Want to Be a Self-Made Millionaire? Add These 9 Habits to Your Routine

Make these nine habits a part of your daily life, and get to your first million.

 

 

By Ari Zoldan

 

CEO, Quantum Media Group@arizoldan

 

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Visualize life as a building, and habits as the building blocks. The stronger the building blocks are the more the building is able to withstand changes in its environment.

Life is short. Consistency will get you far. Follow these nine simple habits to see your success skyrocket. By sticking to them, you'll have the fastest chance of becoming a self-made millionaire.

1. Read a lot.

Nothing is more powerful than the world of wisdom. The one who keeps learning and self-improving will travel far in life. Warren Buffett says that exploring the library of the University of Colombia changed his life. As he, "88% of the rich devote thirty minutes or more to self-education or self-improvement reading."

2. Be positive.

Positivity is the kind of boost that can make your worst day seem like a success. After all, there is always a positive element in almost every situation in life. Mistakes are a learning opportunity, and suffering makes you stronger.

An attitude of viewing every defeat and problem as a means of enrichment for your persona can take you a long way in life. Another self-made millionaire, Will Smith, once had a T-shirt made which read, "Positive energy is a part of your job description". With positivity in your back pocket, you can never lose in life.

3. Stand out.

You have to stand out to get noticed. As Leonardo Dicaprio put it out, "You want to separate yourself from the herd, create your own herd, and then get others to join it."

Create your own herd. Think of an unconventional approach to get yourself noticed. Produce a knockout ad campaign. Arrange a meeting with a prominent figure. Push yourself into situations. But remember that it's your performance that makes you shine. 

4. Hang out with other successful people.

This one I learned from Gary Vaynerchuk (hat tip, Gary!) In order to be successful, you need to hang out as much as you can with people who are already where you want to be. This kind of value-induced social change will acclimatize you with the daily habits, tactics, and mindset of the winners in your niche.  With time you will start to act and think like them. As Jim Rohn once said, "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."

5. Seek feedback.

Nothing ensures being on the right track than getting constructive feedback. Accept criticism with open arms. Mark Zuckerberg holds a weekly meeting with his employees every day.  He engages in a no-holds-barred communication with this employees, getting constructive feedback from them about the product. Sometimes it takes another person's perspective to become aware of a particular tendency that is preventing you from achieving full success.

6. Be flexible.

In an ever-progressing age of advancement, the plans you made yesterday will become antique today and prehistoric tomorrow. Being determined is one thing, but being stubborn will sound the death-knell of your dreams and ambitions. One needs to be more flexible in their decision making and pacing of actions. 

7. Have an arsenal of backup options.

Picking up from the last point: in order to be flexible, one needs to have backup options. One route may not work, but the more routes you have, the bigger the chances of you reaching your destination successfully. Always have well-defined contingencies in place on which you can fall back on immediately.

8. Wake up early.

We have all been guilty of working late nights and not making the morning cut. The lives of entrepreneurs are unpredictable. You never know when you have to commit to a particular action which will take up a lot of time and extend your day beyond the normal hours of work.

It's important to make an earlier bedtime a priority. Why? Science says the body is inclined to be more productive in the morning, as it has reduced stress levels. An early riser also has the advantage of being ahead of the crowd. When stress is lifted, more work is done, setting the tone for the entire day. 

9. Be in it for the long run.

Do you know the number one way to eliminate your competition? Be in the grind for the long run. Why should you believe in this approach? Well, the current richest man in the world thinks long-term thinking is one of the best assets he and his company possesses.

Additionally, if you have an end goal in mind, you will be willing to bear any obstacles along the way. As philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche aptly put it, "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how."

So go on and pursue your dream!

**Abhik Shome contributed to this article.

11 things you can do today to be more respected, productive, and impressive at work

• Shana Lebowitz
 
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Become an instant superstar.Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design/Flickr

• There are steps you can take to instantly boost your performance at work.
• Those steps include speaking up in meetings and taking lunch breaks with colleagues.
• Below, we've rounded up some of the simplest strategies for impressing your boss and increasing your productivity.

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The path to professional success is long, and often winding. It's a combination of working hard, pursuing your passions, and meeting the right people.

But there are steps you can take immediately to get closer to your goals. Below, Business Insider has collected a bunch of quick and dirty strategies — supported by research and expert opinion — to be more successful at work. You'll learn how to impress your boss (and make your coworkers jealous) and stay productive even when you're feeling uninspired.

Read on for our top tips.

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Show up on time — or early

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Simply put, your boss will like you more.

Research from the Michael G. Foster School of Business at the University of Washington suggests that employees who get into the office early are generally perceived by their managers as more conscientious and receive higher performance ratings than employees who arrive later.

And it doesn't matter if those who get in later stay later, too.

