Let’s admit it. Most of us want to be one of the ten million households in the US with a net worth between $1M and $5M, right? And most of us want to know how those ten million people garnered their net worth because maybe, just maybe, if what they did worked for them, maybe what they did will work for us too.
Of course, there is no single, answer or thing these ten million did to gather their net worth but, there are particular traits and habits shared by high net worth individuals that we can learn from and emulate.
Here are five tips from the Motley Fool, a long-standing wealth management service that helps people build their net worth.
- Successful people set goals and act on those goals by working hard in order to achieve them. Successful people tend to make to-do lists every day and many put their lives on a calendar so they can see what they’re doing and when they’re doing what needs to be done. Successful people don’t rely upon luck to make things happen; they rely upon hard work. They track their progress and make adjustments to their strategies along the way.
Take a clue from Andrew Carnegie. He said, “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hopes.”
- Successful people read like crazy. People who read learn more than the rest of us. Warren Buffet says that he spends 80% of his time reading every day and suggests that people who want to become successful “Read 500 pages…every day. That’s how knowledge works…it builds up, like compound interest.”
- Successful people get up early. They get extra work done without distractions before the day has begun for most of us. Not only does getting up early enable more work time, it enables more time to exercise, read, and have quiet time to plan out the day.
- Successful people say no…a lot. They know their time is valuable and that to progress their goals, they have to say no to many things, being selective and picky about their commitments enables successful people to complete more of the tasks that are valuable to their goals. Warren Buffet has said, “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”
- Successful people connect with others. Success hardly ever happens in isolation. Successful people spend time networking and building relationships to achieve their own goals and to help others reach theirs. This kind of networking is really community building among goal-oriented people. According to Tom Corley, author of Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals, “Seventy nine percent of wealthy people devote approximately 5 hours/month to networking. And Robert T. Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, said, “The richest people in the world look for and build networks; everyone else looks for work.”
