Rich Habits Word of the Day

Indolent – Averse to work, lazy. Tim chose not to read because he was indolent.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

According to a number of studies, people who read at least seven career-related books a year earn 2.3 times more than those who read only one a year. Wealthy people understand that wealth follows reading. The more you read the more wealth you accumulate.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

The wealthy are nine times more likely to read than the poor based on a Rich Habits Institute Study. The wealthy read 30 minutes or more every day for self-improvement. Only 2% of the poor read 30 minutes or more each day for self-improvement. Those 2% don’t stay poor for long. Adding just one Rich Habit can change your life dramatically in as little as 30 days.

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Erudite – Scholarly, well-read

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Abraham Lincoln’s formal education included one year as a child. Lincoln’s childhood education was conducted almost entirely by himself. According to the legend, the young backwoods farm boy educated himself by a determined program of nightly reading after the day’s work was done, systematically consuming all the books in the sparsely inhabited neighborhood where he grew up.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

There is a direct correlation between having a love or reading and wealth. 86% of the wealthy admitted to having a love of reading. Conversely, 74% of the poor admitted that they did not like reading and avoided it. Developing the daily habit of reading for self-improvement is a Rich Habit. Not reading every day for self-improvement is a Poverty Habit

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Stratagem – Plan, scheme. His stratagem for each day was to create a to do list.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

The Brooklyn Bridge looms majestically over New York City’s East River, linking the two boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Since 1883, its granite towers and steel cables have offered a safe and scenic passage to millions of commuters and tourists, trains and bicycles, pushcarts and cars. The bridge’s construction took 14 years, involved 600 workers and cost $15 million (more than $320 million in today’s dollars). At least two dozen people died in the process, including its original designer. Now more than 125 years old, this iconic feature of the New York City skyline still carries roughly 150,000 vehicles and pedestrians every day.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

When is 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

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Penchant – Habit, tendency. He had a penchant for doing his technical reading first thing in the morning.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Ambitious from the start, Andrew Carnegie studied bookkeeping at night. This gave him the skill he needed to get a better paying job, one with a higher income and better career prospects. That job was clerking in a local office. There too, he was not content merely to do a good job. He continued his nighttime studies and volunteered for every possible task at work – seizing every opportunity to take on new responsibilities.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

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.

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Compulsion – Obsession, main purpose. Tom’s compulsion for sharing the Rich Habits has become his main purpose in life.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Steve Jobs was obsessed with designing a computer that any individual could use. He was obsessed about creating a memorable user experience. His obsession gave birth to the Apple Lisa, which as the first computer that used a graphic interface (icons). This obsession led to the creation of the Mac, the iPod and the iPad.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

64% of wealthy people are, at any given time, obsessed with achieving some singular goal. Only 9% of the poor share this obsession.

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Intuition – Gut feeling, sixth sense. Mark’s intuition must not be very good because he is so poor.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Intuition is that little voice inside our heads that tells us to do things or warns us against doing things. Some call it a gut feeling. Decision makers ask if they can sleep on it and give an answer in the morning. We are told by experts in psychology, self help or neural linguistics programming to learn to trust that voice inside our head. To learn to listen to it.  The problem is, intuition does not work. It fails to help almost everybody. Oftentimes that little voice inside our heads is sending us off a cliff. Negativity, fear and envy, are like mini computer programs fed into our subconscious mind. The subconscious then goes about looking for ways to help us get more of the negative things we constantly think about. It starts whispering in our ears, advising us, guiding us in an effort to give us more of what we think about. When we are in a negative, ungrateful state that voice inside our head, our intuition, is telling us to do things that will keep us poor, worried and jealous of others. It is directing us toward unhappiness and failure. For poor people, intuition simply does not work to improve their lives and they should ignore that voice inside their head.

