By NICHOLAS L. DEAN
9/29/2006 - LAKEWOOD — Daniel Merrick is worth more than
$1 million now, but not long ago he was on welfare and needed food stamps to
feed his family.
Through real estate sales and non-traditional business ventures such as selling
collectible gems from the wholesale market, Merrick built his net worth slowly
over several years and is now sharing his story in ‘‘How To’’ form.
Author of the book Instructions To Make Money: From
Welfare To Millionaire, Merrick will be at Waldenbooks in the Chautauqua Mall from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday.
‘‘I don’t see any reason why we can’t all be rich,’’ Merrick said about sharing the methods of
his success. ‘‘My book is about empowering the poor. The point is to teach them
and mentor them, and that includes the working poor as well as people on
welfare.’’
Though a guide on how to get rich, Merrick said his book is less about becoming as known as
Warren Buffet or Bill Gates and more about living comfortably. By building
wealth gradually, Merrick said that eventually anyone can move out of poorer neighborhoods and
into more affluent cities.
‘‘I’m talking about just being able to afford a house, being middle class with
a million dollars or more in net worth,’’ Merrick said. ‘‘Average housing costs
are going up to $300,000 and $500,000 in Florida, New York and California. By the time you try to own your
own house and you look at what it costs, you’re going to see you have to pay a
half a million dollar mortgage and that’s a lot of money.’’
An advocate of the mentoring method, Merrick said the secret of his success lies simply in
emulating what other successful people have done. In his book, Merrick explains that part of the key to
building wealth is watching rich people, learning what they do and duplicating
their methods.
‘‘I call them the ‘Instructions To Money’ as sort of a
tongue-in-cheek thing. The mint prints the dollars and then they don’t give us
any instructions how to build dollars,’’ Merrick said. ‘‘At least when you go down
to Home Depot, they’ll give you some instructions how to use the stuff. I
really believe that if people can be empowered for their individual interest,
they will be able to build a net worth of over a million dollars through the
mentoring process.
‘‘America is such a great land of
opportunity. We have freedoms. Anyone can go out and speak their mind on either
side of an issue without having to worry about somebody harming them because
they feel that way,’’ Merrick continuing. ‘‘With mentoring, you can duplicate exactly
what someone did to become rich using your own particular interests and creativity
to make it happen for yourself. The opportunities are there regardless of race,
color, creed, political affiliation, religious orientation or anything like
that. You and I, no matter where we come from, we have opportunity out there if
we’re willing to do what it takes to take advantage of it.’’
Describing himself as ‘‘The Rational Right,’’ Merrick has been touring in support of his
new book and recently argued politics on Air America Radio. Though not
specifically a political book, Merrick said he did debate the Republican side of economic issues
during his appearance on the Democrat radio network.
In addition to signing books at Chautauqua Mall Saturday, Merrick said he will be more than willing
to discuss his instructions to making money as well as his success. A portion
of money made from book sales will be donated to charity. For more information
on Merrick, visit InstructionsToMoney.com and
RDJCatalog.com.
Send comments to ndean@post-journal.com
http://post-journal.com/community/articles.asp?articleID=7412
Back To Media Kit
