Many people have heard of Francis Crick. In 1983, Crick received a Nobel prize for his discovery of the helical structure (snake-like structure) of DNA.

But Crick also spent 30 years studying sleep. Specifically, how sleep affects memory and skills. Crick’s theories remained just that, theories, until Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep) came along and conducted various experiments that helped confirm many of Crick’s sleep theories.

One such theory was that learning, followed by sleep, strengthened the retention of facts and also helped to boost skill memory.

In various experiments, Walker had participants learn new facts or new skills. One group was then permitted to sleep while the other control group did not sleep. The group that slept experienced a 20-35% increase in retention and accuracy – they were able to retain more facts or perform their new skills better.

The results of Walker’s experiments showed that offline learning occurs during deep sleep. Put another way, practice does not make perfect – practice, followed by a night of sleep, is what leads to mastery.

For those of you pursuing a dream or success, Walker’s insights are critical to your journey.

The pursuit of a dream or success forces you to gain knowledge or skills you didn’t otherwise possess. Those who forge good sleep habits, increase the chances for success by boosting the retention of new facts and perfecting the new skills acquired in the pursuit of a dream or success.

In short, learn or practice and then follow that learning/practice by a good night’s sleep. The offline process of deep sleep will help solidify what you learn and will improve your skills, increasing your chances of success.

According to the latest science, pessimism inhibits brain performance and your ability to think clearly becomes impaired.

The famous 1998 and 2001 Broaden and Build Studies by B.L. Frederickson concluded that positivity and optimism increase your ability to focus by broadening the capacity of your brain to focus and solve problems.

Conversely, Frederickson found that pessimism narrowed your ability to focus by partially shutting down the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, you executive command and control center and the seat of creativity.

In short, optimism supercharges your brain and opens your entire brain up to creativity and problem solving, while pessimism suppresses brain performance and creativity.

• When you are optimistic, your risk tolerance levels increase – You are less afraid to take risks.
• When you are optimistic, you become more social and outgoing – You forge more meaningful relationships with others.
• When you are optimistic, you are more creative.
• When you are optimistic, solutions to problems come easier.
• When you are optimistic, your cognitive abilities increase – You become smarter.
• When you are optimistic, you feel more enthusiastic about everything you do.
• When you are optimistic, you feel happy about life.
• When you are optimistic, your confidence is high.
• When you are optimistic, fear no longer holds you back from taking action.
• When you are optimistic, your imagination runs wild.
• When you are optimistic, you are more apt to pursue your dreams and goals.
• When you are optimistic, obstacles and impediments are easier to overcome.
• When you are optimistic, you become more persistent – Challenges, fears and obstacles no longer stop you in your tracks.

But how do you flip the switch on your mental outlook from pessimism to optimism?

The short answer is, you have to feed optimism the right kind of food every day:

• Exercise – Forge the daily habit of exercising aerobically (i.e. walking, jogging, biking) and anaerobically (i.e. weight training, core workouts, strength training). Exercise increases SNF2H and BDNF, nerve growth factors which improve brain cells or create new brain cells.
• Dream-Set – Create a script or vision of your ideal, perfect, future life. Read your script every day for 30 days. This will feed your subconscious with new directives. Intuition will speak to you – telling you which goals to pursue.
• Develop some new skill – This forces the brain to re-wire itself. The brain loves growing synapses and will reward you by boosting dopamine, a happiness neurochemical, every time you engage in that new skill.
• Practice – Improve existing skills through daily repetition.
• Self-Educate – Increase your knowledge by reading, listening and watching content that is educational or related to your career/vocation.
• Sleep 7 to 8 hours a day.
• Eat healthy.
• Experiment – Do novel things. The brain loves novelty and will reward you with a boost in norepinephrine, another happiness neurochemical.
• Forge new relationships with other optimistic people. This boosts serotonin levels, Serotonin is another happiness neurochemical.

These daily habits naturally boost happiness neurochemicals (Dopamine, Serotonin and Norepinephrine), making you feel upbeat, optimistic and happy. They also require your brain and improve brain cell health and efficiency.

Success takes many years.

