9 Habits To Develop Extreme Productivity

9 Habits To Develop Extreme Productivity

Based on a book about the remarkable story of the author’s Erica and Mike Schultz and their Son’s five year fight for life.

Sometimes our most productive times can come during a period of adversity, as it did for the authors.

During a study of thousands of extremely productive people, they came up with 9 habits based on the use of something we all have in equal amounts, time.

T.I.M.E

Erica and Mike Schultz found a method of breaking down time into distinct segments during each day:

·        Treasured Time – cherished time most special to them on a personal level.

·        Investment Time – generates returns that exceed the work you put in.

·        Mandatory Time – time doing day-to-day thing you must do.

·        Empty Time – wasted time, surfing web, social media doing nothing.

Key message.

Maximise Treasured and Investment Time – Minimise Mandatory and Empty Time.

Extremely productive people manage their time better and so can you.

Develop these 9 habits to become extremely productive and happier.

1. Recruit Your Driving Force – Your WHY.

Motivate yourself by finding your true driving force.

Write down goals and break them into annual, quarterly and weekly goals and manageable chunks or tasks.

This might sound familiar to you, but are you doing it?

2. Ignite Your Proactivity

Fill your daily calendar with Investment Time activities. Prioritise your Greatest Impact Activity or GIA – the activity with the greatest long-term return on your detailed concentrated effort.

Develop better habits to put more of your time into GIA activities to turbocharge your productivity.

This reminds me of the 80/20 rule – 80% of your productivity probably comes for 20% of your tasks.

3. Re-engineer Your Habits

Identify unproductive habits, such as spending hours on social media or doing nothing on your daily commute and upgrade them. For instance, you could upgrade your time on social media to learn a new skill or listen to a productive podcast during your Mandatory Time commute to and from work.

As Brian Tracy said, the average person in America today spends enough time in their cars each week to study for a degree. Instead of listening to the radio for hours, they could listen to audio recordings and literally take a degree in three years or learn a new language.

Our cars, Brain said, can be turned into !learning machines”. The same applies to smartphones through which you can access millions of audios, audiobooks on platforms such as Audible and podcasts on every subject all at very little cost.

Another tip is to turn off unnecessary notifications on your smartphone, which distracts your mind away and breaks your concentration, or train yourself to not instantly react to them.

Changing your environment can also affect your concentration. Fix the problem or work somewhere that makes you more productive.

4. Obsess Over Time

Obsessing over your TIME means working out where every activity fits within that structure.

Make sure your priorities are reflected in your daily routine.

Take Treasured Time

Increase Investment Time

Minimise Mandatory Time

Eliminate (as much as possible) Empty Time.

Successful and wealthy people value and seldom waste time, like when I spoke to John Assaraf and met the likes of Jim Rohn and Brian Tracy. They were helpful, but quickly and politely moved on.

Its not just about what you do, but what you don’t do...

5. Say No

Have a clear idea of what’s really important.

When someone asks you to do something that doesn’t fit in with your priorities, have the courage to politely, but assertively to say “no”!

That doesn’t mean saying no to your boss by the way!

It does mean saying “no” to things that do not serve your purpose at that moment.

The more successful you become, the more others want a piece of you, so you must learn to manage your time and schedule.

6. Play Hard To Get

Concentration. Distractions are everywhere these days, especially our inbox and numerous message boxes. Does every message need to be dealt with immediately?

Don’t try to be always available to everyone. Block out time to concentrate on your schedule and your most important GIA tasks. Your time is your own.

7. Get In The Zone

Learn to get in the zone and stay there. An athlete or performer can look relaxed an hour before a game or concert. But once they get on that stage they are instantly in the zone.

Set aside 90 minutes of work and break it down into short sprints with breaks in between.

8. Develop Energy

Take care of your body by eating nourishing food, getting enough sleep and exercising.

All the successful people I have known and met seem to have boundless energy whatever their age.

