How to be Millionaire in 2020
How to be Millionaire in 2020
By Rajni Sehgal
Simple rules to become a millionaire in 2020 (Pages 1 – 2)
Introduction
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So, you want to be a millionaire this year 2020? Have you asked yourself WHY? What are the perks of life that you get to enjoy that others don’t?
Think of the possibilities and you will surely want to jump on the bandwagon of millionaires and get away from very mundane life. For starters, a mansion to live in with plenty of landscaped gardens without dreaded mortgages to worry about, a fleet of swank cars in the garage that are guaranteed head-turners on the road and a luxury vacation whenever you want. Have an army of butlers at your beck and call. Let your children enrol in the finest schools and provide an opportunity for your wife to own the Kohinoor. Life will be as easy as it can get.
This is just the tip of the iceberg though. Becoming a millionaire goes far beyond earning tons of money and focusing on the financial aspects only – investments, returns, and more. It all starts with a small germ of an idea in the mind that if nourished properly goes on to become a huge tree with roots running deep. You have to have perseverance and patience until the tree grows up and bears all the fruits of your toils.
So, what is important is your desire to become a millionaire and the belief that you can make it. This self-confidence and self-belief will make you go steadily towards your goal even if you stutter sometimes on the way. Being creative is the key to becoming a millionaire and is a critical path to reach your target.
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There are other attributes that you should develop which at first sight seems far removed from the world of finance. You must focus on staying fit and healthy as it will strengthen you not only physically but mentally too to face the challenges that come up. You do not have to train for the marathon but a few hours of working out will make your body and mind receptive to the daily rigors of hard work.
On the work front, be ready to take risks. If you stumble, don’t give up. Get up and learn from the mistakes. Most millionaires have started small in tiny establishments. They have been rock solid in their ventures, never cutting corners to make a fast buck simply because there is never an easy way to success and no get-rich-quick schemes in life.
Finally, try and associate with millionaires, not necessarily first-hand, but even by reading about their endeavours, their line of thinking and how they have climbed to their pinnacle of success. These are lessons that will help you to become a millionaire in 2020.
Chapter 1
Desire To Become A Millionaire
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The human desire for wealth is unparalleled, regardless of whether it is chasing financial independence, material comforts or simply having a pile stashed away in the bank. But the biggest misconception is that people with millions of dollars are “wealthy”. Take a poll of just three people and there will be different answers to “wealth”.
The point is that if you want to be a millionaire, you must think like a millionaire and have a deep-seated desire to be one. This is the mindset that people who have accumulated wealth have in-built in them. Only if you reach for the stars can you get there and you must have a passionate desire to do so.
An idea should move you so much that life will seem inadequate without it. As the great entrepreneur Richard Branson puts it, “Entrepreneurship is about turning what excites you into capital so that you can have more of it and move forward with it”.
Becoming a successful businessman and reaching millionaire status is not a cakewalk, less than 10% of Americans ever reach their goal. Those who do did not have things placed before them on a silver platter. They had a deep desire to be a millionaire; they dreamt about being a millionaire and had an obsession to be successful. Only if you can spark the flame of desire in you can you hope to reach your objective.
“The people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.” – Steve Jobs.
What then are some of the obsessions and desires that should rule your life if you want to become a millionaire?
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Making it big
Take small steps towards becoming a millionaire and your desire to achieve your target will push you there. What you need is an entrepreneurial mindset. Take heart from Warren Buffet who sold packets of gum to his neighbours at the age of six and Richard Branson who bred and sold parakeets as pets at 11. It was their desire to pile up wealth that made them reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow later in life.
Being an overachiever
Your desire for wealth is critical to becoming one and you can never accept B grade in anything. Your obsession should push you on to being the best in whatever you do. Have the mindset to shoot big – not to make $1 million but $10 million. Have the craze to be an overachiever.
Having a sense of urgency
Your compulsive desire will always give you a sense of urgency. There is no “perfect” time for wannabe millionaires to start off on their journey – it is always NOW! Do not sit back in deep introspection and think a thousand times before taking the first step, it is a sure way to squash your dreams. Have the mindset to start towards your target right away.
Thinking about goals
People who have a strong desire to become a millionaire will continually spend time formulating their long term goals and objectives. Peter Voogd, founder of The Game Changers Academy and a millionaire before 26 says, "You don't make a million by accident. If it's not a goal, you sure as hell won't hit it."
