SALARY ISN’T THE WHOLE STORY
Climbing the corporate ladder will only get you so far; at some point, you reach your earning potential and plateau. The rich know that in order to grow wealth, it’s important to make your money work hard for you — not the other way around. In fact, Robert Kiyosaki, author of the No. 1 best-selling personal finance book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” built his entire money philosophy around this concept.
Generating income from passive, rather than active, income sources is the best way to do this. Investments that yield passive income include dividend-paying securities, rental properties, profits from a business you do not directly manage on a daily basis and royalties on creative work or inventions.
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF TIME, NOT TIMING
No one can predict what the market will do tomorrow. The wealthy know this and make no attempt to moonlight as day traders.
“Time is more important to investment success than timing,” said Peter Lazaroff, a certified financial planner for Plancorp, LLC. “Most of the population believes that timing the market’s moves is the key to growing rich through the stock market. The wealthy, however, understand that time and compound returns are the most important factors in growing wealth.”
Though it might seem counterintuitive, getting rich requires investors to adopt an unsexy buy-and-hold strategy, ride out market fluctuations and ignore speculation.
PUT IT IN WRITING
The difference between having an idea and putting it on paper is often what separates the uber-successful from average folks. And if you equate success with wealth, it might be time to start writing down your goals, both large and small, in order to become rich.
Thomas Corley, author of “Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals,” noted that 67 percent of the wealthy people he surveyed wrote down their goals, while 81 percent kept a to-do list. If your goal is to become a multimillionaire, write it down, along with an action plan for making it happen.