For the self-made millionaire-Dreamers (those who pursued a dream) and the Virtuosos (those who were experts in their field) in my Rich Habits Study, it took anywhere from twelve to twenty years to realize success and experience the perk or byproduct of success – wealth.

Because success takes such a long time, it’s impossible for passion alone to carry you through the ups and downs that you no doubt experience during the pursuit of success.

The ups you experience typically coincide with minor victories, overcoming obstacles, discovering solutions to seemingly intractable problems and the realization of good luck in the form of Opportunity Luck, which is infrequent but nonetheless present during the journey.

Passion is easy to find during those up cycles.

The downs you experience typically coincide with the minor failures, pitfalls, problems and the bouts of bad luck you experience along the way.

Passion is hard to find during those down cycles.

Passion is critical for success, especially in the early stages of your success journey. But if you depend entirely on passion for success, the loss of passion during the down periods will stop you in your tracks.

When you forge good daily habits (Rich Habits) you don’t need to depend on passion to keep you going.

Habits are daily behaviors, thinking, emotions and decisions that are automatic and immunize you to the ups and downs that are part of the success journey. Because habits are automatic, you will engage in them during up periods and down periods.

Good habits, therefore, take the need for uninterrupted passion, out of success equation.

That is why habits are so important to success. Good habits put you on autopilot for success.

Successful people forge habits which help automate success.

Those habits inch them closer and closer to success and because they are a slow, methodical process, success takes many years.

The source of habits comes from many places – parents, mentors, their team (habits spread like a virus throughout your social networks), books they read about other successful people, school of hard knocks, etc.

But a recurring theme among self-made millionaires is how they set themselves on the path towards habit change. These success habits, or Rich Habits, can be sourced to something called Power Decisions.

These are decisions or choices that, in effect, set you on the path to success. When you make a Power Decision, it is always a decision to take action on something you are passionate about:

• The Power Decision to pursue a dream.
• The Power Decision to partner with the right individual or individuals.
• The Power Decision to pursue some vocation.
• The Power Decision to forge specific skills that transform you into a Virtuoso.
• The Power Decision to start a side gig, while employed.
• The Power Decision to quit a full-time job and go into business for yourself.
• The Power Decision to change careers.
• The Power Decision to take on some major creative initiative (writing a book, creating an app, design something that could be monetized, like an online website, to blog about something that interests them, to become a speaker, coach, etc).

In the moment, Power Decisions do not necessarily appear to be life changing. But they almost always are. They spur you on to engage in activities that take you down rabbit holes; rabbit holes you then spend the rest of your life in.

Power Decisions are always the result of some passion that is unleashed and set free. That passion builds through action – action fuels even more passion.

Power Decisions force you to grow, to gain knowledge, to improve your skills and to build relationships with people who help you grow and who create Opportunity Luck by opening closed doors.

And that’s where habits come in. In order to gain knowledge, improve skills and build relationships with the right people, you must forge habits that make that growth possible on a daily basis.

Power Decisions, therefore, force habit change and help automate growth, carrying you inch by inch up the mountain of success, until you eventually become the person you need to be in order for success to visit you.

When you make a Power Decision, everything about your life changes. Power Decisions force habit change and those habits make success possible.

One of the hallmarks of very successful people is that they are:

• Adept at assessing personalities.
• Surround themselves with upbeat, positive, optimistic, outgoing, open-minded, can-do personality types and
• Avoid Toxic, negative, closed-minded personality types.

Researchers from Northwestern University recently re-defined the nature of personality types by sifting through data from more than 1.5 million respondents of the following personality surveys: John Johnson’s IPIP-NEO Questionaire, myPersonality Project respondents and the BBC Big Personality Test database.

According to the study, individuals fall into one of four personality categories:

1. Average – Somewhat high-strung and extroverted. These individuals display nervous, compulsive and obsessive traits while at the same time are very outgoing. Most people fall into this category.
2. Reserved – Not particularly outgoing, somewhat agreeable (get-along types), trustworthy and do not get nervous or anxious.
3. Role Models – Laid-back, mellow, outgoing, open-minded and dependable, trustworthy types.
4. Self-Centered – Very outgoing, however these individuals display personality characteristics which make them unreliable, disagreeable, closed-minded, confrontational and their lives are filled with drama.

