How to Think Like a Billionaire
Issue #2671
- WEALTHY: 8 characteristics of billionaires (Michael Masterson)
- HEALTHY: If you think you’re too fat/unfit/undisciplined to lose weight… (Jon Benson)
- WISE: George Bernard Shaw on possibilities
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- 3 clues that you’re in line for a pink slip (Suzanne Richardson)
- Are you advertising? Or marketing? (Seth Godin)
- It’s Good to Know… about the Centers for Disease Control e-cards
- Add "imbricated" to your vocabulary
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"You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’"
George Bernard Shaw
How to Think Like a Billionaire
In his thoroughly entertaining book The Prime Movers, Edwin A. Locke gives this example of the way entrepreneurs think:
An average person observes evergreens growing along the roadside and thinks that they look pretty, especially when partly covered with snow. At this point, his thinking stops. An entrepreneur observes the same trees and thinks, "These trees would look good in people’s living rooms at Christmas. I wonder what people would pay for them?
And he would continue to ask such questions as:
• How hard is it to grow evergreens?
• What investment is required?
• How big should they be before being cut?
• How difficult would it be to cut and transport them?
• How much would it cost?
• How long would they keep before losing their needles?
• Where would they be sold?
• What would the competition be like?
• Could I make other, related products – e.g., wreaths?
• Can I make money in such a seasonal business?
• How much?
• How can I get started?
This kind of active, directed thinking is one of the things that separate entrepreneurs from the rest of humanity. In fact, the most successful entrepreneurs in history – all of them mega-billionaires by today’s standards – seemed to have dynamic, pragmatic minds.
Locke gives plenty of examples, including these:
• Thomas Edison: He was a "virtual thinking machine. Almost until the day he died, his mind poured forth a torrent of ideas, and he might track as many as 60 experiments at a time in his laboratory."
• Steve Jobs: He bombarded people with his ideas – his investors, his board of directors, his customers, his subordinates, and his CEO John Scully.
• Henry Ford: "He threw himself into every detail, insisting on getting small things absolutely right…. But he never lost sight of the ultimate, overall objection. He had a vision of what his new car (the Model T) should look like. From all the improvisation, hard thought, and hard work came a machine that was at once the simplest and the most sophisticated automobile built to date anywhere in the world."
You may be thinking, "Hey, I’m no Thomas Edison or Steve Jobs or Henry Ford." Well, neither am I. And I could rattle off a dozen multi-millionaire entrepreneurs I know who don’t have that kind of brain capacity either.
Raw intelligence is not the issue. If it were, Einstein would have been wealthy. What matters in the world of commerce is how you think.
Some people, whether because of their upbringing or their DNA, have a natural billionaire mind. But just about anyone who is smart and ambitious can learn to think like a billionaire.
You can transform your mind completely and permanently in a matter of a few short months by making small changes, one at a time. It will take some effort, though. As Joshua Reynolds once said, "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking."
Begin by vowing to talk to every successful person you know or meet. Tell them how much you admire what they have accomplished and ask them how they do what they do.
You may be amazed at how open they will be to such inquiries. Nine times out of 10, they’ll be eager to tell you just about everything they know.
Unfortunately, many of the twentieth century’s greatest entrepreneurs have been disparaged by historians and the media. As Locke points out in The Prime Movers, if you mention the names Andrew Carnegie or John Rockefeller or Cornelius Vanderbilt to most people, they think "greedy robber barons who took advantage of their circumstances." They know nothing about their accomplishments. What they know, for the most part, is based on persistent myths that prevent them from learning from these men and prospering.
Locke says:
"It is often claimed that the Prime Movers have been viewed with suspicion at best and with distaste or repugnance at worst…. The most basic motive [of those who envy them] is… hatred of the good for being good… it is hatred of the Prime Movers because they are intelligent, successful, and competent, because they are better at what they do than others are.
"The ultimate goal of the haters of the good is not to bring others up to the level of the most able (which is impossible) but to bring down the able to the level of the less able – to obliterate their achievement, to destroy their reward, to make them unable to function above the level of mediocrity, to punish them, and, above all, to make them feel unearned guilt for their own virtues."
