I was inspired to write this article when I read Keith Cameron Smith’s book “The 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class.” The book resonated with my ideas so well that I could almost have written the book. I’ve taken some of your ideas and combined them with mine to create this short article on How To Become A Millionaire.
1. Millionaires think long term. I have long believed that the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people has to do with the ability to get late gratification. If you think about those people in society who are respected and successful, they are often highly educated, which means they were slow to earn money and worked hard; they delayed gratification. This is also true for sports greats or Olympians, who spend hours exercising and practicing their craft rather than sitting in front of the television.
2. Accept the changes. We all wish for the good old days, but the fact is, the good old days will never happen again, change is an opportunity. Accept it, prepare for it, study for it, and you will prosper.
It is not the survival of the fittest, it is the survival of the most adaptable and our world changes rapidly, the more we can adapt, the better we can do.
3. Be a constant learner. I have even come to not have a television. Instead, I read, I think it feeds my mind more. I believe in being a constant learner, I ask myself every day before going to bed “what did I learn today?”.
I also choose topics that I feel I need to know more about and study them. That is the habit of millionaires.
4. Ask empowering questions. In most cases, the empowerment questions are how. How can I do this or how can I do that, as opposed to why? If you ask why, you often get the reason and reinforce a failed loop.
Asking a big how question also inspires more action than a little how question. How can you increase sales by 6% with hardly any changes to do things the same way? How you can increase sales by 50% creates a change that you will need to do something dramatically different.
5. Be frugal. Now I don’t mean cheap, I mean frugal. Frugal is all about getting value for money, so I’m often willing to spend a higher price if I feel like the value I’m getting is better.
6. Get started now. I discovered that life is much easier for me because I started and worked hard at a very young age. That created a boost effect that has now made my life so much easier.
7. Be grateful. I am a big believer in having an attitude of gratitude. I know that I lead a lovely life and I appreciate everything in life.
8. Be generous. Not being generous with both time and money creates a lack of abundance and a fear that resources will be limited. Being generous creates the opposite effect.
For me the hardest is time as I am a time management guy and my time is very valuable.
9. Study time management. I’m a big believer that most of my success has to do with using my time well, which largely consists of setting the right goals, knowing what to do, and then setting my priorities.
Although the title of this article is ‘How To Be A Millionaire’ and many people aspire to that, money itself is an empty goal. Money is a by-product of doing something that I love and getting fully involved and immersed in it.