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Once you have the desire to become a millionaire, you will be prepared for the long haul. Success never is a continuous flow, it comes in fits and starts, sometimes a step forward and a couple back. The obsession to strike it rich will push you forward even when you feel you are treading quicksand. Eventually, small baby steps will turn to giant leaps and make you a millionaire.
The fallout of a strong desire is that you will never give up, regardless of the hurdles you face towards moving to your goals. Rather, these failures will act as a catalyst to break boundaries and create a flourishing enterprise. Obsessive self-made millionaires turn defeat into a spark that ignites their determination to succeed. They never do things halfway and put in an extra effort when faced with a physical and mental challenge.
Your yearning to be wealthy will help you make sacrifices in the short term to reach your objectives but remember to have fun and enjoy the fruits of your labour along the way.
Chapter 2
Always Upgrade Your Skills and Knowledge
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Are you one of the ambitious individuals located all over the world trying to achieve millionaire status? There are countless success stories epitomizing financial success, even of self-made millionaires of a very young age. The paths followed by each of them have been different and a lot is heard about their get-rich methodologies. But what is rarely heard is the specific skills and knowledge that they possess and how they worked hard to sharpen these attributes to become millionaires in their own right.
So what are the skills and knowledge that you should have and the updates that will make you stand out in the financial world?
Communication
By far on top of the list is the skill to communicate seamlessly with others. It is the first step in establishing a network and bridge with other people as you make your millions. The first impression that you create when you interact with people will be the last impression that they will have of you.
On your way to becoming a millionaire, you will be communicating with lots of investors, customers, employees, and more in your network. You have to influence them and create an impact if you are to be successful. Making others feel important will fetch you revenue from customers and more investment from investors.
So what happens if you lack this skill, being an introvert? You have to go out of your way to develop this trait. Billionaire Warren Buffet has this to say. “One easy way to become worth 50 percent more than you are now at least is to hone your communication skills — both written and verbal.”
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The great investor is narrating his personal experience. When young, he was so terrified of public speaking that he enrolled in a Dale Carnegie to overcome it. Today, it is not the educational degrees that are framed on his office wall but the certificate from Dale Carnegie.
You too have to hone your communication skills if you hope to make it big. Learn from what the great investor thought to be critical in his life.
Maintaining Focus
Maintaining focus is the skill of being steadfast in choosing activities that will serve your ultimate goal of being a millionaire over other little reward. Ask yourself whether you are focused on your journey. It is difficult because the world is full of distractions.
But you have to train yourself to do it. Every night, break down what you did throughout the day into specific moments. How much have you done that have contributed to your goal? How much time have you wasted? Do this analysis at least once a week to stay focused.
Larry Flynt, the American publisher worth an estimated $500 million once famously said, “Along with a strong belief in your inner voice, you also need laser-like focus combined with unwavering determination”.
A combination of these factors will take you places and help you make considered decisions precisely and accurately.
Reading
This is the killer trait that you MUST have and if not, you should develop it mandatorily. Reading is knowledge and without being aware of the world around you, even dreams will not take off. As different from listening to an audio or watching a video, in reading the brain processes information differently and correlates what you have recently understood with reality and
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internal memories. You absorb knowledge better and can improve yourself faster. Reading is self-improvement. You will also learn about the financial metrics required to be a millionaire, about the tools that will help you evaluate what will give you high returns in the long run. Most critically, reading will give you the power of knowledge, boost your self-confidence, and know the path followed by other millionaires to mint money.
Richard Branson once said, “One thing is certain in business. You and everyone around you will make mistakes.”
By being an avid reader and being knowledgeable, you will be able to quickly understand your mistakes and take corrective action. And that is the hallmark of a millionaire.
Influence Others
Self-made millionaire – the term is a misnomer. “Self-made” does not mean not taking anybody’s help to become rich. Actually, you will always require external assistance to achieve your goal. A millionaire who has made his wealth in real estate must have taken the assistance of agents, appraisers, mortgage lenders, and many others. Hence, you should have the skill to influence others and bring them around to your line of thinking.
An essential component of influencing others and persuading them to contribute their services is being a good communicator. Improve and upgrade this skill by reading on the subject. Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” is a classic example.
There are several other skills that you might have to develop depending on your chosen path. Keeping learning and updating yourself and you will surely be firmly on your way to become a millionaire.
