Why do we do the things that we do? What are the drivers behind our very existence?

In 1943 American psychologist, Abraham Maslow threw a pebble in a pond by releasing his research paper titled A Theory of Human Motivation in Psychological Review.

Commonly referred to as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, his research paper theorized that there were five levels of needs:

How can we pull Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs into the modern era in order to find out why we do what we do?

Pysiological

Eating, drinking and procreation are the historical bull work of Maslow’s Physiological Needs. In the modern era, however, this is why we have so many gyms, diets, dating sites, porn sites, 10Ks, Iron Mans, BulletProof Coffee, Whole Foods, etc.

Safety

Herding for self defense is the historical bull work of Maslow’s Safety Needs. In the modern era, however, this is why we have nuclear weapons, UFC fighting, boxing, karate, the Guardian Angels, neighborhood watches, an army, a police force, jails, etc.

Love/Belonging

Marriage, starting a family and making friends are the historical bull work of Maslow’s Love/Belonging Needs. In the modern era, however, this is why we have FaceBook, SnapChat, Instagram, why we network, why we join business groups and trade associations, why we have religion, countries, etc.

Esteem

Apprenticeships and upward social mobility are the historical bull work of Maslow’s Esteem Needs. In the modern era, however, this is why we go to college, obtain licenses and advanced degrees, buy McMansions, expensive cars and jewelry, why we strive to be successful, etc.

Self Actualization

Achievement is the driver behind Maslow’s Self Actualization Needs. In the modern era, however, this is why we pursue dreams and goals, write books, paint, start a band, take risks in the pursuit of success, work 80 hours a week, climb the corporate ladder, meditate, why we have the NFL, the Olympics, book contests, etc.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are the real drivers behind everything you do. Inside one or more of these is your WHY for getting up in the morning.

There were three groups of self-made millionaires in my Rich Habits Study:

1. Those who saved their way to wealth
2. Those who worked for large public companies
3. Entrepreneurs

The third group was an interesting group. These individuals put everything on the line, in the pursuit of their dream. They invested everything they had. They borrowed money against their home. They borrowed money from family. They borrowed money from relatives. They borrowed money from friends. They personally guaranteed loans from the bank.

If they failed, their failure would not only affect their spouse and children but it would negatively impact many other people and destroy their reputation among family, friends and the bankers who went out on a limb to help them fund their dream.

Being an entrepreneur is a very courageous act.

When you pursue any dream, you will have to confront and overcome many obstacles, pitfalls, mistakes and bad decisions. Every mistake and bad decision comes at a severe financial cost. Make too many mistakes and bad decisions and you will run out of money, ending your dream.

For this group, failure was not an option and success was a necessity. They had no choice but to succeed.

This necessity to succeed forced these self-made entrepreneurs to grow and become better in many ways:

• They identified and cookie cut proven processes that prevented them from repeating mistakes.
• They adopted daily habits to help them achieve their goals which kept them moving forward toward the achievement of their goals.
• They forged relationships with influential individuals who helped mentor them and open doors.
• They became knowledge sponges, learning everything they could about their industry. They read to learn every day.
• They practiced specific skills for many hours every day until they gained mastery.
• They experimented to find new, novel ways of doing things.
• They became mentally tough as a result of meeting and overcoming numerous obstacles, mistakes and bad decisions.
• They gained control over their emotions, which put their executive brain (neocortex) in charge and not their emotional brain (Limbic System).
• They learned to focus like a laser in order to complete important tasks that led to the achievement of their goals.
• They isolated themselves from others for hours at a time to think through problems in an effort to find solutions to those problems.
• They evolved a positive mental attitude and tremendous confidence by facing and overcoming obstacles, mistakes and bad decisions.
• They worked very hard for their dream, which created a powerful work ethic.
• They acquired tremendous willpower through their daily grind; willpower they never realized they had.

Those who pursue a dream, put everything on the line. This gives them very little wiggle room. Their backs are against the wall for most of their journey. They put themselves in a position in which they have no choice but to succeed.

When failure is not an option and success is a necessity, you will find within yourself resources, success traits and the grit you never knew you had. You grow into the person you need to be in order for success to visit you.

One of the most important characteristics of the self-made millionaires in my Rich Habits Study was a fanatical obsession with something.

Ninety-two percent of the self-mades in my study were obsessed with the pursuit of some long-term goal or dream. Stated simply, self-mades are obsessed.

Their obsession endowed them with certain success traits they did not have before their obsession took hold of them:

• Good Habits
• Relentless Persistence
• An Open Mind
• Patience
• Laser-Like Focus
• Work Ethic
• Desire to Learn
• Curiosity
• Courage (Greater Risk Tolerance)
• Enthusiasm
• Positive Mental Outlook
• Motivation
• Increased Will Power
• Resilience
• Emotional Energy
• Attention to Detail

What triggers obsession?