According to my Rich Habits research, successful individuals would seek out individuals who possess both the Reserved and Role Model characteristics. They would also avoid individuals who fall into the Self-Centered personality profile.

You will only be as successful as the individuals you surround yourself with. It is therefore paramount to understand the various personality characteristics of others – you must become adept at assessing personalities and build a team with the personality traits that make success possible.

If you want to succeed in life, you must learn what to do and what not to do.

This learning is also known as personal growth. One of the hallmarks of the self-made millionaires in my study is that they forged daily habits which automated daily personal growth:

• Reading to Learn – 30 minutes or more every day.
• Deliberate Practice – Practicing certain skills every day until they create muscle memory.
• Analytical Practice – Practicing certain skills every day and having another expert with similar advanced skills evaluate you and provide feedback. Think coach or mentor.
• Novelty – Engaging in or experimenting with new activities in order to learn or develop new skills. The brain loves novelty and rewards this effort by boosting dopamine, one of the happiness neurochemicals produced by brain cells.
• Pursuing Dreams/Goals – The pursuit of a dream and the goals behind your dreams forces you outside your comfort zone. In order to realize your dreams/goals, you must take action. Oftentimes, especially in the beginning, that action leads to mistakes and failures. But those mistakes and failures force you to learn and grow.

Conversely, one of the hallmarks of poor people and unsuccessful people, is that they eschew personal growth for Do-Nothing Habits, like watching TV, wasting time on the Internet (think Facebook/Instagram/YouTube, etc.), partying, the pursuit of recreational activities, etc.

Learning what to do and what not to do takes time. But there is an Easy Way and a Hard Way:

1. The Easy Way – Find a success mentor and learn from their mistakes and failures. This means you avoid making mistakes and failing by following their sage advice and direction. Making mistakes and failure costs you valuable time and money. Mentors save you from wasting your time and money.
2. The Hard Way – Taking action and learning, through the school of hard knocks, what works and what doesn’t work. This is the hard way because it often costs you time and money to learn what not to do. It is also an emotional roller coaster ride. Negative emotions result when things go wrong and positive emotions result when things go right. The Hard Way requires an enormous amount of persistence and patience.

Either way is a path to success. If you are unable to find mentors, the Hard Way may be your only option.

But mentors are everywhere. They populate the boards and committees at local community non-profits. They can be found where your work, at local community colleges, at places of worship, in books, on the Internet, on blogs, in podcasts, in Ted Talk videos, etc.

A January 2008 study on 973 pairs of adult twins, many of whom were identical, found that 50% of happiness was genetic. The remaining 50% was dictated by your behaviors, environment, associations, finances and other factors.

In this study, the researchers established six components that were indicators of happiness:

#1 Self-Acceptance – Essentially, this is about liking who you are.

#2 Life Control – Having control over the direction of your life.

#3 Personal Growth – The daily pursuit of self-improvement and growth as a human being.

#4 Positive Relationships – Surrounding yourself with upbeat, optimistic, loving, happy people.

#5 Pursuit of Goals – Regularly creating and pursuing goals that are important to you.

#6 Autonomy/Independence – Being self-reliant and not dependent on others for maintaining your standard of living.

These six factors are influenced by your behaviors, actions, habits and the relationships you decide to surround yourself with.

Is it possible to increase each of these six factors?

The answer is yes. In my book, Change Your Habits Change Your Life, I devote a great deal of content to Happiness Habits – daily habits which boost these six factors. Here’s some of that content:

• Daily Exercise
• Daily Learning
• Rich Relationships – Eliminating or minimizing exposure to toxic people and forging relationships with upbeat, positive, enthusiastic individuals.
• Practiced Positivity – Read upbeat content, meditate, listen to inspirational music, watch inspirational videos meditate, looking for things to be grateful for, etc.
• Pursuing Dreams and the Goals Behind Your Dreams.
• Saving Money and Investing Those Savings Prudently – Saving 20% or more of your income and investing it prudently will eventually make you financially independent.

When you have Happiness Habits, you automate happiness. Make happiness a habit!