Don’t waste mental energy on unnecessary things. For instance, have set meals for each day of the week rather than spending hours wondering what to have for dinner.

9. Right The Ship – Get Back On Track When Life Knocks You Down

No matter how successful or rich you are, things go wrong and can knock you off course. You have learn to pull yourself together and ‘right the ship’ time and time again when storms come and blow you off course.

Identify bad habits like ordering another beer or glass of wine to constantly checking your phone.

You have free will and free won’t.

Break down large, seeming impossible tasks, into smaller manageable chunks.

Make a contract with yourself to achieve something important to you like losing weight or getting fit.

I would add ‘Systems’ to Erica and Mike’s great habits.

Systems

The difference between a small one-man-band, mom and pop business and a larger more scalable business is systems.

Scalable business have systems and processes in place covering everything admin to sales. Most small businesses don’t. That’s why they stay small. The owners can never scale their business because they are spending 60-80 hours a week in the business.

You can apply systems to your personal, family and business life.

Efficient, organised households are run on systems.

The above habits do not require any harder work or effort than you are putting in now.

It’s the same with becoming financially free. You can become wealthy and financially free without working any harder than you are right now. In fact, it could be less.

If you would like to learn more about investing and managing your money, property investing and become financially free without working any harder, watch this free on demand training.

I will give a special free gift which can help you to immediately transform your finances when you attend the online training.

Click on this link to watch the free training now https://bit.ly/3wLWqx2

Keep watching or listening to my free podcasts on iTunes and subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular financial news and updates.

I also cover financial education and money mindset in my book, 'Yes, Money Can Buy You Happiness", which you can order on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yes-Money-Can-Buy-Happiness/dp/1095175858

10 Quick Tips To Improve Your Public Speaking

Have you ever been asked to do a talk at work or in a social situation? Public speaking is one of our biggest fears, so maybe you turned down the opportunity because you were scared of speaking in public or not confident to deliver a talk?

My advice is that you should take up the offer but make sure you are prepared, rehearsed and polished so that you give your audience value for their time.

Don’t be casual because as Jim Rohn once said, “casualness leads to casualties”.

In fact, we would probably not have heard of Jim had it not been for a talk he gave to a local Rotary Club. He was already a successful businessman and a millionaire when he was asked to give a talk about his career and how he made it from a ‘farm boy in Idaho to Beverly Hills’. Jim accepted the offer and gave a great speech.

As a member of Rotary myself I know that not all speakers really make the effort or prepare.

Someone saw Jim and asked them to do another talk at a different club. Then someone approached him and asked him to give a talk at a corporate event and said he would pay Jim. Jim thought, “wow, I get paid to talk?”.

This is how his multi-million dollar speaking and training career was launched. By saying “yes” and making an effort to do a great talk he was spotted and things just took leading to a whole new career.

I’ve seen many careers launched from one good talk. That’s right, I’ve seen people promoted because they were noticed giving a presentation to colleagues at work.

I’ve even seen a young guy promoted because he was good at cricket!

Funny as it may sound, my colleague Colin was my admin assistant serving on me when we worked for Legal and General in the 1980’s. Our branch was asked to take part in a cricket match against one of our building society business associates.

Colin been a young fit sporty type stepped up and volunteered to captain the team. He did a great job of organising fielders, selecting batsman and of course bowling people out and scoring a few runs. His prowess and leadership skills on the cricket field were noticed by the branch manager who not long after promoted him.

In fact, he snobbishly commented that he was impressed with Colin, but we just need to teach him not to wear white socks to work!

You might say that Colin got lucky, but the fact is he stepped up to the mark, took his opportunity and did his best. I don’t think for a moment the Colin thought that his performance would lead to promotion. It was just the type of guy that would give his all.

Colin went on to have a wonderfully successful career in financial services. I met him a couple of years ago and we shared a few jokes about the good old days.

Talking about seizing the moment, I’m sure many of us remember Queen’s performance at the Live Aid fundraising concert when lead singer Freddie Mercury stole the show.

