How to Be a Millionaire

Two of the main searches on Google in the wealth creation arena are “how to become a millionaire” and “how to become a millionaire”. Hmmmm, that’s interesting isn’t it? Just think for a second about what people are doing when they type those two search terms into Google, or their search engine of choice.

And let’s be clear here, I’m going to talk about self-made millionaires here, not people who have inherited millions, like Prince Harry did today, on his 25th birthday. 6.1 million left to him originally, which has grown with interest to 9 million plus apparently.

I’m a bit obsessed with this topic at the moment and have started a series of articles on “The Secrets Of Success” on our blog and you can read them here as they unfold week by week.

Because being something, like a millionaire, implies you are already there, you have made it, you have succeeded.

Because I have realised that it’s actually easy and quite simple to find out how to become a millionaire.

( Today while flying helicopters on his birthday, Prince Harry is being a millionaire without having had to become a millionaire. I wish him happy birthday and all the happiness in the world because no amount of money can replace his mum!).

The phrase “how to become a millionaire” implies that people are searching for the “how to” of becoming a millionaire and indeed there are many seminars and workshops nowadays, that can teach what you need to do to become a millionaire from property investing, the internet or from building your own business.

Whereas becoming something like a millionaire implies that you know there is some effort, some work, and even, dare I say it, some changing involved.

So more people want to be a millionaire, than become a millionaire.

When you look closely at the phrase “how to BE a millionaire” however, it implies something different. There are shades of “how to be famous” or “how to be beautiful” or “how to be loved” and there is an element of just wanting it to happen, to just be, without having to become.

The bit I’m most interested in now is learning how to BE a millionaire or even a billionaire if that’s what you want!

Because I have learned that you have to BE one, before you can BECOME one, at least in terms of attitude, thoughts, feelings, decisions, the people you surround yourself with, your actions and most of all the quality and amount of those actions.

Let’s look at those things, those requirement if you like, one by one, shall we?

Being A Millionaire – The Attitude.

What kind of an attitude do you think a millionaire would need to have?

The Thoughts.

A “Can Do” attitude would certainly help because in order to become a millionaire, you would need to have overcome problems, bust through challenges and above all, to have never, never, never given up.

Generous? Possibly, there are probably mean ones too, but you often hear of millionaires and multi-millionaires being great philanthropists. Look at the programme “The Secret Millionaire” on which my first ever wealth creation mentor Gill Fielding appeared – those millionaires are actually giving away their own money.

Open minded? That’s quite likely as you would need to be able to listen to new ideas without dismissing them out of hand.

What kind of thoughts do you think you would need to have in order to be a millionaire?

Creative thoughts, definitely. You don’t get to be a millionaire without having been creative at some time … perhaps you created a product or service that filled a need or solved a problem. Perhaps you saw a great solution to something and took that idea from the original thought, through a trial to launch – that’s a creative process right there.

The Feelings.

Upbeat thoughts would help you overcome those “grey days” everyone gets and I would imagine someone who has become a millionaire has got pretty good control over the kind of thoughts they would allow in their heads. This is tough at first, but the more practice you get at it, the more easy it gets.

Excited? Yes, I would imagine a millionaire more information would have many excited thoughts, as every day must be a new adventure. From the next business venture to the next holiday, there must be many exciting things to think about when you can do just about anything you want to and have complete freedom of choice.

Positive? In order to be a millionaire you most definitely have make sure your thoughts are more often positive than negative. Negativity is the lethal enemy of creativity and of taking action and taking action regularly.

Feeling Optimistic?

The Decisions.

Of course “right” can be defined in many different ways – what is right for you might not be right for someone else (in their opinion!) So you have to decide what action is right for you, by whatever criteria you define. Is it right for your business? Is it right for you? Is it right for your wealth creation? I think most people have a deep sense of fairness and are inherently good people, so I try and decide if the action I’m about to take is fair to as many people as possible and I ask myself if Nicola as a child would think it was a good thing to do – kids have a great sense of fairness and goodness I think.

The People.

Actions – The Amount.

Because being a millionaire involves a whole different set of decisions, people, actions – both the quality and amount of, thoughts, attitudes and feelings and you can start to cultivate and practice those today.

First born children in families – while more likely to succeed – need to be especially careful of this, as they often had to take responsibility for siblings, and parents struggle a little bit too. Of course you are responsible for your children’s safety and getting enough love, but you are not responsible for the happiness and success of other adults around you. That’s their job.

Nicola Cairncross is Europe’s leading Wealth Creation Expert helping bright energetic people become financially free since 1999. She is also the “Wealth Coach In Residence” at Visa Int’ l and Pampers iVillage.

More importantly I hope it’s made you realise that you are much more likely to become a millionaire if you act like you are ALREADY a millionaire.

Being a millionaire involves making decisions, They don’t even have to be great decisions or the right decisions but making decisions is absolutely crucial. Making decisions means creating momentum and all millionaires have created massive momentum at some point. They made decisions knowing that they could correct course later if they needed to, but that it was important to get going!

Feeling Responsible.

Here’s the big one. I’ve come to the realisation that both becoming AND being a millionaire means doing much, much more than most people would do. When we went to T.Harv Ecker’s event in New Jersey, there was an exercise that he got us all doing (and made us promise not to tell) which made me realise that I always used to only ever do the BARE MINIMUM (much like employees only ever do the minimum required to keep their jobs), and that successful people aim way beyond doing the minimum – they take MASSIVE ACTION.

I once read in a Steven Covey book that you should always do the right thing, not the easy thing. That really struck home and it’s served me well in many tricky situations because most of the time, the action you want to take is the easy action (for you) but not necessarily the right action.

So, you have to take good quality actions to be a millionaire so that you can live with yourself and sleep well at night, in your luxury mansion.

Actions – The Quality.

Feeling responsible is a bit of a double edged sword actually, but master the proper grip and you will become very strong indeed. You need to feel responsible for yourself, and take responsibility for your own success, but you need to be careful of shouldering responsibility for others, their results and their happiness.

Being a millionaire means surrounding yourself with great people, people you can trust, people you love, people who, ironically, don’t care that you are a millionaire. It also means being around people who inspire you, who challenge you to be your best, and who you can continue to learn and grow from.

Yep, because if you are not optimistic you would never start a project. It’s different feeling optimistic from choosing to have positive thoughts by the way, just think about it for a moment. Can you say you both feel optimistic AND have positive thoughts?

In conclusion, I hope that this article has made you think about the difference between becoming a millionaire and being a millionaire.