Archives for September 2015

You’ve no doubt had your fill of stories about successful people who failed and failed their way to success. There are many successful people who attended the school of hard knocks. Abraham Lincoln failed six times in politics before he was elected President of the United States. Henry Ford’s first automobile company went bankrupt. Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times with the incandescent light bulb. R.H. Macy failed seven times before figuring it out. There are enough successful failures out there to fill volumes of success books.

But history is also replete with stories of successful individuals who did not experience failure. Andrew Carnegie experienced nothing but success in his march to making millions. Benjamin Franklin, America’s first millionaire, succeeded in just about every endeavor. Warren Buffet’s rise to billionaire status was all but uninterrupted.

My point is that you don’t need to graduate from the school of hard knocks in order to succeed. There’s an easier way. You just need to adopt good daily success habits. Habits put your life on autopilot.

Habits are automatic, subconscious behaviors, thinking and choices. Most are not even aware of the habits they have. The Midas Touch is nothing other than having good daily success habits. To the untrained eye, those who have this Midas Touch, seem to coast through life realizing one success after another. But the reality is these individuals have incorporated good daily success habits into their lives and , as a result, have put their lives on success autopilot. Why go at success the hard way when the easier approach is to simply mimic the daily habits of successful people.

Vanity has historically been cast in a negative light. It is, after all, listed as a sin in the Bible not once, but 35 times. So, if vanity is such a bad thing then why is it hardwired into our human DNA?

There are evolutionary and biological reasons why vanity exists. The drive to procreate runs strong in humans. The more attractive an individual is, the greater the likelihood that they will find the ideal mate. Vanity can, induce one to improve their physical appearance in the hopes of attracting such a mate. But attractiveness has many facets that go beyond just physical appearances. In today’s modern world, attraction includes superior intellect, wealth, celebrity, power and influence. Vanity can act as a driver for self-improvement and nudge us to do things we would otherwise not do. Here are some examples of vanity put to good use:

• Exercise – Improving one’s physical appearance by exercising daily has a derivative benefit of improved cardio, muscular, neurological and physical health.
• Education – Furthering one’s education in an effort to be more successful has a derivative benefit of improving brain function and intelligence. Your brain actually grows the more you learn.
• Pursue and Achieve Dreams/Goals – Pursuing and achieving your dreams and goals as a means of separating yourself from the crowd has a derivative benefit of increasing your self-confidence and overall happiness.

There is a very good reason human beings are vane. Nature doesn’t endow us with certain traits that do not serve some purpose. Vanity can act as a driver to improve our health, mind, emotional well-being and financial circumstances. The next time someone says you’re so vane, say thank you.

Humiliation can be a good thing if you learn to channel it. It can stimulate a burning desire to improve and grow. Pursuing success is like navigating a mine field filled with obstacles, mistakes, failure and regrets. The key is to learn from those pitfalls rather than wallow in regret. Humiliation can elevate you to a better place. There’s a reason why nature endowed us with the humiliation emotion. It is there to push us to improve our lives. Don’t view humiliation as a bad thing, rather, see it for what it is – a signal to change. Let humiliation drive you to grow as an individual.

History is replete with individuals who experienced humiliation and used it to further their careers. Abraham Lincoln experienced humiliation often. He was defeated for state legislature , failed in business, defeated for state speaker, lost an election to Congress, lost renomination to Congress, rejected for a land officer position, defeated for U.S. Senate, defeated for nomination as Vice President and again defeated for U.S. Senate. He could have wallowed in regret but instead he used humiliation to push himself to improve and the rest, as they say, is history.

One of the interesting things I learned from studying self-made millionaires was the almost unanimous agreement that they all felt that they were not working hard enough. I found this ironic since 65% of them had a minimum of three revenue streams they were managing.

“So why, Mr. or Mrs. Self-made Millionaire do you think you’re lazy?” I asked.

“I love what I do and it just doesn’t feel like work,” was almost everyone’s response.

That got me excited because for most of my adult life I have had the belief and feeling that my work was hard (I am a CPA, CFP and specialize in taxes/financial planning). Conversely, when I was writing books, doing media interviews, speaking in front of groups and training organizations on the Rich Habits, I felt as if that wasn’t true work. At least it didn’t feel like work when I was doing it. And now I finally understand why. When you love what you’re doing, I mean really love what you’re doing, it does not feel like work.

