My just released book, Change Your Habits, Change Your Life is surging on Amazon. It has risen to #275 in ALL BOOK CATEGORIES in the U.S. and is currently #1 in Personal Finance on Amazon in the U.S. Here’s a snapshot showing the surge:

Read about the 16 habits that transformed 177 ordinary individuals into self-made millionaires: SUCCESS MAGAZINE 16 Rich Habits That Put You on Autopilot for SUCCESS!

A recent study by Brown University, in which nearly 50,000 families were surveyed, concluded that habits in children are unlikely to vary after age 9. Since most of those early years for kids are spent at home, the bulk of the habits children adopt will come primarily from their parents. As infants and toddlers, our brains are hard-wired by nature for “monkey see, monkey do” behavior.  As a result, children pick up the vast majority of their habits from their parents. Good or bad. Whether you realize it or not you are teaching your children certain habits that set them up to succeed or fail in life.

In a 2013 survey conducted by the Associated Press, they found that 80% of America’s adults struggle with joblessness, poverty, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives. While you may see yourself as good parents, stats don’t lie. 80% of kids grow up to struggle financially as adults. What are parents doing wrong? And what can parents do to set their kids up for success?

I spent five years studying the habits, thinking and behaviors that 177 self-made millionaires and 233 poor individuals learned from their parents. I share all of those habits in my bestselling, award-winning book, Rich Kids. Below is a sampling from my book of ten major areas where parents are failing their children:

[Read more…]

Rich Branson has 55,000 people working for him every day. Mark Zuckerberg has 12,600 people working for him every day. Steve Jobs had about 95,000 employees working for him every day at the time of his death. These self-made millionaires discovered one of the key variables to success: leveraging 24 hours in each day. Successful people are not limited to 24 hours like the rest of us. Branson, Zuckerberg and Jobs were able to succeed by creating teams devoted to their goals and dreams. By leveraging human capital they are able to magically transform 24 hours in a day into millions of hours in a day

With respect to time, we are all on equal footing. We all have just 24 hours in a day. Successful people, however, figure out how to leverage time by getting others to help them pull their cart in order to move them forward in achieving their goals and realizing their dreams. Ten people working together for one purpose equals 240 hours each day, one hundred equals 2,400 hours each day and so on.

But it’s not just time self-made millionaires leverage. They also leverage their limited knowledge and skills through their teams and their relationships. They understand that they cannot possibly know everything or be good at everything, so successful people leverage the knowledge and skills of their teams and their network of relationships. They tap into the collective knowledge and skills of everyone in their inner circle to help them with their goals and dreams. Leveraging what you have means being aware of all of the assets, knowledge, skills, time and relationships at your fingertips in order to get what you want and need so that you can achieve all of your goals and realize all of your dreams.

“But I am only one person. I have no employees. It’s just me.”

All is not lost. There are still ways to take advantage of leverage. Here’s a few ideas that I picked up from my five year study on the daily habits of the rich: [Read more…]

In my Rich Habits Study, 87% of the wealthy indicated that they were happily married. Conversely, 53% of poor people said they were not happily married. I found this disparity interesting because I was conditioned by the media and the culture of poverty to believe wealthy individuals were evil and cheated on their spouses. Boy, was I wrong.

In fact, I found the exact opposite to be true. The rich people in my study were more faithful to each other and more committed to each other than poor people. I now know why. The pursuit of any dream or of success is a painful process. It is very much like going to war. Soldiers who fight together to defeat the enemy forge a bond that often lasts a lifetime. In a similar way, spouses who survive the pain and anguish that is always associated with the pursuit of dreams or of success, are made stronger by it.

From my research, I discovered some powerful Rich Habits that these married success warriors had, which not only held their marriage together during the years of struggle, but which also enabled them to thrive as a couple. I thought these Rich Habits might be of some benefit for those contemplating marriage, for newlyweds and for those well into their married years. Let’s begin. [Read more…]

Most who pursue goals never achieve them. According to a University of Scranton study, only 8% achieve their goals. Why? Because in order to achieve your goals you must first change your habits. And habits are not easy things to change.

Old school habit change requires the expenditure of willpower. The brain hates it when you use willpower. Willpower is the conscious exertion of self-control. Your consciousness resides in your neocortex (aka new brain or upper brain). The new brain has only been around for a few hundred thousand years and is not as efficient as the old brain (limbic system and brain stem), which has been evolving over millions of years. Willpower saps the brain of brain fuel (glucose and oxygen). After thirty minutes of sucking up precious brain fuel, the brain starts fighting back by lowering Dopamine levels (the happiness neurotransmitter) to make you unhappy while engaging in the habit. It’s hoping that by making you miserable, you’ll stop engaging in the new habit. And 92% of the time, it works, which is why we fail in achieving goals.

But what if there was a way to create sticky habits around your goals? This would put you on autopilot for successfully achieving your goals. This would also make goal achievement an effortless, unconscious process. In order to do that, you need to tap into your old brain, specifically the emotion center of the old brain. When you tap into the emotional center of your old brain, you no longer rely on willpower to forge habits. Those who rise from poverty or the middle-class, have figured out how to do just that. From my Rich Habits research I uncovered the process self-made millionaire use to convert their goals into daily habits that tap into the emotional part of the brain and transform their daily habits into sticky habits, immediately. [Read more…]

Do you have any idea if you are raising your children to be successful in life or raising them to be mired in financial struggles for their entire lives? According to a Brown University study in which nearly 50,000 families were surveyed, kids pick up most of their habits in life by the age of 9. Parents, by far, have the most impact over the habits their children will take with them into their adult lives. Parents can unknowingly set their kids up to fail in life by virtue of the habits their children pick up from them.

