The Psychology of The Science Of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles

Published 13 February 2026 by

Martin Hamilton

Getting rich isn’t about luck or where you happen to live. It’s honestly more like a science, with clear rules and kind of like the way math works.

If you learn these rules and actually stick to them you’ll become wealthy, if you can navigate the road blocks. That’s not just a theory tossed around for fun. It’s something people have tested, and it works.

Rhonda Byrne told a Newsweek interviewer that her inspiration for creating the 2006 hit film The Secret, and the book by the same name, was her exposure to Wattles’s The Science of Getting Rich.

You have the right to be rich. Wanting wealth isn’t wrong or selfish, despite what some might say.

You need money to grow as a person and live a full life. With enough money, you can take care of your body, develop your mind, and feed your soul.

You can help the people you love and give back to the world, too. It’s not just about you.

Key Takeaways

Wealth follows exact laws that anyone can learn and use to become rich
You have a natural right to be wealthy and shouldn’t feel guilty about wanting money
Getting rich comes from doing specific things in a certain way, not from talent or luck alone

How Wealth Building Really Works

How Wealth Gets Created

Getting rich follows specific rules—no escaping that. These rules work just like math equations: follow them and you get results.

Wealth comes from doing things in a specific way. It doesn’t show up because of luck or random chance.

You can learn this way and use it to build your own wealth. Just look around your neighborhood for proof.

There are rich and poor people living on the same street, working similar jobs, in the same area. Yet some get rich and others stay poor.

This shows something important: your surroundings don’t control your wealth. Your actions do.

Key facts about wealth creation:

It follows exact laws
Anyone can learn these laws
The laws work every time when applied correctly
Results come from specific actions, not random chance

Think about people in the same business or town, selling similar products. One person builds wealth, the other struggles.

The difference isn’t location or product. It’s the method.

You don’t need special talents to get rich. Rich people are just regular folks who learned to do things in a certain way.

How Actions Lead to Results

Your results come from your actions. That’s a basic rule—no way around it.

When you do the same thing the same way, you get the same result. It works in wealth building just like it does everywhere else. Like causes create like effects.

You can test this yourself. Anyone who learns to do things in the certain way gets rich. It’s almost mathematical.

Getting rich isn’t about these things:

Saving every penny
Working the hardest
Having the most talent
Being in the right place

Many careful savers stay poor. Plenty of hard workers never build wealth. Talented people often struggle with money.

The real factor is how you do things. Two people can run similar businesses, work the same hours, serve similar customers. One builds wealth, one doesn’t.

What separates them? The way they approach their work. Their methods. The details in how they handle business.

Wealth Comes From Method, Not Situation

Your circumstances don’t determine your wealth. If they did, everyone in good areas would be rich, and everyone in poor areas would stay poor.

But that’s not what happens. In every city, you find rich and poor people mixed together. In every industry, some people thrive while others barely scrape by.

This proves that getting rich is not about environment. It’s about approach.

Look at these facts:

Factor	Does It Create Wealth?
Location	No
Talent	No
Hard work alone	No
Saving money	No
Education	No
Specific method	Yes

Some environments offer more opportunities, sure. But two people in the same environment get different results. That shows environment isn’t the deciding factor.

You might think talent matters most. Actually, it doesn’t. People with great abilities often stay poor, while people with average abilities sometimes get rich.

Thrift doesn’t guarantee wealth either. Many careful savers never build real wealth, while some free spenders become rich. Being cheap isn’t the answer.

You can’t blame your job, your town, or your education. People in your exact situation have built wealth. They did it by learning the certain way of doing things.

You have the ability to do things in this certain way. When you learn it and apply it, you’ll get rich—no matter where you start or what’s going on around you.

Your Right to Financial Abundance

Money’s Role in Living a Complete Life

You really can’t live a full or successful life if you lack money. That’s just how it is.

Without enough money, you can’t reach your highest potential in talent or personal growth. You need a lot of things to develop yourself, and you can’t get them without money.

You develop through using things:

Physical items help your body grow stronger
Tools and resources expand your mind
Experiences and objects help your spirit grow

Society requires money for you to own things. So, learning how to get money is really the foundation for all progress in your life.