Chapter 3
Always be Creative
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What sets millionaires apart from the common folk? What is it that makes them produce more and more money while others remain stagnant and live from pay-check to pay-check? The answer lies in the mindset and creativity of millionaires, ability to think positively, and conjure up returns from almost nothing.
The common perception is that creativity is a trait that is whipped out by copywriters and clever marketers and is what great actors naturally possess. It is not exactly correct. When you take a small and seemingly insignificant idea and turn it around into a magnificent business empire, it is creativity too. And that is what most millionaires do – they conjure up money from sources that the common person will never dream of.
The moot point here is that you have to be creative in your thoughts, in your mindset, think out of the box and venture into areas that nobody dares to enter.
How can you cultivate this creativity factor on your way to become a millionaire?
Absorb Knowledge
The starting point of your journey will always be a small germ of an idea that will grow into a huge tree with roots running deep. For this to happen, you should have an open psyche and be receptive to new ideas which will flow in seamlessly only if you open the windows of your mind. The best way to do so is through reading about and following in the footsteps of others who have made their millions before you.
Thomas C. Corley who wrote “Change Your Habits, Change Your Life” researched the daily habits of 177
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millionaires over five years. He found that they spend at least 30 minutes every day researching for new ideas and reading the biographies of successful people, history, and self-help or personal development.
By doing so, you too can develop the creativity in you. You will learn from the experience of others who have also made it big in their line of activity and earned millions.
Imaginative thinking
Millionaires are imaginative and creative thinkers and through their thoughts, they control their future. When you are putting your money in a project, you would expect the money to grow ten times in five years and not six months. There is nothing like short term millionaires – you have to be creative about your investments, opting for a judicious mix of short and long-term returns. As international best-selling author Ernie J. Zelinski puts it, “You are already a millionaire – your creativity makes it so”.
Imaginative thinking is the key to your success. Think in isolation at least sometime every day. Brainstorm yourself on multiple things – what can I do to make money, am I happy in my job, can I get involved in any charities. The possibilities are endless.
At the end of the day, these thoughts will help you make creative decisions that will hasten your journey of being a millionaire.
Engage in Unique activities
Making money is not only about multiplying what you already have; it is also about diverting into areas that nobody has ever thought about. When you take people by surprise with an outstanding product, you will surely receive due returns. Several millionaires have dared to be creative and unconventional and have made their pile by thinking out of the box.
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Take the case of Doggles and its inventor Roni Di Lullo. In 1997, Roni got the idea to create goggles for dogs when he found them squinting in the sun. He researched thoroughly his idea and came up with a perfect anatomic construction to fit dogs’ heads and their eyes. Since then, Roni earns millions and continues to invent new things for pets.
It cannot possibly get more creative than this! You too should focus on going off the beaten path and opting for something that will be a wealth accumulator.
Be Unafraid to be Stupid
There is no standardized scheme to become rich. Even an apparently stupid idea can help make your millions while a supposedly ingenious one can fall flat on its face. The only benchmark is that it should be creative enough to capture the imagination of people.
Consider the Miracle Mop, a self-wringing plastic mop that can easily be wrung out without the user’s hand getting wet. The inventor Joy Mangano sold it at trade shows and within a year had made her first million. She has invented and patented more than 100 articles since. Nobody had ever thought of the Magic Mop before, even though everyone got their hands wet.
This is creativity and unique thoughts at its best! The problem of wringing a mop with bare hands was before everybody, only Joy Mangano had the foresight to come up with an exceptional solution and make it big in this world.
Always be creative and innovative if you have to be a millionaire.
Chapter 4
Focus on your Health & Fitness
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There might be various reasons why you would want to be a millionaire apart from satisfying the urge to stockpile wealth. Being your boss, doing something you love or even making a difference to the life of others may be on your mind. But if you want to reach that goal, there are some habits that you must adopt. Other millionaires have done so before you and their bank accounts prove that they have been successful.
Strange as it may seem, there is a lot more than simply investing wisely and having amazing business ideas to be a millionaire. And one of the most critical factors to make your first million is to be supremely fit and healthy.
Surprised? See what famous millionaires, rather billionaires have to say.
