“The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act, we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably in thought and act.” (Orison Swett Marden)
Your goal should be to earn as much money as you possibly can over the course of your career, to achieve financial independence and to eventually become a millionaire. This is the most common financial ambition of Americans, and it is eminently achievable if you develop the right habits. Fortunately, becoming a millionaire has never been more possible in all of human history than it is right now, today, here in America, under our economic system.
Five Million Millionaires
In the year 1900, there were only 5,000 millionaires in America. By the year 2000, there were more than five million millionaires. In addition, there were deci-millionaires, centi-millionaires, and more than 300 billionaires and multi-billionaires.
Almost all of these millionaires and billionaires are first generation wealth, that is, they began with nothing and accumulated their fortunes in the course of a single working lifetime.
Millionaires come from every conceivable background. Some are well educated, and some are not. Some graduated from the finest universities. Others dropped out of high school. Some come from families that have lived in America for many generations. Others came to America as immigrants with no friends or contacts, no skills and not even the ability to speak English when they arrived. They all had one thing in common. They started with nothing and passed the magic million-dollar mark as the result of doing certain things in a certain way, over and over again.
They learned and practiced the Million Dollar Habits that we are explaining throughout this book.
Self-made millionaires have been interviewed and studied exhaustively, hundreds and even thousands of times, both individually and in groups. Some of the very best research on millionaires was conducted by Thomas Stanley and William
Danko and summarized in their book The Millionaire Next Door, which has gone on to sell almost three million copies.
Every newspaper and magazine seems to have an article or story about one or more men or women who have become financially successful in different fields and occupations as the result of doing certain things in a certain way. And what others have accomplished, you can accomplish as well, if you just learn how.
Think Like A Millionaire
I wrote earlier that, “You become what you think about most of the time.” If you sincerely want to be rich, to achieve all your financial goals and to retire as a self-made millionaire, one of the smartest things you can do is to develop the habits of thinking and acting that have enabled hundreds of thousands, and even millions of other people to become millionaires. These habits of financial success are learnable, as all habits are, by practice and repetition.
The first discovery about the thinking patterns of self-made millionaires is that they have the habit of thinking in terms of financial independence most of the time.
From an early age, or at a certain point in life, they become focused on achieving specific financial goals. They then discipline themselves to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to achieve those goals. They organize and reorganize their entire financial lives, their earning, investing, insuring and spending activities, in such a way that they are all coordinated and helping them move toward hitting those specific financial targets.
Accumulate or Spend
Most people have the opposite habits with regard to money. Instead of thinking in terms of accumulation, saving and financial independence, the majority of people think of spending and enjoying every penny they can get their hands on, and whatever else they can borrow from friends or put on credit cards. In 2002, almost
1.5 million Americans declared personal bankruptcy as the result of borrowing and spending far more than they could ever repay.
At a certain point in life, each person comes to a crossroads. One road leads in the direction of earning, saving and accumulating, while the other road leads in the direction of earning, spending and getting into debt. As a fully responsible adult, you must decide which road you are going to take. And no matter what road you have taken up until now, you are free to choose the road that you are going to follow from this day forward.
Take Charge of Your Financial Life
The starting point of achieving financial independence and becoming a self-made millionaire is for you to accept complete responsibility for your financial life.
Many people never do this. They instead go through their days, and their money, trusting to luck, with the idea that somehow, sometime, someone else will come to the rescue. They buy lottery tickets, gamble and think about making a killing in the stock market. And they worry about money all the time.
The fact is that serious money is long-term money. Most wealthy people organize their financial lives in such a way that their net worth increases about 8-10% per year on the amount of money that they have working. They do not look for get-rich-quick schemes or easy money. They are patient, persistent and farsighted.
They discipline themselves to save and accumulate money over many years. They do not speculate, take risks, or look for fast ways to make money quickly and easily. As a result of these habitual ways of thinking about their money, each year their wealth grows. Eventually they pass the million-dollar mark, and usually keep on going.
Develop A Millionaire Mindset
The business philosopher Jim Rohn once wrote, “Becoming a millionaire is not that difficult, but it is not the most important thing. The most important part of becoming a millionaire is the person that you have to become to accumulate a million dollars in the first place.”
This is a wonderful insight. In order to become wealthy, you must develop a completely different mindset from the average person who worries about money most of his life. You must develop a completely different character, personality and set of habits if you are to achieve your financial goals, and then hold onto the money once you acquire it.
My financial advisor once told me, “The first million is extremely difficult to acquire, but the second million is almost inevitable.”
When you become the kind of person who can earn and accumulate a million dollars or more, you will also be the kind of person who can earn the second and third million as well. Even if something unfortunate happened, and you lost all your money, you would be able to make it back again fairly quickly because you would have become the kind of person who can become a millionaire. And once you become that kind of person, you never lose it. ........
The above is an excerpt from the book: Million Dollar Habits by Brian Tracy. This book is one of the 10 such books I am selling for the price of 1. Yes, 10 great ebooks for a token N2500. Interested? Text “I WANT BOOKS” to 0805 348 8789 now; or scroll down to read the first post here.
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