One of the interesting things I learned from studying self-made millionaires was the almost unanimous agreement that they all felt that they were not working hard enough. I found this ironic since 65% of them had a minimum of three revenue streams they were managing.

“So why, Mr. or Mrs. Self-made Millionaire do you think you’re lazy?” I asked.

“I love what I do and it just doesn’t feel like work,” was almost everyone’s response.

That got me excited because for most of my adult life I have had the belief and feeling that my work was hard (I am a CPA, CFP and specialize in taxes/financial planning). Conversely, when I was writing books, doing media interviews, speaking in front of groups and training organizations on the Rich Habits, I felt as if that wasn’t true work. At least it didn’t feel like work when I was doing it. And now I finally understand why. When you love what you’re doing, I mean really love what you’re doing, it does not feel like work.

I learned from my research that the fastest way to accumulate the most money isn’t through hard work (by hard work I mean devoting a lot of time to doing something that feels like work). It’s doing what you love. When you do what you love, you will devote more hours to it, become more expert at it and if that expertise is in demand, you will make more money than competitors who lack your passion and expertise.

Definiteness of purpose puts you on the path to success. Uncertainty puts you on the path of failure. Most people put their own ladder on someone Else’s wall. They pursue careers not of their own choosing. One group in this category takes the advice of well-meaning family members, typically parents or family members, who tell them to be an accountant, attorney, doctor, plumber, priest, etc. Another group in this category falls into some career without giving it any thought at all. They have a sort of, “well I might as well become a cop, or fireman, or insurance agent or (fill in the blank).” They pick their career out of a hat without knowing that much about it or if it’s the right career for them.

But those who make the most money and accumulate the most wealth in life are those who know what they want to do. They have a well thought-out plan and they pursue it. They put their own ladder on their own wall.

There is a solution that can help individuals who put their ladders on someone else’s wall. And it resides in the school system. A one year course on careers that introduces our children to a variety of careers will give them an opportunity to be exposed to the many career options that are out there. The best time for this course is early in high school. This will get their imaginations going and help them find their passion in life. It will help them choose a career that interests them.

We pick up most of our habits from our parents. Habits, it turns out, are generational. According to a recent study by Brown University, in which nearly 50,000 families were surveyed, most of the habits we pick up in life come from our parents (Brown Study). A recent study by the American Journal of Public Health found that 38% of children of parents who smoke will experiment with cigarettes and that 15% will, like their parents, become addicted. If your parents had bad habits it is likely those habits rubbed off on you.

Are you aware of your bad habits? Have you ever tracked your habits for two or three days? Most haven’t. Most are blissfully unaware of the habits they have. This is a problem because 40% of all of your behaviors, thinking and choices are habits (Duke Study 2006) But in order to change bad habits you need to first become aware of them. Awareness is the key to starting any habit change process.

For three work days track all of your daily activities. You will see there are certain activities that you repeat every day. These are habits. Then identify with a + or – which ones are good or bad habits. This makes you aware of the habits you have. The next step is to replace one bad habit with one good habit every month. Start with small habits. Starting small gives you momentum and confidence. In one year’s time, you will have changed 24 habits (12 old habits replaced by 12 good habits). Habit change is the key to changing your life. Habits put success on autopilot.

Success takes a long time. In my Rich Habits study it took an average of 32 years for most millionaires to build their wealth. The longer it takes for you to build your success foundation the deeper and more solid your foundation will be. Your level of success in life is directly correlated to the depth of your foundation. The deeper and stronger your foundation the more success you will realize in life. This is why those who experience success quickly and early in life see that same success evaporate just as quickly. The more time you devote to building your foundation for success, the more sustained will your success be.

Building that foundation requires that you continuously grow and change as an individual. The more you invest in your growth (i.e. reading to learn every day), the more you change and the greater your growth. The least valuable thing that millionaires have is money. The most important thing they have is who they became (knowledge, skill and the number of power relationships they forged in life) that enabled them to accumulate that money.

Failure is another one of those evil “F” words. Since childhood we are indoctrinated to avoid failure. It’s embedded into our education system. As a child, you experience failure for the first time when you fail a test. The teacher puts a big “F” on your test and immediately you learn that failure is bad.  Our education system has been enormously successful in indoctrinating future generations into believing failure is a very bad thing. As a result, our children learn very quickly to avoid failure at all costs. In this system, when you fail, you are berated and punished. This breaks down morale, destroys self-confidence, subdues enthusiasm, which dulls your imagination and derails you from taking risks, creating goals and pursuing dreams. As a result of this indoctrination, failure stops most in its tracks.

This is the opposite of what should be happening. When you fail at something the logical response should be to figure out where you went wrong and then apply that new knowledge and try again. Thomas Edison did this. He failed over 10,000 times with his incandescent lightbulb. Edison was able to leverage failure, converting it into a stepping stone to success. Edison proved that there is far more value in failing than in succeeding. You learn more from failure than you do from success. Failure teaches you what no to do in life. In a sense, failure is the most valuable lesson you can learn in life because failure is like scar tissue on the brain. It stays with you forever.

