There aren’t any.
If you’re looking for a shortcut or a hack to being wealthy, there are only two that I know of…
- Be born into extreme wealth
- Be born with an exceptionally high IQ (150+) that allows you to spot disparate patterns and invest in risky assets with a high success rate
That’s it.
Otherwise, you’ll need to become wealthy the same way that EVERY other wealthy person (trust fund babies and savants not included) did.
Here’s how…
1 Develop Massive Knowledge and Expertise
Before you can make millions (or billions) of dollars, you must first develop the knowledge and skills to become the kind of person who deserves millions of dollars.
Here’s the deal…
Making money isn’t hard.
Becoming the type of person who is capable of making tons of money is the true challenge.
As my former podcast guest Craig Ballantyne says, “Success is simple once you accept how hard it is”.
There is NO easy way to wealth.
You must develop skill in SOMETHING whether it’s:
- Spotting market trends (aka investing)
- Copywriting
- Sales
- Product Creation
- Marketing
- Leadership
- Teaching
- Speaking
Or any other high income skill.
The better you are at a particularly valuable skill, the more you’ll get paid and the wealthier you’ll become.
It’s that simple.
2. Develop Massive Self Awareness
Once you have found and developed a skill that you are now an expert at, you’ve only taken the first step.
The right skills will make you a living, but self knowledge will make you a fortune.
What do I mean by this?
Learning exactly who you are, how you’re motivated, how you perform at your best, how you can optimize your routines, and how to be your best self each and every day.
Although personal development is an excellent pursuit, most self help books, speakers, and programs forget one critical component.
It is PERSONAL development, not general development.
Not everyone needs to chant affirmations, journal for 45 minutes, or wake up early.
Figure out what works for you and then run with it.
Specifically, you need to figure out:
- When your magic time is (e.g. what time of day you do your best work) and then protect that time with your life.
- How you are most motivated? Do you get motivated by money? By fear of failure? By the prospect of success? By having people look up to you? By impressing people you look up to? There’s no wrong answer. Figure out how you’re motivated and go all in on it.
- What your strengths and weaknesses are.
- What your current “work capacity” is (e.g. the amount of time you can work in a day without allowing the quality of your work to suffer). Once you’ve figured out your current capacity, you’ll want to apply the principle of progressive overload to slowly build your work ethic muscle.
- How you can optimize your environment to ensure success. What can you do on a daily basis that will help make success automatic? (e.g. putting a calendar on the wall and putting a red x on every day that you work a certain number of hours and attempting to never break the chain).
When you know yourself, you can conquer any challenge. But if you don’t understand who you are and how you operate, you’ll never be able to achieve the wealth that you truly desire.
3. Learn to Network, Lead, and Delegate
You will never become truly wealthy on your own.
To achieve lasting wealth, you’ll need allies. Whether they are employees in your business, assistants who help you capitalize on a 7-figure skill, or friends with whom you can invest or complete joint ventures.
So before you can become wealthy, you must first become a master at social dynamics.
Learn how to lead others and how to manage a team.
Learn how to network and expand your existing list of allies.
Learn how to delegate busy work and effectively teach others to take over tasks you no longer want to do.
Once you’ve mastered the soft social skills required to become wealthy, you’re more than halfway home.
4. Grow Your Money, Don’t Spend It
The reason that most people don’t build lasting wealth is because they have a lot of money but still operate from a poverty mindset.
There are tons of people who make lots of money, millions even, and die broke.
Because they spent their money instead of growing it.
If you want to become wealthy then you must do what wealthy people do. That is to say that you must GROW your money instead of spending it.
Whatever you make (after taxes) whether it’s $30,000 or $1,000,000 you are only going to live on 70% of it.
Here’s how you’ll use the rest of it…
- 5% goes to charities or organizations you believe in… Wealth is only built from abundance and if you’re reading this article right now, then you have more than most people ever will. Even if you can only donate $20, start giving now. It will help rewire your mindset to realize that wealth isn’t scarce and that you have a lot to be grateful for.
- 20% goes to growing your wealth in the form of cash producing assets… I’d recommend allocating about 10% for safe investments like mutual funds, an IRA, or something similar. The other 10% should be used to fund a new business, invest in real estate, buy cryptocurrencies, or invest in the stock market.
- 5% goes to personal or professional development… No matter how good you are, you can always get better. Invest in books, programs, seminars, coaches, and other resources that will help you improve yourself personally or improve your professional skill set.
If you will do this over the long term (years not months) I promise, you will become wealthy no matter how much money you are earning right now.
5. Have FUN!
I know a lot of incredibly wealthy people who are deeply unhappy.
Don’t let this be you…
Money is amazing. I freaking love it and it lets me live the life of freedom and adventure I’ve always wanted.
But in recent years, I’ve realized that pursuing wealth isn’t a zero sum game.
You’ll never arrive at a point where you’ve “made it” or feel like you can stop.
So give yourself the greatest gift of all and choose happiness now.
After about 6-figures, money won’t really make you that much happier and you can easily live a millionaire lifestyle on $360,000 a year.
So relax and have fun while you make your millions. The money isn’t going anywhere… Your life is.
Stay Grounded,
Kimjoh
Kimjoh
Credit: Andree Firebee, Quora