Introduction Habit! Something that you may know what it is. What is habit? “A habit is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur unconsciously.” – Wikipedia When you repeatedly doing something regularly, you will create a result in the future from your actions. The outcome of your results depends on the kind of actions that you took -‐ positive or negative. To become rich, you need to have habits that will create the results. The best way to learn what kind of habits that you should have is by learning the habits of the millionaires. It is because of these habits that help them to get to where they are today. In following pages, you will find out what are the 10 habits that millionaires have.
Habit #1: Take Consistent Actions!
One of the millionaire coaches that I knew of said this during his course, “It is not the mistakes that you made failed you, it is your inaction that result to your financial failure.”
“Action is the foundational key to all success.” Pablo Picasso
The first time I heard it, I was puzzled. What bullshit statement was that? After thinking really hard about his statement, I realized it is nothing too far from the truth. If you make a mistake and failed, you may fail something. For example, say you made a wrong decision on an investment and you lose the money (in this case is monetary value). But you gained something -‐ you gained an experience. This experience will help in you future when make investment decision. You actually moved 1 step ahead on your path to financial success. However, if you choose not to take any actions, nothing is lost and gains. You are on the exact same spot. If you have not notice, Habit #1 is ‘Take Consistent Actions.’ Taking actions alone is not enough. Well, taking action is one thing. Taking consistent actions is another. So why do you need to take ‘Consistent Actions’? It is all about momentum. Once you have the momentum, keep doing and finding ways to move ahead of your path to financial success. If your momentum dies off, it will take more energy to re-‐ignite it again. Another reason why you need to take consistent actions is this. Every action that you take will give you either positive or negative results to help to move ahead on your path to financial success. The more actions you take, the faster you move ahead on your path.
Take a minute to think about the people that you heard these from. Do you think they are rich?
Take another minute to think about the rich people. Do they say these statements?
Les Brown
Have you heard any of these? ‘It’s not my fault, it’s his or her fault.’ ‘It’s the company’s or agent’s fault’ ‘It’s the government’s fault’
“If you take responsibility for yourself, you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams.”
Habit #2: Be 100% Responsible Of Your Own Actions.
Often that not, people who make these statements are not rich. To be rich, you need to be 100% Responsible of your own actions. You are responsible for EVERY single action and decision that you make -‐ both positive and negative. Don’t believe me? Let me give you a typical example. A friend of yours advises you a super attractive investment. The return is attractive that it’s hard for you to reject, even though you know nothing about the investment. You invested with your friend. Few weeks later, your friend told you that the investment went the wrong way and both of you make loses. And guess what, you BLAME your friend who introduce you to the investment. You may even say ‘I don’t make wrong decision. It’s all because I trusted this friend too much.’ Take a look at the situation again. You have a choice when your friend offers you the investment. No matter how attractive (or not attractive) it may be, you are the one who make the final decision to part your money into that investment. No one else is to BLAME except you. Do not Lay Blame on others and give Excuses for yourself.
Do you want to be rich? Of course, I’m sure there is no doubt to that. Everyone wants to be rich. Are you 100% committed to be rich? Hmmm… That’s right. Ask yourself -‐ are you 100% committed to be rich?
Interestingly, many people ‘want’ to be rich but only few are ‘committed’ to be rich.
What is the difference?
“There's always a way -‐ if you're committed.” Tony Robbins
Habit #3: Be Committed
Many people want to be rich. They find ways to get themselves richer. However, along the process, when they face challenges, they gave up. They start to find excuses to justify why they are not rich. For millionaires, getting rich is not a want. It is no longer something that they wish or hope to achieve. It is something that is an absolute MUST to get rich.
They will do whatever it takes (legal, moral and ethically) to get them into that situation. They have no choice but to make sure it happens.
How to make sure that you are 100% committed?
Review your ‘WHY’ reasons why you want to become rich. Are your reasons so strong that you really want to be rich? Once you know your reasons, put yourself into the ‘No Choice’ situation, where you left with no other option but to make sure it happens. Only by then, you will be 100% committed to become rich.
