Successful people are admired in so many ways. They are seen by many as smarter, harder working and visionaries. They are also credited with unique, almost superhuman traits, such as vigorous energy, greater focus, unrelenting persistence, unbridled optimism, unbreakable confidence and superior decision-making abilities.

I have written many times that ALL of those traits derive from one source – passion. Passion turns on all of the success traits that reside inside each and every one of us. But what triggers passion in the first place? Where does it come from?

Emotional Energy is the source of all passion. Emotional Energy endows one with seemingly superhuman powers.

Willpower Energy is the energy most rely on to change their habits and get things done. Willpower Energy, however, is short-lived. It eventually fades away. This is why so many are unable to stick to their New Year’s resolutions. Their Willpower Energy fades away and the new habit eventually fades away.

Emotional Energy, on the other hand, is far more potent and durable (longer-lasting) than Willpower Energy. It is where passion comes from. 

There are several types of emotions that spawn Emotional Energy:

• Love
• Anger
• Disgust
• Ego
• Vanity (a cousin of Ego)
• Embarrassment
• Enthusiasm
• Envy

Each one of these emotions endows you with Emotional Energy, which liberates your inner passion.

Vision is such a big word these days. People with vision are called visionaries. They’re looked up to and admired. But the real winners in life are visionaries who take action on their vision. Real visionaries relentlessly pursue their vision.

The way you do that is with goals. But there’s a misconception surrounding goals. Many believe goals are something you strive for. “I want to be a CPA”, many will tell you, is a goal. No, it’s not. “I want to be a CPA” is a vision, a dream. The real goal is “I want to study two hours every day for the CPA exam”.

You see, goals are the transportation system for your dreams. They are the action steps you take in order for your vision, you dream, to become a reality.

Real visionaries, the ones who succeed, that is, understand this. They set a broad vision and then build goals around that vision.

Luck has an affinity for survivors and enmity for quitters.

After researching the stories and backgrounds of the 177 self-made millionaires in my study, I came to admire them.

I found it amazing that so many of them were a hairs breath away from financial ruin. They put every dollar they had and leveraged every asset they owned to fund their dream. Many went even further. They borrowed from friends, family and anyone else who would lend them money.

If you were to look at the balance sheet of any self-made millionaire, right before they turned the corner, you’d throw up your lunch. And these eventual self-made millionaires had to look at that balance sheet all the time while they were pursuing their dream.

Just imagine having zero assets and piles of mounting debt as your constant companions. Now imagine having to look at the balance sheet year after year, which seems to do nothing but continue to deteriorate. Perhaps worse than your bad balance sheet is the uncertainty that plagues you every day along your journey.

The pre-millionaire self-talk goes something like this:

“How will I get through next month?”

“When will I turn the corner?”

“When will I finally get lucky?”

“When will all this uncertainty end?”

“What more do I have to do?

How do they do it? How do they survive the near-financial Armageddon and the never ending uncertainty? How do they find the strength to persevere?

Balls of steel. Courage. Call it what you will but those self-made’s knew one secret to success that all hard core entrepreneurs eventually figure out – you must find a way to survive until you succeed.

As I’ve written often, the #1 factor to success is luck. You must get lucky. But luck, real life-changing luck, takes time. For some self-made’s , life-changing luck comes sooner, but for the average run of the mill self-made millionaires, luck can take years.

That luck, however, only visits survivors. This is why it is imperative that you figure out a way to survive. Survival buys you time for luck to occur.

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

Chinese Proverb

Almost every one of the self-made millionaires in my study pursued their dream despite the fact that they were not ready.

It didn’t matter that they did not know what they were doing. It did not matter that they did not have enough money. It did not matter that no one around them believed in them.

Are self-made millionaires just hard-wired to be courageous?

Are they just hard-wired with greater confidence?

Are they just hard-wired with greater intelligence?

No, no and no.

They are consumed with passion. That passion gives birth to courage, confidence, intelligence, persistence, single-minded focus, enthusiasm, motivation, agility, strength, resilience, energy, attention to detail, work ethic, and every other success trait that’s needed in order for you to succeed.

Within the DNA of every human being are the seeds to succeed. For most individuals, these seeds remain dormant, however. What brings these seeds to life is passion. What triggers passion is the pursuit of a dream.

When we pursue a dream, we stir to life these success seeds and their fruit is courage, confidence, intelligence, persistence, single-minded focus, enthusiasm, motivation, agility, strength, resilience, energy, attention to detail, work ethic and every other success trait.

Passion is the water, sunshine and the soil that brings to life and nourishes the success trait seeds that reside in each and every one of us.

A few years ago someone sent me a link to a YouTube video of a man in his mid-fifties singing karaoke. He was way off key and he was dancing and waving his arms all over the place. It was an awful video and quite embarrassing. Clearly he didn’t care about being embarrassed. He was enjoying himself. His care-free enthusiasm just made you smile.

But the reason the video had gotten any attention at all was because the very next day that man found out he had terminal cancer. Once that narrative sunk in, the man didn’t seem so foolish after all.

