This is a letter I decided to write and give to my three children who are going to be graduating college soon or have recently graduated.

Dear Kids:

You have all grown up so fast. I’m struggling with the fact that in a few short years you will all be out of the house and on your own. You will learn that life has its ups and downs. The ups will make you happy and the downs, unhappy. Some things that create these ups and downs are outside your control but, thankfully, most things are within your control. I’ve often told you that how you live your life determines your success and happiness. You’ve heard me say many times that your daily habits are the key to a great life.  If you have more good daily habits than you have bad daily habits life will be good, you’ll be successful and you won’t have to worry about money.  I think you all got that message. But there’s one more message I want to share with all of you before you set out on your own. It has to do with finding your main purpose in life and happiness. One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that when any one of you are unhappy your Mom and I are also unhappy. So I am being selfish here. I want all of you to be happy so your Mom and I can be happy as well.

Happiness is elusive to so many. Most people are, in fact, unhappy.  Henry David Thoreau said it best when he wrote: “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation…”. Most people who are unhappy are unhappy because they are struggling financially. They are struggling financially because either they are living beyond their means or their job simply does not provide them with a sufficient income. Odds are, when you are not making a sufficient income at your job, it is because you are doing something you do not particularly like. When you can earn a sufficient income doing something you enjoy you have found your main purpose in life and you will be happy. But how do you find your main purpose in life? Believe it or not finding your main purpose in life is within your control. Here’s the process:

1. Make a list of everything you can ever remember that made you happy in life. Hopefully, this will be a long list.
2. Now highlight those items on your list which involve a skill.
3. Assign a job-type designation to each of the highlighted items.
4. Next rank each of the highlighted items in terms of happiness with #1 being the greatest happiness and #2 the next greatest happiness and so on.
5. Now rank each of the highlighted items in terms of income potential with #1 being the highest income and #2 being the next highest and so on.
6. Total the two columns. The lowest scores represent your main purpose in life.

Here is an example:

This is a guide for selecting that job which will give you the greatest chance for happiness. Pilot each job for six months. You will know that you found your main purpose in life when your job does not feel like a job at all. You will know when time flies by and before you know it the day is over. You will know when you keep making more and more money at your job. You will know when you are happy.

I love you very much,

Dad

In my five year study on the daily habits of the rich and the poor I tracked over 300 activities that separate these two groups. When it comes to planning their day and getting things accomplished, the wealthy and the poor see and do things very differently.

Let’s take a look at the research:

• 62% of the wealthy are focused on their goals every day vs. 6% for the poor
• 67% of the wealthy put their goals in writing. 83% of the poor do not
• 73% of the wealthy plan out their day vs. 3% for the poor
• 81% of the wealthy, who do plan their day, maintain a daily to do list. Less than 1% of the poor use a daily to do list

The daily to do list is one of the tools the wealthy use to prevent procrastination, accomplish their goals and maintain control over their day. They set a daily goal of accomplishing 70-80% of the tasks on their daily to do list. Why? There are three reasons:

1. The wealthy understand that, at the very least, procrastination can result in poor quality products or services leading to unhappy customers/clients, causing a loss of those unhappy customers/clients or. At the very worst, procrastination can result in litigation, from customers/clients who were damaged in some way by those poor quality products or services.  Procrastination can cause a loss of income. Wealthy people understand that you cannot become wealthy if you procrastinate.
2. To do lists help the wealthy accomplish their short-term and long-term goals.
3. To do lists give the wealthy control over their day and their lives.

There are two types of daily to dos:

1. Goal To Dos – These are daily tasks tied to monthly, yearly and long-term goals. These are almost always fixed in nature, meaning the same to dos show up every day on the to do list. For example: “Make Ten Telemarketing Phone Calls”.
2. Non-Goal To Dos – These are to dos that are unrelated to any goals. They may be administrative tasks (i.e. Respond to Emails), client tasks (i.e. Meeting with Client) or daily obligations (i.e. Go to Bank). They may be fixed, daily tasks or they may vary daily.

It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor. Everyone has good habits and bad habits. Good habits will make you rich. Bad habits will make you poor. This is why I refer to them as Rich Habits and Poverty Habits. If you want to be successful in life you need to have more good habits than bad habits. Habits, whether good or bad, are hard to change. Experts debate how to change a habit and how long it takes. I’m here to tell you to forget about trying to get rid of your Poverty Habits by force of will. It doesn’t work. Instead, focus on adding a couple of Rich Habits.

Here’s why. Life is like a seesaw. On one side of the seesaw are your Poverty Habits and on the other side are your Rich Habits. If you have more Poverty Habits than Rich Habits you will be poor. If you have more Rich Habits than Poverty Habits you will be rich. Adding just two or three Rich Habits is all it takes to change your life and get your seesaw tipping in the right direction. You don’t need to worry about getting rid of any of your habits. Just add some good ones. The interesting thing is that Rich Habits are like dominoes. When you add a Rich Habit it changes your other habits. Adding Rich Habits actually makes it easier to eliminate your Poverty Habits.

Let me give you an example. Suppose you add the Rich Habit of jogging 20-30 minutes every day. What happens? You begin to lose weight. Someone notices and compliments you. You feel good. So you keep exercising. More people notice and they compliment you. You feel even better than before. Now you start to crave more of those compliments. So you start to watch what you eat. You throw in a few vegetables and throw out a few bags of potato chips. The number of junk food calories you eat (a Poverty Habit) starts to go down. Then you decide to jog even more. But the problem is you smoke cigarettes and you cough like a maniac after every jog. You decide to cut back on smoking cigarettes (a Poverty Habit), maybe even eliminate them.

This is the power of the Rich Habits. No will power required. When you add a few Rich Habits to your daily routine they compete with and eventually overpower your Poverty Habits. Your seesaw then begins to tip in the right direction….. towards success!