Obsession is triggered by passion. Passion is sparked by engaging in some activity that lights up the emotional center of your brain (Limbic System).

Finding something you are passionate about causes the first domino to fall, setting in motion all of the traits you will need in order to become successful.

This is why experimentation is so important, especially at a young age. When you experiment with different activities, you increase the chance of finding one activity which makes your heart sing with passion.

That passion for doing something you love, eventually turns into obsession. Once you become obsessed, life automatically endows you with all of the success traits you will need in order to become successful.

So, find your passion. When you do, everything you need to succeed will be handed to you.

Passion is the key that unlocks the Pandora’s box of success traits that reside in every human being.

Worry leads to stress. Constant worry leads to chronic stress. Chronic stress transforms cholesterol into cortisol, impairing the immune system and inviting disease and illness.

Much of what we worry about, we have little to no control over. Once you accept the fact that you can only control what you can control, it’s as if a great weight were lifted off your shoulders. It’s an ah ha moment, that sets you free, fostering a more relaxed attitude and a clearer mind, which reduces the debilitating health effects of chronic stress.

So how do you do it? How do you stop worrying?

I want you to make two lists:

1. Things You Can Control
2. Things Outside Your Control

Let me give you an example by sharing my lists.

Things You Can Control

• Morning Time – I wake at 5am, which gives me about theee hours of morning time to engage in my Rich Habits: Self-Education, Reading, Writing, Daily Exercise.
• What I Read – I only read material that is uplifting or educational. I peruse the news and only read positive stories, ignoring all negative stories.
• Who I Associate With – I minimize my exposure to toxic people and seek to spend more time with positive, upbeat people.
• What I Eat – I engage in intermittent fasting, which means I eat nothing from 7pm – 12pm. When I eat, I eat mostly healthy foods.
• What I Drink – I drink mostly flavored water and moderate my consumption of alcohol.
• What I Think – I express gratitude every morning for three things that happened the day before. I cancel negative thoughts, such as “what if” negative scenarios and replace them with “what if” positive scenarios. We all have “what if” scenarios running through our brains. As much as 70% of those thoughts are negative. We can control that.
• How I Respond to Others – We have a triune brain, or three distinct brains: Neocortex, Limbic System and Brain Stem. When we control how we respond to others, we are using our neocortex. When we allow our reflexive emotions to control how respond to others, we are using our Limbic System and Brain Stem. You have control over your brain, which means you have control over how you respond to others. I choose to use my neocortex. This means I avoid emotional responses, which could damage my relationships.
• Business – I have three businesses: CPA Firm, Financial Planning Firm and the Author Business. To some extent, my activities can improve all three businesses. I engage in only those activities that improve my businesses. For example, writing and pitching the media on my writing is something I can control which boosts book sales. Every day, I engage in only those activities that boost book sales.
• Health – I used to worry about getting sick, or getting some disease. I no longer do. What I can control is trying to be as healthy as I possibly can. To that end, I exercise every day, eat healthy and moderate my consumption of junk food and alcohol.

Things Outside My Control

• Business – To some extent, I have little control over certain aspects of my business: Client Tax Audits, New Clients, Lost Clients, Media Exposure for my Author Business. For example, since I began my Author Business in 2009, Media Exposure has been a source of constant worry for me. In most cases, Media Exposure is outside my control. It’s not something I have any control over, so I chose to stop worrying about it. I continue to pitch my articles to the media every day and have set my expectations to zero. I no longer worry about Media Exposure because I expect zero Media Exposure. If I do get Media Exposure, I’m surprised and temporarily happy because reality exceeded my expectations.
• How People React to Me – I no longer worry about how others react to me. I do not let their reactions to me, affect my responses to them. If they do not like my response, it’s their problem, not mine.
• Heath – To some extent, I recognize my health is outside my control. Now, when I get sick, I accept the fact I’m sick and do what I can to heal myself.
• Macro Events – I spend little to no time worrying about politicians, the economy, or national and world events. Those things are completely outside my control.
• Life – Sometimes life hands you a crap sandwich. A car accident, a lost client, publisher decisions, a bad month in books sales or financial planning revenues, commuter traffic, the weather, etc. I choose to no longer worry about life events for which I have no control over.

When you peel the onion of what you can and can’t control, it is a liberating experience. It clears your mind of everyday worries, reducing stress and improving your health.

When your mind is clear of worry, you are better able to pursue your dreams and your goals, overcome obstacles, find solutions to problems and think creatively. A clear mind keeps you moving forward in life. A mind cluttered with worry, keeps you stuck.

