Being a billionaire is a dream come true for most entrepreneurs in the world. In a country like Kenya, the ultra-rich individuals are mostly drawn from the political class.
In this article, WoK looks at the ten habits of billionaires that make them highly successful and worth emulating.
Curiosity
Jeff Bezos’ is one billionaire who was always curious from a young age. His mother Jackie said of his son,
“When Jeff was young he used to pay attention to little creatures and they were all different and followed their lead.”
In middle school, he invented an alarm on his door that made a sound whenever his siblings trespassed across the threshold.
Back in High School Bezos’ used to skip after lunch classes because he had found a professor who let him experiment with airplane wings. His mother had to negotiate a legal way of doing that.
The billionaire majored in computer science and electrical science in college. After he graduated, he applied his programming skills to the management of investment of funds. After years, Jeff built an international bookstore ‘amazon.com’.
Strategic networking and risk taking
Building a network of people is an aspect learnt from Kimani Rugendo. After he left politics, he relied on a network of family and friends to help him grow his business. He also risked all he had in order to grow his business.
“I had to put a lot of my assets at stake for the security of the bank. At one point, everything I had was mortgaged for me to go into business,” said Kimani.
Elon Musk once said three important networking strategies are; purpose, place and people.
Time management
Mark Cuban said never do meetings unless someone is writing a check.
“Many meetings are an easy way to waste time. They have the potential to get tons of people together to small talk about irrelevant things not related to making the business more money. If you pay each person $30 an hour on average and ten people show up for a useless one hour -long meeting they have just taken $300 from you,” Gary Vaynerchuck once said.
Billionaire Richard Branson has ten-minute stand-up meetings as they emphasize clear conversation, make it quicker to get to business and seal a deal, he doesn’t waste time and decisions are made quicker. He even prefers walking meetings as the sight of running rivers makes him more creative.
Physical activity
Mark Zuckerberg has one of the simplest fitness routines that is easy to replicate.
“For you to perform anything well you need more energy, and you just have a lot more energy when you keep fit,”said the Facebook founder.
He works out three times in a week and it really pays off.
Persistence
Dangote is a good example of a persistent billionaire. He has been in business for decades but still trades in cereals, sugar and flour. Aliko Dangote’s journey shows the power of perseverance, vision and determination.
Bill Gates was a Harvard dropout with a failed traffic monitoring company that he was accused of stealing from a rival. The government crucified him for underestimating the Internet which led to the company’s failure. This was after he built a strong foundation for Microsoft. All these did not stop him, his persistence has made him one of the richest men in the world today.
Giving to the community
Manu Chandaria once said when it comes time to buy a new suit, give the old one to someone who needs it.
“It is rewarding to use your money, brain, property and even time to help the society,”said the man who convinced his father to set up the Chandaria foundation to help the needy when their company had forty employees only.
Other billionaires from the US like Warren Buffett who pledged 99% of his wealth and Bill Gates are campaigning to have hundreds of fellow billionaires give at least half of their wealth to charity.
Reading
Elon Musk said that he was reading ten times in a day when he was in his grade school. He got the idea of building rockets from books.Oprah Winfrey advises her audience to adapt a reading habit.
She had started a book club. Oprah refers to reading as her path to freedom because reading expanded her imagination and she could see the world beyond the front porch of her grandmother’s shotgun house.
She started reading at the age of three and suggested that children should spend around 30 minutes reading in a day and make it a habit.
Avoid debts
Billionaires are people who get wealth without depending on inheritance or trust funds. These are people who start from scratch and build wealth with time.
“If you want to build wealth, you cannot waste money on paying interest on customer credit, such as credit cards and even car loans,”Daugs said.
This is because credit cards charge extremely high interest whenever you carry a balance. Only charge what you know you can pay off and avoid stock credit cards generally.
Waking up early
Elon Musk, a billionaire, wakes up at 5:00 a.m, if not earlier. This has helped him become more productive, have good mental health, manage his time and have higher performance levels. The Tesla CEO said he controls his mornings better than his evenings.
Setting goals
Choosing a goal often means rejecting some things you want in order to get other things that you require more. Dalio warned about confusing your goals and your desires. He said goals need to be achieved while desires can prevent you from achieving your goal. He reminded people to aim higher.
“Remember that Great expectations create great capabilities. If you limit your goals to what you know you can achieve you are setting the bar way too low,” billionaire Ray Dalio said.
Change your habits, change your life.
