Do headlines like “Adopt These 15 Habits of Elon Musk to Make Millions,” make you shake your head?
They make me shake mine, but they’re intoxicating nonetheless, aren’t they?
Even though we logically know that becoming a millionaire isn’t easy, our emotions — specifically the ones of despair, frustration, and angst — drive us to want to believe it is.
This is not to deride those posts either. Many have sound advice.
And, see, that’s the thing about the aforementioned blog post titles. Their promises are true in a way. Most millionaires do have similar traits and habits.
The basic steps to making a lot of money are evident. If you took the advice given and rigorously applied it on a local level — in your day to day life for a long period of time — you could become a millionaire.
The keys here are the words rigorous and apply. I don’t write personal development because the process of developing yourself is easy. I do it because it’s hard. Because you need reinforcement, support, and repetition.
I never want to be the one to make promises I can’t keep. My advice probably won’t make you a millionaire. It could help you reach the end goal of being a millionaire, sure, but I wouldn’t be responsible for the steps between your starting place and the end goal.
That part’s on you.
I want to focus more on creating those building blocks in your day to day life that can help you have success of all variations. Being a millionaire is probably cool (I wouldn’t know) but there are also a number of different ways you can be successful without having 7 digits in your bank account and there are a lot of practical applications for personal development that don’t involve extremely lofty thinking (even though I personally love engaging in it).
Let me illustrate with a few examples.
Examples of Amazing Lives That Don’t Require $1,000,000
I may not be able to help you become a millionaire…
But I can help you instill the confidence in yourself to spend a few extra hours per week studying a new field you’re interested in, putting together valuable experience, and finding a job you don’t think you’re “qualified,” for.’
I can help you realize your ability to work with your hands is just as viable as any white collar skill. And that skill mixed with a little business acumen can turn into a very profitable and enjoyable lifestyle.
I can help you persist when you’re trying to get your “side hustle” off the ground, or when you’re trying to write a book, or when you’re trying to get funding for a small charitable organization you want to start, or when you want to go to night school a few hours a week to get your associates degree in a field that can double your income instead of having to work retail, or when you realize your lawn mowing gig as a child was a seed of inspiration you could be using to start a landscaping business, or when you want to get healthier so that you can be more productive in your career or business, the list goes on and on and on.
My point is that your main concern shouldn’t necessarily be becoming a millionaire, but rather applying useful practices to become the type of person who is capable of taking their natural talents and abilities to their furthest extent.
Play the Game You Can Win
Those last two words are crucial. We all have inherent differences and ability levels that do create a ceiling of sorts. I cannot play professional basketball. I may not be smart enough to found a billion-dollar startup. I’m smarter than a lot of people in a lot of ways, but a lot of people are smarter than me in a lot of different ways.
Knowing this, my goal is to help you become the best version of yourself possible while simultaneously getting you not to worry about how that best version compares to other people, especially freakishly talented and insanely successful people — that’s a fool’s errand.
Here’s the good news — your best version of yourself can create a life that sits outside of your current imagination. Without knowing you, I can tell you that you don’t know how to accurately assess how capable you are and that you’re not even scratching the surface of what’s possible for you. This is because even highly motivated people aren’t fully self-actualized because very few people can mentally unhinge their jaw like a snake and devour large amounts of possibility. It’s hard.
You can definitely do much much better, though. And even doing much much better will take you to great places. It is completely within the realm of reality for you to have an amazing career, earn enough to be very comfortable, build a large network of smart peers to collaborate with, find higher levels of mental, spiritual, and physical, well-being, become a pillar of your community, and most importantly…
….live a well above average life.
Break Out of Your Box
You may not be a millionaire, but you definitely do not have to sit at a level of income, well-being, and success that’s much too close to the demarcation of “the frustrated working/middle-class schlub,” which is a negative caricature both painted by the elite and reinforced by the members of the group.
You can break out.
That’s what I’m here to help you do. I’m not a millionaire, so I cannot give you advice on how to become a millionaire.
I have, however, tripled my own income, broken negative cycles of addiction and self-loathing, dramatically increased my self-confidence, and turned personal development strategies into real results.
If you’re new to me, check out a few other medium pieces to get some of these building blocks:
The Most Clever Life Hack I’ve Ever Learned
Why Most People Never Turn Their Dreams Into Reality (and How to be the Exception)
You don’t need to know the habits of millionaires. You need the core principles and skills that lend to different variations of success — confidence and the ability to overcome limiting beliefs (this is a huge one), planning and executing, positivity without Pollyanna, learning and the love of learning, networking and social skills, and the overarching ability to follow through.
Those are all you need. The best blueprint in the world won’t help if you don’t know and aren’t willing to use the tools to build it.
I am dedicated to helping you build whatever the hell you want.
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Originally published at medium.com