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TOM@RICHHABITS.NET
Three habits show up again and again among people who stay poor: hours spent on reality television, regular lottery play, and a worldview that treats wealth as fate, luck, or someone else’s job to deliver.
Tom Corley’s Rich Habits research—comparing the daily habits of millionaires to the daily habits of those struggling in poverty—puts hard numbers on this Wealth/Poverty gap.
The habit gap percentages that separate these two groups, the Rich and the Poor, are not even remotely close. They form a reinforcing loop that crowds out the daily behaviors that actually build wealth.
Reality TV is the first Pillar of Poverty. Only 6 percent of the rich reported watching reality shows. Among the poor the figure was 78 percent. That is not harmless entertainment. Reality programming rewards drama, instant gratification, and the illusion that ordinary people leap into luxury, ignoring the years of unglamorous grinding it out work.
Reality TV, recreational internet use and more than an hour of television for most of the poor sample, displaces reading, skill practice, and relationship-building—the activities the wealthy treat as non-negotiable.
The second Pillar of Poverty is the Poverty Habit of playing the lottery. Just 6 percent of the rich played regularly. Seventy-seven percent of the poor played the lottery weekly. Lottery tickets are a tax on the poor. The same Poor group that buys lottery tickets regularly also carries credit-card balances with high interest rates.
The lottery habit sits inside a broader Poverty Mindset built around the hope for an instant windfall, rather than putting in the work to create wealth down the road.
The third Pillar of Poverty is the Poverty Habit of externalizing the cause of your Poverty:
- 97% of the poor believed fate dictated their financial circumstances.
- 79% said wealth comes from random good luck.
- 90% thought most rich people inherit their money.
- 87% wanted the government to do more to help people financially.
- 87% also believed the wealthy should pay more tax and that the rich are greedy.
Contrast that with the rich:
- 79 percent said “I am the cause of my financial status,”
- 84 percent said good habits create opportunity luck, and
- Only 5 percent of the wealthy believed wealthy people inherited their money.
- Self-made millionaires scored even higher on personal responsibility.
These three Pillars of Poverty travel together.
People who watch hours of manufactured drama, buy lottery tickets, and attribute outcomes to fate or government rarely set written goals, read 30 minutes a day for self-education, or save 10 percent or more of income—behaviors that appear in 66–100 percent of the wealthy sample and almost never among the poor.
The Poor also report far higher rates of unhappiness tied specifically to finances (98 percent versus zero among the rich).
None of this is destiny. The research shows the poor are not genetically or intellectually locked out – they simply practice a different set of daily habits and hold a different theory of how money is made.
Replacing reality TV with 30 minutes of career-related reading, stopping lottery play, and shifting from “fate did this to me” to “I am the cause” is not motivational fluff. It is the observable difference between the two groups.
The Rich Habits Study data does not claim these three changes guarantee riches.
It does show, however, that keeping all three virtually guarantees the perpetuation of Poverty.