Everything alive wants to grow. You have a natural right to reach all the development you can.

Your right to live means you should have free access to everything needed for your complete growth. That includes:

Mental development
Spiritual growth
Physical health

In other words, you have a right to be financially abundant.

Growth Through Using Resources

Being rich doesn’t mean you have to feel satisfied with very little. Why settle for less if you can use and enjoy more?

Nature wants you to advance and grow. You should have everything that adds to the power, beauty, and quality of your life.

You’re rich when you own everything you want to live the fullest life you can. No one without plenty of money can have everything they want these days.

Modern life is so complex that even basic living takes a surprising amount of money. You naturally want to become everything you’re capable of becoming. That desire is just built in.

Success means becoming what you want to be. And you can only become what you want through using things. You only use things freely when you have enough money to buy them.

Learning how to get money might be the most important knowledge you can gain.

Wanting money isn’t wrong. Your desire for money is really a desire for a fuller, richer life. That’s something to be proud of, not ashamed.

If you don’t want to live more fully, that’s honestly a little strange. If you don’t want enough money to buy what you want, that’s not normal either.

Why You Want What You Want

You live for three reasons:

Body – Your physical needs and pleasures
Mind – Your thoughts and learning
Soul – Your spirit and deeper purpose

None of these three is better than the others. All three matter equally. You can’t live fully if you neglect any of them.

Living only for your soul while ignoring your mind or body isn’t right. Living for your intellect while denying your body or soul doesn’t work either.

Look around and you’ll see the mess that happens when people live only for their bodies and ignore their mind and soul.

Real life means full expression of everything you can give through your body, mind, and soul.

You can’t be truly happy unless your body works well in every way. The same goes for your mind and soul. When any part of you goes unexpressed, you feel unsatisfied desire.

Desire is possibility trying to express itself.

Your body needs certain things to live fully:

Good food
Comfortable clothing
Warm shelter
Freedom from too much work
Rest and fun

Your mind needs other things:

Books and time to study
Chances to travel and observe
Smart people to talk with
Fun activities that challenge your thinking
Art and beautiful objects you can use and appreciate

Your soul needs love most of all. Poverty blocks love from expressing itself.

Happiness comes from giving benefits to people you love. Love wants to give, naturally. When you have nothing to give, you can’t fill your role as a spouse, parent, citizen, or complete person.

You find full life through using material things. These things help your body develop, your mind grow, and your soul unfold.

This makes being rich extremely important. You should want to be rich if you’re normal. You really can’t help wanting this.

Honestly, you should focus your best attention on learning how to get money. It’s a noble and necessary study.

If you ignore this, you’re letting yourself and others down. You can give no greater service than making the most of yourself.

How Your Thoughts and Actions Create Wealth

How Your Mind Shapes Reality

You have a mental power that affects your life in real, sometimes surprising ways. Your thoughts aren’t just ideas floating around—they’re forces that shape what happens to you.

When you think about something with focus and intention, you kick off a process that moves you toward what you’re thinking about. Your thoughts guide your actions, even if you don’t notice it at first.

Thinking in a certain way comes before doing things in a certain way. Your mental patterns determine your actions.

If you fill your mind with thoughts of wealth and abundance, you’ll naturally begin to act in ways that bring wealth to you.

Key points about thought power:

Thoughts create mental images
Mental images guide your behavior
Your behavior produces results in the physical world
Consistent thoughts lead to consistent results

You can’t separate your thinking from your outcomes. The two are tied together by natural law.

When you change how you think, you change what you create in your life.

The Raw Material of the Universe

There’s a formless substance from which everything is made. It fills all of space and seeps into every corner of existence.

Every visible thing comes from this original material. New forms constantly emerge from it.

This substance shapes itself according to the thoughts we impress on it. It actually responds to human thinking, which is wild if you really consider it.

This formless substance is always ready to take shape. It doesn’t care what form it becomes.

Whatever you hold in your mind with clarity and faith, it will try to become. That’s the deal.

Here’s how the creative process works:

You form a clear mental image of what you want
You hold that image with certainty and faith
The formless substance begins to move according to that image
Physical reality starts to arrange itself to match your thought

You honestly don’t need to know every technical detail. Just know that it works—when you impress your thoughts on this substance with faith, it gets to work on what you’re thinking about.

