In 1993 I was offered a high paying job as a Principal at one of the largest CPA firms in the world. I was 32 years old at the time, with a wife and three very young children I absolutely adored.

After great deliberation, I decided to turn down the job. I was concerned that the job would take me away from my family too much. Family, I rationalized, was more important than money. I actually felt noble and proud of myself for making the “right” decision.

I did not think much about that decision until more than a decade later, when I began interviewing the 361 rich and poor people who were part of my Rich Habits Study.

I learned from that five-year exercise that rich people do not let fear guide their decision-making.

Don’t get me wrong, rich people do not ignore their fears. But they do deal with fear differently than the poor people in my study did.

The millionaires had a Rich Habit when it came to decision-making that incorporated two elements:

1. Confront Your Fears – They would make a list of all of the things that could go wrong with any big life decision.
2. Plan for the Worst – They would create contingency plans to deal with each worst-case scenario.

If one of those worst cases did happen, they were not caught off guard – they had anticipated it far in advance and had a plan to deal with it, already in place.

The poor people in my study, however, had a Poor Habit of focusing on their fears and making decisions that were fear-based.

It was not long after finishing my study that I realized my 1993 big life decision was anything but noble – it had actually been dictated by fear.

So, eleven years later, I did just what the rich people in my study did – I confronted the fears behind my 1993 decision:

1. I was afraid I would not see my children grow up.
2. I was afraid I might hate the job.
3. I was afraid of not meeting my new company’s expectations and that they would fire me.
4. I was afraid I would not like the people I worked with.

Four fears dictated my decision-making. And it came at a cost – we struggled financially for many years thereafter and I was forced to secure a second part-time job to help bring in more money, which ironically meant I did not see my kids as much as I wanted to.

Never make big life decisions that are driven by fear. When faced with a big decision forge the habit of confronting your fears, create contingency plans for each worst-case scenario, put all of your fears on the bookshelf (ignore your fears) and then make a decision.

Decisions made out of fear, almost always turn out to be the wrong decisions.

Everyone has a financial plan – that includes you, whether or not you know it.

As I’ve learned from my extensive research of the rich and poor, some financial plans can make you rich or make you poor.

For Non-Savers, their financial plan is to spend every dollar they make. This financial plan will force you to work well into your retirement years in order to support your standard of living.

For Want Spenders, their financial plan is to spend more than they make and fund that excess with debt. This financial plan eventually forces you to make drastic changes in your life, when your credit runs dry. It can also lead to dependency, relying on the financial support of your children or loved ones.

For Dreamers, their financial plan is to invest all of their time and money, often even debt, in a dream and pursue that dream for many years, hoping it will make them wealthy one day down the road. Pursuing a dream is a very hard thing to do. Dreams typically require an enormous investment in time and money. And dreams are very risky – there is no guarantee that the time, money and debt you invest will result in success. Failure is commonplace among dreamers.

For Virtuosos, their financial plan is to invest all of their time and money, and often debt, in becoming a Virtuoso in some field. Becoming a Virtuoso requires that you develop mad skills or knowledge. Acquiring that skill/knowledge takes many years. Often, it requires formal schooling  – graduate school, medical school, law school, get a PhD, etc. It may even require obtaining hard to get licenses, practice many hours a day for many years, study many hours a day for many years, etc.

Saver-Investors, however, choose a very different financial plan. One I like to think of as the easy way to riches. Their plan is simple – spend 80% or less than they make, no matter what, and invest that excess money prudently over many years. The drawback about pursing wealth as a Saver-Investor is that it demands discipline and sacrifice to live below your means.

In our instant gratification, consumerist society, being a Saver-Investor makes you an outlier – the nonconformist who eschews spending money so they can save and invest.

But, the upside is that becoming rich, or at least financially independent, is virtually guaranteed, so long as you develop the Rich Habit of prudently investing your savings.

No need to spend years developing mad skills in order to become a Virtuoso.

No need to take significant risk in time and money in pursuit of a dream.

Your entire focus is limited to two things – living below your means and investing your savings carefully.

According to researchers at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, living a healthy lifestyle:

• Reduces cardiovascular disease by 82%.
• Reduces the incidence of cancer by 65% and
• Increases your lifespan ten years or more.

