You Want To Be A Millionaire? Acquire These Skills

6 Skills of Self-Made Millionaires That You Should Be Using, Too

Heed the advice of those who have reaped success. Here are six skills used by self-made millionaires that you should be using and building upon each day.

1. Be able to identify fruitful opportunities.

Carlos Slim Helu, Mexican business magnate and philanthropist, said, “When there is a crisis, that’s when some are interested in getting out, and that’s when we are interested in getting in.”

Learn to identify open doors when they appear, then consider the risks and weigh them against potential benefits. An opportunity can be a great one regardless of whether no one or everyone is rushing to grab it -- if no one is, that’s your cue to move forward; if everyone is, that’s your chance to prove you’re better than the rest.

2. Focus on actions over words.

“Actions speak louder than words,” supposedly, and the late Andrew Carnegie agreed. As his career grew, he said, “As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”

Understand that a shining business plan or investment presentation means little when you don’t demonstrate the ability to carry out your ideas well. Customers and clients want to see flawless application of your company’s core values and mission statement. Keep this formula in mind when seeking out employees, as well. A perfect resume doesn’t necessarily constitute a perfect employee, if that person can’t properly act on his qualifications and intentions.

3. Maintain a clear vision of success.

“Vision is perhaps our greatest strength... it has kept us alive to the power and continuity of thought through the centuries, it makes us peer into the future and lends shape to the unknown.”

Hong Kong business magnate Li Ka-Shing, the richest person in all of Asia, believes in vision as a motivational tool for success. What does success look like to you? If your answer is just “a lot of money,” this may not be the article for you.

Many people envision success as finally seeing their product on store shelves, making up for initial overhead costs, gaining a certain following or changing the community in which they live. In order to stay on track toward fulfilling your goals, it’s important to maintain a clear vision of what that goal is -- and what things will look like once it’s achieved.

4. Never stop learning.

Entrepreneurs who don’t acknowledge the need to constantly learn new things are denying themselves and their businesses the chance to grow. Even once you achieve some degree of success, understand that those around you (even those who are less successful) know something you don’t.

Listen to what others have to say about their experiences. Learn from their achievements and their mistakes. If you don’t want to base your development on other people, try taking a step back and exploring the areas of entrepreneurship you can still improve upon. Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors, says “that’s the single best piece of advice -- constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.”

5. Get the job done.

This one sounds simple, but you’re likely procrastinating without even knowing it. Those who spend an immense amount of time marketing a business before there’s even a business to advertise are putting off actually building a brand. The same goes for those who spend time attempting to perform Web or graphic design themselves, obsessively organize finances and legal paperwork, and so on.

Even as an entrepreneur, you can’t wear every hat, and it’s often smart to assign tasks that aren’t immediately related to building your business to someone else. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from a small team of employees or some remote freelancers if it means you’ll be able to turn your company into everything you dreamed.

“Getting the job done has been the basis for the success my company has achieved,” said Michael Bloomberg, entrepreneur, investor and former mayor of New York City.

6. Only hire rock stars.

You can’t exemplify greatness if the people who make up your company aren’t great, too. My brother Matthew and I have always made a point of carefully selecting those we hire on to our teams, even if it takes a little extra time. We like people with a heavy determination to GSD (Get Stuff Done).

As we have such grand expectations for our employees, we always make sure to treat them as more than just that. Matthew and I strive to take care of them as we would with family. Matthew and I also allow our employees the flexibility to work from anywhere and provide bonuses from time to time to thank them for their trustworthiness and flexible capability. The extra appreciation certainly goes a long way in enhancing work ethic and promoting remote teamwork.

Original Article:     6 Millionaire Skills Worth Acquiring

5 Things Millionaires Do That Most People Don't

1. Millionaires work hard.

A lot of people think that winning the lottery is their ticket to success, but I’ve got bad news for you. Nearly 90 percent of lottery winners go through their winnings in five years or less, leaving them back in the same situation they were in before they won.

