Who wants to be a billionaire?
You can learn a lot from observing what drives super-rich entrepreneurs.
The more you study them, the more you see the attributes that set them apart.
They say the best way to become a billionaire is to act like one. You can find the secrets of billionaires in their values, beliefs and strategies which, if you study them, can guide you to great wealth.
Not everyone wants to be a billionaire of course, and the odds are that most people won’t be, but having the mindset of a billionaire can certainly help increase your chances of success in business and investment.
Strange as it may seem, extremely wealthy people are driven not by the pursuit of wealth but by a higher purpose. Take Warren Buffett, the so-called ‘‘Oracle of Omaha’’ who has become one of the wealthiest people in the world by investing in shares through his company Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett still lives in the same house he bought when he first married, and continues to live a frugal lifestyle despite having a net worth of around $US87 billion (NZ$119.4B).
He has pledged to give away 99 per cent of his fortune, mostly to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
So if it is not money which drives Buffett, what is it? He has always had a love of numbers and is said to have a photographic memory, so he can recall numbers and statistics easily. For him, investing is simply a game of numbers that he excels at and enjoys.
What drives him is the pursuit of excellence in putting together a perfect masterpiece – the collection of investments which comprise the holdings of Berkshire Hathaway. The wealth Buffett has created is merely a consequence of this achievement.
Wealthier than Buffett is Jeff Bezos, founder of global online retailer Amazon, who has amassed a fortune of around $US124B, making him the world’s wealthiest person. Born to a young mother (she was 16 at the time of his birth) he was adopted at age four by his mother’s second husband.
Highly intelligent and highly ambitious, he is described as being driven by a relentless need to prove himself. Some would say his goal is world domination. In his own words, he simply doesn’t want to get old and have regrets about what he could have achieved.
For up and coming rich-lister Elon Musk, co-founder of Paypal, Tesla and Space-x, the driving forces are his desire for the world to have sustainable energy production and consumption and for humans to be a multi-planet species. To these ends, Musk has taken huge financial risks, at one point using all his proceeds from the sale of Paypal to bail out Tesla. He continues to operate on the brink of what could be either financial ruin or the generation of massive wealth because to him, it is not the money that is important, it is the achievement of his goals.
Values, beliefs and strategies are things that allow billionaires to grow their wealth. Deducing what these are by reading their biographies and watching interviews with them is a great way to learn the secrets of wealth creation.
Buffett says he always knew that if he lived long enough he would be very rich. This unwavering belief gave him confidence to grow his wealth, alongside his values of frugality and being the best that he can be as well as his strategy of using his strong negotiation and communication skills to advantage.
It’s easy to pick what Bezos’s values are – he is known to start family gatherings with a toast ‘‘to adventure and fellowship’’. Resourcefulness – the ability to bounce back from setbacks – is an attribute he says he learned from his grandfather. He has also been described as tough, persistent, stubborn, and pushy to the extent that you might call him a bully. His strategy is creativity. His advice is to become an expert in an area but to always use what he calls ‘‘a beginner’s mind’’, as that is where creativity comes from.
Musk also uses creativity but in the extreme. He challenges conventional wisdom and has achieved success despite critics doubting that electric cars would ever be an accepted form of transport. He has a strongly held belief that within 20 years, all vehicles on the road will be electric. The only reason it will take this long, he says, is that cars have such a long life. He fully expects all new cars sold to be electric within a much shorter period of time.
There is much to be learned from billionaires. The more you study them, the more you see the attributes that set them apart. They have a higher purpose. They play a long game, putting in years of effort for rewards that may not come for decades. They have strong, unshakeable beliefs about themselves and the world they live in. They have focus, resilience and resourcefulness in spades. Above all else, they never give up.
❚ Liz Koh is an authorised financial adviser and author of Your Money Personality: Unlock the Secret to a Rich and Happy Life, Awa Press. The advice given here is general and does not constitute specific advice to any person. A disclosure statement can be obtained free of charge by calling 0800 273 847.