Develop the Habits to Create Opportunity Luck, Achieve Consistent Success, and Build Wealth
Wealth is a byproduct of success. It is the carrot at the end of the stick. Take away that carrot and you remove the desire to pursue success.
Socialism not only takes away that carrot, it extinguishes the success traits that make success and wealth possible: hard work ethic, creativity, persistence, genius, good habits, overcoming fear and the courageous pursuit of dreams and goals.
Success is therefore impossible in a Socialist society.
Thankfully, America’s founding fathers knew this.
In order to encourage the pursuit of success in America, our founders built into the framework of our US Constitution certain principles that fuel the pursuit of success. These were liberty, limited government, and property rights. Property rights being the right to keep the wealth you produce without it being taken away by government.
These principles enabled America to become the economic behemoth it is today.
These principles are codified into what we call the American Dream. But, the American Dream is different things to different people.
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I am very fortunate. I was able to find 177 heroes to worship. They are the self-made millionaires in my Rich Habits Study who taught me right from wrong, good habits from bad habits and the right path vs. the wrong path. They were my success mentors, teaching me what to do and what not to do in life.
Once I was able to quantify the Rich Habits most of the self-made millionaires had in common, I began to adopt many of those habits myself. Within five years I began to see significant changes in my life, financially, physically and mentally.
It was only then that I realized how important having heroes in your life can be. They help transform your life.
Each success hero you find can inspire you, motivate you, direct you. They force you to self-evaluate and can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses.
You can have multiple heroes. As I discovered in my study, the more the better. By better, I mean, the faster the changes will be in your life.
Where can you find your success heroes?
The good news is that they are all around you.
You can find them by volunteering – they are on the boards and committees of non-profit groups.
You can find them at the workplace, those exceptional employees, bosses or clients/customers doing exceptional work.
You can find them in classrooms, teaching.
They’re alive in biographies and autobiographies.
They can be found at seminars, webinars, podcasts, YouTube videos and TEDx videos.
Anyone working hard to grow and improve can be your hero.
When you find one, study how they live their lives, how they manage their lives, their work ethic, who they surround themselves with, their habits, etc. Get to know them and make them a part of your inner circle.
It’s never too late. Find your success heroes today. Follow their breadcrumbs. Those breadcrumbs will steer you in the right direction and help you find success in your life.
And wealth will follow.
My mission is to share my unique research in order to help others realize their dreams and achieve their goals. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Subscribe. Thank You!
A paper published by the University of Cologne in Germany in the May 2015 Journal of Personality and Psychology, in which more than 68,000 Americans and Europeans were studied, found that pessimism causes poverty.
The study noted that pessimism makes you wary of trusting others. It went on to argue that when you see people in a pessimistic light – untrustworthy, self-interested and deceitful – you are less likely and less willing to rely on others.
Those in the study who were the most pessimistic, also happened to be the poorest. If you are wary about trusting others, you’re likely to have a lower income now and in the future, the study concluded.
Conversely, those in the study who were optimistic, had a more trusting view of others and a higher income than the pessimists. Pessimists miss out on opportunities because they are less likely to ask for help and less likely to collaborate with others.
No one succeeds on their own. I’ve written about this often. You need apostles to your cause. You need others who believe in your cause in order to succeed. It is virtually impossible to succeed on your own.
The most successful self-made millionaires in my Rich Habits Study had a dedicated team behind them. They also happened to be the most optimistic people to work with. Their unbridled optimism was like a magnet, attracting like-minded, optimists to their cause.
If you’re a pessimist, you are literally sabotaging your life. You are pushing away the very people you need in order to succeed.
The good news is that pessimism is just a habit. You can change your mindset from negative to positive.
Here’s how: Detox Your Brain
My mission is to share my unique research in order to help others realize their dreams and achieve their goals. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Subscribe. Thank You!
Building a wealthy, healthy and happy life is just a process.
The process always begins with a vision of the ideal, future life you desire. This could be ten, fifteen or twenty years into the future.
That future life is actually the realization of a collage of dreams that forms the picture of your ideal, perfect, future life. Each dream is something very personal that you desire – the ideal job, $1 million in your investment accounts, a vacation home, no debt, good health, etc.
Your dreams must be what You want. Not what others want for you. Putting your ladder on someone else’s wall will eventually lead to unhappiness and a life of drudgery. As Steve Jobs said in the 2005 Stanford commencement address: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living some Else’s life.”
Pursue YOUR dreams. Not those of your parents, teachers or some other significant influence in your life.
