About the Book

The idea that treating your money as a business is likely to help you improve your financial management performance.
A framework upon which you can build a personal business plan and a projected financial statement budget that help guide you toward making your dreams come true.
An introduction to a broad range of subjects about which you should learn at least a little if you want to become the best money manager you have the capability to become.

Observations of best practices shared by successful businesspeople that I have known, along with suggestions as to how you might incorporate some of their best practices into your life.
Generally accepted advice advocated by the financial service industries and business consultants (as I understand it).
Common threads I have observed in business and personal financial management books.
Folk wisdom in the form of adages, axioms, and proverbs that have been passed down from generation to generation by parents, community elders, religious leaders, and old books of wisdom.
Ideas that stuck in my brain after years of taking classes, attending seminars, and reading.

Be a financial literacy primer that motivates you to embark on a lifelong journey of continuous continuing education – a “McGuffey’s Reader” of business and finance that leads you into a progressively deeper study of business and financial management.
Be a reference book that you can use over and over again as you would use a dictionary. It is not meant to be read once and then put back on a shelf to gather dust.

It’s organized to be a useful learning tool. You can use it like a textbook.
You might skim it and zero in on specific topics that grab your interest.
Or, you might read it from cover to cover to get an overview of the breadth and depth of the subject of financial management, and then come back to re-read a specific paragraph, section, or chapter when you think it would be useful.
The expanded outline format is intended to emphasize key ideas the first time you read the book, and make it easy for you to find those ideas when you come back to re-read it. The outline format also fits in with my concept of pitching you a business proposal.
Chapters are organized by functional utility.
Bold and italic letters and underlines are used to help you spot key points.

Be a conversation starter you can share with your family, friends, elected government representatives, and local school leaders to help stimulate a discussion about establishing a mandatory financial literacy class in your local high school(s), and ways to improve the overall level of financial literacy in your community.
Contribute to developing a field of study in behavioral personal finance – a field of study that borrows heavily from the personal performance management aspects of sports psychology, behavioral economics, and behavioral finance. The focus should be on helping people optimize their usage of things they learn in their financial literacy studies – helping people develop good habits in planning, budgeting, debt management, making financially prudent decisions, etc.