wealthy life. A large number of the principles focus on our relationships with others—knowing how to avoid drama, when to offer to help and realizing when you cannot help someone, setting boundaries to provide wealthy living for yourself, and always remembering the value of family and friends.
Raysor warns against allowing negative people to stop you from living a wealthy life because they try to tell you how to do things, or worse, why you cannot accomplish what you desire. Some of the most excellent advice I’ve ever heard in relation to setting boundaries with negative people is the advice Raysor’s father gave her, “Never take orders from someone who’s not doing better than you.” Instead, Raysor encourages us to surround ourselves with positive people:
You want to select the people in your life based on one factor: how positive are they?
Surrounding yourself with optimistic, positive, upbeat people is one of the most important things you can do to ensure your wealthy life.
As a lawyer, and simply as a human being, Raysor emphasizes the importance of being ethical. A wealthy life is not solely about wealth, and while nothing is wrong with acquiring wealth, it needs to be done in an ethical manner. She states:
Ethical success means achieving your personal and professional goals in such a way that you make it without resorting to illegal or unethical means. You really make it when you make it on your own. That’s when you’ve succeeded. Ethics are essential to living your wealthy life.
Ultimately, “Living the Wealthy Life” is about improving not just our lives, but also the lives of future generations. Raysor makes it clear that we must provide leadership to children; we must be role models to them from being positive, to living financially within our means, to leading ethical lives. “It is up to us to demonstrate to our children that there is another way: that we can lead with ethics, morality, and honesty.”
Lauren Raysor covers all the principles for wealthy living with “Raysor” sharp accuracy and insight. She is a true leader because she made difficult but ethical choices to improve her personal life and achieve success. In her career, she has sought time and again to assist and teach others to make similar choices, and she has been a leader in making sure the system works to provide justice. Now “Living the Wealthy Life” provides her principles and guidelines to readers everywhere.
Everyone can benefit from reading this book, but specifically, it would make an excellent gift to the younger generation, perhaps as a high school graduation gift to serve as a moral compass as they enter the real world. The next generation needs guidance, encouragement, strong examples, and hope. They will find all of those within the pages of “Living the Wealthy Life.”
For more information about Lauren Raysor and “Living the Wealthy Life” visit www.LaurenRaysor.com.
— Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D., and author of the award-winning “Narrow Lives”