Most people have a job. And that job is a means to an end. It provides us with a place to live, food and the ability to pay our bills.

Yet, we yearn for more. That more is a life, not simply of survival, but one worth living.

But how to we create a life worth living?

In order to answer that question, you must ask yourself three questions:

1. What should I keep doing?
2. What should I stop doing?
3. What should I start doing?

Since most need their job, these questions relate to the available time almost everyone has before or after work.

What Should I Keep Doing?

What things do you do with your available time that are helping you to grow and improve? These growth-related activities help move you forward in life. Growth-related activities are any activities that maintain or grow your knowledge, your skills and your non-toxic relationships.

What Should I Stop Doing?

What things do you do with your available time that do not help you grow? These activities are holding you back in life, making you feel like a mouse on a wheel. TV, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube videos, SnapChat, Instagram, Internet surfing, bar time, gambling, talking on the phone for hours, associating with toxic individuals – all of these things are time wasters. They don’t move you forward. They keep you stuck.

What Should I Start Doing? 

Depending on the study, between 75% – 80% of the wealthy are self-made. Meaning they came from poverty or the middle-class. Like most in poverty or the middle-class, they relied on a job in order to survive. But unlike most, they were able to rise above their circumstances and become wealthy. How?

The answers to this question are what sets self-made millionaires apart from everyone else.

Reading to learn, networking with success-minded people, volunteering, studying to get a degree or some license, building a side business, pursuing lofty goals or some dream, developing valuable skills, writing a book, etc. Engaging in activities which help move you forward in life by expanding your knowledge or perfecting unique skills will eventually pay dividends many years down the road.

As children, we are born and raised into financial circumstances we have no control over. As adults, our financial circumstances are completely within our control. How we spend our free time determines if we will remain stuck in life or create a life worth living.

When it comes to goals, setting a deadline is meaningless.

Missing deadlines is why so many get frustrated with the goal-setting process and give up on their goals.

There is no magic when it comes to goals. Setting a deadline does not marshal unseen forces in the universe to mount their horses and come to your aid to help you achieve your goal.

Deadlines on their own, do not make a goal more achievable. Rather, they set you up to fail. When the deadline comes and goes, without realizing the goal, you become disappointed and quit. Worse, you might lose faith in setting any future goals at all.

“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.” —Earl Nightingale

Nightingale hit the nail on the head with respect to goals.

The progressive realization of a goal means you must create a process for achieving your goals.

What’s a process?

A process is something that establishes daily activities, which make it possible to achieve your goal.

Example

Let’s say it’s January 1 and you set the goal of losing 20 pounds by April 1. If all you do is set a deadline, you’ll never achieve your goal. Instead, create a process as follows:

1. Eat 400 fewer calories every day and
2. Exercise aerobically 20 minutes every day

With this process, you have a good chance of achieving your goal of losing 20 pounds in three months.

• Four hundred fewer calories a day = 12,000 fewer calories. Since one pound = 3,000 calories, that’s 4 fewer pounds a month.
• Jogging 20 minutes a day consumes about 300 calories a day. That = 9,000 fewer calories. Since one pound = 3,000 calories, that’s 3 fewer pounds a month.
• 7 fewer pounds per month X 3 months = 21 fewer pounds.

You can apply this process to any goal. The key is to break your goal down into daily goals, or daily activities.

Here’s the Goal Achievement Process:

1. Set a Goal
2. Set a Realistic Timetable for Achieving That Goal
3. Reverse Engineer: Establish Daily Goals That Allow You to Meet That Realistic Timetable
4. Monitor and Measure Your Daily Goals
5. Revise Timeline Based on Results or Revise Process Based on Results

If the daily activities are achievable, the overall goal becomes achievable. If not, then you need to change your deadline and the process.

For example, if you believe it will take you a month to build up your endurance levels in order to get to 20 minutes a day, then you change your deadline from April 1st to May 1st. You then change your process. That first month would include less jogging, which = fewer calories lost.

The deadline, you see, doesn’t matter. Only the process matters.

Bad habits follow you throughout your life, no matter how successful or unsuccessful you are.

And they affect your life negatively.

Russell Crowe reportedly treats everyone – fans, directors and fellow actors – very badly. Despite his amazing acting ability, there are many in Hollywood who simply refuse to work with him.

Lawrence Taylor, one of the most celebrated NFL players still alive, was a jerk to everyone. He treated everyone badly and this bad habit put him in the bleachers, so to speak.

Tobey McQuire, famed Spiderman actor, has been known to lash out at paparazzi, refuse to sign autographs and allegedly made ludicrous on-set coffee demands. No wonder he was not invited back to the fourth installment of Spiderman.

That’s the nature of habits. Habits stick.

