By Barnard Marr
You might think billionaires have superpowers or an exclusive secret that helped them achieve billionaire status, but they don’t. When you do a bit of digging into their habits what you find is that many billionaires do several of the same things.
Guess what? These habits won’t require dramatic life changes or extreme intellect, just the power of your commitment to see them through.
No, there is not a direct correlation or a guaranteed path to billionaire status if you adopt these habits. But you are much more likely to be more productive and more successful in the future if you commit to some of these habits today.
1. Learn
Many billionaires never stop learning and certainly don’t require a formal setting to build their skills. They are students of trends, current events and personal development. They seek to understand the problems they see around them and are constantly curious — how does that work, how can we be more efficient, what’s that and how can we make it better?
When you commit to learning something new in your industry every day, your action emulates what successful people do.
2. They are Readers
Many billionaires from Oprah Winfrey to Warren Buffet to Bill Gates are voracious readers. Winfrey leads a book club, Buffett spends up to 80% of his day reading and Gates reads about 50 books a year. This helps them with the learning habit as well, to constantly hone their skills, keep current with industry developments and learn from others.
3. They say “no” but don’t accept no as an answer
In order to focus on their most important priorities, billionaires say no to those things that don’t help them achieve their objectives. However, they won’t easily accept no for an answer from colleagues, vendors or employees if they believe that something can be done to accelerate success.
4. Grit
Most billionaires have failed. We’re not just talking about a small bump in the road, these are failures that would cause many to throw in the towel. Not an aspiring billionaire. They view obstacles as detours to achieving their goals, but they never quit. They take the learning lessons from the failure and keep on trucking.
These billionaires still drive these cheap cars
5. Early risers and starters
Many billionaires make the most of every day and that usually means waking up earlier than most; Jack Dorsey wakes up at 5 a.m. to work out and meditate and Richard Branson wakes up at 5:45 a.m. to exercise.
Many also started earlier in life than most of us with investing and capitalizing on compound interest, dabbling in entrepreneurship and being driven to achieve their dreams. Even if you’re older than Mark Zuckerberg, you can still achieve success. It just requires action today.
6. Exercise
There’s a common acceptance of the importance of exercise by billionaires to help your mind and body be at the top of their games. Richard Branson claims that regular physical activity can add four extra hours of productivity to each day. Mark Cuban devotes an hour a day to cardio.
Billionaires are not only fierce in the boardroom, they also push themselves physically. And science will back it up: exercise not only improves health and reduce stress, but it can help focus, enhance creativity and make you better at multitasking.
7. Independent risk-takers
Instead of going with the flow and follow the corporate ladder, billionaires aren’t afraid to go against what everyone else is doing to chart their own course, even when there are vocal naysayers. They are disrupters who look to at things in new ways to deliver products or services that others aren’t willing to step out of line and assume the risk to try.
8. Modest Dressers
Highly successful people have adopted rituals whether it’s a daily gratitude practice or meditation. They have routines to keep the minutiae of the day-to-day from cluttering their minds; there’s a reason Steve Jobs’ daily uniform was jeans and a black mock turtleneck and Mark Zuckerberg wears a grey T-shirt every day. They never have to spend valuable time or energy on shopping or thinking about what to wear.
9. Surround yourself with high achievers
Billionaires believe what Jim Rohn said, “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.” They hang out with other power players and they learn from one another.
If you want to boost your success today then it’s time to start acting like a billionaire. Pick one or more of these habits and get started on the path to success right now.
Barnard Marr is a best-selling author of a best selling book titled “Big Data in Practice,” a keynote speaker and leading business and data expert.
Olumuyiwa olayinka's blog 