The essays by Paul Graham often come up in my family. Graham made millions when his team sold their programming work, Viaweb, to Yahoo for millions. But the knowledge Graham shares goes beyond programming.

He’s got a lot of social wisdom. My favorite is his article, Why Nerds are Unpopular.

Here’s an excerpt:

The main reason nerds are unpopular is that they have other things to think about. Their attention is drawn to books or the natural world, not fashions and parties. They’re like someone trying to play soccer while balancing a glass of water on his head. Other players who can focus their whole attention on the game beat them effortlessly, and wonder why they seem so incapable.

Even if nerds cared as much as other kids about popularity, being popular would be more work for them. The popular kids learned to be popular, and to want to be popular, the same way the nerds learned to be smart, and to want to be smart: from their parents. While the nerds were being trained to get the right answers, the popular kids were being trained to please.

Nearly every modern business and finance book quotes the theory of Napoleon Hill. His most popular book is “Think and Grow Rich” and naturally, I had to snag the book to see Napoleon Hill’s wisdom for myself.

The most important thing illustrated so far is that money doesn’t make happiness. Money is only a piece of your happiness formula.

The 12 things which constitute happiness:

1. a positive mental attitude
2. sound physical health
3. harmony in human relationships
4. freedom from fear
5. the hope of future achievement
6. the capacity for applied faith
7. willingness to share one’s blessings with others
8. to be engaged in the labor of love
9. an open mind on all subjects toward all people
10. complete self discipline
11. wisdom with which to understand people
12. financial security

Take out a pen and paper and write this down:

I want to be wealthy so that I can ______________________.

To reach my goal, I am willing to sacrifice the following: _____________________.

Your thoughts establish the role of money in your life, and I’ve been thinking about this topic for a while. If you feel good about yourself and the efforts you are making, your positive ideas can cultivate more change and more satisfaction. Having money just to have money doesn’t provide much purpose, so it’s important to define why the heck we’re working so hard toward these goals.

Do you make/want to make money by creating value for other people or by competing and cheating other people?

Do you devote yourself to the highest good, not just for yourself, but for as many people as you can possibly touch?

Would you get satisfaction signing up for multiple rewards cards from companies who don’t catch your trickery because it means more money for you?

Do your methods of making money imply selfishness and greed in the eyes of others?

Does every dollar that you make equal a dollar that another person loses?

And finally, years from now, if you were to teach a thousand people how to become wealthy the way you did, would you have done these people and society a disservice?

I thought that this image was great:

Picking a piece of property to build on is a hard task. A few pointers my husband and I have compiled that we think are important in the hunt are:

1. Talk to the Planning Department about zoning ordinances, and get a copy of the zoning ordinances

2. Examine the access roads if you’re heading toward the country. Can you get through in the winter? Do creeks need bridging? Landslide potentials or possible trees that might tip? Oh and who OWNS the access roads?

3. Look at surveys and topography maps. Get a survey.

4. Research utilities. This is the biggie. Internet access? What about power? The line itself costs upward of $6-$10/ft. Then you have to burry it. What about water? Is a well feasible? And sewer/septic. That’s a fun one. These issues are so huge in price that it can make the difference between a good investment and a horrible burden.

5. Check for existing easements* (like access roads, power lines, mining rights, etc.)

6. Look for any liens–voluntary and involuntary

7. Any restrictions placed by previous owners that are on record? (Like “thou shall not build a house here ever”)

8. Who holds subsurface/mineral rights? Check for timber and hunting rights, too.

9. How close are you to large operations like airports, slaughter houses, chemical plants, active mines, and polluted/superfund sites? These things can have a huge impact on the enjoyment of your property. If you’re really lucky, an aerial flight in a small plane or helicopter can show you everything you need to see. Otherwise, check out aerial photos.

*An encumbrance is any right or interest in land that is possessed by a person who doesn’t hold title to the land. These rights can lower the value of the owner’s estate, so you want to check on them. Lucky for us, this task is typically pretty easy; the title company does the labor. An encumbrance doesn’t prevent you from enjoyment of your property or the ability to transfer it.

Good luck with your hunt. Or in most cases right now, good luck with the dream!

Jeffrey Strain at TheStreet.com pretty much sums up the reason most people don’t have wealth: it’s not because we don’t make enough money; it’s because we don’t treat money on a day-to-day basis very well. Check out the ten poor habits he’s narrowed down as our reasons for low wealth:

1. You Care What Your Neighbors Think: If you’re competing against them and their material possessions, you’re wasting your hard-earned money on toys to impress them instead of building your wealth.

2. You Aren’t Patient: Until the era of credit cards, it was difficult to spend more than you had. That is not the case today. If you have credit card debt because you couldn’t wait until you had enough money to purchase something in cash, you are making others wealthy while keeping yourself in debt.

3. You Have Bad Habits: Whether it’s smoking, drinking, gambling or some other bad habit, the habit is using up a lot of money that could go toward building wealth. Most people don’t realize that the cost of their bad habits extends far beyond the immediate cost. Take smoking, for example: It costs a lot more than the pack of cigarettes purchased. It also negatively affects your wealth in the form of higher insurance rates and decreased value of your home.

(for descriptions of the following, check out his complete article)

4. You Have No Goals
5. You Haven’t Prepared
6. You Try to Make a Quick Buck
7. You Rely on Others to Take Care of Your Money
8. You Invest in Things You Don’t Understand
9. You’re Financially Afraid
10. You Ignore Your Finances