Habits to generate wealth and achieve the desired success

 

It is quite difficult to narrow it down to four. If I am forced too I would say

1.Living below your means and investing the surplus properly

Not matter how much is earned, you can become broke. Ask the 70% of former professional athletes, even the elite ones like NFL players, who are said to go broke within a few years of retirement.

These days, saving hard, whilst better than spending 100% of income, isn’t as useful as investing.

Investing has always been better, long-term, at least, compared to saving.

What has changed is 0% interest rates which means that money in the bank is losing 2%-3% every year to inflation.

In previous decades, you could at least earn some money in the bank.

2. Focus

Bill Gates and Buffett both said focus is the number one attribute to become successful.

Focus is indirectly even related to basic questions like “what is success”.

If somebody isn’t focused on what success is for themselves (financial, health, spiritual etc), it is hard to even know what you want.

Once somebody knows what they want, they can not just work hard, but work hard in a smart way (smart work), on the things that really matter.

Some things don’t take any more work, but can be very profitable.

For example, let’s say there are four doctors who are all paid the same.

Doctor one spends 100% of whatever he/she earns. The assumption is think they don’t need to invest due to the company pension or whatever reason.

The second doctor saves 15k a year. The third invests 15k a year from age 40.

The fourth doctor invests 15k a year from 27 and reinvests an 150k inheritance, whereas the others spend that.

By 65, the fourth doctor will be worth millions more than the rest, for doing no more work.

That is easier to do if you know what you want to achieve to begin with.

3. Persistence.

Success is tough as this graphic below shows.

Many people can work hard and smart for a few years.

It is much harder to keep going for a decade or more if success isn’t achieved, despite all those efforts.

Persistence + focus is more effective than being persistence at the wrong things of course.

4. Lifelong learning

Formal education can be very useful, but so can self-education and engaging in lifelong learning.

What is learned in one year, or decade, isn’t always so useful decades later.

Of course, learning is pointless if you don’t implement it, but that brings us back to focus.

If I could add another one to the equation it would be taking calculated risks.

Being focused, persistent and living below your means is all great, as is working hard and smart.

Yet having a sensible attitude to risk is also prudent.