Richard Branson, serial entrepreneur - “I seriously doubt that I would have been as successful in my career (and happy in my personal life) if I hadn’t always placed importance on my health and fitness,”
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder - “Staying in shape is very important. Doing anything well requires energy, and you just have a lot more energy when you’re fit. I make sure I work out at least three times a week — usually first thing when I wake up.”
Jack Dorsey, CEO, Twitter, and Square – He considers exercise a way to get the most out of his always-packed schedule. “Up at 5:00 am, meditate for 30, with seven-minute workout times. Same thing every day as it allows a steady state that enables me to be more effective.”
Convinced now that you should have a regular fitness regimen if you want to be a millionaire?
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Being healthy and fit will fortify you both physically and mentally to face the challenges that come up in your journey. It is not necessary to be a fitness freak but like Jack Dorsey, seven-minute workouts every day should help too. As Tom Corley wrote in his book “Change Your Habits, Change Your Style”, a survey of 177 self-made millionaires and their daily habits, 76% of them exercise at least 30 minutes every day. Most of them do it by getting up well before their workday starts.
Granted that exercise alone will not make you rich, there is a definite link between working out and success.
Cardiovascular Exercise increases memory and cognitive skills. This is critical to be a millionaire. Your thought process must have a high degree of clarity and only when you are very mentally alert can you take the right cutting-edge decisions. With energy levels at a peak during exercises, the body releases a natural hormone called endorphin which gives a high and will make you perform optimally throughout the day.
Even low-intensity exercises decrease fatigue by almost 65%. On your path to becoming a millionaire, you will probably spend hours at your desk or at conferences. This sedentary lifestyle can be lethal for your well-being and an alert mind. Apart from reducing fatigue, your energy levels too will get a boost with regular training. A jog in the park every day will usually be enough. Contrary to popular belief, regular workouts will not leave you tired but energized for the day.
Regular training will improve your mood. Dr. Jeremy Sibold of the University of Vermont says, "Moderate intensity aerobic exercise improves mood immediately and those improvements can last up to 12 hours. This
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goes a long way to show that even moderate aerobic exercise has the potential to mitigate the daily stress that results in your mood being disturbed." This is decisive as you need to be in the best of spirits if you have to avoid anxiety levels and go steadfastly towards your objective of being a millionaire.
Aerobic exercise is an effective tool to manage stress and anxiety. Studies have shown that regular aerobic exercise decreases levels of tension, stabilizes and elevates mood, and improves the quality of sleep. A mere five minutes of aerobic exercises stimulate anti-anxiety and anti-stress effects. Anxiety and stress are the two hurdles that up-coming millionaires have to cross and there is no better way to do so than a few minutes of workouts.
When being a millionaire is in your sights, there is no option other than to focus on your health and fitness. Only when you are supremely in shape both physically and mentally can you concentrate on the best ways to accumulate wealth. A tired mind and body will be a drag in your aim to be a millionaire.
Chapter 5
Always Ready to Take Risks
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A ship in a harbour is safe, but that is not what a ship is built for – Grace Hopper
If you talk to any millionaire you will know that they have failed a lot more than the successes they have achieved. The failure they have experienced is what has strengthened them to get their moments of success. They have absorbed information from the letdowns to know what not to do. All this is because they have dared to take calculated risks on their journey to be a millionaire.
However, a millionaire’s perception of risk is usually different from the common man. A fixed 9 to 5 job for most people is a safe proposition but for a wannabe millionaire, it might be risky as there is nothing to fall back on if there is a layoff. For the rising wealthy, along with the willingness to take risks, it is also about positioning oneself to gain the information and experience to take more calculated risks.
Generally, people become millionaires by seeing risks as an opportunity to make money. Risk-taking at the tables in Vegas is stupid but permissible when seeking opportunities where the odds are with you. It is like buying more of a well-paying investment that is temporarily down in value and not selling at a loss.
If you want to take heart on risk-taking to become a millionaire, there is no better a shining example than Bill Gates. He has taken risks that few people will ever dare to. In 1975, he took the risk of dropping out of
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Harvard to build Microsoft. In 2008, he took the risk of leaving Microsoft to work fulltime at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2013, the Foundation contributed $5.5 billion to eradicate polio from the world. All his bets paid off.
You might not have the courage of Bill Gates to be so bold but without gambling and placing bets on your beliefs, you are never going to make it big in the financial world.
How do you determine which risks are not worth taking and which are, especially when investing time and money into projects that do not have a guarantee of success?