We all need to be more like that man. His clown-like antics highlighted the importance of living each day like it was your last and chasing happiness at every opportunity. This means not caring what others think about you when you’re just being you. We need to live life as if it were a competition for happiness.

Fear and anger are negative emotions. You might think that all negative emotions hamper success. Most of the time they do. However, fear and anger are unique negative emotions in that they can actually motivate you to succeed more so than any positive emotion. Let me explain.

Fear generally holds your back from success. It stops most in their tracks. But for those who are pursuing something they are intensely passionate about, fear is often overpowered by passion and that passion gives you the juice you need to dive into a dream or big goal.

Fear eventually rears its head, shortly after you begin your pursuit. Some give into the fear and reverse course, ending their pursuit of the dream or big goal. But a few are able to use that fear in a healthy way. Fear can give you superhuman courage, when the alternative is failure or bankruptcy. When you have no choice but to succeed, fear takes a back seat to courage. When you put yourself into situations in which failure is not an option, you will surprise yourself. Humans have an incredible ability to rise to the occasion.

Anger, next to love, is probably the most powerful emotion we have. For most, anger is catastrophic. It impairs your ability to think clearly by shutting down your prefrontal cortex – the executive command and control center of the brain. But, when controlled properly, anger can give you superhuman powers that push you towards realizing a dream and achieving your goals.

Anger can stimulate creative, out of the box, thinking that enables you to outmaneuver a competitor, adversary, problem or any obstacles standing in your way. Anger, when used in the right way can force you to perform at levels you never imagined possible.

For the past year I have been mentoring someone who was having relationship issues. Two of her friends were creating unnecessary drama in her life.

The drama was damaging close relationships of the person I was mentoring. So, I told my mentee to pull back from her two friends.

After about four months my mentee called me to thank me. She had done as I advised. She ceased all communications with her two toxic friends. She said since she had distanced herself from her two toxic friends she had eliminated much of the unnecessary stress in her life. Magically, for four months my mentee had no drama in her life.

Toxic friends put you in awkward situations by their behavior. When you remove them from your life, their behaviors no longer affect you because you’re out of the picture.

Whenever one of your relationships repeatedly creates undue stress in your life, they are by definition a toxic relationship and they need to be removed like a cancer. Once removed, the cancer dies and the drama and stress disappear.

When you succeed, and are rewarded financially for your success, it has repercussions that, according to my research, affects future generations.

I’m not just talking about money. Sure, wealth can give your children and grandchildren a leg up, if that wealth is deployed towards noble things like higher education.

I’m talking about the non-money traits of self-made millionaires. Children watch everything their parents do. They watch them pursue a dream. They watch them strive to achieve goals. They see their daily habits, witness their behavior, are impacted by their thinking and their emotions.

Success is generational. It can impact multiple generations by virtue of the habits that get passed along from one generation to the next. And those habits have far more value that money.

What does it take to be successful at what you do?

Realizing a dream requires that you define that dream and then set specific goals that will enable you to realize that dream.

But what goals should you be pursuing? What action should you be taking?

The only way to know is to learn everything there is to know about the industry your dream falls into. This means you need to read and gain knowledge of that industry. Then you must find out what the successful people in that industry are doing.

This means you must seek out the leaders in your industry. Leaders in your industry understand the industry best and have all of the answers.

Once you find the leaders, the next step is to start asking them questions about what to do in order to succeed in the industry. Then document every one of their answers.

I do this via the binder system. Create a binder about your industry. In that binder will be all of the facts you’ve gathered about your industry and all of the answers to the questions you’ve asked of the industry leaders.

The binder should be separated by topic or category. As you gain knowledge you will be able to define the key topics within your industry and fill each topics with facts and answers. Your industry binder will become your bible for your industry. It will help you maintain and grow your knowledge base over time. Eventually you will become an expert in your industry, a leader.

As your expertise grows, so too will your value to others. They will gladly pay you for your value. In time, the value you provide will reward you financially. Success is a process.

In my Rich Habits Study, 6% if the rich gambled regularly on the lottery vs. 77% of the poor and 16% of the rich gambled on sports at least once a week vs. 52% of the poor.

Two separate studies published in the Journal of Gambling Studies in 2011 and 2012 found that the poor gambled more often often than the non-poor.

In a 2008 study published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making found that poor people play the lottery more often than the non-poor because lotteries leveled the playing field between the poor and the non-poor – the odds are of winning are the same.

Lotteries are a form of taxation on the poor. And this tax is increasing. In 2014, lotteries contributed $21.3 billion to state budgets, up from $18.2 billion in 2008, according to the Census Bureau.

According to my research, if you want to break free from poverty you must adopt certain specific good habits (Rich Habits) and eliminate certain specific bad habits (Poor Habits).

If you want to end your poverty, adopting the habits of wealthy, successful people is the key. You must walk in the footsteps of the wealthy if you want to become wealthy. Your behaviors, thinking, emotions and decision making must mimic those who are succeeding in life.

Success is a formula. It’s not a secret any more. Your habits dictate the financial circumstances of your life.