Is there a secret the world’s richest know that the rest of us aren’t privy to? Do they have mysterious money-making tips that they only share once in a blue moon? We have gathered those secrets!
Today, we’re bringing you rarely shared money secrets of the world’s richest people. From examples of companies whose founders are now billionaires to advice the billionaire Warren Buffett gave Microsoft’s Bill Gates.
Let’s get started!
Think and grow rich
by Napoleon Hill
⏱ 17 minutes reading time
🎧 Audio version available
They Become Service Providers in High-Growth Industries
What is the quickest way to make money, proven time and again by the world’s billionaires? Inserting themselves as a service provider into high-growth industries! What does that mean exactly?
Take VRBO for example. You may not be familiar with VRBO, but believe it or not, they were there before Airbnb.
Now, everyone knows Airbnb as the behemoth that grew from basically renting mattresses on floors to one of the most reliable and luxurious companies in the world. Its founders, Brian Chesky, Nathan Biecharczyk and Joe Gebbia, are now all billionaires.
Those three founders found an industry, in this case, vacation rentals, and inserted themselves into it by finding a unique way in which they could provide basically the same service, but better and more reliability.
This can work with anything– e-commerce, insurance, virtual reality, financial services, etc.
Find a Way to Improve Communications
Want to be like the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world? Then follow in his footsteps – literally! Zuckerberg became one of the richest people in the world by entering the fast-growing Internet industry and improving communications online.
But you know what? Forget about Mark Zuckerberg, Take the founder of Whatsapp, Ukrainian-born Jan Khoum, who was once passed over for a job at Facebook.
His story begins around the launch of the first iPhone in 2007. At the time, Khoum was working at Ernst & Young, and he decided that he could provide improvements to the market by creating a communications app with Brian Acton, which was released in January of 2010.
As we know, Whatsapp is wildly successful, and it became so successful that it was acquired by Facebook for a mind-blowing $19 billion.
Make Your Money Work For You, Not the Other Way Around
Most of the time, you think that life and working are just about making money. And oftentimes, there is a mindset that a steady paycheck means security.
It’s the reason why people take out college loans worth thousands of dollars to someday get a high-paying job that they probably won’t like, but will spend most of their waking hours doing– all the while, what they truly want in life takes a backseat, waiting for them to finish working.
The problem with this approach to making money is that you only make money as long as you work. And to make more money, you have to work longer hours, which exhausts you in the long run, as you only have a limited amount of time and energy. So, as an employee, your earning “potential”– is finite. So, is there a way you can bypass this?
Investment.
You don’t have to throw yourself into the stock market or memorize Warren Buffet’s quotes just yet. If you don’t have money to invest, invest your time. Working harder and longer won’t make you richer in the long term, because your income potential is limited by the number of hours you can work in a week. By all measures, this is what they call a bad investment.
The world’s richest know that making money doesn’t always require traditional hard work, and so, they take every opportunity to generate new sources of passive income. The magical words.
Make money work for you, instead of the other way around, by investing in a source that can bring you passive income. Now, passive income can come from a plethora of sources. You can go the traditional investing route, or you can look into rental properties, royalties on creative works, et cetera.
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t actually need millions to start investing. What the wealthy do is diversify their portfolio, to minimize risk, and they don’t try to time the market by selling at a peak or buying at rock bottom. They know this method is almost guaranteed to lose them money rather than make it. You’ll find that they are more likely to buy quality investments and hold them for the long term.
Don’t Go At It Alone
Everyone needs help. There is no denying that, and rich people are often unafraid to admit that it’s best to not go at it alone. This is especially true if you don’t know everything about investing and finances. The advice of an expert and a professional is absolutely invaluable.
Nowadays, people balk at the idea of hiring a financial adviser to help them manage their money, but the wealthy understand that their fortunes will grow faster than if they managed it on their own.
Financial advisers can suggest strategies you hadn’t considered.
Not going at it alone also involves not just a partner or an advisor, but a mentor. Chris Hogan, who wrote “Everyday Millionaires: How Ordinary People Built Extraordinary Wealth — and How You Can Too,” says that after he studied 10,000 millionaires for about seven months, he found that they made it to millionaire status because of four key relationships: a mentor, a coach, a cheerleader, and a friend.
But having a mentor, in particular, is arguably considered the most important, as Hogan writes, “Finding a mentor puts you on the fast track to wealth accumulation.”
Living Within Your Means
You may think that living within their means is something wealthy people don’t do once they reach that stage, but that is a common misconception. You know how the saying goes, “Money in the pocket is money earned.”
Whenever possible, they save. That money is better invested than spent. So spending money just for the sake of spending money is incredibly damaging.
Have a Side Hustle
If there is one piece of advice millionaires and billionaires, and even celebrities, such as actors and singers, agree on, it’s that a surefire way to have extra money coming in is to have a side hustle.
Those who have multiple opportunities to generate revenue are more likely to not only succeed, but to become millionaires in the future.
Put Energy Toward Personal Growth Activities
A rare piece of money making advice that you’ll find the world’s one percent following? To put energy towards personal growth activities, which then lead to making more money. How does that work?
Numerous studies have shown that wealthy people spend about five and a half hours a week reading and about six hours a week exercising. Keep in mind that in comparison, the average American only spends about two hours and two and a half hours on those activities a week.
This is how wealthy people pick up tips for earning more money. In the book, “Change Your Habits, Change Your Life,” author Thomas C. Corley, after spending five years researching the habits of 177 self-made millionaires, found that they dedicate at least 30 minutes a day to exercising and reading.
The types of reading they indulge in are generally self help or personal development books, books about history, and biographies of successful people.
Related: The Only Two Finance Books You Need to Read
Keep It Simple
It ultimately comes down to this: keep it simple. This is a piece of advice directly from Warren Buffett to none other than Bill Gates, who raved about it, calling Buffett’s methods “genius.”
Gates was asked about the best advice he had ever gotten from his friend and fellow billionaire, and he answered, “I’d say one of the most interesting is how he keeps things simple. You look at his calendar, it’s pretty simple. You talk to him about a case where he thinks a business is attractive, and he knows a few basic numbers and facts about it.
And [if] it gets less complicated, he feels like then it’s something he’ll choose to invest in. He picks the things that he’s got a model of, a model that really is predictive and that’s going to continue to work over a long-term period. And so his ability to boil things down, to just work on the things that really count, to think through the basics — it’s so amazing that he can do that. It’s a special form of genius.”
So, the truth is wealthy people tend to avoid investments that are complicated. This is because they know that getting involved in something, and not being able to control the situation, is a fast track to losing money, especially when expensive fees are involved.
If it’s hard to understand the investment, it’s best to not invest in it.
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