Wisereads Vol. 68 — Main Street Millionaire by Codie Sanchez, Facebook's little red book, and more
Last week, we shared a preview of Good Nature by Dr. Kathy Willis, a compelling call to reconnect with nature. This week, we're sharing an excerpt of Codie Sanchez's debut book, Main Street Millionaire, a guide to achieving financial freedom.
Keep reading to add to your Reader account below...
Wisereads Vol. 68 — Main Street Millionaire by Codie Sanchez, Facebook's little red book, and more
Last week, we shared a preview of Good Nature by Dr. Kathy Willis, a compelling call to reconnect with nature. This week, we're sharing an excerpt of Codie Sanchez's debut book, Main Street Millionaire, a guide to achieving financial freedom.
Keep reading to add to your Reader account below 👇
Most highlighted Articles of the week
52 things I learned in 2024
Journalist Tom Whitwell returns with his annual list of fascinating facts—one for each week of the year. Among them, a tidbit on trademarks: "There are just 16 trademarked scents in the US, including Crayola crayons, Playdoh, an ocean-scented soft play in Indiana and a type of gun cleaner that smells of ammonium and kerosene," and the triumph of Egypt: "After 100 years of work, Egypt is now officially free of malaria, the disease that killed Tutankhamen."
In Praise of Print: Why Reading Remains Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse
Thirty years ago, Sven Birkerts’s The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age was dismissed as a simplistic, fussy anti-tech manifesto. Today, author and Carnegie Mellon faculty member Ed Simon revisits Birkerts's arguments, which now seem more resonant than ever. "As an antidote to the virtual obliteration of the self, Birkerts returns to literature, arguing that in the 'slow and meditative possession of a book,' what he calls 'deep reading,' we are able to 'keep alive the dangerous and exhilarating idea that life is not sequence of lived moments, but a destiny.'"
The Mystery of Food Deserts
Stacy Mitchell traces the prevalence of food deserts—low-income neighborhoods where the nearest grocery store is miles away—to the government’s failure to enforce the Robinson-Patman Act. "Food deserts are not an inevitable consequence of poverty or low population density, and they didn't materialize around the country for no reason. Something happened. That something was a specific federal policy change in the 1980s. It was supposed to reward the biggest retail chains for their efficiency. Instead, it devastated poor and rural communities by pushing out grocery stores and inflating the cost of food. Food deserts will not go away until that mistake is reversed."
Most highlighted YouTube Video of the week
watch this if you want to become the top 1%
Never one to mince words, entrepreneur and $100M Offers author Alex Hormozi lays out what it really takes to succeed: sacrifice, hard work, tenacity, and time. "The rich buy time, the poor buy stuff, ambitious people buy skills, and lazy people buy distractions."
Most highlighted Twitter Thread of the week
X hates LinkedIn
Justin Welsh, who earns millions annually from his LinkedIn presence, reveals the secrets to creating a compelling profile. His tips include showing off in the about section: "Your about section is all about social proof. That means it's time to brag. What makes you worth following?" and creating a clear tagline: "Your tagline is often a make-or-break moment. The goal of the tagline is to tell people: Who you are, what you're working on, what they should expect."
Most highlighted PDF of the week
The little red book
Matthew Parkhurst took it upon himself to preserve Facebook’s iconic little red book—a decade-old time capsule capturing the sweeping optimism and vision that accompanied the company’s massive growth. "Connection is the fundamental unit of society. And increasing the number of ways people can connect, and the number of people they can connect to, is a powerful tool for good. It blurs lines. It alters perspectives. It humanizes. Because when everyone is considered an 'us,' there's a lot less of 'us vs. them.'"
Hand-picked book of the week
Main Street Millionaire
In a landscape awash with get-rich-quick schemes, Codie Sanchez’s newly released Main Street Millionaire stands apart. Rather than betting on crypto or risky startups, she reveals a path to wealth by acquiring everyday “Main Street” businesses—like laundromats and trash services—that quietly keep communities thriving. Packed with frameworks, exercises, and real success stories, Codie's debut is as compulsively readable as it is actionable.
"Your salary will never set you free. Your financial freedom can only come through ownership. More specifically, through equity done the right way.
This is not what most of us were taught. Every day in school all the way up to your first job, you’ve been trained like Pavlov’s dog to follow the path of non-ownership. You’ve been zapped and given treats to believe that a good job is the real key to financial stability. Lies. No matter how hard you work, you will forever be a cocker spaniel begging for biscuits. That’s because you are trading your time for money, which means it’s impossible for you to break free. Warren Buffett said it best: 'If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.'"
We're particularly tickled that Codie is sharing a preview of Main Street Millionaire with Wisereads readers. If you enjoy the excerpt, you can order a full copy here to unlock the secrets of the rich.
Handpicked RSS feed of the week
Cal Newport
Slow Productivity author Cal Newport offers advice on deep work, digital minimalism, and building a meaningful life on his blog. From The Tao of Cal: "In building a meaningful and fulfilling life, it’s usually better to work backwards from a broad vision of your ideal lifestyle than it is to work forward toward a singular grand goal (e.g., a 'dream job' or radical location change) that you hope will make everything better."