Millionaires know that there are no shortcuts to success. There’s only hard work executed relentlessly in pursuit of a goal.

I know that, in my case, I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t been willing to work hard. I didn’t have a mentor when I started trading stocks in high school. It was up to me to put in the hours needed to become successful. There were plenty of times I would have rather gone out with friends or played video games -- anything but sit in front of the computer and study stock charts for another hour.

But I did it. I put in the work upfront because I knew the results would be worth it, they’ve paid off. I’m living my dream lifestyle because I wasn’t afraid to work hard.

2. Millionaires are focused.

That said, it isn’t just about working hard. You have to be working hard on the right thing.

Have you ever known somebody who’s constantly jumping from one “million dollar idea” to another? We all want to be rich, but the people who can’t choose one path to focus on simply aren’t going to achieve it. It’s the people who dedicate themselves to a single pursuit that come out on top, whether that one path is penny stock trading, company building or something else.

3. Millionaires are careful about risk.

I happen to think that penny stock trading represents one of the best opportunities to build generational wealth. The barriers to entry are low and, if you follow the rules I’ve learned, your risk is relatively low.

But whatever wealth-building approach you take, you’ve got to keep your risk in check. It’s not that you shouldn’t take risks, but the risks you take should be calculated. One of the tools we use in trading is the “risk-reward ratio” -- basically, how much risk you’re willing to take on for how much potential reward.

You can apply this line of thinking to just about anything in your life. If there’s more risk than there is reward, stay away. But if there’s more potential for reward than there is risk of loss, you may be looking at a great opportunity you should take.

4. Millionaires are generous.

Take a lesson from generous billionaires Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Carl Icahn and Ken Langore. Giving money can feel just as good (if not better) than earning it.

I’ve recently started my own charitable foundation in order to give back $2 million to my community, and I have to tell you, it feels amazing. I wish I hadn’t waited so long to get started, but I’m looking forward to making up for lost time.

5. Millionaires never stop learning.

This is such a big one. Millionaires love to learn because they’re always looking for ways to expand their skill sets and get ahead in their fields. They read books, watch documentaries, study educational materials and talk to others who can give them more information. Millionaires know that knowledge is power, and they stop at nothing to get it.

No matter what your net worth is right now, you can put this tip into practice today. If you’re learning to trade penny stocks, you can watch videos, read SEC statements, study stock charts or learn from others in industry chat rooms. You can do all of these things for free, but the value of what you learn will be worth so much more in the long run.

Which of these habits could you add to your life? Commit today to making at least one change that puts you on the path to becoming a millionaire.

Original Article:     4 Things Millionaires Do That Most People Don't

Waking Up Early Does Not Make You More Productive

A productivity expert says there's one huge myth about how to get more stuff done during the day

If you want to get more stuff done during the day, you may look at the habits of super-successful people and try to emulate them.

For example, you might start setting your alarm for 4:30 a.m., a la Michelle Obama, who uses the wee hours to work out.

Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that your new morning routine will help you become the FLOTUS, the POTUS, or any more successful than you are right now.

That's according to Chris Bailey, the 26-year-old author of "The Productivity Project," in which he describes his year of experimentation with different productivity strategies, from meditating for 35 hours a week to living in isolation for 10 days.

Along the way, he learned that the biggest myth around productivity is that waking up early will make you more productive.

Bailey discovered this idea firsthand, during what he calls the most challenging of his experiments: waking up at 5:30 a.m. every day (except weekends and holidays).

After some struggling, he managed to maintain the habit for a few weeks — until he realized that a) he hated it, and b) it wasn't making him any more productive.

When I spoke with Bailey, he told me people often have a "fantasy of being an early riser who wakes up early to go to the gym and meditate.

But in practice the idea of that change is so much sexier than what we have to do to actually make that happen."

As Bailey writes in "The Productivity Project," when he started waking up at 5:30 a.m., he also tried to go to sleep by 9:30 p.m.

But since Bailey's a self-proclaimed night owl, that meant he often had to stop and get ready for bed right when he had the most energy, focus, and creativity.

