How’d They Get There?

What’s the difference between the rich and the poor?

I mean besides a stack of money vs. a stack of bills?

An interesting study was done recently, in which they interviewed a bunch of rich people, and a bunch of poor people, to find any differences in their daily habits.

You Could See This Coming

The differences were clear, and what you would expect.

Rich people ate healthy food, poor people ate fast food or junk food.

Rich people watched less than an hour of TV day, while poor people watched 4 hours or more.

Rich people read at least two non-fiction books a month, poor people rarely read.

Rich people spent part of their income, AND part of their time on charitable activities, poor people didn’t.

Rich people spent a great deal of time doing and learning things that would improve themselves, while poor people didn’t.

Rich people took responsibility, poor people blamed others.

But My Situation Is Different!

Now, there’s plenty of poor people who are poor through absolutely NO fault of their own. Born into the wrong family, or the wrong part of the world, or under the wrong government or economic system would be enough to keep ANYBODY poor.

But even if you’re in a bad situation, taking responsibility is ALWAYS much more useful than blaming others, EVEN IF it’s THEIR FAULT.

Why?

You Are All You’ve Got!

Because NOBODY cares about YOU like YOU care about YOU. Meaning even IF you blame others, and it IS their fault, they won’t likely do much.

On the other hand, if you look at your own situation, and forget about trying to shun responsibility and give yourself a good, long, hard look in the mirror, and ask yourself, “Well, what am I going to do about this?”

You have a much, much better chance of succeeding than somebody who’s ALWAYS pointing fingers.

Continuous Improvement

One CRUCIAL part of that study (at least for me) was that wealthy folks KNOW they’ve ALWAYS got to improve themselves. Even after they’ve made their millions, (or billions, as the case may be) they KNOW it’s crucial to ALWAYS learn more.

Here’s another part of the study that struck me. Sixty Percent of millionaires and billionaires are SELF MADE.

Not From Daddy

They started broke, and through sheer willpower, and relentless forward momentum, they made themselves rich.

They can do it, YOU can do it.