In order to make that ideal life a reality, you need to follow a process I call Dream-Setting:
Building new daily habits isn’t difficult if you know what to do. It simply takes time and consistency. Consistency is the key.
There is an easy trick that you can use in order to forge new daily habits to help you accomplish the goals behind the dreams that make up your ideal, future life. This habit shortcut virtually guarantees they stick. It’s called the 20 Minute Habit Shortcut.
The 20 Minute Habit Shortcut involves a simple three-step process:
1. Define a daily activity that will help you accomplish a specific goal.
2. Devote 20 minutes a day to that new activity.
3. Repeat that activity every day for 30 days.
The new activity could be:
Thirty days gets your brain cells talking to one another, forming a synapse. Once the synapse is formed, the tracks are laid for habit formation to occur. Over time, it will become easier and easier to engage in the activity. At some point, between 66 – 256 days, according to the latest science on habits change, the daily activity will become an automatic, unconscious behavior, also known as a habit.
The brain loves habits. Habits conserve brain fuel and free up the prefrontal cortex by shifting control of the habit to the limbic system. Once freed up, the prefrontal cortex can now focus on other important things. But it does take repetition and time in order to get brain cells talking to each other. Thirty days gets the conversation going inside the brain.
Once your new habit sticks, then you can move on to your next new habit, following the same three-step process.
In the course of a year you will add three or more new habits using this three-step process. In a few years you will have created dozens of new habits and your life will begin to improve as you accomplish one goal after another and realize one dream after another.
Habits are like snowflakes on the side of a steep mountain. You hardly notice, on a daily basis, the snow accumulating. But after many months, that accumulation is so significant, it causes an avalanche.
Like snowflakes on a steep mountain, the effects of Rich Habits and Poor Habits, on a daily basis, are hard to see. However, after many years, the cumulative effect of those habits are readily noticed. Rich Habits produce an avalanche of positive consequences and Poor Habits produce an avalanche of negative consequences.
This invisibility of the effects of habits is why, when success hits, it appears to the outside observer as if that person became an overnight success. They only see the avalanche of success event. What they are unable to see is the daily devotion to Rich Habits, those years of engaging in certain constructive daily routines, that created the avalanche of success event.
Define your ideal, future life today – a clear vision of who you want to be ten years into the future. Then start your success journey by pursuing just one goal and build daily activities around that one goal. Stick with it until those activities become habits. Then move on to the next goal. Baby step your way to success, goal by goal, dream by dream.
Each dream you realize is another rung on your ladder. Your ideal, future life awaits you at the top of that ladder.
My mission is to share my unique research in order to help others realize their dreams and achieve their goals. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Subscribe. Thank You!
A picture of Bill Gates recently went viral. It showed him standing in line at a local fast food restaurant patiently waiting for his burger and fries. The picture drew a lot of favorable comments on social media.
What made the picture go viral was the modesty it projected of one of the world’s wealthiest individuals. It defied the perception so many have of wealthy people.
Most would write off Bill Gates’ humility as an exception to the rule.
But is it?
Well, according to my Rich Habits Study, the only study of its kind, the answer depends on the type of millionaire you happen to be.
The self-made millionaires in my study who struck gold before the age of 40 (about 1%), were more likely to embrace the millionaire lifestyle by supersizing their lives with expensive homes, luxury cars, Rolex watches and exotic travel. Humility, unfortunately, is not a word I would use to describe them.
Conversely, the other 99% of my self-made millionaires took twenty years or more to accumulate their millions and these millionaires retained their humble ways throughout their millionaire years.
Most eschewed country clubs, golf course memberships, exotic vacations and expensive toys. They kept their homes, their old cars and their modest mindset. Old friends and neighbors didn’t change.
The only common “luxury” these millionaires seemed to indulge in was a vacation home.
Otherwise, their lives, to outside observers, is very ordinary. What some might call, a humble life.
My humble Rich Habits millionaires and Bill Gates are not an aberration, however. As you’ll see, there are many humble millionaires out there.
Warren Buffet lives a very ordinary, humble life for a billionaire. Besides the fact he’s lived in the same home for over 55 years and drives himself to work, he’s more than a littl frugal with his money. Every morning his significant other, Astrid, lays out the exact amount of money he needs to buy his morning breakfast – a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich (CNBC: Warren Buffett eats the same thing for breakfast every day and it never costs more than $3.17).
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, lives in a 2,400 square foot modest condo in Palo Alto, California. A self-professed “workaholic”, when Cook isn’t working, he spends the rest of his time working out (Inc: Tim Cook buys his department-store underwear on sale).
