Book Summary “Millionaire Success Habits by Dean Graziosi”

Introduction

The difference between millionaires and ordinary people is just a difference in habits. Millionaires have success habits other people don’t have. For instance, whether they are working for themselves or someone else, successful people do the best they can. They use recipes to save time and have the right approach to life.

Startling Facts

For many years, productivity and wages were moving up unilaterally at a steep 45-degree angle. But after 1973, wages went flat and productivity continued to rise. This means we are doing more work but are underpaid. And the gap is widening more and more.

The disconnect between productivity and wages

Up until 1981, all the classes of income were rising at about the same rate. However, in 1981, the top 1% broke away from the crowd. Since then, the income of the top 1 per cent of the earners has gone up 138% while the rest of the 90 per cent has only got a 15% raise.

Increase in income

Keeping in mind the above scenario, it has become more important than ever to become the thermostat and not the thermometer. In other words, you need to take complete control of your personal economy and lifestyle.

What Are Your Goals?

Having clarity of your goal is extremely important. No matter how fast you go, how passionate you are, or how much energy and time you put into things, if you don’t have a clear vision and clarity of the destination you want to reach, you’ll simply never get there.

Steps to Identify your Goal

Following is the series of steps that will give you a clear understanding of what you want:

• Where You Are? (Don’t Lie)

Take a piece of paper and write down where you are. Don’t lie to yourself, be honest. Break through the all-is-okay mindset and write down where you truly are right now.

• Where Do You Want To Go?

Now write down where you want to go. Write each and every thing you want to have in your life. Don’t focus on the obstacles. Don’t think whether it is possible or not. Just jot down everything you want on the paper.

• Look Back From The Future

Sometimes, it is difficult to get to know what you want in life. This technique will help you identify that. Imagine it’s one year from now and it was the best year you’ve ever had. What does it look like? Visualize its specific details and jot them down. Again, don’t think about the obstacles.

Identify Your Why

After you have written your goals, it’s time to identify your why. Go through each of your goals and ask why you want this. Why do you want this level of income? Why do you want your parents and spouse to retire? Why do you want to start a business? Ask this about every goal you have.

Let’s Go Deeper

It isn’t easy to identify your “why” by asking the question once. Ask the why question seven times to dig out the true reason for you to have a goal. The author explains this by the following example:

Example of the “finding your why” exercise

The Villain Within

There are two wolves inside each of us, one is the hero and one is the villain. The hero tells us that we are capable of anything and can achieve our goals. The villain tells us we are incapable. It uses tactics such as fear to stop us. Both these wolves are constantly fighting with each. So, which one of the two wolves wins the battle? Well, it’s the one that you feed.

The Villain Grows From What You Consume

The biggest factor which creates negative thoughts and strengthens the success-robbing parasite is watching the news. The news is always negative, because the more negative the news is, the more copies of it are sold. And it is extremely difficult to focus on positive thoughts when you are constantly bombarded with negativity. So, stop consuming the news. Trust me, it won’t affect you. If you are afraid to cut off the news completely, go on a 30-day news diet and see the effects for yourself.

Work On Your Strengths, Not Weaknesses

The inner villain also thrives when you focus your time and energy on things you are not good at. No doubt, you were taught to work on your weakness, to try to improve your skills in the areas where you are not good enough. You should get amazing at what you are already good at. Working on your strengths will help you overcome your weaknesses.

If you think you are not good in any domain, you are wrong. Everyone is good at something. To get clear on your strengths, make a “good at” list. Next to each thing, you are good at, write how are you going to improve those skills and enhance your abilities to become great at them.

Don’t Follow Others

When you follow the same path as everyone else, you get where everybody else has been. You won’t become the thermostat by following others.

Choose Your Words

Your words matter a lot. When you say to someone, “I’m so stressed and overwhelmed,” even if you weren’t stressed, your subconscious will be triggered and you will start feeling overwhelmed.

What if, instead of saying, “I’m overwhelmed,” you say, “I’m busy as I’m blessed with opportunities.” Replace the negative statements with the positive ones, and dramatically transform your life.

Your Inner Circle

“With whom you surround yourself is who you become.”

Anonymous

You are the average of people whom you surround yourself with. So, try to be around people who are the battery chargers, who fill you with enthusiasm and positivity, and not around those who are the battery drains.