"I couldn't stand quitting work when I was 'in the zone' late at night," he writes. "And I discovered I much preferred to meditate, work out, read, and plan out my day later on in the day, when I had more energy and attention to bring to the task."

Ultimately, Bailey realized he wrote fewer words on average per day and had less energy and focus when he woke up at 5:30 a.m.

On his blog, "A Life of Productivity," he cites a TED Talk by circadian neuroscientist Russell Foster, in which Foster says there's no known difference in socioeconomic status between early birds and night owls. In other words, waking up early is not associated with being more successful.

Recent research also supports Bailey's suggestion that certain people are simply not wired to wake up early. A study of nearly 90,000 people who had their genomes sequenced by 23andMe found that your DNA may help determine whether you're a morning or an evening person.

Bottom line: If you've tried waking up insanely early and it's not helping you, it may be time to ditch the habit.

As Bailey told me, you shouldn't listen to "blanket productivity advice" because what works for one person may not work for you.

Original Article:     Productivity Expert Says You Don't Have To Wake Up Early

These 6 Ways Differentiate Entrepreneurs From Everyone Else

Becoming an entrepreneur seems like it would be pretty simple. Not easy, but simple enough, right?

What else do you need besides a good idea and a bit of money? A lot, it turns out.

So just what does it take to be an entrepreneur? It turns out that the skillset required to be an entrepreneur is similar to most business skillsets — it requires excellent analytic capacities as well as an understanding of how organizations and economies work.

But the most important thing is the ability to appreciate and evaluate risk.

Just what does it mean to be able to evaluate risk?

Today, we'll look at skills possessed by many entrepreneurs, and explain how risk assessment fits into each one. Sound like a risk you're willing to take? Read on.

They look for smart money

Most people consider starting their own business at some point in their life, be it mowing lawns or building a new tech company from the ground up. They might seem very different, but all business ideas have one thing in common: Start-ups need capital to get started.

For most entrepreneurs, this means finding an investor. And if they're lucky, they'll find an angel investor.

Unfortunately, the primary goal of many entrepreneurs is securing funds as quickly as possible. In their haste, they often strike a deal with the first investor that comes their way — this is not smart money.

Risk factor: If you're able to properly assess risk, you'll feel confident passing over risky investors while you wait for an investor whose skills, connections, and resources fit your company.

They have an exit plan

One of the best ways to impress an investor is to show that you're already thinking about an exit plan. There are two exit strategies for start-ups: being bought by a bigger company or going public.

It's important to keep in mind that it's extremely rare for a young company to go public.

So effectively, having an exit strategy means that you've already found a target company that could be interested in purchasing your start-up, and that you've created the conditions necessary for the acquisition to take place, such as having transparent and organized financial records.

For an investor, an exit strategy is one of the primary reasons to invest in your start-up in the first place! Just like you, investors are in the game to make money. Thus it's natural for them to want a clear exit strategy from the start as proof that you're taking their interests into account as well.

Risk factor: Minimize risk perception for your investors by showing you've planned for your company's future.

They understand expected value

Entrepreneurs deal directly with visible risks. They may not make an immediate profit, but they acquire skills and create systems and can change them if they don't produce the desired results.

In other words, they enjoy unlimited control and unlimited variables, and the possibility for growth is vast. Most of the entrepreneurs the author talked with would actually be disappointed with a growth rate of 20 percent per annum.

Much like poker players, entrepreneurs understand the concept of expected value. This is the average value in a series of repetitions of a random variable.

Say you're playing a hand in a poker game and it'll cost you $1,000 to view the final card. You know there's a 20 percent chance you'll win $20,000 for the whole hand. So you're coughing up $1,000 for an expected value of $4,000, which is 20 percent of $20,000. If you place this bet enough times, you're guaranteed to come out on top. It's no surprise, then, that many poker players end up being entrepreneurs.

