Think like a millionaire
A millionaire and a poor man, in essence, are people who at birth have absolutely equal rights and chances of success.
Each of them may own a yacht, a castle and millions of dollars, but... for some reason some people become millionaires, while others continue to “work hard” all day long in order to bring home at least a living wage.
What distinguishes these people: the presence of willpower? Certainly! A specific life purpose and principles? Undoubtedly! Do you want to succeed at any cost? But of course! But this is not the main thing. The main thing that distinguishes an accomplished millionaire from a person with low income is the presence of a millionaire consciousness. A person simply thinks like a millionaire, imagines himself as a millionaire, and ultimately becomes a millionaire.
So, as you probably already guessed, this article will talk about how each of us can take the path of greater prosperity than we have now, by developing the mindset of a millionaire. You will begin to think “like a billionaire.” What is it that distinguishes millionaires and allows them to achieve wealth that other people cannot even imagine in their frank dreams? One important characteristic of millionaires is that they follow their opinions at all costs, regardless of the opinions of other people.
Once they have set a goal, it is very difficult to lead them astray from achieving it. The opinion of no other person (even the closest) can shake the opinion of a person with the psychology of a millionaire.
Let's consider the basic commandments of a person who wants to develop the thinking skills of a millionaire:
Commandment 1
You should never take a vacation. Of course, for a modern person this sounds paradoxical - how can you not take a well-deserved vacation? The idea is that for a job to be done well, it must bring pleasure to the person. He is so carried away by her that he does not notice that he is tired. Most successful people are able to talk about work even on vacation.
This does not mean that they are work-absorbed fanatics and that nothing but work pleases them. The fact is that work brings them so much pleasure that even talking about work on vacation, they relax. If the work does not captivate a person, then he is working in the wrong place.
Play sports
Much has already been said about the fact that sport helps maintain mental activity. And Branson, in his interview with Richard Branson on Exercise and Productivity FourHourBodyPress, also notes that he achieves twice as much when he keeps himself in shape. In his free time, he plays tennis, walks or runs, and rides a bike or kitesurfs. Mark Zuckerberg has also mentioned the relationship between exercise and productivity more than once:
Staying in shape is very important. Doing anything well requires energy, and you have a lot more of it when you're in shape. I try to exercise at least three times a week, usually right after I wake up.
As Arnold Schwarzenegger asked Mark Zuckerberg about his workout routine - Here's what Zuck said Arnold Schwarzenegger, no one can justify their reluctance to exercise by lack of time, because even the Pope and presidents find a minute to take care of their form.
Take care of this too, since physical activity not only improves health, but also has a positive effect on mental abilities.
Commandment 2
Don't spend more time sleeping than your body needs. This does not mean that there is no need to rest at all, because this will easily lead to a depletion of vital forces. A person simply needs sleep to restore the energy potential of his body. When a person, fully rested and restored to strength, decides to rest for another couple of hours, this is already unnecessary. And what is unnecessary is not good. Of course, the sleep of people who have nowhere to rush is one thing - they really can sleep as much as their heart desires.
But you and I, dear reader, have other goals. Millionaires are very careful about their time in life, trying to use every hour most effectively - so let's follow their example.
Do simple tasks first
If you're overwhelmed with things to do and your to-do list makes you feel sick, consider whether all the items on it will take up the same amount of time. Most likely, you have simple, small tasks that are easy for you, and only a couple of really difficult tasks. In his book “10 Lessons in Leadership,” Zuckerberg also mentioned his habit that helps him deal with a lot of worries:
The simplest rule of business is this: choose the things that are easier for you first and do them. Then you can really make a lot of progress.
Do the simplest tasks first that don't take up much time. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, this way you will save more time on really complex projects. Secondly, you will experience moral satisfaction from the fact that you crossed out half of the elements in your task list without spending too much energy. An obvious but effective strategy.
Commandment 3
Develop your ability to concentrate on what is important. When a person knows how to highlight the main thing and separate it from the secondary, this gives him a significant advantage over other people. This rule is equally true for everything - for deeds, events, thoughts and feelings.
Many of us make the mistake of starting to do things that do not have the highest priority at the moment. Getting bogged down in unimportant matters, we completely forget about the most important matters, without which the final goal will never be achieved. A person's ability to focus on the most important things is the hallmark of millionaires. They will never waste precious time on solving less pressing issues if they have not completed the most important ones.