Buffy the Vampire actress, Sarah Michelle Gellar, is a self-professed, discount shopper. And, when she is not spending time with her family or acting, she’s volunteering at local, community-based charitable organizations.
Rob Gronkowski, tight end for the New England Patriots, invests 100% of his salary and spends his non-salary money very frugally. He claims the only luxury item he owns is diamond necklace he bought himself after the 2017 football season ended (CNBC: Rob Gronkowski, who hasn’t touched his NFL money in 8 years, finally splurged on his first ‘luxury’).
Billionaire, David Cheriton, was one of the early investors in Google. Despite his enormous wealth, he continues to teach at Stanford University, drives a modest car and cuts his own hair, to save money.
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, lives in a $1,200 a month trailer park. He considers himself a minimalist and finds serenity in his simple, humble life.
My mission is to share my unique research in order to help others realize their dreams and achieve their goals. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Subscribe. Thank You!
There are many reasons individuals seek wealth.
When the reasons are driven by the desire to acquire things, then the WHY isn’t usually powerful enough, and wealth is elusive or fleeting.
When your WHY is powerful, however, than the likelihood you will accumulate the wealth you desire increases ten-fold.
What makes a WHY powerful?
What is Your WHY for being rich?
Is it a Powerful WHY?
When your WHY is powerful, it will stimulate you to take action. That initial action becomes a catalyst, generating more action by feeding you with a never-ending supply of motivation and persistence – two common traits of ALL self-made millionaires.
Self-motivation and persistence are formidable allies in the pursuit of wealth. They enable you to overcome obstacles. They help you to grow in knowledge. They allow you to acquire and perfect skills, until you become a Virtuoso at what you do.
Finding a powerful WHY is where it all begins. It sets everything in motion.
Don’t wait, however, for that WHY to find you. It won’t. You must go out and find it yourself. It’s out there, waiting to be discovered.
Each morning, find a quiet place. Close your eyes, silence your mind and focus your thoughts on one singular thing: Help me find a WHY that really matters to me?
This directs your subconscious to go to work, behind the scenes, in search for the answer.
It won’t happen overnight. It takes time. But eventually your subconscious, through intuition, will answer. And when it does, you will find yourself unable to ignore it.
Your WHY will forever haunt you, night and day, until you have no choice but to surrender to that voice and take action.
We have two brains. A New Brain and an Old Brain.
The New Brain is also known as the neocortex, or outer layer of the brain.
The Old Brain is composed of two parts: the Brain Stem and the Limbic System.
The New Brain has only been around for about 200,000 years. It is the CEO of the brain and houses your executive functions. Some refer to the New Brain as the conscious brain.
The Old Brain has been around for millions of years. It houses all of your emotions and controls the autonomic functions of the body. Some refer to the Old Brain as the subconscious brain.
Because your Old Brain has been around so much longer than your New Brain, it is infinitely more powerful. It can perform many functions simultaneously, whereas the New Brain can only focus on one thing at a time.
The Old Brain is also where all of your beliefs and habits are stored.
Those beliefs and habits dictate most of your thinking and behaviors.
When your beliefs and habits are destructive, your thinking and behaviors will be destructive. And the circumstances of your life will mirror your destructive thinking and behaviors.
In that mirror you will find all sorts of catastrophic outcomes: poverty, joblessness, broken relationships, hatred, anger, envy, poor health, addictions, failure, ignorance and unhappiness.
So, in order to change the circumstances of your life, you need re-wire your Old Brain. You do this by changing your beliefs and habits from destructive to constructive.
A negative mental outlook breeds destructive beliefs and habits.
A positive mental outlook breeds constructive beliefs and habits.
In order to re-wire your Old Brain, you therefore need to shift your mental outlook from negative to positive.
You jump start this shift to a positive mental outlook through gratitude. Gratitude is the gateway to a positive mental outlook.
By focusing on what is right about your life, instead of what is wrong, you change the lens through which you view your life from negative to positive.
Once that shift begins to stick, your Old Brain will find it impossible to hold on to old destructive beliefs and habits that are inconsistent with your new positive outlook.
In its place, the Old Brain will substitute new constructive beliefs and habits that are consistent with your new positive outlook.
It won’t happen overnight, but within about six months, this re-wiring will become permanent. And that’s when all the fun starts – your life will begin to change in ways you only dreamed of.
Positivity is a magnet for happiness and success and gratitude turns that magnet on.