Most parents are completely unaware of the influence they have over the habits they are teaching their kids. But you’re not most parents. That’s one of the reasons you’re reading this. I came up with a test that incorporates the top 40 habits that will ensure your children live a life of success, happiness and good health. I call it the Rich Habits Test For Parents. It’s a fun test and it will open your eyes. Just click the link below. Good luck and let me know how you do.

RICH HABITS TEST PARENTS

Do you have any idea if you are on the path towards success or will you be mired in financial struggles your entire life? Most people have no idea. But you’re not most people. That’s one of the reasons you read this blog. I came up with a test that incorporates the top 50 habits that have the most impact over the financial circumstances of your life. I call it the Rich Habits Test. It’s a fun test and it will open your eyes. FYI, I took this test and scored a 31 the first time. I took it a second time, because I didn’t feel I was being brutally honest, and I scored a 24. Even I have some work to do. Just click the link below. Good luck and let me know how you do.

RICH HABITS TEST

As I learned from my Rich Habits Study, building a wealthy, healthy and happy life is just a process. The process begins with a vision of the ideal future life you desire. That future life is actually a collage of a series of realized dreams that make your ideal life a reality. Think of each dream as a picture of those things you want in your life. These are very personal things. And they need to be very personal things. As Steve Jobs said in the 2005 Stanford commencement address: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living some Else’s life.”

In other words, don’t put your ladder on someone else’s wall. Pursue your own dreams. Not those of your parents, teachers or some other significant influence in your life.
In order to make that ideal life a reality, you need to follow a process:
1. Define each specific dream that is part of your collage of your ideal life.
2. Build individual goals around each dream. In order to realize a given dream, it may, for example, require that you accomplish numerous goals.
3. The final step requires that you forge daily habits (goal habits) that, when accomplished each day, brings you closer to achieving each individual goal.

Building new daily habits isn’t difficult if you know what to do. It simply takes time and persistence. Consistency is the key. There is an easy trick that you can use in order to forge new goal habits to help you accomplish the goals behind the dreams that make up your ideal life. This habit shortcut virtually guarantees they stick. It’s called the 20 Minute Rule. The 20 Minute Rule involves a simple three-step process. Here’s how it works:
1. Define any new goal habit you wish to adopt.
2. Devote 20 minutes a day to that new goal habit.
3. Repeat that daily goal habit for a minimum of 30 days.

The new goal habit could be:
• 20 minutes a day of reading to expand your knowledge in a particular area that you need to become more proficient in, in order accomplish an individual goal (i.e. getting some license or certification).
• 20 minutes a day of networking to develop relationships with other successful individuals doing what you want to do. These relationships will open the door to opportunities that will help you accomplish your goals and realize your dreams.
• 20 minutes of listening to a podcast related to one or more of your goals. This provides knowledge and insight you didn’t have before.
• 20 minutes of watching a TED video in an area you need to become more knowledgeable in, in order for you to realize your individual goals.
• 20 minutes of developing a side-business you hope to one day devote yourself to full-time.
• 20 minutes single-mindedly focused on achieving one singular goal. Once you accomplish the goal you can then apply this 20 minute rule to the next goal.
• 20 minutes of jogging, if an active, healthy life is part of your ideal future life vision.
• 20 minutes of lifting weights, if having strong muscles is part of your ideal future life vision.
• 20 minutes of developing a new skill, if this new skill is needed in order to give you the skill set to even begin pursuing a goal.
• 20 minutes of thinking positive thoughts. Positivity is a common characteristic of all successful people. A positive mindset keeps you optimistic, motivated and focused on overcoming obstacles rather than being stopped by them.
• 20 minutes of helping your spouse with home chores (laundry, dish washer, make the bed, clean the house, etc.), if a happy home life is part of your future ideal life.
• 20 minutes engaged in some hobby that you are passionate about and would like to eventually transform into a money making business.
• 20 minutes of doing home-improvement projects, if your ideal future life includes remodeling your home.

Thirty days gets your brain cells talking to one another, forming a synapse. Once the synapse is formed, the tracks are laid for habit formation to occur. Over time, it becomes easier and easier to engage in the habit. At some point, between 66 – 256 days, according to the latest science on habits change, the habit becomes an automatic, unconscious behavior. The brain loves habits. Habits conserve brain fuel and save the brain from work. But it does take repetition and time in order to get brain cells talking to each other. Thirty days gets the conversation going inside the brain.

Once the new goal habit sticks, then you can move on to the next new goal habit, following the same three-step process. In the course of a year it is possible to add three or more new goal habits using this three-step process. In a few years you will have created dozens of new habits and your life will begin to improve as you accomplish one goal after another and realize one dream after another.

Adopting good habits are like snowflakes on the mountainside. You hardly notice the cumulative positive effects these habits have on your life on a daily basis. But over time these habits create an avalanche of success event. When success hits, it appears to the untrained observer as if that person became an overnight success. Of course, what the untrained observer does not realize is the fact that that success was the byproduct of years and years of doing certain things every day that created the avalanche of success event.

Define your ideal, future life today and start yourself on the path to wealth, health and happiness. Start by adopting just one new goal habit. Stick with it for 30 days. Baby steps. That’s the secret to a perfect life!