If secondary issues also require resolution, most likely the millionaire will entrust other people to deal with them, or will begin to resolve this issue when it becomes most pressing. Also, a person’s ability to concentrate on the main thing is a very important quality in the dialogue process. If a person is able to grasp the main idea among a large flow of information, he will be able to maintain and develop the conversation in the right way, which is very important when concluding deals.
Always carry a notepad with you
In one of his interviews with Richard Branson shares his travel tips for CNN, Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, mentioned this useful habit:
The main thing for me is to carry a small notepad in my back pocket. It can be used to record important thoughts, contacts, suggestions, ways to solve problems. I could never have built the Virgin Group without this notebook.
According to Take note, it's time to take notes Branson, 99% of his acquaintances in leadership positions do not take notes, and in vain. This opinion is shared by other business sharks. For example, Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who states: “Write everything down. This is a million-dollar lesson that for some reason they don’t teach in business school.”
Nike CEO Mark Parker, entrepreneur and author James Altucher, and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg all prefer paper notepads to online note-taking services.
There are several reasons for this. The paper is not dependent on the Internet and does not need to be charged. In addition, a blank notepad gives you more freedom: you can keep lists, draw graphs and draw in it, but you still have to try to find an application that can do all this at once.
Recording all your ideas, thoughts, sudden insights, activities and contacts is very important. The human brain has a nasty tendency to forget everything, but a notepad has no such disadvantage.
Commandment 4
Business is war, and in this war you are both a general and a soldier. Every millionaire knows perfectly well that in business, as in war, the main quality that helps achieve the desired goals is toughness. That is why business is very often compared by millionaires with war. And this is true, because in war the commander-in-chief draws up a plan of military action, and the role of the soldier is to implement this plan.
In business, you combine both of these roles - you draw up a business plan, look for ways to implement it and move towards the goal in accordance with the accepted business plan. You must be prepared to take full responsibility for the business development plan you have adopted - there is no other way.
Don't try to do everything alone
Behind great people there are always those to whom we pay the least attention - family members, friends, colleagues and subordinates, without whom all their achievements would be impossible. You can't do anything alone, no matter how persistent and gifted you are.
Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon, once told 10 unexpected productivity lessons from Jeff Bezos that the myth of the “lone genius” who creates great ideas out of nowhere is just that: a myth. Here's what Michael Dell, the American billionaire, founder and CEO of Dell, thinks about it:
If you try to control everything alone, you limit yourself greatly. Imagine if all decisions within the company had to be made by one person. It's like a bottleneck holding you back.
Surround yourself with people who will support you and teach you something new. Learn to share your responsibilities with others. Listen to the opinions of those you trust, even if they differ from yours.
Commandment 5
Sometimes it is much more profitable to be underestimated. This does not mean at all that a person should behave like a complete klutz and fool. It’s just that entrepreneurs from whom competitors do not expect anything outstanding, those who are “dark horses,” have a much greater chance of success in business. If competitors know that the entrepreneur is very strong and is capable of creating many problems for them, they will be wary of the entrepreneur and will throw all their strength into competing with him. Of course, this commandment only works a few times. After just a couple of outstanding successes, your competitors simply will not be able to ignore you.
A great example of this commandment is given by tycoon Donald Trump in his book Think Like a Billionaire: “It used to be much easier for me to make deals, but after I wrote The Art of the Deal, now everyone I deal with conduct business negotiations, stay alert.”
Make time for idleness
It may seem that the words “billionaires” and “idleness” cannot be combined in the same sentence. But Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, argues The Importance of Scheduling Nothing to the contrary:
I put periods of time on my calendar during which I do nothing at all. I just sit and think. This usually takes from one and a half to two hours a day. Use this time to catch your breath.
Even the most productive people in the world can't stay busy all the time. Find at least a little time every day to be idle. Think about anything other than work. Meditate. Write some entries in your diary. This way you will relieve your brain and avoid overwork.
Commandment 6
One success certainly gives rise to another. In order to achieve great success, you must achieve success in something less great. This is why for people to consider you successful, you must either achieve success or appear to achieve it. Your whole being should seem to shout: “I am a person of success!” It is the results you achieve that, like nothing else, can impress the people around you. In other words, in order to achieve real success, you need to start somewhere. A person who has never achieved small victories in his life will never achieve a big victory.