“Do what you love and the money will follow.” Marsha Sinetar
Habit #4: Love What You Do One common thing that you will find in all millionaires is that they are in love with what they are doing. Likewise, for you to be rich, you have to love what you do. Think about it: are you happy with your current career? Why do you have to love what you do? There are many ways to make money to get rich. There are people making good income in every career and businesses that they do. It is a long process to get rich – we are talking about 20, 30 or even 50 years. Why millionaires love what they do is because they have the passion for it. Why is this passion for your work is important? You passion is your motivation to sustain yourself and fuel your drive to go through the path to financial success. Take a look at the people who are not interested in their job? Are they performing? Are they earning a good income and becoming rich? The chances are NO. It will come to a point that they give up and move on to something else. Walking your path to financial success is not an easy journey. It is important to have motivation and drive to keep you going. Therefore, doing things that you love will sustain you through the journey.
“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” Derek Bok
Habit #5: Increase Your Financial Intelligence If the owner of a forest allowed you to chop down his trees and you get to keep all the money from the trees that you sold, but you are only given 10 hours and an axe, what will you do? Most people will just take the axe and start chopping the trees for the whole 10 hours to get as many trees as possible. I am sure that is what you are going to do as well. Surprisingly, this group of people may not sell the most number of trees from these 10 hours. Instead, what another group did was more fulfilling because they got a high number of trees out of the 10 hours. So what did they do exactly? They spend the first 7-‐8 hours sharpening their axe. As their axes are sharper, it takes them shorter time to chop down a tree. Therefore, even though they spent lesser time on chopping down the trees, but because they take lesser time to chop down a tree, they actually chop down more trees in the end. What is the morale of the story? Many people always look for the ‘Next Hot’ investments or ‘Sure-‐Win’ opportunities but not invest time into their financial intelligences. Many people made lose from the investments that they don’t know. Millionaire are always seeking and learning new things to improve. If you have spent more time to increase your financial intelligence, you will be able to better differentiate the good opportunities from the bad ones -‐ increase your chances of making more profits and less loses. This quote from Derek Bok and it engrave into my mind: “If you think financial education is expensive, try ignorance.”
Habit #6: Be Prepared And Embrace Changes
Lets be honest, you are at where you are now is because of the past actions and habits you have for the past years.
Like what T. Harv Eker evocates: Thoughts -‐> Feelings -‐> Actions = Results
The results of you now are because of the thoughts that you fed yourself with and the actions that you have took over the years.
“Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results.” By Thomas Edison
For you to have different results, you need to change your thoughts and actions. If you have the same thoughts and do the same actions, you are just doing to achieve the same results. That’s the fact! However, changing your thoughts and actions might be challenging because that will means that you might have to change your beliefs and habits. The key challenges here is to change your beliefs and habits because you have your own sets of comfort zone which you might not comfortable to step out. Millionaires understand that for them to achieve different results, they need to think and act differently. They are physically and mentally prepared to step out of their comfort zone and embrace the changes. In fact, out of comfort zone is a temporary emotional and mental barrier. If you are able to control over your emotion and mental barrier, you just have to keep repeating doing the things that are out of your comfort zone. Over time, you will get used to the tasks and it became comfortable. It is similar like you enter a new environment, it is uncomfortable initially, but over time, and you will get comfortable with it.
Habit #7: Be Patient – It Takes Time
Financial success does not happen overnight. You WILL take time to learn, experience and build your wealth.
Many people want to get rich quick. Because of the greed to get rich quickly, they often are lure into those ‘Get-‐Rich-‐Quick’ schemes.
If you are luck, you may have exited the schemes before they collapse. However, if you are not, you could have lost a huge part, if not all, your money into these schemes.
“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” Jean-‐jacques Rousseau
Therefore, there are no shortcuts to financial success. Building your financial success is like constructing a building. The first thing to construct a building is to ensure that it has a strong foundation. With strong foundation, the building will be able to withstand any form of weather conditions and prolong its lifespan. Similarly for financial success, it is important to build your foundation strong so that you can withstand the economic conditions. To build strong foundation, you need to spend more time to build your basics. However, if you are really aggressive and have a short time horizon to achieve your financial success, you can choose to take the accelerated path. An accelerated path is just like a crash-‐course. The amount of time to learn is the same but you squeeze these learning into a shorter timeframe. Can it be done? Yes it can be. However, please be physically and mentally prepared. You are going to a lot more in a day or week. Regardless, you have to build up your foundation. Like the old saying: ‘Master to crawl before you walk. Master to walk before you fly.’
Habit #8: Delay Gratification
What is ‘Delay Gratification’?