Many of the bands who came on throughout the day just played a few songs and walked off, but Queen prepared a brilliant medley. They knew they only had a few minutes to impress the audience and the millions watching worldwide, so they packed everything into that performance. I believe that the performance re-launched their career and turned Freddie into a superstar.

I recently watched a documentary about the legendary Woodstock concert in America where an estimated one million people turned up to watch the great bands of the time.

Frankly, most of the performances were disappointing and a bit of a let down. The poor Soundsystem didn’t help, but the main reason was that they were unprepared and really winging it.

Then a British band came on stage who were completely different. They were professional, well rehearsed and gave an amazing performance. Anyone know who I’m talking about?

The Who. Like Queen, I think they quietly stole the show even though they seemed to have a late-night slot. Roger Daltrey was masterful and they really stood out from the crowd.

What I’m saying is that they seized the opportunity, grabbed the moment and gave it their very best shot. They were not casual. they were professional.

The same applies to any kind of talk or “performance”. Always be prepared and always be professional and give it your very best shot.

Barry Hearn recently remarked (in a podcast interview with Rob Moore) that we get lucky breaks in life, but we don’t always make the best of the luck we are given.

Don’t underestimate the power of speaking. Speakers have moved whole nations, launched businesses and started religions which have lasted for thousands of years.

What do religious leaders do every week in front of their followers? They speak, preach, lead prayers and reinforce the message, the word!

Think about World War II and how two powerful speakers lead their nations through speeches. Adolf Hitler on one side preaching hatred and Winston Churchill rousing his country to take a stand against the far more powerful enemy that was marching through Europe like a hot knife through butter. 

If you want to hear masterful speaking, google the speeches of Winston Churchill. Listening to him makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Winston was not a great speaker by accident. He spent much time at the BBC learning how to deliver is message on the radio, the leading media at that time. Like many great speakers, for instance John F. Kennedy and Dr Martin Luther King, he employed a Shakespearean style of language to inspire his audience.

Learning from an early age. I’m convinced that the reason why so many people who have gone through private education become confident speakers and leaders is that they are taught to speak from a very young age. I went to state school and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I was asked to read in a class, let alone speak in front of an audience. I sent my children to private schools and from a very young age they were taught how to speak in public. They were given short talks to practice and even learned how to emphasise words and not sound monotone. 

I can remember my son standing in our living room reading out a short speech which he had to deliver the next day. His tone was going up and down as he emphasised important points. I was amazed that he could do this at only seven years old when I was probably in my late teens or early twenties before I had to give a speech.

10 Tips To Improve Your Public Speaking

This is not a definitive list of how to speak in public. You can read many books and take courses on the subjects and mastering speaking can be a lifetime’s work. But these few short tips will get you started.

1. Never pass up an opportunity to speak in public. If someone asks you to give a short presentation or talk say yes and then learn how to do it, as Richard Branson advises.

2. Speak up at meetings at work or in public. Public speaking is not just about making speeches and becoming an “orator” - “speak to the back of the stalls dear boy” and all those cliches! Public speaking can involve delivering a speech on stage, but it can also involve speaking at a meeting, giving a short presentation to your work colleagues, selling, one-to-one presentations were just speaking to someone in public and a networking meeting.

3. Speaking is an asset. Learning to speak in public well could be one of your greatest assets. And by the way, we are all involved in selling in one where another directly or indirectly. The organisation you work for run has to sell to customers. Governments, councils and politicians have to sell policies to the public. We have to sell ourselves to others ifyou want to get on in life. I don’t have any complete loners limits that are successful in life, whether that be in business relationships. Almost all of this involves speaking, even if you’re putting that speech in writing to be sold off a page.

4. Practice your talk in front of a mirror open to still film it on your phone. Practice makes perfect as the old saying goes.

5. Never wing it. Even if you are asked at the last minute to stand up and speak, take a few moments to make some bullet point notes.

6. If possible, avoid reading out a speech word for word. Instead make some bullet point notes and practice your talks so you can deliver it naturally.