This substance isn’t dead or inert. It’s alive and responsive.

It moves toward creating the forms you hold in your mind. That’s its nature.

What You Do	What Happens
Think with clarity	The substance receives clear instructions
Think with doubt	The substance receives mixed signals
Think with faith	The substance moves to create your thought
Stop thinking about it	The creative process stops

You work with this substance through your thoughts. There’s really no other way to get your will across to it.

Trust and Certainty in Plenty

Faith is essential when dealing with the formless substance. You have to believe what you want is already on its way, and act like it’s a sure thing.

Faith isn’t just hoping or wishing. It’s knowing. When you actually believe that wealth is coming, your thoughts and actions start to shift in small but real ways.

You need to trust that the supply is unlimited. The formless substance never runs out. There’s enough raw material for anything anyone could want.

Three levels of belief you need:

Belief in the substance: Trust that the raw material exists
Belief in the process: Trust that thoughts impress upon this substance
Belief in your right: Trust that you deserve wealth and abundance

Looking at poverty and lack will chip away at your faith. Try to turn your attention away from scarcity and focus on the unlimited nature of the formless substance instead.

Your faith needs to be strong enough to stand up to what you see around you. If you see people struggling with money, don’t let that shake your certainty.

The struggles are there because those people don’t know how to think and act in this certain way. It’s not about luck or deservingness.

Act on your faith. Take steps a wealthy person would take, even if it feels a bit odd at first.

Make decisions based on the abundance that’s coming, not the lack you see now. Sometimes that takes guts.

Faith isn’t foolish if it’s based on truth. The truth is, this substance exists, it responds to thought, and it can create whatever you need.

Recognizing and Taking Advantage of Opportunities

Breaking Down the Myth of Limited Success

It’s easy to think only a few people can succeed, or that all the good opportunities are already gone. That’s just not true.

Getting rich isn’t about being in a special place or being a certain kind of person. If location decided wealth, whole cities would be rich or poor—but that’s not what you see.

Look at two people in the same town, doing the same work. One becomes wealthy, the other doesn’t. That alone shows environment isn’t the whole story.

Consider these facts:

Rich and poor people live on the same streets
People in the same jobs have wildly different financial results
The same business can make one person wealthy and another bankrupt

Your success doesn’t depend on grabbing the last opportunity. It’s about how you do things, not what you do.

Thinking in Terms of Plenty Instead of Lack

Wealth is available to you. Success isn’t some limited resource that runs out.

Plenty of talented people stay poor. Plenty of people with no special talent get rich. So talent alone doesn’t make you wealthy.

You don’t need rare abilities or to wait for perfect timing. What matters is that you learn to do things in a specific way.

Some people save every penny and still stay broke. Others spend freely and somehow end up wealthy.

Saving money isn’t the secret to wealth
Being cheap doesn’t make you rich
Spending habits alone don’t determine your success

How Your Surroundings and Abilities Work Together

Your environment can help or slow you down. Some places are easier to succeed than others. But your surroundings don’t control your outcome.

Two people in the same business, doing almost the same things—one gets rich, the other fails. Small differences in how you work matter more than what you work on.

You have the right to become everything you can be. That desire is just part of being human.

Your abilities aren’t the main thing. Wealthy people are usually just average folks who learned to do things in a certain way.

You can learn this way too. Success comes from following specific laws. These laws work like math—if you apply them, you get results.

The Creative Mindset for Wealth

Rising Above the Battle for Resources

Getting rich isn’t about fighting others for scraps. Look around—rich and poor people live side by side and often work in the same fields. Clearly, wealth isn’t about where you are or what you start with.

If environment decided everything, whole cities would be rich or poor. But that’s not reality.

Two people can work the same job in the same town. One thrives, the other struggles. It’s not about competition for limited opportunities.

It’s about doing things in a specific way. The person who learns this way gets rich, the one who doesn’t—well, they usually stay stuck, no matter how hard they try.

