A few months earlier I started learned meeting millionaire people to know their secret.
The secret to their health, wealth and prosperity.
I generated my links through my previous job, from LinkedIn & Facebook networking.
I read somewhere that if you want to get rich, sit with rich people, so I decided to act on it.
It was a very interesting experience. The more I met rich people, the more change in my own personality I noticed.
You BECOME the kind of people you hang out with.
Here are the inferences that I developed from talking and spending time with them. It helped me a lot and I hope it will help you too.
1. Always pay first.
You must always pay first.
There are Two reasons for that.
First –
A few days ago, I went to have a coffee at Starbucks with one of my friends (not best) and I told him to have anything he wants. He stared at me for a while as I am not famous for offering free treats.
After overcoming his surprise, he said he does not want to have anything but a glass of water.
Now, It was my turn to get surprised.
It was his change of behaviour.
A few months earlier, when I met him he was on a merciless trail of burning my pockets.
So, when I didn’t have any money, he was willing to drill my wallet, but now when I have money, he refuses to buy anything.
Isn’t that surprising, Freud!!
The only reason I can attribute to such behavior gets to define by one word — “Importance”.
When I have money I am more important to him and he could see future relations with me.
And when I didn’t have any money, I wasn’t important enough. He took full advantage of me and didn’t care whether we will meet again or not.
Conclusion: If you pay first, there are chances people don’t want you to spend your money as they want to be in your good books.
Second –
The first impression is the last impression.
It is basic psychology.
You pay first when you are meeting someone for the first time, it gives him an impression that you are not cheap.
He will live with that impression unless you change his thoughts by doing some cheap act.
People don’t like to change their opinions, even when hard and solid evidence is presented to them. They are more comfortable believing in a lie, than changing their opinion.
Use this human tendency to your favour.
I have many free meals using this method.
I pay, once, in the first meeting. Then in next ten meetings, I eat for free and no one cares because they think I am loaded as hell as I paid the first time.
Rich people always pay first. Any rich person I have sat with pretends that they don’t care about the bill. They pay whatever is printed on the bill. They care about money but pretend not to.
To get rich, it is imperative to get that attitude first.
2. Money is important but Time is more important.
There is nothing more important in this world than money.
I guess you know that.
With Millionaires, I realized there is one entity more important than money –
That is Time.
People don’t value their time because it is abundant and free to them.
I did the same and I regret it.
When I met millionaires, the first thing I noticed was how much they valued their own time.
I came up with a fantastic plan to make myself realize how much of my time is important to me.
I started telling myself, that one hour of my time is worth 1000 Bucks. So for every hour that I waste, I will lose 1000 bucks.
After that whenever I wasted my time my mind would auto-suggest that if I waste more time, I will waste more of my money.
Money comes to Rich only because they value time and not another way around.
If your observe, Rich people usually don’t give time to other people. They are always busy.
Unless they have some work or the person is useful they don’t waste their time with them.
Time is money so don’t waste it.
3. Do not invest without knowing about Returns.
A most important rule –
Never invest without knowing about the returns first.
I have made two films and I used to think of myself as creative and talented. This was before I realized that there is no such thing as talent or creativity. It is a Myth.
None of my films made any money and they were never released.
I was one of those guys who used to think that creativity comes from lack of money, pains, sufferings and struggles.
I tried creativity, but instead of creativity, I got stomach pains and headaches. Not to mention the criticism and judgement of the people around me.
What went wrong?
I invested without caring about returns.
Big Mistake.
In the creative field, the “creative” people justify their lack of business sense by convincing others that they don’t care about returns. They pretend that they are doing things for the sake of art. They are fooling everyone, including themselves.
Study the market and figure out how to sell your thing. Even if it is a creative thing that does not have a physical appearance, it can sell.
Think of an idea and take a few steps.
Then walk till the end and start coming backwards.
This is the most important trait that millionaires inhibit.
4. Read, Listen, Observe and keep yourself Updated.
There cannot be enough importance that can be attributed to the habit of reading. It is a vital habit.
It is a fact that a rich guy always keeps himself updated. He will read books, magazines, blogs whatever to keep himself updated.
You may argue then that what if a person is illiterate and still rich. After all, most Gujaratis have rags to riches story.
Even if you cannot read due to various reasons of concentration, habit or illiteracy; it does not matter.
READING BOOKS is not the only source of information or keeping yourself updated.
A person who really wants to do something will always find a way to do it.
The are no rules of how you do your reading, listening and observing exercises. There are conventional methods and there are methods that you create for yourself.
Sometimes people like talking about their life experiences. That is one way for you to gather knowledge.
You can to listen to audio books, attend seminars, go to events. There are myriad ways of increasing knowledge if you look around.
Sometimes you experience things on your own and increase knowledge.
Whatever it is, in the end, if you care enough, you will figure out a way to increase your knowledge.
5. Meet more people.
Of course, meet more people.
Isn’t that obvious.
There is no substitute for that.
Now, this is one advice given to me by most books.
Problem was I didn’t know how to and where to go to meet new people.
However, with time I developed my own methods to meet new people.
Trust me, it is not very difficult to meet new people.
Just go to Facebook, write “HI” to a bunch of people and ask them out on coffee.
I know you might be thinking that I am joking. I am not.
I have many coffee cups with people I randomly contacted on Facebook.
But –
Conversations on Social Media don’t hold up unless you give the person a reason to talk to you. Give them reasons and try to keep their interest maintained. And most importantly, never ask for a Job or work from them, that is a deal breaker.
Talking to Millionaires when you aren’t one is like chasing a beautiful girl. You have to constantly pull out magical rabbits from the hat to maintain their interest.