When you become super-successful, you’ll have to learn how to handle the people who are going to resent you for achieving what they themselves have been unable to do. But first, you have to get yourself into that enviable position. And you do that by practicing the thinking of the great entrepreneurs who thought like billionaires and so amassed billions.
I’ll be writing more on this subject in the future. But for right now, here are eight characteristics of the billionaire mind that you can emulate:
1. A "normal" person is concerned with protecting his ego. When dealing with a problem he doesn’t really understand, he pretends he understands the contributing factors and doesn’t try to find out what anyone else thinks. A person with a billionaire mind asks questions incessantly. He has no ego when it comes to learning. He knows that knowledge is power.
2. A "normal" person has a consumer mentality. He looks at a hot new product and thinks about how he would like to own one. A person with a billionaire mind has an entrepreneurial mentality. He looks at it and thinks, "How can I produce this or something similar in my own industry?"
3. A "normal" person is wish-focused. He daydreams about making gobs of money. A person with a billionaire mind is reality-based. He is always analyzing his own success and the success of others and wondering how he could learn from it.
4. A "normal" person, when confronted with a challenging idea, thinks of all the reasons why it might not work. A person with a billionaire mind sees the potential in it and disregards the problems until he has a clear vision of how it might succeed.
5. A "normal" person resists change. A person with a billionaire mind embraces it.
6. A "normal" person accepts the status quo. A person with a billionaire mind is always looking to make things – even good things – better.
7. A "normal" person reacts. A person with a billionaire mind is proactive.
8. A "normal" person looks at a successful business owner and thinks, "That guy’s lucky." Or "That guy’s a shyster." A person with a billionaire mind thinks, "What’s his secret?" And, "How can I do that?"
Start by being humble and asking questions. Do this until it becomes a habit. Then take on another characteristic of the billionaire mind – like looking at a successful new product and thinking, "How can I do something like that?"
Go through the list, mastering one characteristic at a time, and within three months you will be able to create new businesses almost automatically. You will become a natural leader. Money will flow to you like water coming down a hill. And then you’ll be ready to deal with all the "normal" people who are jealous of your incredible success.
[Ed. Note: Get more of Michael Masterson's surefire strategies for getting ahead in business in True Path to Profits: A Master Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Success. Find out more (including how you can get a bonus subscription to his VIP newsletter, Ready Fire Aim) here.
You can learn more about how to develop a billionaire mindset - straight from a man who mentored four billionaires. Discover how to get proven achievement advice and powerful success techniques that can help you reach new heights in your business and personal life right here.]
This "Bailout" Could Be Perfect For YOU
If the Fat-Cat banks can get FREE MONEY why can’t you?
Here’s how a ‘robot’ could grab $1000 a day from the banking crisis for YOU!
Is Your Boss About to Fire You?
This past March, 694,000 people lost their jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that brings the number of "unemployed persons" up to 13.2 million. It’s enough to make anyone paranoid.
A recent article on MSN.com plays to this fear: "7 Signs That Your Job Could Be in Jeopardy." The list includes being kept out of the loop, having a lighter workload than your fellow employees, and working in a non-revenue-generating position.
Listen, it’s stupid to expend energy wondering if you’re about to get the axe. Scary as that prospect may be, you can protect yourself AND your financial future by taking two actions immediately:
1. Re-evaluate the work you are doing. Focus on the tasks that are likely to help cut costs or increase revenues. This will show your boss that you’re invaluable to the company – which means you’ll be last in line for a layoff. Find out more about how to become an invaluable employee in Michael Masterson’s bestseller, Automatic Wealth for Grads… and Anyone Else Just Starting Out.
2. Establish your back-up plan. The very best way to ensure your financial future is to set up extra streams of revenue that aren’t dependent on your current job. These could include:
• Starting a side business. Richard Mix was able to QUIT his 9-to-5 job in 2008 after getting an Internet business started on the side. Now that he’s working at his side business full-time, Richard has complete control over how much he works and how much money he makes. And he’s pulling in $5,000 to $10,000 a month. You could do the same. Find out how to create income for life right here.