Key Facts About Wealth Creation:

Environment doesn’t decide who gets rich
Talent alone isn’t enough
Lots of talented people stay poor
Plenty of people with little talent become wealthy
Where you are matters less than how you do things

Building Worth Instead of Chasing It

Focus on doing things in a certain way, not just chasing new opportunities. Getting rich is about following exact laws, kind of like math. If you learn and follow those laws, wealth follows with almost mathematical certainty.

People often think saving money or being super thrifty leads to wealth. That idea doesn’t hold up. Many people who save every cent stay poor, while others who spend freely end up rich. The difference isn’t in saving or spending—it’s in how you do things.

You can’t get rich just by doing what others avoid. Two people in the same business can do nearly identical things. One gets rich, the other goes bankrupt. It’s not about what you do, but the way you do it.

What Doesn’t Create Wealth:

Saving and being thrifty
Working harder than others
Having more talent
Being in the right place
Doing different things than others

What Does Create Wealth:

Doing things in a certain way
Following natural laws
Understanding that like causes produce like effects
Learning the exact science of getting rich

Matching Your Goals with Natural Laws

Your desire to be rich is totally natural. If you’re a regular person, you can’t help but want more out of life.

You have an inalienable right to all the development you can achieve. That means you have the right to use everything you need for full mental, spiritual, and physical growth. In short, you have a right to be rich.

You can’t reach your highest potential in talent or soul unless you have plenty of money. To develop your soul and grow your talents, you need things—and you need money to get those things.

You develop in mind, soul, and body by using things. Society is set up so that you need money to access those things. So, mastering the science of getting rich is the foundation for any real progress.

Everyone wants to become all they’re capable of. That urge to realize your inner possibilities is just basic human nature. Success is about becoming what you want to be, and you get there by making use of things.

Your Three Areas of Life:

Area	Needs	Why It Matters
Body	Good food, comfortable clothing, warm shelter, freedom from excessive toil, rest, recreation	You can’t live fully in body without these things
Mind	Books, time to study, opportunity for travel, intellectual companionship, art and beauty	You can’t live fully in mind without intellectual expression
Soul	Love and the ability to express it through giving	You can’t fill your place without the means to give to those you love

None of these three is more important than the others. They’re all equally vital.

Your body, mind, and soul can’t thrive if any part gets neglected. Real life means expressing everything you’ve got—body, mind, and soul.

You won’t feel truly happy or satisfied unless your body is living fully. Your mind and soul need that, too.

Wherever there’s unexpressed possibility, there’s unsatisfied desire. Desire is just possibility looking for a way out.

The whole point of life is development. Everything alive has the right to reach its full potential.

Growing Your Resources Through Giving Value

Offering Greater Practical Worth

Think about what people actually get from what you offer. The use value is what really matters when you provide goods or services.

When you give someone something, consider what they can do with it. If you sell a tool, its use value is how well it helps them get their work done.

If you provide a service, the use value is the benefit they receive. Your goal is simple: give more in use value than you take in cash value.

If someone pays you $100, what you give should be worth more than $100 in practical use. They should feel like they got more than they spent.

You create wealth by making the exchange work in the other person’s favor first. When you deliver more value than the money you receive, you lay the groundwork for success.

Every transaction should leave the other person better off. They should walk away with more in real use than what they paid.

Conducting Business Through Mental Planning

Handle your business on the creative plane, not the competitive one. Work with a clear mental picture of what you want to create.

Before you act, form a definite image in your mind of what you’ll provide. See how your product or service will help others and hold that vision tight.

The creative plane means:

You focus on making new value
You think about what you can build
You work with a plan in your mind first

The competitive plane means:

You try to take what others have
You focus on beating other people
You work from a place of scarcity

Operating on the creative plane lets you bring new things into existence. You don’t just grab for a bigger slice—you make a bigger pie.

Form your mental image clearly. Know exactly what you’re going to deliver, then take action based on that vision.

Helping Others Grow Through Your Business

Your business should help others become more capable. When you provide goods or services, you should increase what people can do in their lives.

Think about how your work affects your customers. Does what you offer help them develop? Does it give them tools to live better?

You have a responsibility to empower the people you serve. Give them things that actually improve their ability to function.