7. Use PowerPoint sparingly. I can’t tell you the number of speakers I see standing in front of PowerPoint and then turning the back on the audience to read out the points on the screen, which everyone can read anyway. Another mistake is to put too many points on one slide, which nobody can even read.

8. Time your talk and don’t over run. If you’re given 10 minutes, stick to it. It always shows. professionalism to finish on time.

9. Take a course in public speaking. There are thousands of courses and public speaking, but I think one of the best to start with is the joining organisation called international Toastmasters. I started with them and as a non-profit organisation I found them extremely cheap and good value for money. They have regular meetings where you be in courage to speak in front of a receptive and sympathetic audience. The program takes you through different levels of speaking, preparing talks and leading, eventually leading to becoming a Toastmaster and beyond. If you want to be a professional speaker you may want to take more advanced courses, for instance in tonality, projection, using mics and cameras and so on, but Toastmasters is a great place to start as it gets you on your feet talking!

https://youtu.be/wfhP0pLsbFI

10. Stand up and Speak. In my experience, nothing beats actually getting up and doing it! We learn from our actual experience, like learning to ride a bike. You can read about it all you want, but you will never really learn until you get on the saddle and start pedalling. The more you stand up and speak, the more you will overcome your nerves and get better at it.

Finally, remember that a large percentage of people who are in prison have a limited vocabulary, as well as reading ability. They can only see the world through their own limits. Once people become more educated and learn to speak, they are less likely to reoffend.

If you want to improve your vocabulary read more books and google the words you don’t understand. You can also learn a word a day and we that into your conversation so that you memorise it.

How does this relate to money tips? Nearly all of the money we earn and all of the relationships in life involve speaking to people. The better you are at speaking, the more chance you have of leading a happy and successful life.

More Money Tips will shortly be published on my new podcast, Money Tips.

3 Steps To Starting A Business, Changing Your Fortunes And Building A Better Life

Money tips daily serves those who want to save money as well as people who want to make more money.

No matter how hard you try and make savings, eventually you will reach the point where you cannot cut your budget any further.

It’s a bit like governments who find that making cuts and reducing wastage can only go so far. The country needs to produce more revenue and GDP in order to prosper.

Just like a business, you need a combination of both keeping costs down and increasing revenue and profits.

It’s the same for your own personal “economy”, which by the way is the only one you can control, right? After making savings and cutting down on waste and nonessential spending, how do you the next logical step and start earning a little extra cash so that you can enjoy a better standard of living?

You could get a better paying job, work longer hours or take a part-time job, but you will still be exchanging your time for money. This obviously has its limitations, as there are only so many hours of your life you can give to an employer.

You could also start a part-time business, on or offline, from home like millions of people have done. Most small businesses start as home-based or part-time ventures with little or no start-up capital.

Starting a physical business requires capital, premises and equipment. Whereas, an online or service based business usually requires little or no capital as you are giving your service in exchange for money. You don't need to purchase stock or expensive equipment, all you need is a laptop or smart phone to get started. 

If you’re starting a new business I would NOT suggest renting a shop in the High Street or signing leases for shops or offices.

Every year, I see shops in my local area come and go as one business after another fails. I’ve seen shops selling all manner of things like party costumes and balloons, upmarket bathrooms as well as numerous restaurants all collapse within the first two years. Some were start ups, but others were established businesses. One casualty was the restaurant chain Frankie & Benny’s who didn’t last very long in a premises they’d spent a fortune renovating. They must have lost between £500,000 and £1,000,000.

Get real! If the likes of Maplins and Toys “R” Us (both have recently gone bust) cannot make it on the High Street, you’re going to need something pretty special in order to survive.

Over the years, I’ve seen so many people who have had a windfall or come into some money (or borrowed money from relatives who have had a windfall) start up a physical bricks and mortar business or paid thousands of pounds for some useless franchise only to lose everything.

