Develop the Habits to Create Opportunity Luck, Achieve Consistent Success, and Build Wealth
My Rich Habits study has received international attention in the media. Newspapers, magazines, online sites, TV, radio and podcasts in 27 countries, so far, have shared bits and pieces of my research.
As a result, I have received tens of thousands of emails from around the world, regarding my research and my study methodology.
When was the last time you played the lottery?
If the answer was “yesterday”, you might want to keep reading.
The media likes writing stories about lottery winners because the masses like reading about their stories. For those who consistently play the lottery, the stories offer a sort of validation.
But when you peel the onion, the fantasy about winning the lottery is really all about a mindset that embraces instant gratification, instant rewards and instant wealth, without enduring any of the hardship pursuing wealth actually requires.
If you look carefully at any of those lottery-winner stories, one thing you would notice is that hardly any of the winners are CEOs, senior executives, successful entrepreneurs, successful professionals or other successful types.
Why?
Because, as I learned from my five-year study on the rich and the poor, successful people do not have a lottery mindset.
What is the lottery mindset?
It is the idea that there is a shortcut to wealth; that it is possible to become instantly wealthy by virtue of random good luck.
The problem is, those who have the lottery mindset are not living in reality. The lottery mindset is a fantasy with odds that boggle the mind.
In the 25-year history of the Iowa Lottery, for example, only 110 people won $1 million or more. That equates to about 4 millionaire-lottery winners a year. In 2006, there were 50,529 millionaires in Iowa. If you do the math, only about .0079% of all Iowa millionaires are, therefore, lottery winners. Not a very promising path to wealth.
But this lottery mindset is not just about playing the lottery. It’s about embracing uneducated risk and speculating with your money.
People who frequent casinos, have a lottery mindset. The recent masses jumping on the bitcoin bandwagon, have a lottery mindset. People who invest in start-ups they know little to nothing about, have a lottery mindset.
The lottery mindset brainwashes you into believing that there is an easier path towards wealth. One in which you are not required to do the requisite heavy lifting, that success requires.
Those with a lottery mindset do not pursue their dreams. They do not set goals. They do not step outside their comfort zone, experimenting and learning new things. They do not engage in daily self-improvement as a whetstone in developing expert knowledge or skills.
The demographics of those who buy into this get rich quick lottery mindset are typically poor people who see the lottery as the only available means by which they can level the playing field and become rich. Winning the lottery is the result of random luck, of which the rich have no advantage over the poor.
Those with a lottery mindset simply do not realize that there is a surer, truer path towards success and its byproduct, wealth, other than random good luck.
What is the surer, truer path?
Habits. Or, more specifically, Rich Habits.
In my most famous books, Rich Habits and Change Your Habits Change Your Life, I share the habits many millionaires have in common. For those who haven’t read any of my books, here’s a quick overview of seven of those Rich Habits:
There are no shortcuts in life to accumulating wealth and realizing success. That’s the real secret to becoming rich, if there is one.
The lottery mindset is simply a cop-out for those who are unwilling to do the heavy lifting success requires. Don’t buy into it. The odds just don’t add up.
Has your hot water heater ever broken down? Has the roof of your home ever leaked? Have you ever had a major car problem? Do you have kids that go to college and the tuition must be paid before you send them off to school?
When you face one of these common problems, what’s your initial reaction? If you’re like most, thee problems create what we call stress. And stress makes you unhappy.
When you are poor or struggling financially, these problems and the unhappiness they create can linger for days, weeks or even months. Because you lack the money to immediately solve the problem, you must either borrow the money to fix the problem, apply some band aid solution which makes the problem go away temporarily or live with the consequences of not solving the problem.
Rich or poor, everyone faces common problems.
I spent the past 12 years studying the rich and the poor (Rich Habits Study) and found that there were 12 frequent big problems almost everyone has to contend with:
These are all common, modern day problems almost everyone, rich or poor faces. And these problems create unhappiness for everyone. The big difference between the rich and the poor, is that the rich are able to easily overcome and eliminate most of these problems and thus, eliminate the unhappiness these problems create.
When I analyzed my study data, I discovered that, out of all of these modern day problems, the rich really only struggle with four of these problem areas:
If you do the math, that’s only 33% of life’s problems that the wealthy have to contend with. Or, looking at it another way – being rich eliminates 67% of life’s major problems. Being rich, therefore, eliminates 67% of life’s unhappiness.
Let’s delve into this in a little more detail. [Read more…]
The food manufacturing system in most industrialized countries has institutionalized obesity.
GMO-enhanced farming, cows and poultry fed antibiotics, the mass-manufacturing of processed foods and finally, the delivery systems for those unnatural foods (supermarkets and fast food restaurants) makes obesity possible.
