Is being wealthy lucky or are there actionable habits that we can all utilize to give us a better chance of becoming wealthy? Lucky for us, most wealthy people will tell you that luck plays its part in success, but that you must develop certain characteristics if you want to have a shot at wealth. We have summarized for you 5 of the most important characteristics that wealthy people embody, based on research and publications written based on the opinions of the worlds wealthiest individuals. (by the way, that is Bill Gates taking a nice read to our left, one of the wealthiest people in the world, with a net worth close to $100 billion.)
1 ) They are extremely talented in one industry or skill set
Some will say it makes sense to know a little bit about everything which is definitely true, but most wealthy people have developed expertise in one specific skill set or industry. For instance, Bill Gates had the skill to develop his own code and computing technology, Warren Buffet is an expert in investing, and Drake is an expert at rapping and performing. If you have a particular wealthy person in mind but cannot think of a skill set, I will bet you that it’s sales, as the ability to sell yourself, your products and your ideas is extremely crucial for any business (business=ownership)
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2) They focus on OWNERSHIP
In the end, owning an asset will generate you the most wealth long term. This is because there is virtually no limit on the scale you can generate by owning a business. Let’s put it this way, you can’t sell yourself (literally, yes figuratively you can as in an interview) but you can sell a business for millions or billions of dollars, sometimes all in cash. This is why ownership is so important. A point to note is that no one has ever become a billionaire without ownership, nobody. There are highly paid athletes and singers and other highly paid employees who can make millions, but in the end the wealthy realized at some point they would need ownership.
3) They take calculated risks and work extremely hard
The vast majority of the wealthy needed to take a lot of risk at one point in their lives. (The minority being people that inherited their money). Let’s take a look, most wealthy people are either business owners, corporate executives, professional athletes, professional artists (singers not like Picasso), and half jokingly people that invested in Apple and Facebook early on.
I don’t need to tell you how business owners take risk; starting any new venture requires serious capital and invested time, and there are no guarantees for success. Further, there is an opportunity cost in being a business owner. Lets say you take 3 years to build a business and it fails, those three years could be have been spent earning money at a stable job. Athletes and artists take on a huge amount of risk. Instead of preparing for the workforce for years like most of us (high school and college etc.) they focus on their talents and take the risk that they will make it pro (many don’t make it). This is an incredible amount of risk. Lastly, how on earth did we know Apple would become what it is today?!
4) They welcome failure – and have failed more than most people ever will, by a long shot
This point is for all the perfectionists out there. If you want to be very wealthy you need to accept the fact that failure WILL arise. You should still aim to be perfect, but I’m yet to hear of a success story without many challenges and temporary failures along the way, so brace yourself and understand that each time you fail, you are a step closer to reaching your desired destination.
5 ) They are generally nice and good people
A large misconception is that people with a great deal of wealth are mean and greedy people, and while I’m sure there are some very corrupted wealthy people, there are also many kind and generous wealthy people. There are also many mean poor people, so it seems that kindness is irrespective of financial wealth.
Hopefully these summarized points will give you a nice glimpse of what it will take to become wealthy. In my opinion, the most significant point listed here is the acceptance of failure. Plain and simple if you cannot dare to fail, you are unlikely to find real success, in anything you that you pursue.
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