Master Your Card

If you’re not part of the club, the wealthy can seem a little odd. The outlandish clothes straight from the catwalks, the weird spending habits. While you may love reading all the gossip, what you really should be doing is sitting up and paying attention. Turns out that there are some things that the rich do consistently to make money – gobs of it. Here’s how you can do the same:

1) Have a focus – preferably a focus you are passionate about. Sir George Martin, the music producer who made the Beatles rich despite infighting and other problems, credits his wealth-building with an overpowering focus on music. He focused on the one thing that the Beatles were good at – music – and that made the fab four fabulously rich. If you’re not getting a charge out of flipping burgers, you may have a hard time getting wealthy from it, in other words. Figure out what you love and what you’re great at and find ways to make money from that. At least you’ll have fun until the cash starts rolling in.

2) Earn more than you spend. Those who fail to follow this rule eventually end up broke and sobbing to their therapist (assuming they can afford one), who cashes in by writing a tell-all years later. It happens to celebs all the time, so don’t let it happen to you. Create a budget, get a promotion or a raise without raising your spending, or start throwing money at a savings account with the same zeal you throw cash at retailers.

3) Get out of the income game. Very few very wealthy people got that way by working for someone else. Name someone who is embarrassingly rich and chances are they are not working in a cubicle. They generally have the word “CEO” after their name, meaning that they own a business. Either that, or they own their own career by becoming a celebrity and therefore a trademarked brand. If you can’t sashay down a catwalk, look into part-time businesses you can pursue to bring in extra cash. Or, find investments you can use to bring in some passive income – real estate or stocks are good places to start if you know what you are doing. If you have no clue what you are doing, start socking as much money as you can into 401(k) plans or mutual funds so that you can at least retire rich.

4) Don’t be afraid to take CALCULATED risks. Ok, first off – I’m not saying you should cash out your life savings and head to Vegas – the only person you’re likely to make rich(er) by doing that is the guy who owns the Casino. What I am saying is that, generally speaking, risk and reward go hand in hand. Play it safe when you should be playing it safe, but don’t be afraid to take a shot and put yourself out there when you think the time is right. 

5) When (not if!) at first you don’t succeed, pick yourself up and try again. Do a little bit of research and you’ll find that a ridiculously high number of the world’s richest people have gone bankrupt at least once. A mere two decades ago, Donald Trump was over $900 million dollars in debt. He would later remark that he once saw a homeless person on the street and it occured to him that the man was nearly a billion dollars richer than he was! The bottom line is, you’re going to have to learn to accept the bad days  with the good.

6) Don’t let other people tell you you’re not good enough. Did you know that a full third of the members on the Forbes 400 rich list don’t even have college degrees? That includes Mr. Numero Uno himself, Bill Gates. And when Michael Dell dropped out of college to start selling PC’s from the back of his car, his family and friends probably thought he was crazy. Some of them probably even laughed at him! His net worth in 2007? $16.4 billion.

Now who’s laughing?