What Do The Wealthy Have In Common?
Besides having a lot of money :)
What do rich people have in common? No, it's not intelligence or education. Look around. The world is full of geniuses unable to pay next month's rent. I live in Kentucky and can't begin to tell you how many stores have a clerk with a master's degree. No, it's not courage, luck or wealthy families either. And no, it's not even passion, instinct, timing or greed.
The single characteristic that the wealthy tend to have in common is an unusually strong ability to think ahead. As a matter of fact, research indicates that the length of your time horizon (your ability to think ahead) is the one characteristic that most accurately predicts where you will land in the socioeconomic strata.
I was talking with a gentleman that my company is considering partnering with on a large project who happens to be an extraordinarily wealthy and successful business owner. He's owned chains of businesses in several fields so I asked him how he chooses business to investment in. He told me the following: "The first question that I ask myself when looking at a potential business opportunity, even if I only plan on owning it briefly and then selling it, is...'Is this a business that I would want to own 20 years from today?' If the answer is 'no,' then I don't invest in it."
But to counter to what you may be thinking, wealthy people don't share this characteristic "because they're rich and can afford to think ahead." They become wealthy because they have this characteristic. It's an established fact that a person who can't set aside a few dollars each month from a salary of twenty thousand a year will find it equally impossible to set aside a few dollars from a salary of two hundred thousand a year. The average person thinks ahead exactly one paycheck. We know what must be paid with the one that's coming and we have a plan for what to pay with the next. Needless to say, this is not a plan for building wealth. This is a plan for being average.
Far below average, in the very lowest economic strata, are the addicts and alcoholics who don't think ahead even to where they will sleep tonight; their entire existence has been reduced to the next fix, the next drink, the next score - a time horizon of only an hour or two.
How far have you been thinking ahead?
What do rich people have in common? No, it's not intelligence or education. Look around. The world is full of geniuses unable to pay next month's rent. I live in Kentucky and can't begin to tell you how many stores have a clerk with a master's degree. No, it's not courage, luck or wealthy families either. And no, it's not even passion, instinct, timing or greed.
The single characteristic that the wealthy tend to have in common is an unusually strong ability to think ahead. As a matter of fact, research indicates that the length of your time horizon (your ability to think ahead) is the one characteristic that most accurately predicts where you will land in the socioeconomic strata.
I was talking with a gentleman that my company is considering partnering with on a large project who happens to be an extraordinarily wealthy and successful business owner. He's owned chains of businesses in several fields so I asked him how he chooses business to investment in. He told me the following: "The first question that I ask myself when looking at a potential business opportunity, even if I only plan on owning it briefly and then selling it, is...'Is this a business that I would want to own 20 years from today?' If the answer is 'no,' then I don't invest in it."
But to counter to what you may be thinking, wealthy people don't share this characteristic "because they're rich and can afford to think ahead." They become wealthy because they have this characteristic. It's an established fact that a person who can't set aside a few dollars each month from a salary of twenty thousand a year will find it equally impossible to set aside a few dollars from a salary of two hundred thousand a year. The average person thinks ahead exactly one paycheck. We know what must be paid with the one that's coming and we have a plan for what to pay with the next. Needless to say, this is not a plan for building wealth. This is a plan for being average.
Far below average, in the very lowest economic strata, are the addicts and alcoholics who don't think ahead even to where they will sleep tonight; their entire existence has been reduced to the next fix, the next drink, the next score - a time horizon of only an hour or two.
How far have you been thinking ahead?
posted by Pat Rigsby at 8:00 AM
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