The other morning I was dressing for work and caught an interview on Good Morning America of E. L. James, the author of Fifty Shades of Grey. I was somewhat shocked when the host highlighted the fact that James’ book had sold 165 million books worldwide. As I pondered that thought, my shock was replaced by dismay. It dawned on me that so many people only read for entertainment and not to learn.

The rich are rich because they don’t do what the 99% do. This 1% does not read Fifty Shades of Grey. They don’t read Harry Potter either, which has sold over 450 million books worldwide. What they do read are books that educate. According to my research on the wealthy:

• 85% read two or more books a month for education and learning purposes
• 63% listened to educational audio books during their commute to work
• 88% read 30 minutes or more each day for purposes of education and learning
• 58% read biographies of famous successful people
• 51% read history books
• 55% read self-help books

Only 11% of the rich read for entertainment purposes compared to 79% of the poor. Billionaires like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg devote many hours a day to reading for purposes of learning.

In short, the rich deserve to be rich because they put in the work that success requires. And part of that work is reading to learn. If you only read for entertainment, you are one of the 99%. If you read to learn, you are doing what the top 1% do.

Success isn’t easy. It’s a process that requires doing certain things every day that help move you forward in life towards realizing your dreams and achieving the goals behind those dreams. Part of that process requires that you read every day for at least thirty minutes solely for purposes of self-education. If you ignore part of the process, the entire process breaks down.

Every year the Internal Revenue Service issues a report that shares data on the top 400 taxpayers. This report focuses on those returns with the largest Adjusted Gross Income. In 2014, you needed $126.8 million to make it on their list. Here’s how the top 400 made their money:

• 4.47% – Wages & Salaries
• 4.24% – Interest Income
• 10.89% Dividends
• 16.24% – Profits from Partnerships and Corporations
• 65.16% – Capital Gains

Most of the capital gains were the result of selling all or part of some business interest owned by the taxpayers. When you combine the last three categories, this equals 92.29%. This 92.29% is income derived from business ownership.  Owning an interest in a business, either as a stockholder, partner or sole proprietor, was the key to accumulating most of their wealth.

The odds of getting rich are stacked against those who derive their income from wages, since only 4.47% of the wealth of those in the report, became rich from their wages.

If you want to get rich, you must do what wealthy people do. They invest in businesses or create their own business. Since 80% or more of the wealthy come from poverty or the middle-class, this means you must either save enough money to invest in some business or you must create something on the side, some side business.

If you’re a great saver and want to become rich, you must take a risk with your savings by investing it in some business that will generate dividends, profits or capital gains upon the sale of your investment.

If you’re not a great saver, this means you must take a risk and invest your time and whatever money you do have in some business that will generate dividends, profits or capital gains upon it’s sale.

Either way, you must take risk in order to become rich and that risk typically involves some business investment.

I recently read a story about famed coach Nick Saban. Saban has won five national championships. Four at Alabama and one at LSU. This makes him the most successful active coach in college football. His secret to success is something he calls, The Process.

One of Saban’s signature wins took place while he was the head coach at Michigan State. They were pitted against No. 1 Ohio State. Prior to the game, Saban instructed his team to forget about winning or losing and to instead focus on one play at a time. Michigan State went on to defeat Ohio State 28-24 and that win introduced the world to The Process.

The Process requires that you shift your focus away from the outcome you desire, your dream, to the action steps that will produce the outcome you desire. Define your dream, create action steps around your dream, or tasks, and then single-mindedly focus all of your attention on each individual task, one at a time.

It’s great to have dreams. Dreams, when taken together, represent the blueprint of the life you desire. But in order for those dreams to come true, you must focus on the individual tasks that, when accomplished, will transform those dreams into reality. Focus on one task at a time and don’t worry about the outcome.

The circumstances of your life do not define your life. If you’re born and raised poor, the means to escape that poverty is completely within your control.

In my Rich Habits Study, I discovered that our habits dictate the circumstances of our lives. Habits are repetitive actions, thinking, choices and emotions.

Habits represent the infrastructure, or foundation, upon which you build your life. If you want to change your circumstances, you must first start by altering that foundation. You must replace the defective concrete, Poor Habits, which is causing your life to crumble, and replace it with durable concrete, Rich Habits.

When you change your habits from bad ones to good ones, the circumstances of your life will change. They have to. It’s not rocket science. It’s cause and effect. Bad habits, the cause, have the effect of creating bad life circumstances. Good habits are also a cause, however, the effect is good life circumstances.

Your circumstances do not define you. Your habits do. Change your habits and you will change the circumstances of your life.

The Law of Attraction’s origins are muddied. Some historians cite Buddha as the first to articulate the law. Others, Jesus. No one really knows. But we do know that The Law of Attraction first gained world-wide recognition thanks in large part to Napoleon Hill’s 1937 book Think and Grow Rich.

While Hill’s version of The Law of Attraction was heavily weighted towards thinking, it nonetheless emphasized the importance of taking action on your thoughts. Thinking, followed by action, was Hill’s message.

Then, in 2006, The Law of Attraction, underwent major surgery thanks to a little book called The Secret. The Secret was, and still is, a big hit. It has sold over 19 million copies to date. It’s popularity is anchored in the notion that thoughts become things. The Secret promised riches, success, happiness and an amazing life. All you had to do was visualize what you wanted and that simple act would attract it.