This is where you have to develop yourself to be comfortable with uncertainty and build up a penchant for risk-taking. The progression of your success story can be a long-drawn-out affair. You have to keep your goal in sight but might need to make certain course corrections along the way. This could include an element of risk but you have to be unwavering in your efforts to realize your objectives. It can only be possible if you are open to learning and continually devise new strategies.
While a willingness to take risks is the hallmark of a millionaire, any action should not be taken randomly and without any considered thought. Rather, as in all good bets of life, an action should be based on a specific premise and not simply a haunch. Scout around for similar risks that were taken by others and know why they succeeded or failed. Research the methods adopted and the returns received down the road. Once you invest or
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take any decision after this elaborate exercise, you are still taking a risk but the chances of failure are substantially reduced.
Thomas Stanley in his book “The Millionaire Mind” investigated the behaviour, beliefs, and ideas that help millionaires make their fortunes. One thing he found common was that self-made millionaires inevitably took risks to build their wealth that others refuse to take. It is primarily a matter of the mindset of millionaires that makes them have the courage to conquer their fears. Successful investors carry out intensive research before taking a step but when they decide to pull the trigger there are no half-way measures. They may lose some but usually wind up winning more than they lose. The odds are always in their favour.
The ship mentioned at the beginning might be safe in the harbour but a moored ship goes nowhere. Similarly, aspiring millionaires who do not take risks ever reach their objectives.
Chapter 6
Don’t Whine About Your Mistakes, Learn from Them
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Learning from mistakes or failures and quickly moving on is the hallmark of millionaires. They do not have fear of failures and neither do they dwell long on them and whine about it. Millionaires continually try to analyse the reasons for any shortcomings and treat it as a learning experience not to be repeated. By minutely dissecting what worked and what did not in certain circumstances, they create the required business solutions that help them accumulate more wealth than the common person.
Treat mistakes as an inevitable stumbling block in your journey towards becoming a millionaire. It can be bad or even good if you can draw a lesson of not ever repeating it. But the simplest way to deal with it is to let it go. Don’t dwell long on it as it is unnecessary and a waste of time. Reflect briefly on what went wrong and ensure that there are no repetitions – EVER. As you climb up the ladder to be a millionaire, have dedicated teams to review failures and write detailed reports for your perusal.
One thing that you should never do is to indulge in a blame game for your mistakes. Don’t put the responsibility for the erosion of your wealth on the stock markets, recession, or anything else. You have made a mistake and it is only you that has to take the liability. Accept your failure, that’s it, and move on. The longer you stay at that point, the more opportunities you are missing out elsewhere.
Millionaires invariably experiment and come up with unique business solutions, regardless of making a few mistakes along the way. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos makes this case directly. “If you’re going to take bold bets, they’re going
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to be experiments. And if they’re experiments, you don’t know ahead of time if they’re going to work. Experiments are by their very nature prone to failure. But a few big successes compensate for dozens and dozens of things that didn’t work.”
So, stop whining about mistakes and work out a rehabilitation plan in case of any failures.
Here is how you can learn from your mistakes and get over them.
Re-evaluate Your Goals
If a mistake takes you off your goals, you have to re-evaluate them and take corrective measures. It might be necessary to shift goalposts too, if only temporarily.
Scrutinize Your Mistakes
When you realize that one of your actions has not given the desired result or might lead to a worse situation, make an in-depth analysis of what went wrong. You may have to take stringent corrective measures but most times, a simple change in direction can help.
Quantify the Discrepancy
Sometimes you can quantify what went wrong. It might be overly large investments made in a falling market or something similar. In such cases, you can specify the amounts lost as against the returns you expected from the investment. You have to make plans now to bridge the gap to make sure that there is no dent in your millions.
Categorize the mistake
Different mistakes call for different solutions. It might be an error of judgement, or over-ambition, or simply an issue beyond your direct control like a falling economy. Categorize your failures as it will make the task of creating a strategy to set things right easier if you know specifically what to deal with instead of generalizing a mistake.
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Self-introspect the Lessons to be learned
Don’t whine about the failures, instead introspect in-depth the reasons that led to them. The more thoroughly you give this exercise a thought the clearer to you will be the causes of your misjudgement or miscalculations. Draw your conclusions about the lessons that need to be learned and implemented so that they are not repeated again.
