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32 TRIBUNE MAGAZINE APRIL 2008
BOOK MARK
Get Real, Get Rich
Conquer the 7 Lies Blocking You From Success
By Farrah Gray Dutton
$24.95
Reviewed by Rita Charleston
At the tender age of six, Farrah Gray was selling homemade
body lotion and hand-painted rocks door-to-door.
By age seven, he was carrying his own business cards made out
of cardboard.
At age eight, Gray became co-founder of Urban
Neighborhood Enterprise Economic Club on Chicago’s South
side. U.N.E.C.C. was the forerunner of New Early Entrepreneur
Wonders (NE2W), the flagship organization he opened on Wall
Street which enlisted, educated and engaged “at-risk” youth by
creating and developing legal ways for them to acquire additional
income.
At age 22, Gray is a high-profile, entrepreneurial success story
who has been featured in thousands of print, radio and television
outlets, is a money coach on AOL, a consultant to businesses,
and author of the bestseller “Reallionaire.”
And now, his latest work, attempts to uncover myths that
keeps us all from achieving the kind of riches he has.
Tall order, indeed, but Gray insists it can work if you simply
take his lead. The book is a no-holds barred rejection of the fallacies
we’ve all heard – and believed – about success and how to
achieve it.
“By challenging the popular misconceptions many of us have
about what it truly takes to succeed, this book can maximize
what you can do with your talents and dreams so you can turn
your life into a winning game of successful strategies.”
Some of those misconceptions, he continues, is that “as Black
youth we lack brain power. That’s certainly not true. And I don’t
think I’m one in a million. I’m one of a million.”
Raised in the impoverished South side of Chicago, Gray is
happy to share his secrets to show how anyone can have a financially
rewarding life. He credits his grandmother with teaching
him some very valuable life lessons.
“For example,” he explains, “she taught me that a poor kid’s
passport to see the world was a library card. I also learned that
much of what I accomplished was common sense. It’s just not
commonly put into practice.”
So in his book, Gray walks readers through the seven myths
that hinder personal success, such as “The Born Lucky Lie: I
have to be born with connections or a special talent to be rich.”
Actually, Gray says, “getting ahead takes work, not luck.
There’s no such thing as luck. The power to achieve is within
each of us. There’s no rabbit foot in the world that will help. Just
look at the rabbit. He has four feet and he still got killed.”
According to the author, “you have to be willing to get your
hands dirty and study the field you want to go into. And then do
your research and stick with it. Then it’s a matter of gaining all
the knowledge you can and embracing what you’ve learned as
you put it all into practice.”
Other myths include “The Celebrity Lie,” “The Money Lie,”
“The Debt Lie,” “The Microsoft-Gates Lie” and, he says, perhaps
biggest lie of all, “The Work Hard Lie.”
Gray points to that as “one of the most controversial of all.
People question me all the time about this one. Let’s be real. If
just working hard would make you rich then many people could
achieve it. But your bill collectors don’t care about your working
hard. You can’t take effort to the bank. You can’t make a work
hard ethic deposit in your bank. Look at the fact that if we are
facing a lot of resistance to our ideas then we may not be dong
the right thing.
“Simply put,” he concludes, “you have to work hard by first
finding out what God put you here to do. Two of the most important
times of our lives are when we were born and the way we
find out why we were born. Ask yourself what comes easy to
you, but harder to others. Then set your sites to achieving that.
“As my mom would say, if we keep doing things we’re not
T
good at, then let it go and shut it down!”
Rita Charleston reviews books for the Tribune Magazine.