You’ve only got to watch shows like Dragons Den - a BBC TV programmes where people pitch new ideas to wealthy entrepreneurs - to see some of the ludicrous business ideas that people have and get into without doing any proper market research. Some of the contestants have already sunk their life savings into an invention or business idea which has no chance of succeeding. 

When asked by the experts what research they had done, they usually say they have asked their friends and relatives if they thought it was a good idea and most people said yes! What would they expect their relatives to say? What do their friends and relatives know about a new business anyway?

I’m not saying don’t start a physical business, but you have to be very careful and have enough capital to survive for the first few years. 

If your physical business fails and you have ongoing liabilities, such as the rent on a long lease, or personal guarantees, you could lose everything including your house.

What are the alternative and better ways of getting into business?

You don’t have to spend your life savings or start a physical ‘bricks and mortar’ business, as there are plenty of better and safer alternatives with far less risk and liabilities.

When the Napoleon Hill published his ground-breaking book, Think and Grow Rich, during the great depression of the 1930s he said that the way to start the business with little or no capital was to provide “services”. This has not changed that much in the last hundred years!

In Hill’s day he mentions services like bookkeeping, which is still relevant today as most businesses need a bookkeeper in addition to an accountant.

When I was running a physical business we employed various bookkeepers over the years, most of whom came to the office and had no business premises of their own. On average we paid between £25 and £45 per hour for a Bookkeeper, and it was not easy to find a good one.

The service sector has replaced the old heavy industries that used to power the UK economy. Today the City of London employs hundreds of thousands of people and earns billions in revenue for the British economy.

3 steps to starting a business

1. Decide what you really like to do.
2. Open your mind
3. Take Action

1. Decide what you really like to do

Before you start any business, first decide what it is you like to do or better still, what is your passion?

What do you like doing in your spare time or at weekends?

What jobs would you do for free?

What would you really like to do if you won the lottery after you’ve got tired of travelling the world and sitting on beaches?

We all have unique talents and skills which can be monetised, so what is yours?

Of course, you may need further training in your field, this can be done very cheaply in your spare time.

One thing that has changed over the last hundred years is the multitude of opportunities which are now open to us in the internet age.

There are thousands of jobs and businesses that didn’t exist 10 or 20 years ago.

People can now make a living selling goods on Amazon, Shopify or Groupon. You don’t need to rent a shop in the High Street, as these companies have built an online store for you, and believe me, they get far more "footfall" than you will ever get in the High Street!

You don’t need to invent your own product, as there are thousands of products and services you can sell as an affiliate partner on a commission basis. 

You can also sell products for direct sales companies (Avon, Betterware and Ann Summers) and network marketing companies. You can also earn commission working with weight loss organisations and networking companies who have done the hard work of building a product and brand for you.

I know many people who are making a very good living in property, but started with no capital.

Some are running letting agencies on a rent to rents basis, with a make excellent profits and have no shop and very little office overheads.

2. Open your mind

The second thing you need to do is to open your mind and change your mindset. If you’re stuck in your old ways and refuse to see the opportunities around you then your closed mind will hold you back forever. 

Things will not change unless you change, and as Jim Rohn put it, "If you will change, everything will change for you".

3. Take ACTION!

The third thing you need to do is to take action!

Nothing moves without action!

Taking action now might involve making a plan, doing some research or setting up a free online account with Amazon.

I can hear some of you saying, well that’s alright for some people, but I haven’t got the time. This has more to do with your mindset than reality, because in reality, we all have the same number of hours in a day. How we use those hours will determine our success, happiness and future security.

You can spend all your spare time in front of the television or on social media or use your time wisely by learning a new skill, improving yourself, looking for opportunities or setting up a part-time business.

If every waking hour really is filled with activities, you might want to consider outsourcing some of the work you do to free up time for income generating activities.

Hiring a cleaner or gardener might cost you a little bit of money, but the time it it will save will be worth it if you use that time to generate extra income. My cleaning does my house in half the time I would take, which is a double bonus! 

