Getting to the One Percent: How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Wealth

By John Elder Robison

An experienced entrepreneur reveals how the one percent build lasting wealth

Most financial advice tells you to save, invest, and wait.

Getting to One Percent introduces a different approach: generating wealth through "productive property." Think buildings, machines, businesses, tools--anything that produces value every day, whether you're working or not.

John Robison, a veteran entrepreneur, and the bestselling author of Look Me In the Eyes, shows why the traditional path--401(k)s, passive investing, disciplined saving--rarely leads to real security, let alone the top 1%. Then he replaces it with a practical framework to build and scale your own economic engine.

The book operates in two moves:

First, it reframes wealth. Robison explains productive property as the engine behind lasting income, tax advantages, and the communities that sustain success over time.
Then, it shows you how to build it. Through clear, real-world stories--garages, laundromats, rental properties, medical practices--readers see exactly how ordinary people start small, scale up, and turn assets into income streams they control.
This isn't abstract theory. It's a field manual: how to move from earning money to owning what earns it--and how to use that shift to build not just wealth, but durable security and community.

The promise is direct: stop trying to save your way to freedom, and start building systems for lasting wealth creation.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HQ9ZB1K5
• ISBN13: 9798217184569
• Release Date: August 2027
• Publisher: Portfolio
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"