Take a broader look at the errors
Often the errors follow a specific pattern. Simply analyzing a single failure will not give you the broader picture of what is going off the mark. Combine the reasons for recent mistakes and if they have a trend, a single action will set the whole thing right.
A thing that you have to understand clearly is that for millionaires, no matter how hard they try, there are bound to be slipups along the way. The silver lining is that as an aspiring millionaire you can learn from your mistakes and ensure that they are not repeated through constructive measures. Set right the failures and move on to the next level of success.
Chapter 7
Generate two incomes — or more
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There is one facet that is common to almost all millionaires around the world and that is having two or more sources of income. It is not seen by them as merely a survival technique but as a means to build wealth. The thought of having multiple streams of income is like having a diversified investment portfolio. When one stock suffers the others make up for it. When none suffers, they will be roping in tons of money.
That millionaires have various sources of income is borne out by Tom Corley in his book “Rich Habits”, a result of his five-year study of the rich and the poor. He found that –
65% of millionaires had three sources of income
45% of millionaires had four streams of income
29% of millionaires had five or more sources of income
There are two components to earnings – active income and passive income. Active income is what you have when you start your climb to becoming a millionaire. It might be a job or a business that will act as a springboard for greater things to come. Passive income is what you get from investments from accruals of active income.
Another trait of millionaires is that they have their own business. So if you already have one, you have a definite edge. If you don’t, think of starting one. From being an employee turned business owner, the leap to a full-time business owner and then to a self-made millionaire will be quicker.
Start with Active Income
Start with a focus on active income to build your passive income. Be at your job till the time you have enough resources to generate passive income. You will be forced into
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active income when you are starting from scratch. But if you do not save from this stream your choices will be limited, you will be stagnant in life, and the dreams of becoming a millionaire will disappear into thin air.
When you consider savings, there are two ways to do so.
Initially, cutting expenses to the bare minimum and living a frugal life. This might be difficult when you have a family to support. Next, earning more through side businesses or side hustles and utilizing the income generated for further growth of passive income.
For many though, the two are not stand-alone actions, rather you can do both to quickly build up your savings. But the difference is that cutting expenses from active income (salary) is immediate while earning more to build resources is long-term.
Move on to Passive Income
When you are working towards making your millions, you have to fall back on passive income. This again falls into two categories.
The first is when you build something like your business that provides value and capture a part of the value to accumulate your stash. The next is when you lend money to someone (stocks and investments) who will build value on that and then pay you for that money.
In both cases, you will need savings. When you are setting up your business, you are sacrificing present active income (job) for future active and passive income. In the meanwhile, you will need a cushion to pay for your expenses. It can either be from your savings or a temporary job. When you lend money, you are lending your expenses. It can either be from your savings or a temporary job. When you lend money, you are lending
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your expenses. It can either be from your savings or a temporary job. When you lend money, you are lending your savings which will be put into sweat equity by someone to make it more for you.
An ideal example of starting with active income and moving to passive income is that of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Even though Facebook has over two billion users on its platform, it does not make the money that gives its owner billionaire status from the content or its user base. Instead, Mark has generated passive alternative sources of income from the same platform. In short, he has diversified keeping the core business intact.
Mark accrues his wealth from digital advertising which accounts for 85% of the total revenue of Facebook – Self-Serve Advertising, Targeted Advertisements, Messenger Ads, and Video ads. Data generation is another cash cow of Facebook.
Common Passive Income Options
In your quest to be a millionaire, what are the possible future streams of passive income that you can explore?
Dividends from investments and partnerships
Royalties or future inflows from any products you sell, license, or patent
Interest from loans made to individuals (private notes) or companies (bonds, notes)
Capital gains from the sale of investments
Rental income if you are into real estate
Business income which though considered active might be passive too if you have a strategy that generates income without direct active work.
The critical point here is that for being a millionaire, you HAVE to generate more than one income to hedge against any erosion of wealth in the future through unforeseen circumstances. It might be a sudden economic recession, a viral pandemic, or a natural calamity that hurts the financial markets. Only if you have multiple sources of income can you ensure that your millionaire status does not take a beating.
Chapter 8
Associate with millionaires
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It is natural for all upwardly-mobile aspiring millionaires to think that stashing wealth is all about making financial decisions, investments, savings, and anything connected with money. But there is another aspect that is really important if you want to be a millionaire – start hanging out with millionaires! The idea behind this is to surround yourself with the people whom you want to emulate, with those with whom you would want to share your vision.
