{"id":7072955,"date":"2026-10-21T21:00:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T21:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/accountants4yourbusiness.co.uk\/?p=7072955"},"modified":"2026-10-21T21:00:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T21:00:37","slug":"the-millionaires-are-still-small-business-owners-next-door-my-money-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/accountants4yourbusiness.co.uk\/?p=7072955","title":{"rendered":"The Millionaires Are [Still] Small Business Owners Next Door \u2014 My Money Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Widhd3\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eadn-wc01-16089965.nxedge.io\/cdn\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/everywheremill.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"528\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-85631\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When I was starting out financially, one of the hot books was <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4k41Yis\" target=\"_blank\">The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America\u2019s Wealthy<\/a> by Stanley and Danko, first published in 1996.   The millionaires turned out to be small business owners driving Ford F-150s: the plumber with lots of vans, HVAC businesses, auto repair chains, commercial contractors, local real estate landlords.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The bestselling The Millionaire Next Door identifies seven common traits that show up again and again among those who have accumulated wealth. Most of the truly wealthy in this country don\u2019t live in Beverly Hills or on Park Avenue-they live next door. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, it\u2019s 30 years later, and the overall idea essentially remains the same.  Though $1.5 million in 1996 is more like over $3 million today.  <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Widhd3\" target=\"_blank\">The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There<\/a> by Zidar and Zwick provides updated data and new millionaire profiles.   <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Most people think the path to great wealth runs through Wall Street or Silicon Valley. We\u2019re told you must be a Zuckerberg, a Musk, or a Jamie Dimon to get rich. But this story is wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Drawing on unprecedented data from a decade of research and vivid real-life stories of entrepreneurs \u2013 from a self-made hot-dog stand billionaire to the heirs of an auto dealer \u2013 Zidar and Zwick reveal a surprising truth: prosperity is more attainable, more widely distributed, and closer to home than we imagine. A multitude of Americans have built staggering fortunes by running often unglamorous businesses far from the spotlight. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>If that sounds interesting to you, check out this WSJ article by the same authors which is basically a short taste of their book: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/business\/entrepreneurship\/the-american-dream-is-alive-and-its-minting-millionaires-3903775b?st=w6HQfc&amp;reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink\" target=\"_blank\">The American Dream Is Alive. And It\u2019s Minting Millionaires.<\/a> (gift article).   Definitely worth a read.<\/p>\n<p>When you own the business, you get all of the upside potential.   The new book goes into how improved scaling ability and streamlined passthrough tax structures like LLCs and S-Corps help make the upside even easier to achieve.   But of course, you only see the winners.   The failed restaurant owners and wannabe real estate moguls don\u2019t have any yachts with funny names.<\/p>\n<p>I do think a lot of it is a personality trait \u2013 the willingness to spend 120 hours a week on something that might or might not work out, the ability to fail and get back up again and again, and a strange passion for a particular (often boring!) industry.   I wonder if any of my kids will go this route.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was starting out financially, one of the hot books was The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America\u2019s Wealthy by Stanley and Danko, first published in 1996. The millionaires turned out to be small business owners driving Ford F-150s: the plumber with lots of vans, HVAC businesses, auto repair chains, commercial contractors, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7072956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[3767,907,2496,6836,832,1420,709],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7072955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-blog","tag-business","tag-door","tag-millionaires","tag-money","tag-owners","tag-small"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Millionaires Are [Still] Small Business Owners Next Door \u2014 My Money Blog - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/accountants4yourbusiness.co.uk\/?p=7072955\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Millionaires Are [Still] Small Business Owners Next Door \u2014 My Money Blog - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I was starting out financially, one of the hot books was The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America\u2019s Wealthy by Stanley and Danko, first published in 1996. 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