The Power Of Your Story

Every one of us has a story, or many stories, in our minds that shape our lives. These stories are formed by our past experiences. The villain tells you the negative story that, for example, you are not capable enough to make wealth because you’ve grown old and wasted your youth. You have to change the negative story if it exists in your mind. The formula is simple:

Uncover Your Story

Think about the areas in life where you want to have the biggest breakthroughs. Ask yourself why these things you desire have not happened. Do not filter your responses; don’t make excuses even rational ones. Be honest and write everything on a piece of paper.

How has it affected your life?

Ask yourself how the negative stories (the reasons you’ve written above) have affected your life. Assess its impact by asking yourself the following questions:

• Has it diminished or destroyed your self-confidence?
• Has it left you with doubt, confusion or maybe even therapy?
• Has it cost you your health, your career, your peace of mind, or your joy?
• Has it made you fearful of starting your own business or creating more wealth with your ideas?

Now look into the future and think about how these stories will cost you if you don’t change them. Close your eyes and imagine missing out on a great opportunity at some point in the future. Let yourself experience the pain of that missed opportunity.

Have a conversation with God

Imagine God saying to you, “Why are you not living up to your full potential? I gave you limitless possibilities in your life. What stops you from being your best you?” Then imagine yourself telling God the negative stories you uncovered recently, or should I say, the excuses.

Now imagine offering these excuses to someone who endured unthinkable cruelty and tragedy like losing his whole family in the war. If you are reading this summary, your life surely won’t be like that. So, doesn’t doing these exercises make you resent your story? Aren’t you motivated to change your story?

Look for the Good in every Story

Some tragedy from your past may make you think you are incapable. If so, look for the good in that story. Look for the positive things that you won’t have done if you hadn’t suffered. As Tony Robbins says:

“What if life happens for us, not to us.”

Tony Robbins

Shift Your Story

Now that you have got rid of the old negative story, it’s time to construct a positive one. Make a 180 degrees shift. If you previously thought that you are incapable, make a new story about you being capable of anything you want. And then, from your past experiences, find proof that your new story is true.

Awaken The Inner Hero

Your inner hero represents your full potential. It is the best version of yourself. It is the one that needs to take charge of your life.

The Four C’s of Confidence

“It’s not the smartest kid or the ones with straight A’s that become the superstars; it’s the ones that have an incredible amount of confidence that go on to do the amazing things in their lives.”

Richard Rossi

Confidence is not something someone is born with. In most cases, it has to be learned. Confidence can be enhanced by achieving the four C’s.

• The first C is courage. Courage is taking the plunge without knowing what the outcome may be. It makes you get off the bench, raise your hand, and get in the game rather than envying others from the sideline.
• The second C is commitment. For example, if you want to lose weight, you have to commit to it or else, you’ll fail.
• The third C is capabilities. You acquire capabilities in a certain field by seeking knowledge about it. For example, if you want to be great at rock climbing, read a book by an expert rock climber or take a course or hire someone as a mentor. If you lack the knowledge of how to execute it, you won’t succeed.
• When you have the first three C’s, the fourth C, confidence, naturally grows.

What’s Cool About You?

Yeah, what’s cool about you? Take a pencil and paper and write down everything you are good at. What will people say when they are praising you in your absence? Write down as many points as you can think of. Place it on your desk or in the cupboard. Now, whenever you are feeling low self-esteem or your confidence takes a hit, take out the list and read it. It will help you bounce back.

One Shining Goal

Now that we have improved your confidence, it’s time we make some money goals.

Your Magic List

1. First of all answer these questions
   • What do you love to do? What fires you up? What makes your heart alive
   • What you are really good at? If you weren’t in the room, what would your coworkers say you are good at?
   • What thing in your life, if you took action on it, would bring you the biggest check?
2. Next, list your money goals. Use “Where are you where you wanna be” exercise we discussed above, but limited just to money goals
3. Think about actions you need to start taking today to move closer to your goals. The action or step can be, and in many cases should be, small, but you must take a step in that direction each day to gain momentum.
4. Whatever you are doing and is not on your money goals action steps, that needs to be on your “make more money what-not-to-do list”.
5. Once your not-to-do list is crafted, next to each item, write one of five things:
   Eliminate
   Automate
   Outsource
   Delegate
   Replace

Pushing Past Your Fear

You must be afraid to take the first step towards your goal, aren’t you? That’s natural. Change is scary. But we have our biggest breakthroughs when we push through the scary changes. The next level of success lies on the other side of the barrier that is causing you to become stuck in place.