There’s a path that leads from the street to my front yard. I put it there many years ago, right before the college graduation party we were throwing for my middle child, Kirsten. I wanted a place for some of the party people to walk after parking their cars in our cul-de-sac. There are about twenty 12 x 12 paver stones. Really nice looking stones.

Well, I was sitting on my front stoop the other night. I looked at each one of those stones and thought how they very much seemed to me to represent the chapters in my life.

The first stone, working my way through college. The next stone for meeting my future wife. Another for marriage. The following stone, getting that big job at Arthur Andersen. Right after that was the stone that represented going to graduate school at night. Another for starting our family. There was a stone for our first main home. One for my relocation to Rhode Island. There was also the stone for the failed start-up that almost put me into bankruptcy and divorce.

There were three subsequent stones for each one of my kids graduating college. I am very proud of those stones.

Their were happy stones and sad stones.

The last stone on my path is the one I love the most. It’s the stone that represents the dream I decided to pursue so many years ago – to become a successful writer. What a beautiful stone!

We are all walking a path in life. Each step, a new chapter. Some chapters are good and some not so good.

But, the chapters we will remember most are the ones that represent the dreams we decide to pursue.

The pursuit of happiness is the one common denominator of all human beings. People will spend their entire lives in the pursuit of happiness.

But, if you don’t know the true path towards long-term happiness, you can get lost along the way and pursue false paths to happiness.

Recreational drugs, alcohol, sex, excessive recreation/entertainment, and other similar pursuits can offer a temporary boost in certain neurochemicals (dopamine and oxytocin) which create a short-lived euphoria often misinterpreted as happiness.

Those chemically-induced false happiness activities always return individuals to their geneticly-predetermined happiness baseline. That return to baseline happiness, that crash, that reversal of euphoria, drives many individuals to return to those activities which caused the artificial spike in happiness. Unless intentionally controlled, this pursuit of false happiness becomes a habit and a cycle of happiness-unhappiness that can lead to addiction.

There’s a better way. In my study of the rich and poor, I discovered that there are five activities that lead to true, long-term happiness:

1. Doing Something That You Love – This could be the pursuit of a dream, sports activities, a hobby, exercise, music, art, etc. When you engage in activities that make your heart sing, happiness follows.
2. Adding Value to the Lives of Others – When you engage in activities that improve the lives of others, that satisfaction, that happiness, sticks. Even better, when those activities can be monetized, you are able to build a career out of helping others and enjoy a lifetime of happiness.
3. Spending Time With Those You Love – Spending time with our closest relationships give us great satisfaction, or happiness. The more time we spend with our loved ones, the happier we are.
4. Happiness Events – Weekends with family/friends, spending time with family/friends at your vacation home, a cruise, a trip to Europe, a night out with loved ones – all of these things represent happiness activities. The more happiness activities you can fill your life with, the happier you will be.
5. Removing Worry From Your Life – Worry makes you unhappy. Removing worries, makes you feel happy. Example #1 – Financial Struggle: If your job does not generate enough income, you will struggle to pay your bills. That struggle creates unhappiness. So, you go to school at night and after several years get a degree or some certification which allows you to get a higher paying job, ending your financial struggles. That creates happiness. Example #2 Obesity – Your obesity has resulted in Type II Diabetes. So, you decide to exercise and watch what you eat. You lose weight and your blood sugar levels return to normal, ending your Diabetes and its associated health problems. That creates happiness.

You might notice a common theme in the above – activity. Always seek activities which create a sense of fulfillment and at the end of that activity you will find true happiness.

When was the last time you played the lottery?

If the answer is “this morning”, you might want to keep reading.

The media likes writing stories about lottery winners because the masses like reading about their stories. For those who consistently play the lottery, the stories offer a sort of validation.

But when you peel the onion, the fantasy about winning the lottery is really all about a mindset that embraces instant gratification, instant rewards and instant wealth, without enduring any of the hardship pursuing wealth actually requires.

If you look carefully at any of those lottery-winner stories, one thing you would notice is that hardly any of the winners are CEOs, senior executives, successful entrepreneurs, successful professionals or other successful types.

Why?

As I learned from my five-year study on the rich and the poor, successful people don’t play the lottery because they don’t have a lottery mindset.

What is the lottery mindset?