In the Harvard Business Review, the paper authors write:

"[I]n three separate studies, we found evidence of a natural stereotype at work: Compared to people who choose to work earlier in the day, people who choose to work later in the day are implicitly assumed to be less conscientious and less effective in their jobs."

The one caveat? If your boss is a night owl, they probably won't judge you as harshly for showing up on the later side.

Dress up

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Research suggests that dressing more formally can make you both feel and appear more powerful.

In one 2014 study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, men dressed in either a suit or sweats engaged in mock negotiations with a partner. Results showed that the men were more successful in the negotiations when they were wearing a suit.

Make small talk with your CEO at the coffee maker

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Bumping into your CEO unexpectedly might sound like the beginning of a nightmare. It doesn't have to be.

According to etiquette and civility expert Rosalinda Oropeza Randall, "it's an opportunity to show yourself off." If you don't know the person very well, introduce yourself and tell them which department you work in. Then read their body language to see whether they're interested in chatting further.

If you're already pretty chummy with your CEO, you can simply say something like, "Do you have plans for the holidays?"

Schedule a power hour

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

Time-management expert and author Laura Vanderkam recommends dedicating the first hour of your workday to an important project. Ideally, you'll be uninterrupted by emails, phone calls, or knocks on your door.

She calls it a "power hour."

As Vanderkam previously told Business Insider, "We have to consciously choose to spend less time on email and carve out time for the important work that matters to us."

Listen to music right before you start an assignment

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You might think listening to music helps you get stuff done faster, but in fact research suggests that it makes you less productive on most tasks. For example, a 2010 study found that people performed worse on a memory task when they listened to music in the background, compared to when they worked in quiet.

According to Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist and musician, a better bet is to listen to music for 10 to 15 minutes before you get down to work, so you're relaxed and in a good mood.

Take a lunch break with coworkers

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One survey found that 80% of workers eat lunch at their desks.

And yet stepping outside, even for 15 to 30 minutes, during your lunch break can be beneficial. As a professor at University of California, Davis Graduate School of Management told NPR: "We know that creativity and innovation happen when people change their environment, and especially when they expose themselves to a nature-like environment, to a natural environment."

Meanwhile, a 2015 study found that eating lunch with coworkers can boost team performance. Specifically, firefighters who prepared and ate meals together displayed more cooperative behavior.

Find a peer mentor

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Your manager shouldn't be the only person at work to give you feedback.

According to Suzanne Bates, CEO of Bates Communications and author of the new book "All the Leader You Can Be," successful leaders often have peer mentors, or coworkers who they regularly exchange feedback with. Bates says having a peer mentor can help you rise faster in your organization.

She recommend choosing someone who works in a different business or department at your organization. It's even better if you've worked with that person on a cross-business or inter-department project.

Meanwhile, bestselling author Simon Sinek says the most successful leaders have a "buddy," or someone who also aspires to leadership. Buddies regularly exchange knowledge and advice in order to keep each other from getting too caught up in the trappings of wealth and fame.

Ask your team for feedback

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Don't forget to solicit feedback from people who are junior to you as well.

Kim Scott, a former Google and Apple exec, and the author of "Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity," recommends asking your reports, "Is there anything I could do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me?"

Then — and this is the hard part — wait silently for six seconds. Your employees will have to come up with some piece of constructive criticism just to make things less awkward.

Speak up in a meeting

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Yes, it can be scary — but it pays off.

Jenna Lyons, former president and executive creative director of J.Crew Group Inc., told Motto she's impressed by employees who speak up and share ideas.

"I find it impossible to understand where a person stands if they don't join the conversation," she said.

"Opinions aren't reserved for those in the corner office. Find your voice, and make sure to balance your input; you should be contributing roughly equal parts complimentary support of others with thoughtful, constructive criticism. And never be afraid to pitch an idea; we all have good ones, and we all have bad ones," Lyons said.

Towards the end of the day, reflect on what you accomplished

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It's simpler than you think.

A 2014 working paper from researchers at Harvard Business School and elsewhere found that 15 minutes of reflective writing is enough to make you more successful at work.

In one study, employees at an Indian outsourcing company spent the last 15 minutes of the workday either going through further training or writing and reflecting on what they'd learned that day. Results showed that the second group performed about 23% better on a final assessment.

"In the field study, we were asking people to work less," one of the study authors previously told Business Insider. "It's counterintuitive, because you think you want to use those 15 minutes to keep working, but it actually leads to performance."

Plan the following workday

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Don't wait until tomorrow morning to figure out what you need to be working on. Workplace experts have told Business Insider that it's important to get your most important objectives for the next day down on paper.

"You may have two or three of them that are top of mind, but commit them to writing so you have a core foundation to work from the next morning," said national workplace expert Lynn Taylor.

This practice also helps you stop fixating on work obligations — and actually relax a little. A 2015 study, published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, found that writing down how you plan to complete any unfinished tasks the following day allowed many people to stop thinking about those tasks.