The true wealth extends far beyond mere net worth increase
Although financial independence is undeniably linked to money, living a truly rich life goes beyond that. This distinction is of utmost importance.
It is a common experience to witness unhappiness among the wealthy and happiness among the less fortunate.
Indeed, research has consistently shown that the relationship between money and happiness is of small magnitude.
Below, discover the ten fundamental principles that will help you achieve true wealth, both financially and personally.
1st Principle of Wealth Building: Find a Deep Motivation
Money serves as a superficial motivator – too shallow to provide the necessary drive for achieving significant success.
The core issue is that financial wealth is an external goal, whose benefits are limited to the world outside ourselves.
Money can buy things, but it cannot buy happiness.
It can even beautify a prison, but it cannot set us free from it.
Moreover, external goals (such as luxurious mansions, cars, and hefty bank accounts) impose limitations on the motivation we may have in pursuing them.
To succeed in wealth building, one must be driven by deeper internal goals than the external trappings of wealth.
Seek a cause that brings transformation to your life and motivates you on a deep enough level to overcome all obstacles that arise on the path to financial freedom.
Some internally oriented goals that can focus your attention enough to ensure success include:
Freedom: Free yourself from the chains of daily labor, gaining more time to grow, create, and live your full potential.
Charity: The more you have, the more you can give. Philanthropic foundations established by wealthy families often provide the financial strength to support significant social and environmental causes.
Growth: When you have financial freedom, you also have more time to pursue personal freedom.
The wealth of the outer world reflects the inner wealth.
The principles that lead to financial wealth can also lead to true wealth, impacting other areas of your life.
Leadership: Increase your own wealth with ethics and satisfaction, so you can serve as an example to friends and family, helping them overcome the shackles of financial mediocrity and follow in your footsteps.
The reason deeper causes are essential is that building wealth is not an easy task.
In the course of your journey toward financial freedom, you will face countless challenges that will need to be overcome. There will be a price to pay to achieve your goals.
2nd Principle: Create More Value Than You Receive
Enhancing others’ lives by adding value is the core of building true wealth.
As you improve yourself, you also elevate others’ lives.
While there are examples throughout history of people who have amassed financial empires by exploiting others or the environment, simply accumulating value will never lead to happiness or a sense of fulfillment.
Exploitation can generate wealth, but it is by providing value that we find true happiness, fulfillment, and wealth.
By giving more value than you receive, success becomes measured by the amount you have contributed. The more wealth you accumulate, the more you offer to others.
This is a rewarding way to live.
3rd Principle: Absolute Integrity
Never do or say anything that wouldn’t make your parents proud.
Do no harm, do not invade others’ property, do not violate moral laws or harm the environment.
Do not lie, insult, or cheat in pursuit of financial wealth.
Do not even exaggerate the truth. It’s simply not worth it.
The rule is simple: if something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.
If you don’t feel comfortable sharing your actions with your spouse, children, and parents, you probably shouldn’t do them.
Never choose convenience over integrity, for no amount of financial wealth can replace a good night’s sleep, a clear conscience, and a serene mind.
4th Principle: Be Courageous
Humans are social animals, which makes us naturally cautious when seeking independent paths.
However, true wealth is not achieved by following the crowd.
It comes from doing what others are unwilling to do, to obtain what others will never have.
It takes courage to be an entrepreneur of yourself and take full responsibility.
It takes courage to explore new paths and develop new skills.
It takes courage to stand out from the group.
It takes courage to strive beyond others.
In short, building wealth requires courage. It is true that the nail that stands out is the one that gets hammered, but it is also true that the nail that is never used does not fulfill its purpose.
Live with courage to fully enjoy life and experience true wealth.
5th Principle of Wealth Building: Cultivate Discipline
Wealth is the cumulative result of countless small elements that add up over a lifetime.
This means your daily habits will determine your success or failure.
Saving, investing, reinvesting, and enhancing your financial and business intelligence are essential habits for wealth building, requiring constant and consistent effort. In other words, building wealth requires discipline.
Without discipline, you risk falling victim to the primary killer of wealth: procrastination.
You need to start with the right habits today, without delay.
It takes discipline to overcome procrastination and start today, persisting tomorrow.
Another obstacle to disciplined daily habits is “magical thinking.”
This is the false belief that financial security will magically arise from nowhere, without a plan or specific action to achieve it.
Wealth manifests when you do what is necessary to make it happen.
So-called “instant wealth” is actually the result of years of daily habits and discipline.
Luck smiles on those who create their own opportunities, and this course shows how to do that.
6th Principle: Avoid Ostentatious Consumerism
The tempting illusion to build wealth is the appeal of a “more, better, different” lifestyle.
This myth is perpetuated by brokerage ads filled with sailboats, European vacations, and impeccably groomed golf resorts.
However, consumerism directs your limited resources toward lifestyle, diverting them from wealth building.
These are competing demands for the same scarce resources, and only one can win this battle.
The reality is that wealth is a form of delayed gratification.
Wealth builders live modestly, spending less than they can, whether in money, time, or energy, so they can invest the difference in a more prosperous future.
They understand that happiness does not lie in the material trappings of wealth, as this would only prevent them from achieving the deeper cause that drives them toward success.