Eventually your bad habits catch up with you. Once people figure out you are not a decent person, they avoid associating with you and that will undermine your career and affect your ability to make money and build wealth.

As the Bible says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.

Seventy percent of the individuals who win a lottery or get a big windfall end up broke in a few years, according to the National Endowment for Financial Education.

In 2012, the financial advisors of the former NBA champion Dennis Rodman reported that he was broke. Years of extravagances, wild spending was the reason given.

Courtney Love, wife of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, squandered over $27 million of Nirvana earnings on years of hard partying and wild spending.

Famed actor, Nicolas Cage, who made $150 million in his acting career, at one time owned a haunted mansion, a private island, a collection of shrunken heads and spent $276,000 on a skull of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. His reckless, excessive spending forced him into bankruptcy in 2009.

Money acts as a magnifier. It exacerbates your Poor Habits.

If you have the Poor Habit of partying too much, you will find novel, expensive ways to party if you suddenly come into money. Consider Conor McGregor. One week after receiving $30 million in winnings from his very lucrative loss to Floyd Mayweather, McGregor bought a super yacht reportedly worth $12 million.

If you have the Poor Habit of gambling, the more money you make, the more you will gamble. Consider Allen Iverson’s fall from grace. He earned over $200 million dollars in his NBA career and due to his gambling and drinking issues, Iverson is now both broke and in debt.

If you have the Poor Habit of saying yes to everything, you will give away all of your newfound money to friends and family. Consider Gerald Muswagon, of Winnipeg, Manitoba, who won $10 million in 1998. He bought cars for friends and family, and gave away much of his money. Eventually, he’d spent all his money and had to find a minimum-wage job to survive.

So many people who suddenly come into money find their lives worse then before primarily because money is a magnifier with respect to your habits.

Have you ever been on a boat in a lake on a calm, sunny day?

In your mind’s eye, what do you see?

If you’re like most, you probably see someone in a stationary boat, just sitting there.

That’s a metaphor for the life most lead.

Now, I want you to imagine that you’re in another boat. But this boat is on the rapids of a ferocious river. What do you see in your mind’s eye?

If you’re like most, you probably see someone hanging on for dear life as that boat tumultuously flies along the river at a very rapid pace, bouncing left, right, dipping frontwards and backwards. In no time, the boat and its occupant are so far from where they started, the starting line is no longer visible.

That’s a metaphor for the life of a dreamer.

When you pursue a dream, you are in for the ride of your life.

Most of the time, that dream will give you nothing but tumultuous waters. You are pushed to the limit; your very survival, tested on a daily basis.

For most dreamers, this battle to overcome the treacherous journey is one that lasts for many years.

But, for those who survive the journey, they find themselves very far from where they started. Their very survival transforming them into a different person – a vastly improved, resilient, gritty version of their former selves. And what an exciting story they have to tell.

Most people avoid the rapids. They are too afraid. They prefer the calm waters where they can sit in their boat on the lake, safe and protected. And that boat and its occupant stay just where it is, unmoving, unchallenged, with no story to tell.

One of the big separators between the rich and the non-rich is the rich have developed the Rich Habit of taking action.

Action is really two things:

1. Thinking Action
2. Physical Action

Thinking Action

We all think. According to Psychology Today, the average person has 50,000 thoughts a day.

According to my research, the Thinking Actions of the rich are very different from the poor:

• The Rich Are Positive Thinkers – 67% of the self-made millionaires in my study forged the habit of being positive and upbeat. A positive, mental outlook is critical to overcoming problems, obstacles, pitfalls, mistakes and failures. Staying positive is a critical component to becoming wealthy. Positivity is like a radar in search of solutions to intractable problems. Thus, positive thinkers are able to see opportunities, where others see only negative consequences.
• The Poor Are Negative Thinkers – 70% of the thoughts of the average person are negative (Psychology Today). Negative thinkers are unable to see solutions to problems. Thus, they are unable to overcome obstacles, pitfalls, their mistakes and their failures. Opportunities pass them by because they are not looking for opportunities. They are too focused on the negative consequences.
• The Rich Are Decision-Makers – 91% of the rich in my study were decision-makers. Forging the habit of making decisions is critical to success. Those who develop the habit of making decisions are sought after as leaders, by others. Decision-makers have forged the habit of overcoming the fear of making decisions along with the paralysis of analysis associated with those unable to make decisions. The rich do not over think, which is a form of procrastination. It is impossible to know everything you need to know before making a decision. The rich forge the habit of being comfortable being uncomfortable about making decisions. 
• The Poor Let Others Make Decisions – 98% of the poor in my study were not decision-makers. They succumb to the fear of making a decision. They get lost in analysis and over thinking, which is a form of procrastination. The poor feel uncomfortable about making decisions, so they defer to others.