• Joining an affiliate program. Affiliate marketing – where you drive traffic to a company’s Web page from your website and earn a commission for sales you make – is already a $6 billion industry that’s expected to grow 13 percent by 2012. It’s easy to get started. Learn how here.
• Finding investment opportunities that work in ANY economy. Investment analyst Rick P. has uncovered a way to make 92 percent returns on a stock that goes up just 2 percent. Armand M. generated over $20 million in revenue over the last 12 months – working from home. Jeff A. has made more than 350 real estate deals since 1995 – and knows how to "work" the real estate market, even today. You can get your hands on these same "recession proof" strategies right here.
Worth Quoting: Seth Godin on the Difference Between Marketing and Advertising
"Marketing is not the same as advertising.
"Advertising is a tiny slice of what marketing is today, and in fact, it’s pretty clear that the marketing has to come before the product, not after. The Prius was developed after the marketing thinking was done. Jones Soda, too. In fact, just about every successful product or service is the result of smart marketing thinking first, followed by a great product that makes the marketing story come true."
(Source: Seth Godin’s blog)
Stop Bashing Yourself
By Jon Benson
One reason all too many people try to get into fitness is because they hate the way they look and feel. They’re too heavy, they’ve got too much body fat, they don’t have enough muscle tone. If that’s the reason you’re deciding to make a positive change, good for you. But the worst thing you can do – for yourself AND your fitness goals – is to start focusing on those negatives.
One viewer of a recent YouTube video I posted wrote, "I believe it’s too hard to be fit and have the body I want. I can’t do that – I’m too fat, too unfit, I never stick with anything. Even though I know that I say this, I’m still having trouble overcoming the negative."
I hear this all too often. So if that type of self-defeating inner dialogue sounds familiar, here’s how to end it…
You would never say to your child, "You never stick to anything." You’d never tell your spouse, "You’re too fat to have the body you want." No way.
Well, you shouldn’t say those things to yourself, either. So instead of picturing yourself with all your faults, imagine that you’re talking to the person you hold most dear – and give that person (yourself) the motivation and confidence to achieve all his or her (your) fitness goals.
[Ed. Note: Jon Benson is a three-time bestselling fitness and nutrition author. You can take his free Personal Fat Loss Certification Course online right here.
In addition to killing the negative self-talk, you need to be taking positive action toward making yourself healthier and more fit. For ideas about how to build muscle and burn fat... and eat right without sacrificing flavor... sign up for ETR's free natural health newsletter right here.
]
It’s Good to Know: The Centers for Disease Control E-Cards
Unsure how to persuade your coughing and sneezing co-worker to call in sick? Trying to work up the courage to tell the parents of your child’s playmate that the kid really needs to see a dentist? Concerned that a good friend might not be eating right and is on the road to developing serious health problems?
Enter the Centers for Disease Control E-Cards, which cover dozens of health and wellness related topics. Instead of a face-to-face "confrontation," you can send a pleasant e-mail showing your concern, often with statistics backing up the point you’re trying to make. (No, it’s not anonymous, but it’s a lot better than sitting back and doing nothing.)
Find the e-cards at www2a.cdc.gov/ecards/index.asp.
(Source: Consumerist and Centers for Disease Control)
== Highly Recommended ==
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I don’t know about you, but I’d barely trust Wall Street and the Big Banks with the 63 dollars in my wallet right now, never mind my IRA, 401(k), and life savings!
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Word to the Wise: Imbricated
"Imbricated" (IM-brih-kate-id) – from the Latin, referring to the shape of a certain kind of tile – means overlapping in sequence, like shingles on a roof.
Example (as used by Gregory Maguire in Son of a Witch ): "The snow was lipped and patterned by the wind into shapes like the imbricated scales on a fish."
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Copyright ETR, LLC, 2009
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