Every day, you make a choice between immediate consumption or future wealth.
The only way to embrace delayed gratification as the most rewarding option, without any sense of sacrifice, is to have a motivating cause deeper than the mere desire for a lifestyle.
If lifestyle is your cause, then consumption becomes the priority, making wealth perpetually elusive.
7th Principle: Create Supportive Environments
If building wealth were easy, more people would succeed in this pursuit of financial freedom.
However, only a few manage to achieve this goal, although anyone can come up with a reasonable plan to get rich.
The difference lies in consistent, persistent, and focused action. Life is full of distractions that can derail your wealth plans.
The solution is to create a supportive environment that keeps you focused, on track, and truly drawn to wealth.
Your family environment, relationships, workplace, financial habits, daily rituals, and more must be proactively designed to literally propel you toward wealth, supporting and reinforcing your plans.
You need to structure your life to favor a wealthy outcome.
It is the path of least resistance.
8th Principle: Apply Leverage to Build Wealth
Leverage is the essential principle of success in wealth building.
You will not get rich just by trading time for money, and you cannot do everything alone.
Building wealth requires you to work smarter, not just harder, by applying the following leverage principles:
Financial Leverage: Use other people’s money so you’re not limited by your own financial resources.
Time Leverage: Use other people’s time so you’re not limited to 24 hours a day.
Systems and Technology Leverage: Take advantage of systems and technologies developed by others to accomplish more with less effort.
Marketing Leverage: Use magazines, newsletters, radio programs, and other people’s databases to communicate with millions without needing individual effort.
Network Leverage: Leverage other people’s resources and connections to expand beyond your own capabilities.
Knowledge Leverage: Use the talents, knowledge, and experiences of others to tap into greater knowledge than you would ever have alone.
Leverage allows you to build more wealth than you could on your own, using resources beyond your personal limitations.
It is the principle that separates those who achieve wealth-building success from those who fail. It’s as simple as that.
If you’re not applying leverage, you’re working harder than you should to earn less than you deserve – and that certainly won’t make you rich.
9th Principle: Treat Your Wealth Like a Business, Because It Is Exactly That
Just as you wouldn’t build a business without a business plan, why should wealth building be any different?
Design your wealth plan based on proven business principles that lead to success. These principles include competitive advantage, leverage, accurate record-keeping, and accountability, just to name a few.
Manage your money like a business, because that’s exactly what it is: a personal financial management business.
Moreover, your personalized wealth-building plan should take into account your unique skills, interests, and resources, incorporating the Ten Commandments for Wealth, successful investment principles, and more.
When completed, your wealth plan will be tailored to your unique life situation, respecting proven success principles, without which no wealth plan is complete.
Manage your money like the business it is. Anything less will slow your journey to wealth.
10th Principle: Manage Your Wealth
Wealth is your servant, and you are a servant of your wealth.
Money is little more than a tool that brings with it the responsibility to use it wisely.
The rich are fools if they die without organizing their affairs to ensure their wealth is well used during their lifetime and after their death.
Through the legacy of your wealth, you have the opportunity to bless yourself
and the lives of your family now and in the future.
And you can go beyond that, expanding the circle to include the lives of all who follow you.
As a successful wealth builder, you will be uniquely positioned to establish charitable institutions that can do great social good.
The fact that you cannot take it with you means that wealth is a gift to be shared.
Always remember that wealth is not something you possess but a temporary flow that has found a place under your stewardship.
Eventually, this responsibility will be transferred to others, as all things must pass (including you).
The solemn responsibility of the wealth builder is to use this temporary power wisely to create the greatest benefit for all those touched by what you have created in your life.
In Summary…
There are ten key principles of wealth building that lead to true wealth, not just monetary wealth.
The goal is not just to get rich but to build a balanced, fulfilling, and rich life.
Here are the ten key principles to keep you on the right track:
- Build Wealth for a Deep Cause: Money alone is a superficial motivation. Find a deeper purpose, such as freedom, growth, creativity, or charity, to drive your path to wealth.
- Give More Value Than You Receive: Measure your financial success by the amount of value you have offered to the world. Living this way is rewarding.
- Live with 100% Integrity: Integrity is fundamental. No financial value can replace the peace of mind and clear conscience that come from living with integrity.
- Be Courageous: Wealth is achieved by those who dare to do what others do not. Have the courage to seek opportunities and face challenges.
- Be Disciplined: Life will try to divert you from your goal. Only the disciplined will be able to stay the course and take consistent actions to achieve results.
- Avoid Excessive Consumption: Spending uncontrollably will not lead to financial freedom. Every day, you make a choice between immediate consumption and long-term wealth building.
- Create Supportive Environments: The easiest path to wealth is to surround yourself with environments that push you toward your goal.
- Apply Leverage: Leverage is what separates those who achieve wealth from those who do not. You cannot trade your time for money, and you cannot do everything alone. Use leverage to amplify your efforts.
- Treat Your Wealth Like a Business: As a wealth builder, you are in the personal financial management business. Manage your net worth like an executive manages a successful business.
- Manage Your Wealth: Money is just a tool that comes with the responsibility to use it wisely. It is not something you possess, but something that passes through you and must be given back.
After all, life is too short to settle for less.