Discover the Weath Within You

A Financial Plan for Creating a Rich and Fulfilling Life

By: Ric Edelman

Narrated by: Ric Edelman

Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

In Discover the Wealth Within You, Ric Edelman shows you how to choose fun, enriching, and rewarding financial goals and gives you a simple straightforward plan for achieving them. As he reveals in this audio, all you need to become wealthy is to decide what you want to do with your money. With enticing, personal goals in place, you'll motivate, excite and sustain yourself in your quest for wealth.

Once you set your goals properly, you'll embark with Ric on a detailed exploration of personal investing. Ric reveals his formula for creating a plan to achieve your goals, build your financial future, and finance your dreams, all through his unique, time-tested investing strategies.

By following Ric's plans and guidelines, you can achieve a healthy, balanced, and richly rewarding life. Anyone can do it, he stresses, with the tools and techniques he provides. So, join Ric and discover the wealth within you.

©2002 Ric Edelman (P)2002 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Mostly good advice with one MAJOR flaw.

Edelman is a big time financial planner and he doesn't let you forget it. His friendly and easy to understand exhortations are all more or less on the money and well worth heeding, except for one major exception--he is heavily biased toward mutual funds and talks down privately managed or "wrap" accounts. The reasoning he gives for this is very weak. For example: the minimums are too large (says who?); they tempt investors to micromanage their stocks in the accounts (huh?); they generate too much paperwork and you'll need to buy a new filing cabinet (wrong: you can opt out easily and palm this job off to an advisor--like Mr. Edelman!) This major flaw by itself does individual investors a huge disservice and frankly, I detect a large dollop of self-serving here.

Privately managed accounts are a valuable and efficient option that is available increasingly to "smaller" investors, often for as little as $10,000 and they are the universally preferred choice for substantial investors, both individual and institutional. That being said, mutual funds do have their place in today's markets. Almost no other vehicle works as well in 401(k)s or other "systematic" investment programs for example. But they certainly should not be the only choice.

If Edelman had been more rigorously objective about all the options available to investors and not lamely promoted his personal preferences to the complete exclusion of others, this program would have gotten 5 stars. If you can tune out this one major bug, go buy it. It'll help you navigate the investment jungle better.