The major surgery performed by The Secret, was in removing the organs of action from the patient. No work, no hardship, no obstacles, no goals, no mistakes, no failure. For the first time a self-help book offered success without all the effort.

With its millions of devoted followers, you’d naturally expect to see an explosion in the number of millionaires since 2006. But that didn’t happen. Why?

Because the real secret is that visualization does not attract that which you desire. The purpose of visualization is clarity. Visualization, or thinking in pictures about the life you desire, forces the conscious and subconscious parts of your brain to work in harmony in revealing, or making clear, the path you must take in order to produce the life you desire.

Clarity is knowing exactly what you want in life and what you need to do to get what you want. Clarity reveals the path you must take. It provides the blueprint for the life you desire. That blueprint is just a plan. Executing that plan requires effort. It requires action. You simply cannot think your way to success.

“The more you know what you really want, and where you’re really going, the more what everybody else is doing starts to diminish.” – Alain de Botton

There’s a lot of power in this quote. It ties into something I’ve written extensively about called the Herd Doctrine.

When you are uncertain about your life’s path, you lack clarity. When you lack clarity, you find yourself on someone else’s path, pursuing their dreams, their goals and their ideas of a meaningful life. The voices of others, the noise of everyday life and the multitude of modern-day distractions (Facebook, Twitter, TV, etc.) overpower your senses and your ability to pursue your own path in life.

The true path to a successful, wealthy and fulfilling life is finding your purpose, pursuing your dreams and achieving your goals, not someone else’s. It’s not an easy thing to do because, in the beginning, you will be susceptible to the negative opinions, negative ideas and negative voices of others. But, as you take action on your dreams and your goals, you gain clarity of purpose and find your footing.

The moment you realize you are on the right path in life, all of the noise goes away. You no longer hear those negative opinions, ideas and voices. They fade away. All you hear is your inner voice encouraging you, prompting you and motivating you to keep on moving forward in order to realize your dreams and achieve your goals. Clarity of purpose eliminates all distractions.

According to my research, being rich eliminates approximately 67% of life’s problems, which means a reduction in 67% of the unhappiness you experience. But a reduction in unhappiness does not correspond to an increase in happiness. It doesn’t work that way.

True happiness can only be found when you strive for significance. Significance is the pursuit of excellence. When you make self-improvement a daily habit you become better – better health, better knowledge and better skills. The better you become, the more significance you add to your life. By becoming better, we are living a life of significance and this produces a feeling we call happiness.

This is why pursuing your dreams, your passions and your goals is so important. They are the keys to true happiness. The pursuit of these things forces you to grow as an individual, to better yourself. The pursuit of dreams, passions and goals forces you to gain knowledge, skills and expertise you did not have before. You become more significant. And the result is happiness.

Happiness has many components: confidence, achievement, fulfillment and feeling valuable. These things make you feel more significant. The road towards greater confidence, achievement, fulfillment and value to others is found in daily self-improvement. This daily self-improvement is forced upon you by pursuing your dreams, passions and goals.

So, you see, the true path towards happiness is becoming significant. And significance is acquired when you pursue the things in life, your dreams, passions and goals, which force you to grow and improve as a human being. As you grow, as you improve and as you become better, you feel more significant. And happy.

Our genetic human condition is to improve and grow every day. Our subconscious is the gatekeeper. It challenges us, reminds us and alerts us daily when we defy that human condition.

Somehow, we misinterpret those messages. Instead of prompting us to take action to grow and improve, we only allow ourselves to hear how flawed and inadequate we are.

That is too bad. Those voices inside your head are not your enemy. They exist for only one reason – to stir you into action in order to improve and better your life.

You must learn to embrace those voices and not go to war against them. You must really listen to them. They are the most important ally you have. Those voices are telling you what you need to do in order to create a life of fulfillment and meaning. Don’t fight those voices. Listen to them, join forces with them and take the action you know you should be taking to transform your life.

As I’ve indicated many times in the past, one of the common characteristics of self-made millionaires is that they generate income from multiple sources. In fact, 84% of the self-made millionaires in my Rich Habits Study had three streams of income.

But, not all income is created equal. One or more of those streams of income were what’s called passive income. Passive income is income that you do not have to work for to generate income. It is automatic income.

An example is an annuity. An annuity is an investment that you make at some point which grows over time which eventually generates a stream of income. Other examples include: rental income, dividends, interest, capital gains, book royalties, ad dollars from a blog or website, income from a phone app, licensing fees, franchise fees, revenue from the sale of a business, silent partner income, etc.

Think of passive income as any investment that generates income down the road. It is an income stream that is commonplace among self-made millionaires. Passive income is working for you all the time. If you’re not making money when you sleep, on the weekends or on vacations, it will be very difficult for you to become financially independent.

Give, and it will be given to you – Luke 6:38

The Ripple Effect is a success principle. By definition, the Ripple Effects states that people will people give back the kind of treatment they have received from another.

When you give of your time, without any motivation except to help, it will have a ripple effect – those you help will desire to reciprocate.

In order to succeed in anything you must first give value to others. The Ripple Effect allows you to showcase your skills, your expertise and your value to others. It will endear others to you.