Over a thirty-year period, the researchers studied 78,865 women and 44,354 men, all over the age of 27. In their study, they concluded that there were specific healthy lifestyle habits that produced good health and a long life expectancy:

1. Eating Healthy Food – Examples include vegetables, tree nuts, high fiber foods, whole grains, fish, seafood, fruits, berries, eggs, lean beef, chicken, lamb, sourdough bread, Ezekiel bread, legumes, yogurt, potatoes and dark chocolate.
2. Daily Exercise of 30 minutes – Exercise includes aerobic and anaerobic (strength exercises like weight lifting, core exercises, etc.).
3. Maintain Healthy Body Weight – Maintaining an optimum body weight through healthy eating and a low calorie diet. According to my research, a low calorie diet is between 1,800 – 2,200 calories for men (average) and 1,500 – 1,800 calories for women (average).
4. Moderate Bad Behavior – Bad includes smoking, alcohol, unhealthy food (i.e. junk food, fast food, soda, coffee, drug use, sugar, salt).
5. Adequate Sleep – Between 6.5 hours to 8 hours of sleep a night. The key is getting five sleep cycles in every night. Every person is different. Each sleep cycle can range from between 65 minutes to 90 minutes.

Good health is a Rich Habit.

How many farmers plant weeds?

Most weeds are not a food source and many actually inhibit the growth of crops, destroy crops or spread rapidly. They can also host crop pests such as aphids, fungal rots and viruses.

Any farmer who decides to plant weeds, would, therefore, soon find themselves out of business and financially destitute.

Our lives are a mirror of how we treat others.

When you criticize, condemn or complain – when you treat others poorly – you are planting weeds. And like the weed farmer, you will reap that which you sow – you will be surrounded by toxic, negative relationships.

Success, in large part, depends on forging relationships with other upbeat, optimistic, success-minded individuals. According to my Rich Habits Study, these Rich Relationships spread positivity, happiness, love and joy wherever they go.

As a result, people like associating with upbeat, optimistic, happy people, like doing business with them, like referring business to them, like loaning them money and like investing time and money in their dreams and goals.

Make a habit of planting happiness wherever you go. Complement others every chance you get. Look for reasons to praise your employees and subordinates. Appreciate your spouse for doing their “job” around the house.

Everywhere you go, everyone you see, make it a daily habit to drip a little happiness on them. The better you treat people, the better people will treat you.

Become a Happiness Farmer and you will reap what you sow.

My Aunt Peg was famous for speaking her mind. She told you exactly how she felt. You knew exactly where you stood with my Aunt Peg because she let you know. And, she was very proud of this character trait.

Now, many reading this might be shaking their heads in agreement. In fact, you might believe that speaking your mind is an admirable trait.

The problem is, it isn’t. In fact it’s a Poor Habit.

When my Aunt Peg died, I noticed there were only a handful of non-family members at the funeral. That made me sad because I loved my Aunt Peg.

The sad truth is that my Aunt Peg’s habit had alienated many people over the years.

Building friendships and relationships is a hard thing to do period. But speaking your mind makes it virtually impossible.

According to my five-year study on the daily habits of the rich and poor, 69% of the poor acknowledged that they “spoke their mind”.

Conversely, 94% of the wealthy forged the habit of choosing their words very carefully – they did not speak their mind.

Why such a disparity?

Becoming a self-made millionaire requires building strong and powerful relationships with others. It can take years of careful, deliberate effort to cultivate important relationships. Those who are able to rise from poverty or the middle-class to become very wealthy do so, in large part, because of the relationships they’ve built over many years.

As I’ve often said, relationships are the currency of the wealthy.

One thoughtless word, however, can undermine all of those years of relationship-building. Millionaires, therefore, forge the Rich Habit of carefully choosing the words they use with others. This way they avoid insulting or angering others.

Saying what’s on your mind will negatively affect relationships, your business and ultimately cost you money. If you want to be successful in life, you need to choose, very carefully, the words that come out of your mouth.

Not every thought needs to come out of your mouth. Not every thought needs to be spoken.

Many people have heard of Francis Crick. In 1983, Crick received a Nobel prize for his discovery of the helical structure (snake-like structure) of DNA.

But Crick also spent 30 years studying sleep. Specifically, how sleep affects memory and skills. Crick’s theories remained just that, theories, until Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep) came along and conducted various experiments that helped confirm many of Crick’s sleep theories.

One such theory was that learning, followed by sleep, strengthened the retention of facts and also helped to boost skill memory.

In various experiments, Walker had participants learn new facts or new skills. One group was then permitted to sleep while the other control group did not sleep. The group that slept experienced a 20-35% increase in retention and accuracy – they were able to retain more facts or perform their new skills better.

The results of Walker’s experiments showed that offline learning occurs during deep sleep. Put another way, practice does not make perfect – practice, followed by a night of sleep, is what leads to mastery.

