SECRETS OF THE 1% SET Four things the mega rich know that you don’t… yet
Want to be in the 1% club? LUCY TOBIN hunts out the habits that all billionaires share, so you can get a piece of the action
What makes a tycoon different from you or me? It’s not just (really) big hair and the ability to leave a hotel without stuffing their suitcases with the complimentary miniatures. It’s the way they think. Steve Siebold, author of US bestseller How Rich People Think, spent nearly three decades interviewing the mega wealthy and found that the majority of us non-billionaires think with a ‘lottery’ mentality, while those who have propelled themselves to the 1% (that’s the richest 1% of the population who own half the world’s wealth) tend to have an ‘action’ mentality. “While the masses are waiting to pick the right [lottery] numbers, the great ones are solving problems,” he says. So, if you want to add some more zeros to your bank balance (or just keep on top of spiralling rent and an ASOS addiction) it’s time to adopt the habits opposite and start thinking like the super rich.
Have at least three sources of income
It’s time to get that side hustle on the go. Billionaires have multiple forms of income – Thomas C Corley, who spent five years interviewing more than 200 self-made billionaires and millionaires for his book Rich Habits, found that 65% of them had at least three different sources of money making its way into their accounts. Those sources include earned income (that’ll be your salary), profit (money from selling goods) and capital gains (investment).
Do it It may be tricky to make like Ashton Kutcher (who is said to be very close to billionaire status thanks to investments in Skype, Airbnb and more) when you don’t have anything to actually
invest – but things are changing. Micro-investing apps – which aim to demystify the stock market and have been around in the US for the past couple of years – have now made it across here. Moneybox links up to your bank account, and allows card payments to be rounded up to the nearest pound – this digital spare change is then moved into a stocks and shares ISA automatically. You choose how much it takes – and how risky (but as a consequence usually more lucrative) an investment you want to make. As for profit? Get started by selling off any old items of yours on Ebay or see if any of your hobbies could translate into a viable online business.
Stay 100% focused
Self-made billionaires are constantly scanning the world for untapped opportunities – and when they find one, they focus on it with tunnel vision, according to research into the personality of 1,300 billionaires carried out by accountancy firm PwC and investment bank UBS.
Do it At work, keep your attention on the task in hand. The report above found that “none of the meetings we had [with billionaires] were disrupted by an assistant, there were no calls and none of them looked at their mobile devices to check messages. When they are with you, they focus 100%”. Make a vow to only check your phone at certain times of the day and try mono-tasking rather than multitasking – work through your to-do list one job at a time.
Be ruthlessly self-aware
You know how the room falls silent at the end of a meeting when the speaker asks if anyone has any questions? That wouldn’t happen at a billionaire meet-up. While most of us are afraid to look stupid, the super-successful think grilling someone is the best way to find out about everything. “Billionaires tend to be very curious and open-minded people,” says Siebold. “They just want to win at whatever game they’re playing, and it’s easier to copy genius than it is to create it.”
Do it It’s not just questions about the world that billionaires want the answers to – they also constantly ask about themselves and their businesses. “Most of the self-made millionaires in my study were fanatics when it came to obtaining feedback,” says Corley. Yep, it’s time to ditch the fear and start asking how you’re doing. Don’t just look to your boss – your colleagues who work beside you should have some useful insight. If you’ve scheduled a one-to-one with your boss, remember that five questions is enough.
Read philosophy
Billionaires always have a book on the go. Corley found that, on average, they tend to read two books a month – and not for entertainment. Warren Buffett (the world’s fourth richest man) says he spends 80% of his day reading. Do it “The book most often cited in interviews was [philosophical novel] Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand,” says Siebold. Oprah Winfrey says The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle is one of the books that’s helped her, and Mark Zuckerberg rates Creativity, Inc by Ed Catmull (co-founder of Pixar and who helped bring us Toy Story).