David Chilton was born in October, 1961. He is a television personality, an investor and an author. As of March, 2014, he has a net worth of $20 million.
His bestselling finance book named “the Wealthy Barber” has sold more than 3 million copies. He has also compiled a series of low fat cook books which have also become bestsellers. Today, he lives in Kitchener, Ontario. He runs a publishing company and a financial planning business. David has attained a degree in Economics from Wilfred Laurier University.
In March, 2012, it was announced on CBC Television that Chilton had become the newest dragon on the Dragons Den which is a hit reality television program. He replaced Robert Herjavec in Season 7 and the show was telecast in September, 2012. During his introduction on the show, he was heard saying that he currently lives outside Waterloo.
The Wealthy Barber was published in 1989. It is seminal book about money and focuses on three people who are in their 20s. These three people visit Roy who is a barber to get lessons on financial planning. When the book was released, it sold over 2 million copies and this made it one of the bestsellers in Canada. After more than 20 years later, David Chilton published “The Wealthy Barber Returns” which is a follow-up to his 1989 publication.
During an interview, Chilton has revealed a lot of things about his books and why he chose such as approach. Chilton was 25 years old when he started writing and at the age of 27, he published his first book. He feels he was really lucky. At that time, the economy was such that people could not only rely on guaranteed investment certificates, but had to look for other ways of investment and for that they needed some knowledge. Because there was no knowledge, there was also no competition. When the book was published, there were only two other personal finance books relevant to the Canadian finance market. Today, there are hundreds.
When asked about why he chose to approach the book in that manner, Chilton went on to say that when he was a stockbroker there were few personal finance books in the USA that he liked. They were written extremely well and they were understandable. He got copies of the books and gave them to his clients but they didn’t like the books. His clients found the books intimidating and boring. When he started writing his first book, he called it The Wealthy Bartender and set it in a bar. But alcohol got in the way and after writing few chapters, he put it in a barber shop. This was the right decision he made as a barber shop was something people could visualise.
For the past two decades, Chilton has been has been involved in public speaking. When asked if he would continue writing, he said it takes a lot of time and effort and it is unlikely he will write again.