Risk factor: expected value is just a fancy way of quantifying risk. It can help you with everything from buying used cars to buying lottery tickets.

They’re data-informed, not data-driven

As an entrepreneur, you'll need to stay informed about data. Data, in addition to guiding you along your journey, makes it hard to delude yourself. If you run a media site, for example, you'll need data about ad-click numbers. If you're an investor, you'll need to know all the figures about your investment's return.

One reason that data is so crucial is that entrepreneurs often lie to themselves a bit when assessing their success. After all, they often need to convince other people (like investors!) of their ideas without having any hard evidence that these ideas will actually work.

However, if you believe too much in your dreams, your start-up probably won't survive. You need to stay grounded in reality – and that's where data comes in.

Data is the antidote to self-delusion. By allowing you to soberly measure your success, it keeps you on track: you'll know exactly where you stand as you work toward your goal.

You shouldn't become a robot that just follows the numbers, however. Your personal judgment is important too! You don't want to be data-driven; instead, stay data-informed.

Imagine, for example, that you run a website, and your data shows that pictures of scantily clad women increase your click-through rate. If you just blindly follow that by filling your page with models in bikinis, you might undermine your business's image or integrity.

So don't become a slave to your metrics. Remember: data is ultimately just another tool.

Risk factor: it's important to believe in your startup, but not to the point of blindness. Focusing on data makes you better able to interpret and moderate risks.

They focus the most effort on one metric that matters

One of the keys to achieving success in your start-up is staying focused. This is not new to you. In fact, it's pretty obvious. But here's a twist: focus, as an entrepreneur, means that you need to concentrate on the single metric that's most critical to whatever stage you're going through.

At any given time, you should always know what your most important metric is. As a start-up founder, you'll have to keep track of multiple figures, like revenue per customer or customer satisfaction. Some of these numbers will matter immediately, and some you'll store for future use – when you present your company's history to an investor, for example.

One Metric That Matters, or OMTM. Your OMTM helps you set clear goals and measure your success along the way.

In the restaurant industry, for example, the ratio of staff costs to gross revenue is a great OMTM. It's simple, immediate, actionable and comparable: it's a single number you can generate every night; you can adapt your costs to it quickly; and you can easily track it over time and compare it with other restaurants.

You could set a clear goal by aiming for a ratio of 0.25, for instance. That would mean that each of your staff costs should produce four times the gross revenue. If you're below, maybe you're under-serving your customers. If you're close to this figure, you probably have a good balance between customer service and customer profitability.

Risk factor: minimize risk by focusing your efforts where they will be most effective.

They look for generalists

Just as not everyone has what it takes to be an entrepreneur, not everyone is fit to be a start-up employee. Which sort of person, then, will make the cut?

Surprisingly, it's the generalists, not the specialists, who are the treasures. Start-ups in the early stages require a fluid strategy to cope with the ups and downs of a new business, thus employee roles should be equally fluid to manage these rises and falls.

Indeed your very first employees may move quickly through radically different positions at the start. Considering this, a specialist may struggle with this constant shifting. Imagine asking a lifelong accountant to start handling Facebook posts, for instance!

Your ideal start-up employee should also come with experience working in small companies as opposed to large corporations.

Frank Addante of StrongMail learned this lesson the hard way.

He hired a qualified vice president of sales who had previously worked for IBM and Oracle. Though the candidate looked great on paper, he was near useless for the first three months. The reason?

He wasn't comfortable with the responsibility of building a system from scratch.

Being able to start small and work from the ground up requires a whole host of skills that a person often doesn't gain from working in established systems. This also applies to managing people.

Teamwork is crucial in start-ups, as everybody has to contribute! You might find that you just need people who can work independently, and can do without managers at the start.

Risk factor: When you don't understand the exact challenges you will face, hedge your bets by preparing for a wide range of eventualities.

Understand risk to limit your exposure to it

Without a robust understanding of risk, an entrepreneur (and her projects) won't be around for long. Indeed, an entrepreneur's success hinges on that entrepreneur's own ability to assess and understand risk.