I learned from my research that the fastest way to accumulate the most money isn’t through hard work (by hard work I mean devoting a lot of time to doing something that feels like work). It’s doing what you love. When you do what you love, you will devote more hours to it, become more expert at it and if that expertise is in demand, you will make more money than competitors who lack your passion and expertise.

Definiteness of purpose puts you on the path to success. Uncertainty puts you on the path of failure. Most people put their own ladder on someone Else’s wall. They pursue careers not of their own choosing. One group in this category takes the advice of well-meaning family members, typically parents or family members, who tell them to be an accountant, attorney, doctor, plumber, priest, etc. Another group in this category falls into some career without giving it any thought at all. They have a sort of, “well I might as well become a cop, or fireman, or insurance agent or (fill in the blank).” They pick their career out of a hat without knowing that much about it or if it’s the right career for them.

But those who make the most money and accumulate the most wealth in life are those who know what they want to do. They have a well thought-out plan and they pursue it. They put their own ladder on their own wall.

There is a solution that can help individuals who put their ladders on someone else’s wall. And it resides in the school system. A one year course on careers that introduces our children to a variety of careers will give them an opportunity to be exposed to the many career options that are out there. The best time for this course is early in high school. This will get their imaginations going and help them find their passion in life. It will help them choose a career that interests them.

We pick up most of our habits from our parents. Habits, it turns out, are generational. According to a recent study by Brown University, in which nearly 50,000 families were surveyed, most of the habits we pick up in life come from our parents (Brown Study). A recent study by the American Journal of Public Health found that 38% of children of parents who smoke will experiment with cigarettes and that 15% will, like their parents, become addicted. If your parents had bad habits it is likely those habits rubbed off on you.

Are you aware of your bad habits? Have you ever tracked your habits for two or three days? Most haven’t. Most are blissfully unaware of the habits they have. This is a problem because 40% of all of your behaviors, thinking and choices are habits (Duke Study 2006) But in order to change bad habits you need to first become aware of them. Awareness is the key to starting any habit change process.

For three work days track all of your daily activities. You will see there are certain activities that you repeat every day. These are habits. Then identify with a + or – which ones are good or bad habits. This makes you aware of the habits you have. The next step is to replace one bad habit with one good habit every month. Start with small habits. Starting small gives you momentum and confidence. In one year’s time, you will have changed 24 habits (12 old habits replaced by 12 good habits). Habit change is the key to changing your life. Habits put success on autopilot.

Success takes a long time. In my Rich Habits study it took an average of 32 years for most millionaires to build their wealth. The longer it takes for you to build your success foundation the deeper and more solid your foundation will be. Your level of success in life is directly correlated to the depth of your foundation. The deeper and stronger your foundation the more success you will realize in life. This is why those who experience success quickly and early in life see that same success evaporate just as quickly. The more time you devote to building your foundation for success, the more sustained will your success be.

Building that foundation requires that you continuously grow and change as an individual. The more you invest in your growth (i.e. reading to learn every day), the more you change and the greater your growth. The least valuable thing that millionaires have is money. The most important thing they have is who they became (knowledge, skill and the number of power relationships they forged in life) that enabled them to accumulate that money.

Failure is another one of those evil “F” words. Since childhood we are indoctrinated to avoid failure. It’s embedded into our education system. As a child, you experience failure for the first time when you fail a test. The teacher puts a big “F” on your test and immediately you learn that failure is bad.  Our education system has been enormously successful in indoctrinating future generations into believing failure is a very bad thing. As a result, our children learn very quickly to avoid failure at all costs. In this system, when you fail, you are berated and punished. This breaks down morale, destroys self-confidence, subdues enthusiasm, which dulls your imagination and derails you from taking risks, creating goals and pursuing dreams. As a result of this indoctrination, failure stops most in its tracks.

This is the opposite of what should be happening. When you fail at something the logical response should be to figure out where you went wrong and then apply that new knowledge and try again. Thomas Edison did this. He failed over 10,000 times with his incandescent lightbulb. Edison was able to leverage failure, converting it into a stepping stone to success. Edison proved that there is far more value in failing than in succeeding. You learn more from failure than you do from success. Failure teaches you what no to do in life. In a sense, failure is the most valuable lesson you can learn in life because failure is like scar tissue on the brain. It stays with you forever.

It takes an enormous amount of reprogramming to overcome the indoctrination that failure is a bad thing. Embrace failure. The only true failure in life is when you quit. Quitting makes failure permanent. Don’t accept failure as a bad thing. It’s lessons are invaluable. Failure is the mother of success.