I’m sure your hourly value is higher than a cleaner and if he’s not right now it will be if you start using your time more effectively.

If you would like further details on courses to get you started in an online or property business, please email me at Charles@CharlesKelly.net

Check out my episode "3 Steps To Starting A Business And Changing Your Fortunes " on Anchor! https://anchor.fm/charles-kelly/episodes/3-Steps-To-Starting-A-Business-And-Changing-Your-Fortunes-e19649

Previous articles:

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Time Management is Life Management, You Cannot Control Time!

      Welcome to Money Tips Daily this is Money Kelly bringing you money tips to help you save and make more money!

Time Management is Life Management, You Cannot Control Time!

Time management is a misunderstood phrase, as we cannot control or manage time, we can only manage ourselves.

Time is money, as the old saying goes. But Jim Rohn said, “Time is more precious than money, as you can always earn more money, but can never get back lost time”. Time can’t be saved or banked, it must be used or it’s gone forever. 

Time is ticking away relentlessly and seems to speed up as we grow older. There is a biological reason for the way we perceive time as we age, but a more obvious answer could be that a year to a five year old is equivalent to 20% of their life, to a 20 year old it is just 5% and so on.

Regardless of our perception, we all have the same amount of time each day, 24 hours or 1440 minutes a day, 365 days a year, but not everyone produces or gets the same amount done in a day or a year.

Do you get as much done as billionaire Mark Zuckerberg or Richard Branson in a day or a year? I doubt many of us do! How does Branson do it, apparently relaxing and having fun on his island and running an international multi-billion dollar empire of several different business employing thousands of people?

There are a number of time management tools you can use, such as planers and lists, but much of your success comes down to prioritising and doing the right tasks at the right time. Pareto’s 80/20 law states that we achieve 80 percent of our results from 20 percent of our effort. In other words, concentrate on the tasks that get results and cut back on those that don’t. 

For business owners, this may mean finding out who are your top twenty percent of clients are or where the largest proportion of the profits come from and spending more time on that than the less profitable areas.

You might be working extremely hard and putting in long hours and feel that you cannot possibly do anymore, and you may be right, especially if you are doing it all by yourself. So if we are already working flat out and doing as much as we can in a day, how can we get more done in the same amount of time or less? The answer is the same as it was thousands of years ago when men wanted to lift a huge rock or build Pyramids: they used leverage, tools, teams, delegation and outsourcing. 

Nowadays, we don’t need to be a Pharaoh or a billionaire to ‘leverage’ our time to increase our productivity. We have more tools at our disposal than ever before and if you’re not using them, your competitor (who could be in the same building or in Asia) probably is. 

You can now outsource thousands of tasks - admin, creative or technical - easily and cheaply by using sites like Upwork.com and Fiverr.com, which are especially useful for small or solo business owners.

Most people have or could access a smart phone these days, which has multiple management tools at your fingertips from electronic diaries, database and thousands of inexpensive apps. You can literally run a business from your phone. However, if you still want to stick to your old Nokia 6310 or whatever phone you refuse to change, then you’re effectively driving a Model T Ford when you could be at the wheel of a Tesla. 

Maybe you still use that set of encyclopaedias and look up numbers in the Yellow Pages! Seriously, we must embrace change or we will be left behind like those once mighty businesses – Tower Records, Blockbuster - which have disappeared from our streets. 

Nokia used to dominate the mobile phone market until Steve Jobs turned the phone on its head. Newspapers and TV stations are struggling to compete with advertising rivals like Google and Facebook, old style taxis are fighting against the tide of Uber and hotels do their best to stop the spread of AIRBNB. 

Innovators and disrupters like Apple’s Steve Jobs and Tesla’s Elon Musk use massive time and life leverage to change the world. You can do the same for your world.

I will taking more about how you can leverage your time to earn more money and create more wealth in the next episode, so keep reading this blog and tuning in to my Money Tips Daily podcast. 