U.S. food policy has created a system that encourages the judicial use of antibiotics on farm animals and the manufacture of flour, sugar and vegetable oils to support the food needs of its growing population.
Even worse, there is very little education within the medical community surrounding nutrition. Medical students receive an average of just 19 hours of nutrition education over their four-years of medical school. This means doctors are not technically proficient in dealing with this obesity epidemic.
But, all is not lost. Some are fighting back and trying to put a stop to the institutionalization of obesity, not through fat-shaming, but through education and support. In study after study surrounding obesity, habits, it turns out, are the key to eliminating obesity.
In my Rich Habits Study, I discovered certain behaviors, that when habitualized, improve health and help decrease obesity:
There are an abundance of studies since 1959 that all say the same thing – diets don’t work. Research has shown that 95-98% of dieters fail to lose weight and 67% of dieters who do lose weight, gain back more than they lost.
You must, instead, forge habits that can be sustained in the long-term. Once you forge good healthy habits, you automate good health. There’s no thinking, discipline or willpower required.
Once your healthy behavior transforms into habits (about 90 days), they then come under the control of your limbic system and become unconscious automated behaviors. Good health habits turn you into a health zombie.
“Experience is always the hardest teacher because the test is given first and the lesson is given afterwards.” John Maxwell
Making mistakes helps us learn what works and what doesn’t work.
Mistakes are like scar tissue on the brain. We rarely forget the mistakes which cost us a great deal of time, money or damage one of our long-standing relationships.
Instead of ruminating about what we do that is wrong, however, we should instead take a page out of the book of the most successful entrepreneurs from my Rich Habits research – the Self-Made Dreamers.
There were 119 Self-Made Dreamers in my Rich Habits Study. These were individuals who devoted their lives to a dream. Sometimes, however, that dream was a nightmare. Especially in the beginning.
The early part of every Dreamer’s journey is riddled with mistake after mistake. The real fear is the fear of failure – too many mistakes and you run out of money, which means you run out of time.
So, the Dreamers in my study took their mistakes very seriously. They went to great lengths to figure out what they did wrong. Through this arduous mistake analysis, they gained knowledge from their mistakes. With this new knowledge, they went back at it.
Eventually, they got it right, meaning they figured out which actions produced the results they desired. Then they did something that cemented their ultimate success – they documented exactly what worked and what didn’t work.
This is called a Process. And, as I found in my study, successful entrepreneurs become successful entrepreneurs because their studious analysis of their mistakes give rise to processes that became integrated into the very heart of their business.
Every time a new workable process is discovered, these Self-Made Dreamers meticulously document every detail of it. And then, everyone who works with them, is then required to follow each new process.
These tried and true processes become organization-wide habits.
The self-made millionaire-Dreamers in my study continued this experimentation-driven, process-finding approach until they had a wealth of proven processes that solidified their business model and, eventually made them multi-millionaires. The average Self-Made Dreamer in my study accumulated $7.4 million over 12 years, following this formula for success.
Successful entrepreneurs don’t hate their mistakes. They love their mistakes. After all, if it wasn’t for those mistakes, they’d never stumble upon the processes that help them transform their dream into reality.
So, if you’re an entrepreneur, love your mistakes. Mistakes are what dreams are made of.
In my book, “Change Your Habits, Change Your Life,” I introduced my readers to one of the tools successful entrepreneurs in my Rich Habits Study used that helped them become self-made millionaires. This tool is something called Dream-Setting.
Dream-Setting is a process in which you:
As you realize each dream, you climb your individual Dream Ladder. When you reach the top of your ladder, only then are you living the life of your dreams.
Clearly, the hardest part of this Dream-Setting process is pursuing and achieving the goals behind your dream, or the Goal Pursuit & Achievement Process (Step 4).
Step 4’s Goal Pursuit & Achievement Process is the hardest part because it requires that you:
Each of these two Goal Pursuit & Achievement Processes requires effort. Effort = time. Somehow, you must find the time to pursue and achieve the goals behind your dreams.
What makes devoting time to your goals so hard is that many who are pursuing their dreams and the goals behind their dreams have jobs which limit how much time they have to engage in this Goal Pursuit and Achievement Process.
So what do you do?
You must create a daily routine in which you block off time, every day, to dedicate to this Goal Pursuit & Achievement Process.
This routine can take as little as one hour a day. What makes this routine effective is transforming it into a daily habit. Day after day, you must go at each one of your goals.
Your daily routine is the scheduling system that transforms each of your dreams, and the goals behind your dreams, into reality.
This is why I harp so much on habits. Daily habits, built around your goals, make success possible.
Your daily routine is nothing more than a series of daily habits you engage in every day that enable you to achieve each one of your goals and ultimately, each one of your dreams.