Though it's commonly said that investing is like gambling, it's distinctly different from going to a casino: if gamblers really understood risk and probability, they'd be entrepreneurs!

Original Article:     Ways Entrepreneurs Are Different

How To Fight Decision Fatigue

The Secret That Helps Mark Zuckerberg Make Big Choices (Steve Jobs Knew It Too)

The most successful people know that decision fatigue is the enemy.

Here's how to fight it.

As you may already know, Mark Zuckerberg doesn't sweat the daily choice of what to wear for a single second. Dude's got a closet full of the same gray T-shirt.

The "why" is simple: He knows it's not worth spending precious creative energy on such an insignificant choice. He's saving his brainpower for figuring out new ways to connect the world.

So, really, it makes sense that he's become known for taking low-stakes choices like fashion out of the equation. Sure, his closet has sort of a creepy, Stephen King vibe to it, but I am not one to question the wisdom of the guy who keeps inching ever closer to being the richest person in the universe.

Decision fatigue is real. 

Steve Jobs knew it too. You might even be suffering from it right now as you read this. 

Am I gonna finish this article? Yes? No? Maybe? Meh ...

Still with me? Super.

This much is clear: Your decision-making fuel is too precious to waste on choices that aren't worthy ones. In the spirit of Zuck and Jobs, here are a few more daily decisions you can simplify with relative ease:

What to eat.

When I was in college, I ate at the same food truck for lunch every single day. It was dirt cheap, and the food was insanely delicious.

And just look at me now; I am clearly among the greatest success stories of our time.

Really, though, this helped streamline my day by leaps and bounds. It got to the point where the lady who operated the food truck would have my meal prepared before I got there, saving me precious time.

You don't have to be as hard-core as I am--I'm a freak who could eat the same thing every day and not get sick of it--but the lesson is that it really does make a difference to have a quick go-to menu of easy-to-prepare meals.

What to do.

Ever arrive at work in the morning, sit down at your desk, check your email, and then stare blankly at your computer screen for a full 15 minutes as you try to decide which of your pressing tasks you should try to tackle first? Yeah, it might be time to prioritize.

Have a running list going of your high-yield, high-visibility tasks.

Some people need to have this in writing somewhere; some can manage it inside their heads.

Whatever you do, don't put yourself in a situation where you're sitting there spinning your wheels.

What to stress over.

Oh, did you make the mistake of pulling up the news? Are you now convinced you have the Zika virus? Does everything suddenly itch? Cut it out.

Let me give you some tough love here for a second; you can't afford to have a precious sliver of your mental pie chart occupied by Crazy Shit.

Breathe in; as you breathe out, visualize yourself breathing out all the worry. Now, continue your day.

How to decompress.

The other night I found myself with a rare three-hour stretch of glorious free time, and I blew it. Oh no, what am I gonna do? Finish the book I started reading two months ago? Catch up on Downton Abbey? Pay my overdue blood debt to the elliptical machine gods?  By the time I'd sorted that mess out, it was too damn late to do anything. Make it easy for yourself: Go with the first thing you thought of. In other words, I should've finished my book. Hooray for hindsight!

Liberating yourself from these deceptively small choices will free you up to think about the ones that really matter. You'll thank me when you invent the next Facebook.

Source:     The Secret

5 Integrity Habits Every Business Leader Must Cultivate

The 5 Integrity Habits

Here are the 5 most essential habits every business leader must cultivate to inspire and positively impact his or her team.

How do you stack up?

As an entrepreneur, you're very much under a microscope. Your team watches you closely; your customers pay attention to small slices of their experiences with you and make up what type of person and company you are in their own heads. And so do your vendors and investors.

Business leaders understand that habits matter. Here are what I consider to be five essential "integrity habits," which will have you behaving at your best and positively impacting your team.

1. Be on time, all the time.

We have to start with first things first. Be on time--all the time. This simple behavior demonstrates to your team that you take your commitments seriously and live with integrity.