Content
- Think like a millionaire - the main thing from the book of Harv Erek
- Millionaires achieve high material goals
- Millionaires solve problems, poor people think about the problems themselves
- Millionaires are happy for other people's success
- Rich people are always looking for new ways to make money
Commandment 8
Every decision you make should be made thoughtfully. A person who makes rash and hasty decisions without properly weighing the pros and cons of such a decision will never become successful. Our whole life, regardless of whether we want it or not, consists of the decisions we made in the process of life. Hence, it is true that whatever decisions we make, this is the life we ultimately get.
If you have not yet perfectly mastered the art of decision-making, then never make a decision in a couple of minutes - think before you act. Many millionaires, over the years of work experience, have so mastered the art of decision-making that they have brought this skill to automaticity.
As a result, millionaires are able to see the right decision and make it in any matter in 2-3 minutes, while it will take an ordinary person a week to make the same decision. And even then, an ordinary person will not always think of making such a decision; more often than not, it simply will not occur to him. It’s all because of the experience and business sense that millionaires have developed to perfection.
They are so busy that they do not have the right to dwell on one issue for a long period of time - after all, there are still so many important decisions that need to be made today! One more thing that distinguishes a millionaire from an ordinary person when it comes to making important decisions: for a millionaire, the process of making an important decision is exciting; he looks at it from the point of view of the prospects that will be open to him after making the decision.
An ordinary average person approaches the decision-making process with some apprehension, because he can never predict what this or that decision will bring him, and therefore this decision is made over the course of several weeks - the person views the decision-making process from the point of view of failures that will follow after this decision is made.
Small success is the key to big achievements
We said earlier that the goals of millionaires and poor people are very different, just as the ways of spending their money are different.
But many millionaires were born into poor families, which is why their success stories are interesting. If we compare the stories of the rich, we can highlight one small, but recurring feature in all of them - initially, these people set themselves ambitious (by their then standards) goals. Then they looked for ways to achieve these goals and began to implement them. Moreover, the goals could even be funny, like “I wanted to raise money for a bicycle,” and then bam - and a millionaire is already standing in front of you.
Moreover, everyone remembers their first small success and willingly talks about it. Of course, it’s impossible to forget this! The process from the birth of a dream to its implementation in real life proves to the future millionaire that all goals are achievable if you do not sit back and take action.
"I wanted! I start work! I got!" - paraphrased the phrase “He came! Saw! Won!" =)
Small success encourages you to set more significant goals, and achieving them forces you to raise the bar of dreams higher and higher. A kind of career ladder. More precisely - an escalator! Once you climbed onto it and you were carried somewhere upward.
The poor don’t understand this - they see only two components in all the stories of the rich:
- I was poor!
- …
- I became a millionaire!
The poor see only what they want to see, namely, they compare the future millionaire with themselves (hmm, I’m poor too - we have a lot in common), and then try on his shirt (which means I will also be a millionaire).
But they simply don’t want to see the fact that a person has worked for years to achieve success (useless information, I work too). The result is the following:
- Everyone is initially poor
- One begins to develop and work both on himself and on the implementation of his plans, and the other lies on the couch and spits at the ceiling
- One becomes rich, and the second remains poor and does not understand at all why this is so and where are his millions?!
Really, where are they?! The beginning is the same, but the ending is different - how is this possible?!
Psychology of thinking of rich and successful people
The illiterate in the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot ... relearn - Alvin Toffler.
Let's consider the main principles of the psychology of rich people, how rich people think, how the thinking of a rich and poor person differs:
- Rich people work only for themselves , and poor people work for hire.
- The rich learn from the successful, repeat their experiences , and the poor choose the example of the even poorer to increase their self-esteem.
- The rich do more and the poor dream more.
- The rich are confident in themselves and in success , they are not afraid of changing circumstances, and the poor adapt to the circumstances.
- The rich are open to new ideas , while the poor prefer not to take risks.
- The rich are not afraid of difficulties , the poor prefer not to take risks in order to avoid them.
- The rich learn throughout their lives and can quickly adapt, while the poor complain about a rapidly changing world.
- The rich do not tolerate whiners who are unsure of success on their team , and the poor love to talk about how bad everything is.