Your enterprise should:

Provide real tools people can use
Help others access what they need
Support their growth and development

When you sell something, you transfer power to the buyer. They now have something they didn’t have before. Make sure what you offer actually helps them.

Think about your employees if you have them. Are you helping them grow? Are you paying them enough to live well?

Do they have what they need to develop their own talents? Every person your business touches should be better off because of it.

Gratitude: The Essential Connection

The Law of Being Thankful

Here’s a basic principle: when you receive good things from someone, you naturally feel gratitude toward them. This creates a mental state that connects you to that person.

Your mind moves toward what you focus on. When you think about someone with thankfulness, your mind draws closer to them.

This connection actually matters. The more grateful you are to the source of good things, the more you receive from it.

Your thankful thoughts create a stronger bond between you and what supplies your needs. Gratitude isn’t just polite behavior. It’s a law that produces real results.

If you don’t express thanks, you break your connection to the source of your supply. Think of it this way:

Grateful thoughts keep you connected
Connected thoughts bring more supply
More supply leads to greater wealth

Practice gratitude on purpose. If you forget to be thankful, you’ll drift away from your source. That distance weakens your ability to receive.

Your Bond with the Source

Everything comes from one original substance. This substance thinks and creates. It provides all things that exist in the world.

You’re part of this thinking substance. Your thoughts can reach it directly. When you hold grateful thoughts, you create harmony with the substance that gives you everything.

Your gratitude keeps you in tune with the creative power. This alignment isn’t optional if you want to get rich. You have to stay connected to the source at all times.

The original substance responds to your mental attitude. If you approach it with thanks, it responds more freely.

If you take things for granted, you weaken your claim on future supply. Many people make a critical mistake—they think only about what they lack.

Their minds fill with complaints about what they don’t have. Focusing on lack pushes them away from the source.

Their thoughts move toward poverty instead of wealth. They break the very connection they need most.

Do the opposite. Keep your mind on the good things you’ve received. Think about the source that provided them. Let thankfulness fill your thoughts throughout each day.

Keeping Your Mind Grateful

Your first task each day is to feel grateful. Before you dive into work, pause and think about your blessings.

This sets your mental position for the hours ahead. It might sound simple, but it changes everything.

Gratitude needs a practical method. Don’t just wait around for thankfulness to show up by accident.

Create the feeling on purpose through directed thought. It’s a bit like working out—you’ve got to do it on purpose.

Try making a daily habit of these steps:

List specific things you’ve received.
Think about where they came from.
Feel genuine thanks for each item.
Remind yourself that more is coming.

Never let yourself dwell on what’s missing. The moment you catch your thoughts slipping into lack, steer them back to gratitude.

This takes discipline, but honestly, you need it. No shortcuts here.

Watch your words as well as your thoughts. Complaining out loud just reinforces negative patterns.

Speaking thanks, even if it feels awkward, strengthens positive ones. It’s worth the effort.

Mental State	Result
Constant gratitude	Strong connection to source
Occasional thanks	Weak, unstable connection
Chronic complaining	Broken connection

You can test this idea right away. Start today with deliberate grateful thoughts.

Notice how your mental state shifts, even if it’s subtle. Pay attention to how opportunities start to show up—sometimes in weird little ways.

Your gratitude doesn’t need to be religious. It just needs to be real and steady.

Thank the creative substance for what you have. Thank it in advance for what’s on its way, even if you can’t see it yet.

Some days will make this hard. Problems pop up. Things go sideways.

These moments test your commitment to grateful thinking. It’s easy to slip—don’t beat yourself up, just get back to it.

Don’t let circumstances control your gratitude. Even on rough days, dig for something to be thankful for.

Your ability to keep thanks alive during hardship shows real mastery. It’s not about perfection, just persistence.

The more you practice, the more natural it feels. Your mind slowly forms new habits.

Grateful thoughts start to flow without so much effort. This shift changes your relationship with the source of all supply, whatever you believe that to be.

Gratitude is active, not passive. You have to choose it, on purpose.

Make this choice every morning. Remind yourself every evening. Try to keep it alive through every hour, even if you slip a little.

If you like to listen to audiobooks then take some time and listen to The Science of Getting Rich anytime.

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