Amassing wealth is a matter of many things coming together and coming together right. While there are many things that need to happen outside of yourself there are things that you can and must do in order to make those things happen. And that comes down to skill. Mastering the requisite skills of millionaires is an arduous pursuit that may well take your entire life. So here’s a list of the skills that millionaires and you need to master in order to succeed.
Persuasion
To go fast go alone, to go far go together. Along the way, you’ll need to convince many people to aid your journey. Family, friends, business partners, investors, customers, stakeholders and sometimes even competitors. There’s a long list and the skill of persuasion will be one of your most important skills. Negotiating with and motivating people to your cause will need to be a focus.
Reading people
A large part, some say up to 90%, of communication, is non-verbal. So that makes reading body language important as it is. Furthermore, people have a tendency of saying one thing while they mean another. The ability to see this and interpret the meanings of communication will put you in the right direction. As already pointed out the process of succeeding involves working with lots of people. Understanding those people beyond what they are saying will inform how good the partnerships you form will be. It’s important to partner with the right people on your journey as this can be the determining factor of success.
Sharing the wealth
Robert Kiyosaki spoke about a lesson from his Ruch Dad who taught him that wealth is accumulated by sharing. Strive Masiyiwa is a homegrown example of this. Masiyiwas big break Econet made its money by helping people communicate and connect. Fast forward a little bit and we have Ecocash, Steward Bank, Vaya and more all aiming to help people achieve their goals. Masiyiwas philanthropy also speaks to this as he continues to invest and give away money to uplift lives.
Leverage
Leverage simply defined is the use of systems to multiply limited resources. Employing people is a simple example of leverage, you only have 24 hours in a day and can only be in one place at a time. By using a workforce you multiply the output. Leverage is an important skill to learn especially when it comes to issues of scalability. The same can be said of using other people’s money to grow businesses.
Recruiting
On the surface recruiting is important because as we highlighted before you need to work with the right people. Recruitment is not just about employees, it’s about everyone on the journey with you. This could be a potential supplier or distribution partner. And recruitment doesn’t just end at getting them to agree to work with you, it’s about getting them to stay and be happy in the relationship.
Energy management
Whatever you choose to pursue to make your millions it’s going to require a lot of energy. Learning to master the skills on this list alone requires a lot of energy. One thing that’s going to be important is learning to manage your energy for optimal performance. Working yourself to a standstill or the point of breakdown is not a great idea, learning to rest before you are completely spent is a good example of energy management.
Time management
While we call it time management Dr Stephen Covey said it best: we don’t manage time we manage ourselves. Our use of time is what we manage. Learning to make the best use of time is a key skill for millionaires and should be a key skill for you too. Time is the most important resource we observe because we cannot manipulate it. I say observe as opposed to possessing because we never own time but we simply observe it go by whether we want it to or not. Our only choice is how well we make use of time.
Money management
Well, this may be stating the obvious but it is absolutely essential to understand money management. Managing millions of dollars takes great skill and understanding. Unless you are blessed like US President Donald Trump it’s highly unlikely your parents will give you a small loan of a million dollars to practice with. With all due to respect to Mr Trump’s ability to manage money of course.The skills required to manage millions are learned with single dollars. Everybody has a story they love to tell themselves that if they had more money they would manage it better. The reason you don’t have more money is that you don’t manage what you have better.
Patience
There’s a quote that says “patience is not the ability to wait but what you do while you wait”. Waiting is a natural part of life and in the words of Amazon Billionaire Jeff Bezos, the average overnight success takes 10 years. But it’s not just a matter of waiting for your moment to come, it’s filling the time with preparation for your moment. You’ve probably seen many cases where people hit success and suddenly they start 20 or 30 other businesses which succeed from out of the blue. That is the result of preparation in times of patience.
Continuous learning
If for some reason I have completely spoken over your head in all the above that is alright, so long as you capture this last one. Commit to continuous learning. It doesn’t matter who the expert is, just know that at one point they did not know anything about the idea that made them a success. They did, however, learn it and so can you. The idea of continuous learning means you are always in a state of education. Study the success you desire, just stay away from those things that tell you how the successful spend their millions as opposed to how they make them.
