Shannon's BAMM 2.0 Journal

[Shannon]

Not scheming. My research - more than a decade of it - showed a definite series of personality traits and response prioritization that was repeatable in people who become very wealthy because they made themselves so. It doesn't matter how smart you are, or when you're born, it matters what traits you have developed and what you do with what you have.

If my goal was to raise ants, I might become a millionaire still, though it's very unlikely. But if my goal is to become a millionaire, and then I steadily work at developing myself in that direction and actively making choices and seeking opportunities that naturally increase my probability of doing so, the probability naturally and common-sensically goes much much higher.

There's always the chance that for some reason, regardless of a person's life and choices and efforts they will become or will not become a millionaire. But those people who constitute the vast majority of millionaires are self made millionaires. They were not born into it. They didn't have it land in their lap. They consciously chose it and then made it happen, intentionally, deliberately, and usually with a lot of focused effort toward that goal specifically over a period of between 1 and 4 decades. The Internet is making it easier and faster for sure, but the majority who I found did things like saving their money and putting it into some sort of financial vehicle that would make it grow, cutting coupons, eliminating waste, choosing their activities with productivity toward the goal in mind, and so forth.

Then there were those who used an advanced degree to get a good job, and made that good job (such as doctor, lawyer, etc.) pay for the business venture they wanted to start. The man who owns North American Natural Resources did this. He started out as a lawyer and then leveraged that to pay for the company he started to harvest the natural methane from the local dump, convert it to electricity and then sell the energy to the electric company. If memory serves, he made himself a millionaire within 7 years.

There are those guys and gals who come up with a great idea and then they pursue it until it gets to market, where it explodes. The guys behind the ingenious FlowHive did this.

But in every case, they made themselves wealthy because they picked a goal that ended in becoming a millionaire, and pursued it steadily and faithfully. They made a plan to become wealthy, and then worked their plan step by step. And in every case, they had to have a large majority at least of the 29 qualities that showed up again and again in the personalities of self made millionaires, including self confidence, courage to take risks, knowledge of their specialty, drive to succeed regardless of what anyone else said or did, refusal to quit when they met with failure or setbacks, believing in themselves and their dreams, goals and efforts regardless of everything else, wise use of time, resources and money to achieve their goal, strategic planning, perseverance, patience, focus on the goal, ability to break large goals into smaller ones and then accomplish them step by step, and so forth.

Most people who are millionaires are self made millionaires, and most of them are people you've never heard of. Their wealth has nothing to do with luck or being born into it, or winning the lottery. It has to do with having or developing the right personality traits, beliefs and attitudes, and then using those and their dreams, plans and resources in deliberate ways to achieve their deliberate goal of becoming financially wealthy.

I know a guy who is a perfect candidate for multi-millionaire, and he could have achieved that over a decade ago if he had taken my advice. He has every single thing it takes, except the most important one: he does not believe he can do it, and so he never took action to try. He's a natural born salesman, and could sell ice to an Eskimo ice salesman, I kid you not. So good he used to turn wrong number phone calls into same day sex with lingere models and things like that. But he never really believed in himself, and so instead of taking my advice he decided to do the "safe" thing and became a police detective. Now he has a steady job, steady paycheck, and no real future concerning any sort of wealth. At any time he could change his mind and start achieving that, but his mind is locked. So locked, in fact, that he's watched me build this business for 12 years and still refuses to accept that subliminals work.

If Bill Gates decided to work at Radio Shack instead of do what he did, would he be a billionaire? Or become a car salesman, or any of a thousand other things? Probably not. He became one because he had the right personality and he chose to do so. It wasn't luck. He recognized that he was sitting on a surfboard right before a tidal wave hit, and he started paddling in the right direction and then stood up at the right time. He surfed the wave, instead of letting it go by.

A lot of millionaires and billionaires do this very same thing. So where does luck come into it? Was it luck for Carnegie? Was it luck for Tesla? Or Edison? Or Rockefeller? No, it was the right personality with the right attitude and beliefs focused on the right goal and using what resources they had in the right ways.