You will ultimately have thought processes like those you associate with. When you align your mind with other creative and powerful ones, it will ensure that you grow exponentially towards your objective.
The essence of this principle is very well put forward by Steve Siebold, self-made millionaire and author of “How Rich People Think” for which he has interviewed almost 1,200 of the world’s wealthiest people.
“In most cases, your net worth mirrors the level of your closest friends.Exposure to people who are more successful than you are has the potential to expand your thinking and catapult your income. We become like the people we associate with, and that's why winners are attracted to winners. Millionaires think differently from the middle class about money, and there's much to be gained by being in their presence.”
This, in a nutshell, is why you should associate yourself with millionaires if your objective is to be one.
Acknowledge the Role of Others
When you associate with millionaires, you will surely get a push towards your goals. You will be constantly seeking and receiving help. But it takes humility and wisdom and a lot of courage to admit it.
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Do not shy away from acknowledging that dependence and realize that it’s your strength. Read about the lives of millionaires and every time you will see that others have played a significant role in their wealth graphs. They have always expressed appreciation to others in their lives.
As millionaire entrepreneur Michael Fishman once said, “Self-made is an illusion. There are many people who played divine roles in you having the life that you have today. Be sure to let them know how grateful you are.”
Once you link up with millionaires, treat relationships like a bank account, you have to deposit before you can withdraw.
Create strategic partnerships
An important fallout of being in close touch with other millionaires, regardless of whether you are in the same line of activity or not, is that you can create strategic partnerships. You do not compete with them; instead, you collaborate with them to improve yourself.
A case in point is the bonding between Bill Gates, former CEO of Microsoft and the second richest man in the world and Warren Buffet, the legendary investor and the third richest man in the world. He is the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Their friendship dates back to July 5, 1991.
Both men have benefitted tremendously from each other. They credit their success to their sharply focused minds. Gates has written that he has learned from Buffet how to manage tasks by prioritizing people and tasks. They may not have collaborated but have drawn on one another’s intellectual resources to further their goals.
Not everybody can be a millionaire as it requires a very tough and hardened mindset. When you expand your
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thinking levels in collaboration with other millionaires you will realize that you can do a lot more. The mental state that you can elevate yourself to would not have been possible if you had been working alone.
Granted that you have awesome skills and knowledge in your field, but there are others in different fields that have skill sets completely outside of your present awareness. By being in touch with them, you take a quantum move to self-improvement.
It is here that you get an opportunity to create win-win relationships. You should devise an approach where your assets and skills merge with those more experienced than you. The results can be overwhelming and will enable you to reach your millionaire target a lot faster.
This is how transformation occurs. People who only work within the confines of their field of activity are stuck with their narrow telescopic view of the world. As a wannabe millionaire, you have to absorb the knowledge that can only be had from other millionaires. The more you open the windows of your mind, the more can you take your goals and targets to a higher level.
Where can you get to meet and associate with other millionaires? There are many avenues open before you. You can ask for an interview. Most millionaires especially those who have come up the hard will not turn you away as they understand the travails you have to go through. You can also attend conferences to gain an insight into their thought processes.
Whatever you might decide to do, make it a point to link up and network with other millionaires on your road to becoming one in 2020.
Chapter 9
Never Fast Forward Your Way to Success
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“Patience is a key element of success” – Bill Gates
Nothing in life comes easy and Bill Gates should know. He and Paul Allen started Microsoft on a not-too-stable foundation and built it up to become one of the largest corporate empires in the world. Bill went on to become the second richest man on the planet. The duo never compromised on struggles they encountered on the way and never tried to cut corners – it was just patience and hard work all the way.
As an aspiring millionaire, you will be tempted to take the easy route and fast forward your way to success to make your first million. The returns, in this case, will be temporary only. To really reach the pinnacle of success, you have to go through a lifetime of sacrifices.
Every journey ends with a benchmark to be achieved. But there is a difference between feeling successful and reaching that target. The ski-lift reason for doing things the hard way is a classic instance. When you climb mountains to ski down and reach the peak panting and sweating, you have gone through so many experiences and maybe stumbled a few times along the way. But when you take the ski-lift to reach the top, it might be a smooth affair but you have not trained to surmount challenges.