It takes an enormous amount of reprogramming to overcome the indoctrination that failure is a bad thing. Embrace failure. The only true failure in life is when you quit. Quitting makes failure permanent. Don’t accept failure as a bad thing. It’s lessons are invaluable. Failure is the mother of success.

You’re probably sick of hearing about the benefits of exercise. But I don’t care. Here are some of the benefits of exercise that you need to know:

• Exercise stimulates the production of Erythopoietin (EPO). EPO is responsible for the creation of new red blood cells in bone marrow. New red blood cells have more hemoglobin, which enables them to carry more oxygen to the body. Oxygen = fuel for the brain, tissues and muscles. Exercise increases the ability of red blood cells to fuel the body.
• Exercise activates an enzyme called Telomerase. Telomerase protects telomeres. Telomeres are like caps at the end of every chromosome. Telomeres control the number of times a cell can divide. Cells that lose their telomere die. When cells die it’s called aging. Exercise, therefore, increases the life span of cells, allowing you to live longer.
• Exercise increases the volume of nerve tissue in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is a part of the brain responsible for memory and learning. Exercise, therefore, increases your ability to remember and learn.
• Exercise increases neurogenesis. Neurogenesis = the growth of brain cells and synapses (brain cells that talk to one another). Exercise, therefore, increases the growth of brain cells and the number of synapses you have inside your brain.
• Exercise reduces cancer. Regular exercise of 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week has been proven to reduce cancer by between 25% to 50%.

FYI, in my Rich Habits study those who were rich exercised on average 30 minutes a day, four days a week. Those who were poor did not. Because the rich exercised more than others, they had more fuel, aged less, had better memories, were able to learn more, had more brain cells, had more brain cells that talked to one another and were less prone to cancer.

Recently, Darren Hardy asked billionaire Mark Cuban what unique super powers he had that gave him the confidence to pursue so many different start-ups so successfully and Cuban responded – ignorance. He just didn’t know any better about all of the pitfalls, hurdles, and nuances about the businesses he started. His ignorance saved the day.

When Elon Musk started SpaceX he knew nothing about rocketry. He told the press that by early 2004 SpaceX would launch its first rocket, the Falcon 1, into space and that it would be accomplished at a cost of $20 million. In August, 2008, after three failed attempts and a cost of $120,000 million, the Falcon 1 soared into space and attained orbit – the first privately financed rocket in history to do so. Many of the key leaders on the SpaceX team confessed that had they known about all of the many problems they would encounter and how much it would cost to overcome all of those problems, SpaceX would have likely never been born. Their collective ignorance saved the day.

There are countless other stories about successful entrepreneurs who started companies without having any real experience in the endeavor. Most of those start-ups would have never been attempted had the entrepreneurs knew more about the difficulties they would encounter. Ignorance is often an entrepreneur’s greatest asset.

In my Rich Habits study I tracked over 300 data points on the habits of the rich and poor. Out of all of those data points, one stood out as the most important determinant of success – persistence. Those with the most persistence were the most successful in life and accumulated the most wealth. But what does persistence really mean?

• Persistence means never quitting on your dream. Self-made millionaires will pursue a dream until they die or become incapacitated. Not even bankruptcy or divorce stops them from pursuing their dream.
• Persistence means taking action every day on the goals behind your dreams, whether you feel like it or not.
• Persistence means never giving in to your doubts. Some days go your way, but most of the days in pursuit of a dream will not go your way. When things don’t go your way, those are the days your mind is filled with doubt. Self-made millionaires persist even when life does not cooperate.
• Persistence means you stay on task despite making costly mistakes. Successful people view mistakes as learning experiences and nothing else.
• Persistence means you pick yourself up after suffering devastating failure. You only fail when you quit.
• Persistence means not letting rejection or being ignored stop you from moving forward. When you are pursuing a dream you will be faced with rejection and you will be ignored. It’s part of the process. You cannot take it personally. You need to take emotion out of it. When you get rejected or ignored just say “NEXT” and move on.
• Persistence means not allowing distractions to shift your focus. It’s easy to let distractions get in the way. Successful people push aside distractions and focus on what’s important. They have a big picture view that acts like a force field, deflecting all distractions from their path.
• Persistence means not letting fear stop you in your tracks. Fear is the main reason most quit on a dream. Self-made millionaires make a habit of being fearless.

I am very close to someone who is a self-made millionaire. We’ve known each other for about thirty years. To this day, every time we get together he picks my brain and asks me questions. I always come away from our get-togethers feeling as if I am smart.

But, in reality, he’s the smart one. He employs this self-learning Rich Habit on a daily basis with virtually everyone he comes into contact with. Asking questions allows this self-made millionaire to learn from others. It helps him grow as an individual by expanding his knowledge base with everyone he meets.

The common misconception is that smart people don’t ask questions, they get asked questions. So, if someone is perpetually asking questions, they must need to because they’re not that smart. In reality, asking questions is just another method for gaining knowledge. You can save a lot of time in learning new information by adopting this Rich Habit. Why read a book when all you have to do is pick the brains of others who do all the reading? Just something to think about.