Sure it's easy to slip, and your team always seems willing to wait. But the message that being late sends hurts your credibility inside your company.

When you take appointments and deadlines seriously, so will your team. It is one behavior with a huge return on investment in terms of modeling accountability inside your company.

Too many companies implement respect in a hierarchical manner. Your time is not more important than an employee's time or a customer's time in their eyes. Being on time shows respect, and it makes a big difference to the receiver.

And of course you can rationalize why you didn't meet a stated deadline and no one will challenge you, but they will model the behavior you show them. So model the high standard of being on time, all the time.

2. Clarify all action items and deliverables in writing at the end of every meeting.

One of the biggest reasons things get missed is because they weren't handed off cleanly to begin with. Many times the receiving party doesn't know just what they've been asked to do, or in fact they may not know that they've been asked to do anything at all.

Hence the need to clarify all action items and deliverables in writing. Not only does this make sure that you've captured all your action items, but it is also a powerful way to role model how you want your team to behave.

Wherever possible, number the commitments so that they are absolutely clear.

At your next meeting, this might sound like:

OK, summing up, here's what I've committed to: I've got three action items here. Item one is to review the Johnson Proposal and make a yes or no decision by this Friday end of business. Item two is to give feedback via email to Carl about the new orientation process. And item three is to send out the date of our next quarterly planning session to the exec team by noon tomorrow. [I encourage you to visibly write each of them down in your notes as your meeting progresses.] Now, Cheryl, I have down that you've committed to two items...

Teach your team to employ this same skill with their staff. It's a best practice that companies that execute adopt.

3. Clearly state what you can't commit to so that you don't lower the accountability bar in your company by missing a "phantom deliverable."

"Phantom deliverables" are those things that the other person thinks you committed to but you didn't.

As a leader, you need to exhibit great communication by making any phantom deliverables you see come out of a meeting explicit. That way,

if you can commit to that deliverable, you do so, and if you can't, you clarify that you are not committing to it.

 4. "Close" the accountability loop.

It's one thing to meet your commitments, but it's another to make sure that the other parties involved get that you've done so. So "close" the loop.

Mark, as promised, here is the Data Form Proposal due to you tomorrow...

5. Be aware of your stress behaviors.

It's been said that adversity and pressure don't so much make the person as they reveal the person. What you do at stressful moments leaves a magnified impression on your team, your customers, your vendors, and your investors.

So let stress be a trigger for you to take a deep breath and behave at your best.

Source:     The 5 Integrity Habits

Welcome March

By 00.01 hr GMT this morning, the Month of March 2016 streamed into our lives like a thief in the night, though it had been announcing its arrival since February took its final descent, yet when it did arrive, many of us were far gone into the world of sleep and could not have taken notice but when we woke up this morning, we saw it, a new day, a new date, a new month.

This new month is the 3rd month in this year of our Lord two thousand and sixteen and as it were, it signifies the end of the 1st third of 2016, that is by the time it ends on the 31st.

3 months into the year!!!!

What have you done?

What are you doing presently?

What are you going to do with this Month of March?

Well I am here to tell you that this Month shall not pass you by

I am here to tell you that all the blessings meant for you in this Month of March shall not be diverted from you

I am here to tell you that you shall reap bountifully in this Month of March

I am here to tell you that no weapon fashioned against you shall prosper and any tongue that shall rise up in judgment against you shall be condemned

But you see

I am also here to tell you that

To reap, you have to sow

if you sow sparingly, thou shalt reap sparingly

but if you sow bountifully, thou shalt reap bountifully

I am here to remind you that if there is no pain, there can be no gain and if there is no war, there can be no victory

To gain and be a victor, you have to be in the ARENA, in the THEATRE of WAR

If you are not willing to fight, don't expect to have any stories to tell

Make this month, your month of victory, go out there and wage a war on all that have so far limited you and let us celebrate you by the end of the Month of March 2016

Have a very terrific Month

Dr. Oguzie Jerry - the First: JP

#DrJTF