Check out my episode "Time Management is Life Management " on Anchor! https://anchor.fm/charles-kelly/episodes/Time-Management-is-Life-Management-e147t2

See also: 

Financial Education is Your Key to Wealth and Success

NEVER Borrow Money on Expensive Credit Cards to Buy Depreciating Consumer Goods

How to Make Money Online Without a Website or Inventing Your Own Product

2 Tips to Save and Make You Money

Model the Rich and Successful

Money Tips Daily If You Want To Be Wealthy Model Wealthy People

Welcome to Money Tips Daily. This is Money Kelly bringing you money tips to help save and make you more money!

The late Jim Rohn used to say that your income will be around the average of your close friends and where you will be in five years, will be determined by the books you read and the people you hang out with.

Brian Tracy expressed the same point more directly when he said “you can’t fly with Eagles when you’re scratching around with Turkeys”!

In other words, whether you like it or not, the people you spend the most time with have a profound effect on your behaviour, attitude and future success. Sooner or later, you will take on the characteristics of those around you. If you’re going to absorb the character and habits of anyone, you might as well make it someone successful.

Model Wealthy People

If you want to be wealthy, model wealthy people. If you want to be successful, model successful people and if you want to be a failure...fill in the blank.

How do you model the behaviour and habits of the rich and successful?

In my forthcoming book, Yes, Money Can Buy You Happiness, I talk about the “Millionaire Next Door” and the research carried out on the average wealthy people of America. In the groundbreaking book, The Millionaire Next Door: The surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy, authors William D. Darko and Thomas J. Stanley, carried out extensive research to discover the real habits and traits of the typical American millionaire.

The results might surprise you. The average millionaire is not a sports star, celebrity or movie star.

A typical millionaire has worked hard to build up a business or career, is married to their childhood sweetheart, drives a modest car, is frugal with money, has saved between 10-20% of their income over a 20-30 year period and amassed a fortune in excess of $1 million.

They do not lead rock star lifestyles spending hundreds of dollars on fine wines and exclusive brands to impress their friends, or splash out on fancy new foreign cars every year and eat out in expensive restaurants every night.

They do, however, take the time to manage their money and investments, work hard on their business, spend time with their family and friends, go to church, synagogue or temple, and enjoy simple pleasures such as walking. Some would describe themselves as a “cheap date”!

An extreme example of this is seen in the lifestyle of the billionaire Warren Buffett who drives a simple American car, lives in the same house in his home town of Omaha he bought 40 years ago and eats in modest restaurants or grabs a Big Mac on the way to work. Unlike, most of his fellow billionaires he does not lead the flamboyant lifestyle enjoyed by the super rich and keeps his feet firmly on the ground.  

Contrary to popular belief, the average millionaire and multi-millionaire leads a fairly ordinary lifestyle. You probably wouldn’t even guess they were wealthy.

You can start modelling the habits of the ‘millionaire next door’ right now by following the 7 S Steps to Success:

1.      Stop spending indiscriminately and stick to a budget buying the things you need and can afford without going into debt.

2.      Spend wisely on quality, not luxury, things that last.

3.      Save 10-20% of your income or start on a smaller percentage.

4.      Save and Invest wisely and spend time looking after your investments.

5.      Start investing in yourself through education and development in your career or in your own business.

6.      Start leading a simple and stable home life 

7.      Spend time with the people that matter to you.

Action.  Follow this powerful technique used by successful people and athletes.

Look at where you are today and think about your habits and your actions that got you there. Now close your eyes and go forward in time. Visualise where you want to be in 1, 2 or 5 years time. What is your life like? Where do you live and who are you with? What are you doing in your life? Now look back from that point. What habits and actions got you to your ideal lifestyle? Follow this path and write down your goals and plans. Use a vision board and repeat the process every day.

Listen to this blog on my podcast:

https://anchor.fm/charles-kelly/episodes/18118c4?at=2721345

See also: 

How to Make Money Online Without a Website or Inventing Your Own Product

2 Tips to Save and Make You Money