Why The Rich become richer?

“Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”—William Failkner

The rich people work hard in life than others and work really smart to make the best use of their hard-earned money…sounds good but that’s not the reason why I wrote this blog. Everyone aspires to be rich and attain financial freedom, however amid that maintaining a lifestyle of a rich and happy man is like a distant dream.

Self-made billionaires have not one but many things in common but the most important one I would like to mention here i.e. They took enormous risks.

As per Bloomberg Billionaires Index, of the 100 richest people in the world right now, 27 inherited their fortune. Thirty-six were born to humble households, if they have a family at all, and 18 have no college degree.

 Eight entrepreneur billionaires fall into both categories: They were neither born into money nor have a college education. Consider Larry Ellison, the founder of software giant Oracle. He was an orphan, and recently Ellison had estimated net worth valued at $37 billion. And Amancio Ortega, founder of fashion retailer Zara, was the child of a railroad worker and recently he had estimated net worth of $52 billion. They all had that one thing in common and their unflinching desire to succeed made them achieve the unthinkable.

The Burning Desire

One can’t be successful in life unless he has the fire in belly to become successful, we all know that if it was too easy to become rich & happy then everyone would be doing it. Matter of fact, to have what only 1% of the successful population have, you must be willing to do what only 1% of the successful people are willing to do, simple. To make it more clear here is a little short-story on achieving success in all your endeavors:

The son of a master thief asked his father to teach him the secrets of trade. The old thief agreed and that night took his son to commit burglary in a large house.

While the family was asleep, he silently led his young boy into a room that contained a clothes closet and told the lad to go into the closet to pick out some clothes. When the lad did so, the old thief quickly shut the door and locked him in.

After this, he went back outside, knocked loudly on the front door, woke up the entire family, and quickly slipped away before anyone could see him.

Hours later, his son returned home, bedraggled and exhausted. “Father,” he sobbed angrily, “Why did you lock me in that closet? If I hadn’t been make desperate by my fear of getting caught, I never would have escaped. It took all my ingenuity to get out!”
The old thief smiled. “Son, you have had your first lesson in the art of burglary.”

The learning comes through the practice and never ending desire to achieve it; it is as true for burglary as it is for any other thing.

There are innumerable habits that super successful people follow and those who aspire to become one of them don’t. Following these habits might not be an uphill task but continuously following the regime is, and that is why they are called RICH.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle

Here are the following 5 Habits of Super Successful People; Let’s study them one by one:

Habit # 1: Target Oriented: I still remember after completing my MBA I wrote my first business plan for the venture I wanted to start in India as it is taught in management classes, ‘one should be clear in his mind what he wants to achieve before asking others to believe in his venture.’ Likewise, I always, almost in all my seminars, ask my audience to do some SWOT analysis and make sure to do it in writing to introspect and discover their dormant qualities and outline what they want to achieve in their lives, SWOT as in: Strengths (S), Weaknesses (W), Opportunities (O), and Threats (T).

This gives them a bit of clarity on what they are good at and what they should do to make their lives better. There’s no point in spending your finest hours climbing mountains, only to realize that at the end of the quarter/year/decade/life you climbed the wrong ones. Therefore, it is important to have clear goals in mind so that you can show the whole picture to your colleagues, mentors, customers etcetera.

Habit # 2: Early Riser: By early riser I do not mean to rise early and be the first one to show up in the office, not at all. What I mean is to maintain pace with the world, for I believe it doesn’t matter when you get up, perhaps, what matters is that you work whether it’s under sun or moon. As a matter of fact, I am myself an early morning person because it gives me a sense of accomplishment and makes me feel good. Of course, if you are happy and content you never feel tired in fact you work with more passion and you achieve more. Mahatma Gandhi had a habit of waking up at 4 in the morning and so Nelson Mandela, Mother Teressa and many other legends in this world. If you really want to see the beauty of the world then try waking up at 4 am at least once a week and see the Sun Rise, breathtakingly, it will be the best day of the week. Try it out before it’s too late.

Habit # 3: Self-Discipline: There are no sort of rules in the dictionary of successful people in fact there is only one rule i.e. as a general rule, follow your own rules. For case in point, Steve Jobs had a habit of working meticulously, he would barely skimp on spending money in making his products look SEXY, he used to say, “I want people to lick the screen of iPhone when they see it.” Sooner than later the self-discipline became a culture at Apple as the smallest of chip, packing etc. would get ample attention, as a result today we know what Apple is known for. Similarly, Sam Walton, an American businessman best known for founding the retail chain Wal-Mart, which grew to be the world’s largest corporation, who often followed the habit of starting his work days at 4:30 in the morning and working late hours. It was through his vision and persistence Wal-Mart stores proved successful even in the grips of a recession.

Habit # 4: Good Listeners: It’s an old saying which says, ‘We are gifted with two ears and one mouth for a reason: to listen twice as much as we speak‘. Listening is the folklore of every conversation since most people think of speaking their minds out without proper listening, it’s a great skill to develop. I remember reading an article about Ratan Tata, once a news reporter asked him, “Mr.Tata, you are a rich man, you have n number of companies running under TATA brand how do you manage such a huge empire?” On listening that he chuckled, looked into the reporter’s eyes and said, “I don’t really manage all my companies in fact it is my managers who manage this huge conglomerate I just manage my managers. I always listen to them and advice them time to time and leave the final decision on them.” It is as simple as that, to become powerful you need to make your people stronger than they think and guide them when required.

Habit # 5: Risk Taker: As I mentioned above that taking risk is the most important trait of successful people besides motivation, ability, opportunity and of course a bit of luck but all these traits are useless if you can’t overcome your fears and take risk. If you had read my previous blog The Happiness Mantra – Make No Excuses…!!! where I embedded a video there in of Kyle Maynard, 28, the first quadruple amputee to ascend Mount Kilimanjaro without the aid of prosthetics. He was born with innumerable disabilities but he overcame all of them through his resilient attitude. Are you are risk taker or not…? think. I bet you are had you not taken risk you won’t have learned walking….think once again. It’s time to get energized and jump-start your dream life, remember, you can do it only if you wish to and you can’t until you have that burning desire to succeed. Re-think and Just Do It.

These habits are not just a thought I shared with you, I religiously follow them and at the same time I urge you all to follow each habit at least for 30 days to let them ingrain in your mind.

Make Your Life Awesome.

Note: If you want me to write on your favorite topic then don’t hesitate to write to me at [email protected]