It is the idea that there is a shortcut to wealth; that it is possible to become instantly wealthy by virtue of random good luck.

The problem is, those who have the lottery mindset are not living in reality. The lottery mindset is a fantasy with odds that boggle the mind.

In the 25-year history of the Iowa Lottery, for example, only 110 people won $1 million or more. That equates to about 4 millionaire-lottery winners a year. In 2006, there were 50,529 millionaires in Iowa. If you do the math, only about .0079% of all Iowa millionaires are, therefore, lottery winners. Not a very promising path to wealth.

But this lottery mindset is not just about playing the lottery. It’s about embracing uneducated risk and speculating with your money.

People who frequent casinos, have a lottery mindset. The recent masses jumping on the bitcoin bandwagon, have a lottery mindset. People who invest in start-ups they know little to nothing about, have a lottery mindset.

The lottery mindset brainwashes you into believing that there is an easier path towards wealth. One in which you are not required to do the requisite heavy lifting, that success requires.

Those with a lottery mindset do not pursue their dreams. They do not set goals. They do not step outside their comfort zone, experimenting and learning new things. They do not engage in daily self-improvement as a whetstone in developing expert knowledge or skills.

The demographics of those who buy into this get rich quick lottery mindset are typically poor people who see the lottery as the only available means by which they can level the playing field and become rich. Winning the lottery is the result of random luck, of which the rich have no advantage over the poor.

The lottery mindset brainwashes you into believing that there is an easier path towards wealth. One in which you are not required to do the requisite heavy lifting, that success requires.

But according to my research, there is no easier path. Wealth is a byproduct of success and success is a byproduct of doing certain things every day that help move you closer and closer to success.

In my most famous books, Rich Habits and Change Your Habits Change Your Life, I share the habits many millionaires have in common. For those who haven’t read any of my books, here’s a quick overview of seven of those Rich Habits:

#1 Success Requires Goal-Driven Actions/Behaviors

Goals are the construction crew self-made millionaires use to build their financial empires. In my research, these self-made millionaires created goals around their dreams and then spent as many as twelve years pursuing those goals.

#2 Success Requires the Pursuit of Some Dream

One of the three paths to wealth that I uncovered in my research was the pursuit of a dream. In the context of wealth creation, dreams are ideas that you can monetize. Dreamers are typically entrepreneurs who are very passionate about their dreams and fanatically spend every available moment thinking and taking action on their dreams.

#3 Success Requires Sacrifice

Typically, this sacrifice involves the expenditure of time, especially in the early stages, which limits how much time you are able to spend with close family and friends.

#4 Success Requires Practice

In order to succeed you must become a Virtuoso at what you do. This means you must practice what you do every day. There are two types of practice: Deliberate Practice, which requires daily repetition and Analytical Practice, which requires third party feedback, as in a coach or mentor.

#5 Success Requires Relentless Persistence

One common refrain from all of the self-made millionaires in my study was that it would take death or some long-term disability to stop them from the pursuit of success. Their fanatical obsession in turning their dream into a reality imbibes them with the Rich Habit of persistence.

#6 Success Requires Daily Study

Reading to learn thirty minutes or more every day in order to gain critical career-centric knowledge was a common attribute among the self-made millionaires in my study.

#7 Success is Fueled by Aerobic Exercise

Aerobic exercise increases the myelin sheath around the axons of brain cells, which helps boost your IQ. Aerobic exercise also increases the flow of oxygen into the brain, which helps clean and strengthen brain cells. Lastly, aerobic exercise produces greater neurogenesis – the birth of new brain cells in the hippocampus portion of the brain. Due to this aerobic exercise Rich Habit, the self-made millionaires in my study had vastly superior cognitive abilities, which helped them solve problems, be creative and overcome obstacles.

There are no shortcuts in life to accumulating wealth. That’s the real secret to becoming rich, if there is one.

The lottery mindset is either a cop-out for those who are unwilling to do the heavy lifting success requires or a Hail Mary pass for those mired in poverty and feeling helpless.

You’re not helpless. Poverty can be overcome. I know. I interviewed 72 self-made millionaires who were raised in poverty and who overcame that poverty by forging habits that eventually led to success and wealth.