This blog post is my critique of the book “We Should All Be Millionaires” by Rachel Rodgers (2021) from the standpoint of individual, group and enterprise leadership insights. I would categorize this work in the realm of “personal finance empowerment.”
Each of my critiques review the key message of the book, the high-level concepts, the book’s areas of strengths, and where it falls short. I conclude each critique with an overall assessment ranking (1-10 ascending) of its effectiveness in providing the reader applicable lessons in personal and/or leadership development.
Overview: “We Should All Be Millionaires” was a Kindle find and immediately caught my attention from the assertive and powerful title. Why shouldn’t I? I thought and clicked “Buy.” Rodgers structures the book in two main parts: first, that to make a million dollars, you need to behave in certain ways. Second, that to make a million dollars, you need to follow a series of steps on a roadmap.
Key Message: The key message of this book is that women and persons of historically disadvantaged backgrounds have the same right to earn capital as anyone else, and that building wealth is as much a mindset as hard (and smart) work. She writes in her introduction, “Whether we like it or not, money is the source of real power in society.”
High-level concepts: Rodgers argues that we need not apologize for wanting more, for being ambitious and that the financial jail women live in are of our own making. We can be free to pursue wealth.
Areas of Strengths: This book helped validate my own ambitions and feel permission to speak up more about it. Rachel Rogers shares her story – a relevant middle class one that will resonate with a broad public. In addition, Million Dollar Decisions is a powerful framework to think through prior to taking action. Is what I’m about to do going to help me/my family/my world, or waste time and deplete my energy? The book is an artifact that can be used as an additional data point for courageous people who tend to ask the question “Why not?”
Supplemental Materials: Rachel Roger’s company, HelloSeven, has several resources and a club that you can join (which I have): https://helloseven.co/the-book/ In addition, for free you can access a personal Downloadable Money Workbook: https://go.helloseven.co/annual-workbook
Where it Falls Short: In the Roadmap portion of the book, Rachel writes of creating your own “Million Dollar Systems.” The essence is to become comfortable with monitoring and managing your money, but her five steps (track your net worth, track your credit score, incorporate, get a book keeper, and go to “money church” each week) are covered in approximately three pages. I consider this more like one system to monitor weekly for two hours – log in to your bank, read report from your bookkeeping, listen to a podcast. The other systems that are necessary to build (from my experience) but not explained in her chapter include but not limited to – take a training that expands your skillset each month, research your competitors to understand your current offering differentiator each month, research pricing vehicles and ecommerce optimization bi-annually, etc. It would be more powerful if her playbook were deeper with personal examples of how she built HelloSeven through creating Million Dollar Systems.
Overall Assessment & Why: I rate it a 7 out of 10.
This personal development book has a catchy one-line message “We should all be millionaires.” This powerful title is the key message, and all of the text in the book may be forgotten but is in support of reinforcing the title. Sometimes, the title is all you need.