I Will Teach You To Be Rich: No Guilt. No Excuses. No BS. Just a 6-Week Program That Works

Procatalepsis is a rhetorical advice in which a speaker or writer presents the counter-argument first and then addresses it. Sethi opens each chapter with the authorial stance that readers have encountered this topic before through personal experience, the advice of friends and family, and information spread by the media and personal finance pundits. In order to prepare readers for his action-oriented approach to each topic, he then begins every chapter by presenting the counter-argument to his advice. He explains what other people have said about the topic, how most people approach the topic, and the invisible emotional scripts that govern people’s behavior related to the topic. He then explains the flaws in these ways of thinking before elaborating on his own advice.

In Chapter 3, “Get Ready to Invest,” for example, he opens with a section in which he illuminates the general excuses that young professionals give for not investing: “I don’t earn enough” and “I don’t know how to pick stocks” (96). With this device, Sethi draws in readers who themselves are thinking, “I don’t earn enough” and “I don’t know how to pick stocks” before he shows them why they do earn enough and why lucrative investing is not about picking the right stocks.