For those of you pursuing a dream or success, Walker’s insights are critical to your journey.

The pursuit of a dream or success forces you to gain knowledge or skills you didn’t otherwise possess. Those who forge good sleep habits, increase the chances for success by boosting the retention of new facts and perfecting the new skills acquired in the pursuit of a dream or success.

In short, learn or practice and then follow that learning/practice by a good night’s sleep. The offline process of deep sleep will help solidify what you learn and will improve your skills, increasing your chances of success.

According to the latest science, pessimism inhibits brain performance and your ability to think clearly becomes impaired.

The famous 1998 and 2001 Broaden and Build Studies by B.L. Frederickson concluded that positivity and optimism increase your ability to focus by broadening the capacity of your brain to focus and solve problems.

Conversely, Frederickson found that pessimism narrowed your ability to focus by partially shutting down the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, you executive command and control center and the seat of creativity.

In short, optimism supercharges your brain and opens your entire brain up to creativity and problem solving, while pessimism suppresses brain performance and creativity.

• When you are optimistic, your risk tolerance levels increase – You are less afraid to take risks.
• When you are optimistic, you become more social and outgoing – You forge more meaningful relationships with others.
• When you are optimistic, you are more creative.
• When you are optimistic, solutions to problems come easier.
• When you are optimistic, your cognitive abilities increase – You become smarter.
• When you are optimistic, you feel more enthusiastic about everything you do.
• When you are optimistic, you feel happy about life.
• When you are optimistic, your confidence is high.
• When you are optimistic, fear no longer holds you back from taking action.
• When you are optimistic, your imagination runs wild.
• When you are optimistic, you are more apt to pursue your dreams and goals.
• When you are optimistic, obstacles and impediments are easier to overcome.
• When you are optimistic, you become more persistent – Challenges, fears and obstacles no longer stop you in your tracks.

But how do you flip the switch on your mental outlook from pessimism to optimism?

The short answer is, you have to feed optimism the right kind of food every day:

• Exercise – Forge the daily habit of exercising aerobically (i.e. walking, jogging, biking) and anaerobically (i.e. weight training, core workouts, strength training). Exercise increases SNF2H and BDNF, nerve growth factors which improve brain cells or create new brain cells.
• Dream-Set – Create a script or vision of your ideal, perfect, future life. Read your script every day for 30 days. This will feed your subconscious with new directives. Intuition will speak to you – telling you which goals to pursue.
• Develop some new skill – This forces the brain to re-wire itself. The brain loves growing synapses and will reward you by boosting dopamine, a happiness neurochemical, every time you engage in that new skill.
• Practice – Improve existing skills through daily repetition.
• Self-Educate – Increase your knowledge by reading, listening and watching content that is educational or related to your career/vocation.
• Sleep 7 to 8 hours a day.
• Eat healthy.
• Experiment – Do novel things. The brain loves novelty and will reward you with a boost in norepinephrine, another happiness neurochemical.
• Forge new relationships with other optimistic people. This boosts serotonin levels, Serotonin is another happiness neurochemical.

These daily habits naturally boost happiness neurochemicals (Dopamine, Serotonin and Norepinephrine), making you feel upbeat, optimistic and happy. They also require your brain and improve brain cell health and efficiency.

Success takes many years.

For the self-made millionaire-Dreamers (those who pursued a dream) and the Virtuosos (those who were experts in their field) in my Rich Habits Study, it took anywhere from twelve to twenty years to realize success and experience the perk or byproduct of success – wealth.

Because success takes such a long time, it’s impossible for passion alone to carry you through the ups and downs that you no doubt experience during the pursuit of success.

The ups you experience typically coincide with minor victories, overcoming obstacles, discovering solutions to seemingly intractable problems and the realization of good luck in the form of Opportunity Luck, which is infrequent but nonetheless present during the journey.

Passion is easy to find during those up cycles.

The downs you experience typically coincide with the minor failures, pitfalls, problems and the bouts of bad luck you experience along the way.

Passion is hard to find during those down cycles.

Passion is critical for success, especially in the early stages of your success journey. But if you depend entirely on passion for success, the loss of passion during the down periods will stop you in your tracks.

When you forge good daily habits (Rich Habits) you don’t need to depend on passion to keep you going.

Habits are daily behaviors, thinking, emotions and decisions that are automatic and immunize you to the ups and downs that are part of the success journey. Because habits are automatic, you will engage in them during up periods and down periods.

Good habits, therefore, take the need for uninterrupted passion, out of success equation.

That is why habits are so important to success. Good habits put you on autopilot for success.