“Delayed gratification is a sweet lesson whose teacher knows the best is not right now, it is yet to be.” Maximillian Degenerez
Simply put it, it means ‘enjoy whatever you want in the future.’ Many people could not agree to this statement. They will say ‘Why can’t I spend and enjoy the money that I have earn now?’ That is the exact reason that differentiates the rich and the average people. Let me give you an example, if you invest $1,000 into an investment, your $1,000 will grow $10,000 worth of interests over 50 years at 5% return per annual. Here is the difference between the rich and the average people: The Average People: Spend the $1,000. The Rich: Spend the interests earned from the $1,000. You see, most people choose to spend the $1,000. How much money will be left for investment? Some will have some money left to grow smaller returns. Some will not even have a single cent left, less say grow the money. Do you think you can get rich like this in the long run? How about the riches? They choose to invest this $1,000 and not spend this money now. But 50 years later, they not only have the choice to spend $1,000, they have $10,000 for them to spend.
Which one will you choose? Spend $1,000 now or Spend $10,000 in the future?
Therefore, practice delay gratification.
Habit #9: Have Self-‐Discipline
We are humans and we have emotions. There are times that you will feel lazy and tired. It is always in our human instinct to find our comfort zone.
“With self-‐discipline most anything is possible.” Theodore Roosevelt
When you are going through the changes along our path to financial success, it will require self-‐discipline to not fall back into our comfort zone. Otherwise, all the efforts that you had put in will be gone to waste. The path of financial success takes time. Sometimes when we talk about the period for the investment we can mention in days or weeks. But when we talk about building your wealth, we are talking about years. Often than not, we are referring to 1 to 3 years. That figure seems small when we use year as the unit. In fact, it is 52 to 156 weeks or 365 to 1,095 days. That is really a long time. Therefore, it takes lots of self-‐discipline to remind you throughout this period of time. Also, with all the better quality of living, it will be easily be tempted with all the stuffs that we want to enjoy immediately. To make things worse, with the easy access of money through credit cards, it makes it harder for you to fight the temptation. Therefore, it also takes lots of self-‐discipline to control on your spending. Bad news is not all of us have the self-‐discipline and determination to control ourselves. Good news is self-‐discipline is not a skill that is born with. It can be train and develop over time, when you are more aware of your own actions.
Habit #10: Give And You Shall Receive
Many millionaires have the belief that you should receive what you want if you give enough people what they want.
How have millionaires given to others? • • • •
•
“For it is in giving that we receive.” St. Francis of Assisi
Donations through charities (e.g. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett) Mentoring and coaching for their juniors Provide a platform for colleagues to develop his or her career Fund start-‐ups to give confidence for younger generations for their spirits for entrepreneurship Give advices to fellow peers (or even competitors) for them to achieve breakthrough in their businesses
Now, this may come across your mind ‘I am poor and I don’t have anything to give. How am I going to do that?’ Often that not, giving something does not have to be something that is physical. For example, you are looking for a job. However, after many rounds of interviews, you are unable to get one. A friend of yours was looking someone to help out to do some transferring of goods. In this instance, you can offer your time and strength to transport the goods. You never know that friend might be able to put in good words for you to the management and help you to secure a job. Believe it or not, the Universe has such amazing power to help you to receive what you want when you have help enough people to get what they want.
Conclusion
-‐ END -‐
Now you know the 10 habits that millionaires have.
Disclaimers And Notices
By knowing the knowledge is powerful, but by applying the knowledge is even better.
I am not a licensed financial, investment, business, legal or accounting professional. All information contained in this book is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. I encourage you to do your own due diligence and seek professional advice before acting on any information or recommendations found in this publication. Please understand that I may have financial relationships with some of the companies mentioned in this book and may benefit financially from some of the links contained in this publication. I do not assume any liability for the content of any linked websites, including, without limitation, the accuracy, timeliness, completeness or quality of such content. Any third-‐party information is subject to change without notice. I do not guarantee any success, monetary gain or investment returns if you choose to use any of the recommended third-‐ party products or services. By reading this book, you agree that neither I nor my company are responsible for your success or failure due to the decisions made based on any information or recommendations presented in this publication. No part of this book shall be reproduced, transmitted or sold in whole or in part in any form, without my prior written consent. All trademarks appearing in this book are the property of their respective owners.
Old habits are hard to break and it takes time to develop new habits. It takes 28 days of consistent actions to develop a new habit. Therefore, you will need to be self-‐aware of you actions and do the correct actions to create the right habits. By developing these 10 habits, you are a step closer to achieve your financial success. Take pride and control of your own financial freedom! To your success! Nick Lee Founder 8SkillsToBecomeRich.com