In order to get the voice inside our heads working properly, directing us towards happiness and success, we need to shift to a positive, grateful and optimistic mindset. Start by making a point to find something to be grateful for each day. Focus on that thing we are grateful for and try to feel the gratitude. Feeling locks it in. If we can’t feel it, our subconscious will not get that line of computer code. Once we feel the gratitude it’s like laying railroad tracks inside our brain. When we live in a grateful, optimistic, positive mental world the subconscious looks for ways to help us get more of what we are thinking about. It starts to whisper things in our ears that are directing us toward happiness and success. Then it’s time to listen.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

Wealthy people are happier than poor people. Let’s look at the data:

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Pecunious – Wealthy, well-to-do. The pecunious have certain daily habits that the poor are unaware of.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

In 1974, University of Southern California economics professor Richard Easterlin proposed a theory that came to be known as the Easterlin Paradox. He posited that within a country, be it the United States or Sri Lanka, richer people were happier than poor people.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

Wealthy people are happier than poor people. Let’s look at the data:

• 82% of the wealthy are happy. 98% of the poor are unhappy
• 87% of the wealthy are happy in their marriage. 53% of the poor are unhappy
• 92% of the wealthy are happy because they are healthy. 22% of the poor are unhappy because of health issues
• 95% of the wealthy are happy because their children are doing well in life. 24% of the poor are unhappy because their children are not doing well in life
• 94% of the wealthy are happy because they like what they do for a living. 85% of the poor are unhappy because they do not like what they do for a living
• 0% of the wealthy are unhappy due to finances vs. 98% for the poor

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Gossip – Malicious talk, to defame someone behind their back. Abby loved to gossip at work and eventually she lost the trust of her colleagues and was soon terminated.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Dave Ramsey, famed radio personality and best known as American’s #1 money expert, maintains a policy at work that prohibits gossip. Year after year Ramsey’s office ranks as one of the best places to work.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

Wealthy people do not gossip and poor people do. 79% of the poor in my study admitted they like to gossip. Gossip is a Poverty Habit because when most people gossip they do it in a malicious way. When you gossip you lose the trust of those around you and this affects all of your relationships.

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Frugal – Thrifty, penny-wise. Warren Buffet was taught by his parents to live below his means. Consequently, he is considered by many to be frugal.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

When Jay Leno was a kid he had two jobs. He would spend money he made from one job and save 100% of the money he made from the second job. To this day Leno does the same thing. He lives on the money he makes as a comedian, and  puts all the TV money in the bank. He’s never spent a dime of his TV money.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

85% of the wealthy in my study stated that they have always believed that no matter what an individual can always save money if they really want to. Only 2% of the poor share this opinion. As I’ve shared in many of my success articles, there are three ways to become rich and one of those ways is applying the 80/20 Rule. You save 20% of your net pay and you live off the remaining 80%. The wealthiest in my study were taught this Rich Habit by their parents.

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Defeatism – To think negatively. Tom struggled to stay positive every day but occasionally he could not shake his mind’s defeatism tenancies.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

At age of 22, Oprah Winfrey was fired from her job as a television reporter because she was “unfit for T.V. ” Winfrey was terminated from her post as co-anchor of the 6 o’clock weekday news on Baltimore’s WJZ-TV after the show received low ratings. Winfrey has called it the “first and worst failure of her TV career.” Winfrey was then demoted to morning TV, where she found her voice and met fellow newbie Gayle King, who would one day become her producer and editor of O, The Oprah Magazine. Seven years later, Winfrey moved to Chicago, where her self-titled talk show went on to dominate daytime TV for 25 years, and ultimately head her own channel, OWN.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

Thoughts become things. Our thoughts are responsible for our success or failure in life. If you think negative, defeatist thoughts you will fail in life. Like attracts like. Negative thoughts say to the world, “I am thinking this way because I want negative things in my life.”  Every successful person has failed or run up against one roadblock after another. If they accepted a negative, defeatist attitude they would have certainly quit. You don’t quit because the going gets too tough. You quit because you allow negative thoughts to talk you into quitting. Your intuition tells you to do “X”. When you allow negative thoughts to dominate your thinking intuition no longer works. Intuition is the communication method of the universe. Successful people have intuition because they live in a positive, upbeat, never say die world.