Staying Rich Is a Skill — 5 Secrets the Ultra-Wealthy Master
Making money is one thing, but keeping it requires a completely different playbook
I’ve spent a lot of time around billionaires, watching:
- How they think
- How they operate
- How do they make decisions?
So, I put together these 5 rules that will help you think bigger, achieve more, and make it impossible to fail.
Rule 1: Avoid the Trap of Competence
People who are successful at the highest levels understand this principle.
They never become complacent with what they already know and what they’ve already done.
They are constantly living in what skill do I need to acquire right now to keep my edge, because the game never stops moving, and there are constantly new things coming into play that allow somebody to get an edge.
So, really successful people never assume they can keep their edge.
- They are constantly reinventing themselves
- Constantly looking for new skills
- Constantly asking themselves, what do I need to learn in order to take myself and my business to the next level.
As a business owner, it’s important to stay away from this mental addiction of being needed to approve things, to make decisions, to share your point of view.
Because if you know what you know and you are confident in what you know, you shouldn’t continue to do what you know.
Somebody should be trained on how to do that so that you can have enough time to do what nobody else can do.
Remember that once you have mastered a skill, you need to stop proving that you are the master at it.
Rule 2: Your Time is Everything
Billionaires spend their time in the most strategic ways possible.
They spend their time acquiring assets, improving their skills, and setting the vision for the people around them.
The difference that I’ve noticed between the millionaires I’ve spent time with and the billionaires I’ve spent time with.
Millionaires are able to think a few steps ahead, and they are focused on what they’re doing right now.
But billionaires live in the future:
- They aren’t talking about right now or the next couple of months or even the next couple of quarters.
- They’re thinking years in advance.
- They’re preparing themselves for the future.
- They’re trying to understand where the world is going so that I can be ahead of it and maybe even create the future.
You see, if you’re focused on creating the future, you’re not stuck in today’s problems.
You’re not going home and telling your significant other how hard your day was and filling them in on all the things that happened to you because that is in the past.
So, why waste your present moments talking about what’s happened in the past?
See, that’s not what billionaires do. They are so obsessed with the future trends and creating what the world is going to look like.
This is why I find that they end up watching the news, understanding what’s going on in the economy, and looking into governments.
- Have you ever thought about why successful people pay attention to politics?
- Why do unsuccessful people have no idea what’s going on?
It’s because these laws and the people who make these laws matter and dictate the future.
So, if you’re trying to create opportunities for the future, it would be very important to understand who is creating those things now and how you influence those people now.
To get to where you’re trying to go.
This is why many billionaires end up actually getting into politics or trying to have an influence in politics, because they understand this game.
And the game is this.
How can I help influence the future in a direction that I want it to go?
When it comes to business owners that I work with each day, one of the main things that I focus on with them is getting them clear on their vision.
Because if you don’t have a vision inside your business, it’s going to be so difficult for you to get your future team to believe in what you’re doing today.
Rule 3: Competition is Everything
There is nothing wrong with competition, and I firmly believe that women today are being completely brainwashed by the saying collaborate, don’t compete.
Now, don’t get me wrong, collaboration is vital.
There is nobody who can do anything successfully by themselves. You have to collaborate with people.
But let’s not pit collaboration against competition. You can do both at the same time.
And the billionaires that I know are the most competitive people I have ever met. They want to win at everything.
What’s the best way to get somebody to think that they can’t do something?
Tell them that it’s silly for them to try to compete, so then they’re not even going to enter the race.
Competition is important. Successful people know that competition is important.
So don’t kid yourself by thinking that you shouldn’t compete with people.
Now, I am very much a proponent of the biggest competition that you will ever be in is the competition of who you were the day before.
You should always be competing against yourself. You and what you’ve done up until this point is the bar.
But there are other people that you can look to, and you can compete with them without ever having met them.
I was at a fashion show recently, and I was talking to this fabulous woman who’s in the front row, and she’s decked out to the nines.
I asked her what she does, and she was telling me all about this sailboat business and that they are currently building the world’s longest sailboat, and the owner wants it to be 1 meter longer than Jeff Bezos, which would make it the largest sailboat in the world.
So if you’re going to sit here and say that competition isn’t important, you are going to deny the fact that the people who are playing the biggest games on this planet are constantly in competition with each other.
And guess what. It makes them better. It gives them an edge.
So, never let anybody convince you that you shouldn’t be competing.
So, how do you make this tactical?
Pick somebody to compete with. Now, I don’t care who you pick to compete with.
Sometimes it’s really inspiring to pick somebody who is 100 steps ahead of you, so that you really put the energy in that’s required to get there.
Other people like to pick somebody who’s 2 or 3 steps ahead to just get enough inspiration to make little progress in order to get to their goals.
Regardless of which path you choose, pick a target and go after it.
Rule 4: Sometimes it’s Necessary to Remove Access to Yourself
- You want to go to dinner. No.
- Do you want to have a happy hour? No.
- Can I pick your brain? No.
- Billionaires learn to say No.
Because to be great at one thing, you have to say no to everything else, even the good things.
And this is one of the hard lessons that I’ve learned, which is that you have to say no before someone asks.
It’s easy to say YES when someone asks you to do something or review something in the moment because you have nothing else to do.
But setting boundaries before they get the chance by blocking your calendar is one way that helps make it easier to say no.
If you have a bunch of free time on your calendar, you’re going to say yes to everything.
You’re going to feel bad when you say no because you know you don’t have anything else to do. You’re looking for ways to fill your time.
The reverse is a much easier way to become successful.
Make your calendar so full that when you say no, you mean it because you have important things that you have to do now.
You are literally unavailable.
As much as you want to spend time with people, as much as you want to hang out or watch television or waste your time in whatever myriad of ways are possible, you can’t because you already have commitments.
You have to focus on building your environment today to match the person that you want to be.
When looking at your calendar, set your priorities based on the next level of the person that you want to become.
Don’t think about what your current life demands, what the people in your life demand.
Ask yourself this: how would future me’s calendar look?
Rule 5: Stop Reacting
This is the biggest difference between successful and non-successful people, and the even bigger difference between the somewhat successful and the ultra successful.
The more you can create your environment, the more success you will have.
I have watched down to the smallest details that billionaires will pay attention to and fix and tweak in order for something to be exactly how they want it.
One of my favorite examples is Grant Cardone.
Grant Cardone, when he orders a coffee, will not accept the coffee unless it has the exact amount of foam that he wants, at the exact temperature that he wants, with the perfect amount of espresso.
And anything short of exactly what he wants, he will send it back. And at first, people get judgmental about this.
They hear this, and they think, ” Oh, he should lower his expectations.” Does it really matter if the coffee isn’t perfect? If it’s a little bit too warm.
If there’s not enough foam. Yes, it does matter because his ability to create his environment so that it fits what he wants is him not adjusting his expectations for anything.
If you approach how you drink your coffee with a level of seriousness, you’re also going to approach every detail:
- Inside your business
- Inside your health
- Inside your relationships
Every area that’s important with that same attention to detail.
When you start becoming reasonable, is when you stop pursuing success.
So the details do matter, and the details in your environment are something that you can control.
Whatever room you are showing up in, whatever relationship you have, how do you create your own ideal scene?
You don’t have to conform to what anyone’s expectations are, but you have to be clear enough and have enough confidence in any situation that you can decide what you want and only get exactly that, nothing short.
And when you do that, you are taking the steps required to become successful.
