Episode Details

Have you ever wondered how certain people become so rich and successful?

Well, if you've been listening to my podcast or reading my blogs and my books, you'd know that rich people don't become rich by luck or by accident. Becoming rich requires hard work, dedication, and a certain set of habits. We are what we repeatedly do.

That means excellence isn't an act, it's a habit.

My friend Tom Corley spent five years studying millionaires and gathering insights that become the basis of his blogs and books, including the book we co-authored: Rich Habits, Poor Habits.

He found that people who became wealthy practiced certain habits, and that's what we're going to discuss today. Since there are so many habits, we're going to break this into a two-part series, and today we're going to start with the first group of habits that the rich do that differentiate them from the average person.

Rich Habits

Of course, not all rich people are successful, and not all successful people are rich; but remember I was much younger and more naïve then and wanted it all.

So I tried to understand why some people were rich while others kept struggling financially.

Over the years I attended many seminars, paid mentors, and read as many books as I could on the topic of success.

I modelled successful people and eventually grew successful myself.

It wasn't easy, I've had my challenges in life (mostly self-inflicted) and I've hit rock-bottom, but I got up again, learned from my mistakes, and moved forward.

And over the years I've mentored more than 3,000 successful (and some not so successful) investors, business people, and entrepreneurs.

In fact, a by-product of this is our top-selling book – Rich habits Poor Habits

In it, Tom Corley and I explain…

Being rich has little to do with the money itself

Instead, it has a lot to do with how you think about money.

So if you want to become rich, one of the first steps is to know how the wealthy think about money differently than you do and to start thinking like them.

The next step is to take action and to let the action become natural by thinking the way wealthy people think.

We've found rich people share similar habits.

While we explain this in some detail in our book, today I'd like to briefly share…

The first of the 21 Success Habits of The Rich ….

1. The average person thinks about spending their money, while the rich think about how to invest their money.
2. The average person worries about running out of money while the rich think about how to use their money to make more money.
3. Most people believe hard work makes you rich, while the rich know that leverage creates wealth.
4. Successful people don't procrastinate. They don't spend their life waiting for the 'right time' or waiting until they know it all or have figured everything out.
5. The average person believes having a job gives them security. The rich know there's no such thing as "job security."
6. Most people want to be rich. The rich are committed to being rich. (They are very different things.)
7. When things go wrong, the rich find a lesson, while others only see a problem.
8. The average Australian sets their financial expectation low, so they're never disappointed. On the other hand, the rich set their financial expectations high so they're always excited.
9. Successful people take calculated risks – financial, emotional, professional, psychological. But once they've built their wealth, they take fewer risks.
10. The rich consciously and methodically create their own success, while others hope success will find them.
11. The rich look for and find opportunities where others see obstacles.

12. The average person believes life happens to them. They are a passenger, while the Rich believe that the