During the early 2000’s I owned an Apple store. I was one of the first Apple users in the late ’90s. Unfortunately I sold the business before the iPhone was launched. During that time frame I did meet a lot of creative entrepreneurs in the music, video and photography industry. Some of those entrepreneurs are very rich. Being rich …moneywise I mean here.

So when I read last year an article of Brandon Turner, it inspired me to reflect on what I learned so far from the wealthy people I did meet. Let me summarize my 3 key learnings

What I learned so far…

NR 1 : ALWAYS LEARNING

Wealthy people always look for opportunities to invest in. They invest heavily in relationship building and building a network of people with different skills. They do not want to be the expert in everything but be VERY GOOD at one thing first and then build upon that skillset using others to execute in other areas.

Rich people always want to learn and seek out for knowledgeable people. They own one common talent when investing money : Risk Reward Ratio Management. When investing money, they know how much to invest to justify the risk. That doesn’t mean they are always successful but failures will bring them closer to success as they will evaluate the mistakes they made and try again.

NR 2 : IT’S ALL ABOUT YOUR MINDSET

The majority of rich people that I did meet are all very humble. They realize the background they are coming from. They all realize that money is important, but it’s not the only thing in life. Probably not the most important. They realize that money alone does not define happiness. Life is about balance : health, family and friends, having fun in life, money and the contribution to society.

The majority of wealthy people realize that money and wealth can disappear over time. Money doesn’t matter if you’re dead. I did meet wealthy people whom’s biggest concerns are “how to preserve their wealth (from taxes)?” or “how to pass on their wealth to future generations ?”. Rich people also have worries, although they may differ from yours…lol.

The second character trait they possess is persistence and think big. Never giving up towards your goals and being persistent in your belief makes it easier to achieve success. There’s also a saying “If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough !”. Rich people have BIG dreams and aim HIGH. It’s all about perspectives and what do you want to compare against ? Rich people mostly think how to scale up a dream 10 or 100x bigger…

NR 3 : WHAT (SOCIAL) IMPACT DOES YOUR LIFE HAVE ?

One time there was a TV program where rich people did book a week vacation at Richard Branson’s isle for 25.000$ per week? Really…I would not feel comfortable with spending so much money in a week. Some rich people are selfish and greedy people. No doubt.

But the majority that I did meet have a humble background and always invest time and money to give back to the society and the people who encountered bad luck in their lives. Whether it is health, or education or anything else people need help with, some wealthy people have the great attitude to provide a social contribution to the society.

 

 

 

Source : Forbes