Of the Four Paths to Wealth, which I discovered thanks to my Rich Habits Study, the Dreamer-Entrepreneurs represent the most unique group.
What makes them so unique?
They are Outliers.
They do things differently than others within their industry. They are trailblazers and non-conformists.
This nonconformity often comes from the fact that they are industry outsiders.
Being an outsider can be a huge advantage. Industry insiders do things the way everyone else within their industry does things. They toe the line and confirm to rules, protocols, strategies and industry guidelines. They do what everyone else before them did.
But, every so often, someone comes along who decides to do things completely different, if not outright opposite, of the herd that makes up an industry.
Take Elon Musk. He literally had zero knowledge or experience it the two industries he poured his $180 million Paypal proceeds into the Aerospace and Automotive industry.
The aerospace industry experts laughed and ridiculed him, as he poured tens of millions into his new company SpaceX, which he promised would make rockets affordable and re-usable.
No one’s laughing anymore. In fact, many aerospace experts soon found themselves applying for jobs at SpaceX.
Musk’s is an Outlier.
Take Donald Trump. (Put your hatred of him aside for a moment and embrace the Open-Minded Rich Habit that is a prerequisite for success).
Trump not only beat a field of 17 seasoned presidential candidates, to become President, he also brokered the historic middle-east peace accords with numerous Arabic countries, something no other president was able to do.
Seasoned political experts laughed at the notion Trump would win the presidency and seasoned middle-east experts ridiculed his efforts to broker peace in the middle-east.
They’re not laughing or ridiculing him anymore. In fact, many political and middle-east experts are now studying exactly how he did what the experts said could not be done.
Trump is an outlier.
One of the benefits of being an Outlier is you lack the industry indoctrination of doing things a certain way.
- You do not have any industry-related habits, good or bad. You bring your own unique habits or forge such habits, on the fly, as you struggle to survive in your new industry.
- You don’t have any industry-accepted ideologies or mindsets, good or bad.
- You don’t have any “fixed knowledge” that can close a mind to novel ideas or solutions to prevailing industry-related problems.
- You don’t have any industry-born reputation to protect. This allows you to take risks industry insiders would be unwilling to take, in fear of damaging their industry reputation.
As an Outlier, you are able to do things differently, which can cause turmoil and completely transform an industry, as Musk and Trump have done.
Another example of outliers bucking the trend, is the current insider-recognized path to success – a college education.
Thirty-nine percent of the self-made millionaires in my Rich Habits Study eschewed a college education, as a means to pursue success, and instead pursued an outlier path – starting a business.
Some of the wealthiest, most successful people in the world, were outliers who chose the school of hard knocks, in lieu of a formal higher education: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie (US Steel), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Ingvar Kamprad (Ikea), Sir Richard Branson (Virgin), Leonardo Del Vecchio (Luxottica Eyewear), Albert Einstein (Patent Clerk), Michael Dell (Dell Computing) and Ferrero Rocher (Ferrero Chocolates).
These are but a few examples.
Most people are conformists, not outliers, who do what everyone else is doing.
Conformists make a living. Sometimes a good living.
But Outliers change the world.