Let me give you a real-life example.
When I began my Rich Habits Study in early 2004, I had just taken over as CEO of my company. I had responsibility for eight employees and close to one thousand clients. This new job required an enormous time commitment, meaning long hours. I also had three young children and a spouse I desperately wanted to spend time with.
So, I found the only time available: 4:30 a.m. – 6 a.m. on workdays and 4:30 a.m. – 8 a.m. on weekends. For nearly four years, my daily routine was waking up at 4:30 and devoting time to my Rich Habits Study. Because I only had that limited time, the study took four years. But, after four years, it was done.
Since then, I have continued to employ this daily morning routine to help me write five books over a seven year period. Like so many of the self-made millionaires in my Rich Habits Study, a simple daily routine helped transform me from a nobody into a world-wide best-selling author in a relatively short period of time.
If you are pursuing a dream and time is your enemy, you must create a routine and then you must habitualize that routine – schedule it every day. This is what successful high-achieving dreamers do. That is what the self-made millionaires in my Rich Habits Study did. They created and followed a consistent schedule, or daily routine.
Consistency transforms dreams into reality.
Tom Corley is an accountant, financial planner and author of “Rich Kids: How to Raise Our Children to Be Happy and Successful in Life.”
In my book Rich Habits, I shared one of the many Rich Habits that related to the relationships we keep:
I Will Surround Myself With Positive, Upbeat, Success-Minded Individuals.
According to my Rich Habits Study, the basis of the research behind my book, 93% of the 177 self-made millionaires in my study said they intentionally surrounded themselves with success-minded people. Even more interesting, 90% of those 177 millionaires said they avoided associating with toxic people.
Toxic people are typically those with a negative outlook on life. They are pessimistic, negative types who possess bad habits, limiting beliefs, they gossip and create havoc with their relationships.
Jim Rohn has a famous quote related to this: “’You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
The point Rohn was making is that those who surround you, your inner circle, influence the circumstances of your life in ways you may not fully comprehend.
Everyone has an Inner Circle. Inside this circle are family members, friends, colleagues at work, and other significant others who you interact with frequently.
You Inner Circle is something that has evolved over time, meaning it was not something you intentionally created. As a result, individuals who have slipped into your Inner Circle may not necessarily share your dreams, goals, ambitions, desires, beliefs, habits, thinking, work ethic, etc.
In fact, some of those residing in your Inner Circle may actually be toxic, meaning they can negatively impact the pursuit of your dreams and goals. They can infect you with their negative beliefs, bad habits, poor work ethic, etc. They can de-motivate you.
In short, these toxic Inner Circle members can de-rail your pursuit of success. And, because they will drag you down and de-motivate you, these toxic Inner Circle members should never be privy to your dreams, goals or aspirations.
The only people who you should share your dreams, goals and aspirations with are individuals who are the opposite of toxic. Individuals who can actually help you in the pursuit of success.
For this very reason, it is critical for you to intentionally build another Inner Circle, or rather a Winner Circle.
You Winner Circle will be comprised of individuals who are upbeat, highly motivated, enthusiastic and possess a positive mental outlook. These are can-do types who will become your biggest cheerleaders.
Your Winner Circle members will encourage you in the pursuit of your dream. They will help keep you motivated about the goals behind your dream. They will have good habits which infect you, helping your dreams and goals become a reality. They will lift you up and keep you going.
Your Winner Circle are the only people with whom you will share your dreams, goals and aspirations.
Be careful who you share your dreams, goals and aspirations with. Be very selective.
The pursuit of success isn’t easy. It is filled with obstacles, pitfalls and problems. It requires relentless persistence. Many who pursue success, unfortunately fail and I believe it is, in large part, due to the fact that they are surrounded by too many people telling them to quit; to give up the fight.
You therefore need to surround yourself with people, your Winner Circle, who will help you navigate those obstacles and pitfalls and who can also help you find solutions to problems. You need to surround yourself with people who encourage you to keep fighting on and to never, ever quit.
If you are pursuing success, build a Winner Circle and only share with them your dreams, goals and aspirations. Never share your dreams, goals and aspirations with anyone who might discourage you from that pursuit.
The non-rich spend their money and save what’s left.
The rich save their money and spend what’s left.
One is a poverty philosophy and the other is a wealth philosophy.
Poverty Philosophy
According to my Rich Habits data, those who are poor never forge the important habit of saving money and, thus, are never able to invest. How can you invest what you don’t have?
If you were never taught this savings Rich Habit, you automatically default to the Poor Habit of spending all of your money. And if you spend everything you make, you eliminate any opportunity to create wealth, through prudent investment.
In effect, you abandon one of the least difficult and more certain paths towards accumulating wealth – Saving & Investing.