Now one thing that I forgot to mention was that don’t just meet anyone, always remember rule number two — ‘Time is valuable’.
Meet people whom you feel are relevant and useful to you.
Gossip is your enemy.
People need reasons to process their decisions.
Feed it to them.
Don’t give reasons that are selfish.
If it is a selfish reason, which every reason is, coat it with sugar to hide it ( You know what I mean).
6. Always be the first person to leave the meeting.
I treat this rule as a game.
I am always the first person to leave the meeting. It gives me power over another person.
I learned it from a CEO who always left early. He would come to meet me every week as I would beg him to meet me for a cup of coffee but always leave cutting a conversation in between.
I asked him once why he did that.
I told him that I had felt insulted when he left like that.
It was then that he revealed his secret. He told me that he has a rule where he always leaves the meeting first.
Cutting someone in between and just leaving looks more genuine to be busy, so he does that often.
It is nothing personal. It is something he just does.
Rich people like to show that they are busy and there is a reason behind it.
People are impressed with busy people much easier than with unemployed people.
If you have all the time in the world, nobody wants it but if you don’t have enough time, they will chase you till the end of this earth to get time from you.
Imagine meeting influential people and leaving the meeting first. These are the people whom other people normally beg for a meet. Leaving the meeting first thus becomes a power struggle.
Since you left early and they were to give you their time, it means you are not clingy.
Soon they will open up to you and won’t think twice to respond when you will talk to them next time.
7. If a problem arises, don’t brood, find a solution and move on.
Ahh. My absolute favourite one.
A big part of my life is to spend thinking about problems and why God has been so mean to me.
There is no history of cribbing ever solving any problem.
There is no such problem ever that gets solved on its own.
You may have instances like –
“There was a certain problem in my life, I didn’t do anything about it and it went away.”
All I can tell you right now is that if the problem gets solved on its own, then it was not a problem from the beginning. Sometimes our mind creates problem to keep us busy. Don’t get fooled by it.
Human beings don’t usually have problems. They seek problems in life without knowing about it. That is our nature.
We say we want to remain happy but we cannot be happy in an eternal sense.
We only like it because of that brief moment when we are happy, we love it and want it to continue. It won’t and, trust me, it shouldn’t.
Solve the problem.
Make it a rule to always solve the problem instead of focusing on who caused it or why it happened. Discuss that later if you desire to but problem-solving should be a priority.
One of the rich people I met during my journey was not like that and I wondered how he became a rich person.
He wouldn’t solve the problems, rather ignore the problem in his life. That way the problem would remain but not in front of his eyes and kept him in the illusion that there were no problems.
The problem would boomerang on his face afterwards. Later I came to know that he inherited his wealth.
Nikola Tesla used to create the whole equipment and gadgets in his mind before he would go ahead to make it. His mind was that powerful.
Whenever a problem arises, close your eyes and try to solve the problem inside your mind.
If you still cannot solve the problem then imagine the scenario where the problem is solved. Then figure out the ways in which you can attain it.
8. Arrange everything in mind.
If you have seen the third episode of the third season of Sherlock than you must be aware of powers of memory.
The antagonist in that episode keeps all the secrets inside his own mind.
Now no one can steal it. He had sorted and arranged all the files inside his mind.
Our mind is a great instrument, a great tool. Use it in a wise manner and it will reap you benefits you may have never imagined.
Every rich man understands it.
To know more about it, Read “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill or my other articles.
If you close your eyes you will start seeing images. This will be a random generation of images. But that is because you are not controlling the generation of images.
Think about what you want to think and think exactly how you want things to happen.
The good part is that you can also generate images in your mind of anything that you like. So start by posing a problem and solving it in your mind like a jigsaw puzzle.
Download some meditation apps Like Samsara or Insight Timer, go to a secluded place and try this.
You will be amazed at the results you will get.
9. Live healthily and develop habits.
You cannot do more work if you feel weak and lazy all the time.
The substitute for having good health is not Red Bull or Revital.
It is hitting Gym thrice a week. Eating good food. Drinking lots of fluid. Inhaling lots of oxygen. These are the best things you can do for your body.
Second, Develop habits.
Developing habits is a difficult thing but it is something that you need to focus on.
Decide what kind of habits you want to develop and stick with them for some time.
Try to figure out what kind of habits you have. These habits cannot be having food or walking or breathing. It has to be something that takes you out of your comfort zone and yet you do it every day.
If you do not have one. Figure out an easy habit that you want to have. Do that for the next 66 days to convert it into a habit.
After that develop more positive habits like reading books, writing goals, meeting good and positive people, spending only limited time on the internet etc.
All rich people take care of their health and develop great habits.
10. Don’t procrastinate, even if you feel you are not ready.
Do you think a rich man gets rich by delaying his decisions?
There is no other word more synonymous with failure than “Procrastination”.
Procrastination does not happen because one is lazy or does not want to do something. It happens because one isn’t motivated enough to do that thing.
One of the premier reason people procrastinate is that they think they are not ready enough to do the task in hand.
Truth — No one ever is.
No matter how much you read, what degree you take or the efforts you make, you will never be ready for anything.
Except you have to go ahead and do it.
A person is always as ready as he wants to be.
You don’t have to be ready to start working. You get ready as you keep on working and the combination of it lets you achieve it.
Kids dropped out of college are becoming CEO nowadays.
Do you think they were ready?
NO.
They went ahead with whatever they had and kept on doing it till they finally achieved it.
Do it now. No matter how lazy you feel or how much your mind asks you to not do it.