The “D.O.S Conversation”

One of the ways to overcome your fear is the “D.O.S Conversation” – it stands for Dangers, Opportunity, Strengths.

Take a sheet of paper. Make three columns with a small line at the top for the DOS headers. On the header line, write Dangers on the left, Opportunities in the middle, and Strengths on the right.

Now, think of all the dangers and fear that you have regarding the goal you are setting. Jot them down. Then go to the opportunity column and shift your mindset to optimistic thoughts. What opportunities will be there if you start the business? Now finally, think about the strengths you possess that could help you achieve your goal. Take out the “What’s Cool About Me” sheet for help.

The U.A (Unique Ability) Circle

Take a piece of paper and draw a small circle in the centre of the page. Then draw three more circles around it creating a ring. In the middle of the first circle, write “unique ability”. In the next ring write, ” excellent”. In the next write, “good”, and the last, ” stink”.

This is a bulls-eye view of the things that you are amazing at, that are your unique ability. As you move outward on the circle, you start getting away from those things that can grow your income the fastest. At last, you reach the outermost circle which shows the things that are mere busy work. Doing such things is like running on a treadmill and getting nowhere.

Attraction and Persuasion

Persuasion and attraction are the key ingredients of success. If you can’t attract the right opportunities and people to you, if you cannot persuade yourself and others to take action, you simply will never gain financial success. Marketing and sales are the applications of attraction and persuasion. Marketing is attracting what you want and repelling the unwanted, selling is getting people to take the action you want them to take.

People want to be Understood

People will listen to you when they feel understood. And the only way to do it is to listen to them intently.

How many times in our lives do we find ourselves just waiting for the other person to be quiet so that we can talk? You must remember this, “Your ears are a better persuasion tool than your lips.”

Transparency and Trust always Win

“By being honest, transparent, and a man of your word, you are going to get taken advantage of. But when you look back in life on how much you lose compared to how much you’ll gain by attracting the right people and persuading them to take action with you because of your kindness and transparency, it’ll far outweigh your losses.”

Sell People What They Want

People most often will buy what they want, not what they need. So sell people what they want and give them what they need.

After the “Yes”

Most people think that making a sale is the last step of the business. But the most important part comes after you’ve made the sale. If you ask people how they feel about your product, any improvements they want and strive for building a relationship rather than just a transaction, you will make a lot of loyal customers and wealth will take care of itself.

Invest In Yourself

Most of us stop learning when we graduate. We die when we stop learning. So invest in yourself. Buy books, take seminars and webinars for improvement. Continue to gain knowledge.

Think Solution, Not Problem

Solution-oriented mindset leads to prosperity. Whenever something goes wrong, instead of focusing on who’s the culprit or dwelling on it, try to fix the problem. Put all your energy into finding the solution, not on why it happened or who’s to blame.

Do Your Best

Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, try to do your best. Give it all you’ve got.

Let’s Get Practical

The 90-days Drill

1. First of all, imagine that 90 days have passed since now. These were the best 90 days you’ve ever had. What did you achieve in these 90 days? Write it down.
2. Now, think about the steps that lead you to these results. Jot it down too.

The purpose of this exercise is to make you realize that you need to focus on just one small, doable step at a time to bring massive results. For details, check out the summary of the book The Compound Effect

Productivity Hacks

Heck Yes or Hell No

In life, you are either climbing or sliding. There is no way in between. A task either moves you forward or backwards. There is nothing “neutral”. So, whenever you do something, ask yourself whether it is taking you closer to your goal or away from it.

Get Disciplined

“Living life the hard way is easy and living life the easy way is hard.”

David Kekich

Discipline is creating a habit out of an action that will get you where you want to be. Discipline makes it easier to live. It is difficult to get up early, eat healthily and exercise. But the results make life much easier – health, energy, stamina, and fewer doctors. But how to cultivate it? I have written a summary of the book How to Build Self-discipline but we’ll discuss it here briefly.

• Break down your complex task into simple steps.
• Hang out with people who want to get ahead in life.
• Plan your day. Create a schedule that imposes discipline on what you do and when you do it.
• Work with breaks instead of working all day long.

The Two-week Drill

• Look at the tasks you need to get done in the next two weeks.
• List the logical order in which they need to be done and set hard deadlines.
• Chunk big things down. When you chunk big things down, you’re breaking the actions into smaller, more doable components.

Conclusion

It all comes down to small habits that lead to changes on a larger scale. The right habits, if adopted, can lead to happiness, prosperity and fulfilment.