Wealth Philosophy
Saving money is crucial to creating wealth because only by saving money can you invest those savings.
And this Rich Habit – Saving and Prudently Investing Your Savings is one of the three paths to wealth I discovered in my Rich Habits research and often write about.
What makes this path so important is that it is within the reach of just about everyone.
Unlike the two other paths (Becoming a Virtuoso or Pursuing a Dream), it is the least sexy path towards wealth creation.
It does not require any special skills, innate talents, excessive risk or some outrageous work ethic.
The only requirements are saving at least 10% of your income and prudently investing those savings.
This Saving & Investing path takes a long time to accumulate wealth – an average of 32 years.
Also, in terms of the millionaires in my study, those who pursued this path were also the poorest millionaires in my study.
Nonetheless, it is one of the more certain and least demanding paths to creating wealth.
The wealthy who Save and Invest force themselves to survive off 80-90% of their net income by automatically setting aside 10-20% of their income with every paycheck.
What I mean by automatic is – they treat saving as if it were a monthly bill – the first and most important monthly bill they must pay each month.
This Wealth Philosophy elevates Savings to the point where it becomes your #1 financial priority, or #1 monthly bill.
When you consider Saving as your #1 financial priority, you are then able to back-engineer your standard of living (i.e. keep it low), in order to ensure your ability to save.
How you think about money, your money philosophy, drives your money habits. If you have a Wealth Philosophy, you will see money as a tool to build wealth and forge good money habits, enabling you to save and prudently invest those savings.
Your body is amazing. It has an intuitive ability to heal itself. However, when the body is overwhelmed with toxins, it enters a state of imbalance. Once this imbalance becomes too great, disease results.
The world’s leading health organizations have stated that 95% of all cancer is diet and environment-related.
There is growing scientific and medical evidence that the rise in cancer and other diseases is the result of certain manufactured toxins and the side effects of prescription and non-prescription drugs.
A book titled The Rain Barrel Effect, by Dr. Stephen Cabral, does an excellent job opening your eyes to the omnipresence of toxins that we consume or are exposed to every day. I highly recommend this book. Dr. Cabral is medical doctor with a second Doctorate in Naturopathy (aka Alternative Medicine).
I spent five years studying the habits of 361 people in and learned that there are habits that create wealth, cause poverty, improve relationships, damage relationships, improve health, damage your health and also discovered habits that increase or decrease happiness. I documented over 340 habits in my Rich Habits Study and I’ve shared many of the most important habits in my books: Rich Habits, Rich Kids, Change Your Habits Change Your Life and Rich Habits Poor Habits.
Now I’d like to share with you a list of habit changes that will remove toxins and disease from your body:
There is much more. I am merely scratching the surface. That is why I recommend you read The Rain Barrel Effect. It will inform and educate. That newfound wisdom will give you and your family a fighting chance to live a healthy, long, disease-free life.
Most diseases are merely your body’s response to imbalance – an overload of toxins that it is desperately trying to fight and eliminate. When your rain barrel gets overloaded, however, disease happens.
What you can do is simply try your best to empty your rain barrel of as many toxins as possible by forging certain Rich Habits. This will give your body a fighting chance to remove toxins and keep you and your loved-ones healthy.
I’ve come to admire the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts because, through their badge programs, they institutionalize one of the most powerful Rich Habits that I uncovered in my five-year Rich Habits Study – Experimentation.
Why is experimentation critical to success in life?
In my study, I identified three groups of self-made millionaires: Entrepreneurs, Executives and Saver-Investors.
By far, the wealthiest in my study happened to be Entrepreneurs, with an average net liquid wealth of $7.4 million, which they accumulated over an average of twelve years. They accumulated twice the wealth in half the time of the Executives and Savers.
Why were the Entrepreneurs able to accumulate so much more wealth and why did it take them so much less time?
Entrepreneurs are experimenters. They experiment with different activities until they find one they are good at or passionate about.
Experimentation helps expose an innate talent or passion.
When you discover an innate talent or something that makes your heart sing, you find yourself wanting to engage in that activity all the time. As a result, you spend much more time engaging in the activity and this deliberate practice eventually transforms you into a virtuoso with respect to that activity.
Many of the self-made millionaires I studied had one thing in common – at some point during their lives they discovered an innate talent or something that made their heart sing. They then devoted the rest of their lives practicing it, perfecting it, and eventually becoming an expert in it.
Because experts provide more added-value, they receive a premium for their services and are able to accumulate more wealth.
Experimentation reveals your calling in life – an innate talent or a passion. When you find the thing you were supposed to do, life rewards you twice. The first reward is happiness and a sense of fulfillment. The other reward, wealth, is simply the icing on the cake.
