BUILDING WEALTH

Entrepreneur and publisher Barbera, in this debut guide to financial management, offers tips for those looking for true wealth.

The author isn’t the first person to observe that wealth isn’t the same thing as money, but he does have a succinct explanation of the difference between them: “Wealth is independence. Real wealth is the ability to live your life on your own terms.” Born to Italian immigrants of modest means, Barbera began his working life as a shoeshine boy at the age of 6—a job that involved competing for space with older boys and, sometimes, fleeing from the police (as he was underage and unlicensed). Using his later rise in the business world as a model, the author takes readers through what he sees as necessary steps for success, from adopting “the Mindset of Wealth” and laying a proper foundation for it by getting an education, budgeting, and learning from every job, to increasing one’s earning power and diversifying one’s income. He provides case studies to illustrate the ways that these concepts come together—such as when he brought a credit union back into the black by drawing on his past experience as a bank examiner—along with bulleted lists that recap key information in each section. Barbera’s prose has a warm tone, and his anecdotes help to personalize his lessons, as when he discusses his decision to sell candy for a fundraiser: “3,000 boxes of chocolate Easter eggs filled an entire bedroom; Bernice [Barbera’s wife] was not happy. So there was added incentive to sell some eggs.” There’s a lot of practical information here—the author is a particular advocate of real estate investment, particularly in apartment complexes—but the larger message that emerges in this slim volume is how attitude and common sense play key roles in business outcomes. Although most of this advice will be familiar to business-book readers, fans of the Mentoris Project—the book series that Barbera publishes on the lives of prominent Italians and Italian Americans—may be interested to see what drives the man behind the scenes.

A guide to financial decision-making that blends pragmatism and idealism.