For budding millionaires, reaching the top is important but more critical is how you get there. Once you have shunned the rosy path to make your millions, you are that much hardened for the future and realize that you are capable of much more. As J. K. Rowling puts it, “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless
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you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.”
Fast-forwarding your way to success comes with its pitfalls. It is because “that” success is a fluke and not based on a solid platform. If things do not go well, you will never be able to recreate it because you have not come up the hard way.
Your brain is always looking for behavioural patterns. When you are putting in a great deal of effort, you will continue to repeat those patterns. Your working methodology is stored and you can always fall back on it in case of an unexpected challenge. When you take the shortcut, you will have no idea what to do in an emergency. Tough tests will make you panic.
The success that does not come easily equips you with tools to handle adversities well. For example, what would Richard Branson, the many-times-over-billionaire and one that has come up the tough way do if he had to reboot? A devoted note-taker and chronicler of his journey up, he says he would “go through all my notebooks, find the best ideas that had fallen through the cracks and start them up. Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur and I know I’d find a gap in the market somewhere.” If he had fast-forwarded to success, he would not have had the experience and expertise to start all over again.
In a previous chapter, the importance of associating with millionaires on your way to becoming one has been elaborated. Now, going back to the ski-lift case again, when you reach the top in a sky-lift – read fast forward
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your climb – you will find a whole lot of people who have hiked to the top swapping stories and congratulating each other on their success. Here, you will have a hard time connecting with them. They know how to deal with hardships, have tasted the sweetness of success, and have earned their sense of pride.
You, on the other hand, do not have the strategies, strength, and experience to be considered an insider. You may have made your millions but you do not belong to the world of millionaires. Not only will you feel like an imposter but you will also not stay on the mountain for long.
Mark Zuckerberg sums this attitude up briefly, “The biggest risk is not taking any risk ... In a world that's changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”
On your climb to become a millionaire, one trait can be a killer and that is settling for mediocrity. Do not reconcile to shortcuts, your knowledge and skill sets will never be as sharply honed as necessary to make it big in the fascinating activity of accruing wealth.
Taking the easy way out is giving up on yourself and never really knowing what you are capable of. You will slowly dull your ability to be creative and enterprising, two very important traits of being a millionaire. By taking the less-travelled route, you develop the winner’s mentality.
As Ted Turner, American media mogul says, “You can never quit. Winners never quit and quitters never win.”
Summary
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Now that you have gone through the book, I am sure that you must have got a basic idea of how to be a millionaire in 2020. The purpose of the book has been to take you through the steps of striking the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Let me tell you that the traits to become a millionaire are not standardized. There are no benchmarks that will take you straight to millionaire status. Human beings differ from one another as do their mental strength and stability. What might be good for you might not be for the aspiring millionaire next door.
Levels of creativity differ too among individuals. You might find it easy to devise new strategies and plans to move forward towards your goal. Others might not be so lucky.
Following this book will optimize your goals to be a millionaire 2020. I have drawn inspiration from the work and sayings of millionaires, nee billionaires, who have overcome the severest of odds in life to strike it rich.
I have also included a few chapters that at first sight might seem far removed from the crux of the issue – how to become a millionaire. They are not related to the financial world. Instead, they are more focused on building up overall physical and mental stamina that will help overcome the many challenges faced by would-be millionaires on their way to the top. This is why I have included a chapter on health and fitness.
Running parallel to the non-financial aspect is the importance to be associated with millionaires.
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By doing so, you will not be treated as an outsider when you pile your riches. Peer acceptance is very critical in the world of millionaires if you have to boost your self-confidence and esteem. As John Rohn, a self-made millionaire puts it, “Become a millionaire not for the million dollars but what it will make of you to achieve.” It is here that a heightened sense of self-assurance will stand you in good stead.
Finally, a word of advice, it is great to work the living daylights out to be a millionaire and enjoy the fruits of luxury but it is also crucial to simultaneously enjoy life. I strongly believe what Neil B Wood talks about in his book - The Best Practices of Successful Financial Advisors.
“Don't get so busy on your career that you forget to have a life. You CAN do both. You can make lots of money, become a millionaire AND enjoy time with family, friends AND be a great role-model as a parent.”
I hope you have enjoyed reading this book as much as I have enjoyed putting it together.
Author’s Name: Rajni Sehgal
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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 18.04.2020
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