It’s funny, looking back, how some things lead you to where you are right now.

And for me, Phil Town is kinda like that.

I wonder if you have any experiences like that.  I’ll let you in on one of mine so you know what I mean.

As Marie and I were wrapping up selling our houses in Toronto, we popped into Chapters one day.  (Chapters is the Canadian version of Barnes & Noble.)  And I remember I bought Seth Godin’s new book, All Marketers Are Liars.  (Which by the way is about how to tell authentic stories.)

And as we were leaving, I kept getting drawn back to a white book with a big blue title across the whole page.  Now the reason this was strange was that I had never bought a new book on investing in stocks — and I had never read one of the used ones I had picked up previously.  And I kept putting it down, then circling back to it, reading a bit more, and repeating.

Needless to say, I bought the book and it started a whole new path in my life.

And the book was Rule 1 by Phil Town.

It was one of those books that I both savoured and devoured simultaneously.  Really, really great book.

And 6 months later, I saw Phil Town live…. but that’s another story.

So Rule 1 promises to show you how to an annualized compounded 15% return by spending only 15 minutes a day.  That’s the premise.  And it delivers.  And from what I’ve learned since, it has been the perfect starting point.  And hey, if you’re going to be successful you’ll absolutely NEED to learn how to invest your money at some point in the game.  There’s simply no way around it.  It’s one of those skills that everyone needs and few people choose to develop.

Now the math scared me a little bit.  He talks in the book about doubling numbers in your head as he goes through examples.  Yeah right. That was my only hangup, but I chose to pay for a service that gives me clear information rather using the free sites like MSN Finance that he talks about in his book.

As you may or may not know, Marie and I are really great learners.  When we want to learn something, we know how to find and learn the information.  We dig into it obsessively and passionately, and we quickly put it into practice so we internalize the information.  (Right there is a big key to being successful as the economy changes moving forward.)

You need to be careful who you get information from.  Especially on the internet, there are lots of people who give information and advice without really knowing what they are talking about.  And you need to read between the lines to see if you should trust their advice or leave it.  This is why Amazon allows all users to easily RATE if a reviewers comments are useful or not.  But many people are highly skeptical of things like 15% returns, and you need to be aware that given the proper education, it is achieveable.  In fact, you could do even better than that.  I know this is kind of a long point, but be very careful taking advice from people who are only giving an opinion OR have said they have “tried” something.  If you’re going to be successful in anything there is a whole lot more than try.

If you think you can read Rule 1 by Phil Town, and stop there, you’re chances of success are slim.

But if you are an active learner, then this is a wonderful place to start.

By the way, see if you can read through the comments over at Amazon and see if you can pick out some people who you should listen to and some people who you should not.  It will help you make these distinction quicker in the future.

That’s all for now!