30/06/2022
Sad reality but true…
Frankly speaking, most people do not have what it takes to become millionaires.
Here’s why:
1. Lack of Purpose
The majority of people in the world lack purpose. What this means is that most people don’t really know why they exist.
The most important question is not HOW TO BECOME A MILLIONAIRE but WHY YOU SHOULD BECOME A MILLIONAIRE.
Many millionaires didn’t just start off following selfish interests and goals to buy luxury cars and expensive homes. They had bigger purposes and goals to uplift the lives of their families and communities.
2. Lack of Ambition
Ambition is the fuel that drives purpose, therefore if you lack purpose then you will automatically lack ambition.
As such the majority of people in the world lack ambition. Lack of ambition means you cannot grow inwardly and outwardly as a person.
Many people who conquered the world such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Napoleon, all had great burning ambitions.
This is the same for people who became great athletes, boxing champions and millionaires.
3. Procrastination
Procrastination is the failure to take positive action.
Procrastination is perhaps the greatest enemy of success and as such, the greatest roadblock to becoming a millionaire.
Most people just drift by in life, without any particular purpose or direction. They spend many hours just drooling and daydreaming and doing nothing.
As a result they end up becoming poor.
4. Lack of Discipline
Lack of discipline is perhaps one the greatest hindrances to financial success.
The world is full of failures who simply lacked financial discipline and proper planning.
There’s no such thing as an accident. Every failure is a result of an error in human judgment.
Opportunities and chance come to everyone, although not at the same time but they really do, and when they come, lack of vision, financial discipline and unpreparedness greatly undermines financial success.
For example, Mike Tyson made a neat fortune in boxing during his hey days.
However, due to lack of financial discipline (about that later) and a millionaire mindset he squandered it all through reckless living.
See this answer by Dave McKagan on Quora:
Dave McKagan's answer to How did Mike Tyson lose his money?
5. Lack of Patience
Most people simply do not have the patience to become millionaires.
Consider when you plant a seed in the ground, you probably don’t understand how the seed germinates a few days or weeks later. Neither does it help by checking the progress each and every day.
But a few weeks later when you check it, you’ll find that the buds have shot up and the plant is beginning to grow. A few more weeks and it becomes a big plant. All this takes some work, time and a process.
This is where patience comes to play.
Seed is the raw material you put into the soil and work is the time and effort you invest. Process is what takes effect without your interference. It is beyond your control.
Most people would probably want to plant a seed and eat its fruit the following morning.
6. Lack of Focus
The successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus
— Bruce Lee, Kung Fu Martial arts legend.
Perhaps the greatest hindrance to financial success is lack of focus. Most millionaires I know are highly focused individuals.
Chinese billionaire and Chairman of the Alibaba Group, Jack Ma, often says that he gets about 5,000 new business ideas every day. Unfortunately, he is forced to turn them all down preferring to remain focused on delivering quality service to the millions of customers and suppliers who visit his online stores daily.
7. Hard vs Smart Work
Most people will not become millionaires because they never learned how to work smart.
You have heard it said that hard work pays off. I would say that smart work pays off.
In the 19th century, it took about 30 years to become rich.
In the 20th century, it took less than twenty years to become rich.
in the 21st century, it takes as little as six months to become rich.
All this depends on the smart implementation of a simple law called leverage.
Millionaires learn how to leverage other people’s time.
Millionaires learn how to leverage other people’s money.
Millionaires learn how to leverage other people’s skills and talents.
Millionaires learn how to leverage machines and automation.
8. Life-Long Learning
For most people, learning stops as soon as they graduate college or university.
Although continuous learning is a lifestyle, most people will never learn anything new to improve their lives.
For example, a computer comes with default settings from the manufacturer’s assembly line. We hardly use the computer before customizing it with our own settings and preferences, most of which involves installing custom software.
Humans have many similarities to a computer but we rarely realize it. As such most people will never learn new ways to improve their lifestyles and financial well being.
9. Lack of Consistency
Most people will not become millionaires because they lack consistency.
Most millionaires and billionaires I know implemented just one business idea or product, and remained faithful and consistent with it for a long time.
Coca-Cola is remarkably one of the most consistent brands in the world. Known for its consistent advertising campaigns that often change, the general themes expressed in the ads do not. Coca-Cola is known for reinforcing the ideas of happiness, togetherness and refreshment in ads across the globe.
During its 132-year history, this strategy has heavily paid off bringing a lot of money to its investors. How many companies last that long?
10. Millionaire Mindset
The biggest difference between the rich and average people is not found in their education, luck, skills, or choice of investments — it's found in their mindset.
Mindset defines how you think, speak and act. It defines your vocabulary.
Frankly, most people do not have the mindset of a millionaire. The most difficult project on earth is not to earn a PhD degree, but to change your mindset.
Most people have a lot of money but still have the poverty mentality. This is true when you consider that many people win large sums of money through lotteries but lose it all after only a couple of years.
The poverty mentality is taught through our social and education system by our parents, peers, schools and the job market. In fact our education system still uses the 19th century education model which was to provide the labour market with qualified staff.
That’s why most people still look for jobs after graduating college, instead of chasing the entrepreneurship dream, which although laden with risk, gives you the greatest opportunity to become a millionaire.
A millionaire mindset is the ability to make a million dollars even after losing a million dollars. In other words, losing a million dollars is nothing compared to losing your millionaire mindset.
11. Fear of Failure
The greatest roadblock holding most people back from becoming rich is FEAR.
The process of building and acquiring wealth feels out of reach and impossible to most people.
When we were kids, most of us liked to take big risks and as such we learned how to crawl, how to walk, how to run and finally how to ride a bicycle. As a kid brimming with faith, I can vividly remember how I used to believe that one day I would become rich and eliminate all our family’s financial problems.
However, as we grew older, we began to listen to a barrage of constant voices from adults warning us that we shall fall if we try this, or we shall fail and get embarrassed if we try that and so on. Gradually, we lost our inner courage and eventually, we completely replaced our courage with fear.
Life is about taking risks, but the risks must be calculated. Learning how to analyze, calculate, manage and take calculated risk is a common trait many millionaires have.
I think it is safe to say that because most people fear to fail they will never become millionaires.
12. Fear of Success
Believe it or not, most people fear success as much as they fear failure. As such most people are afraid of becoming millionaires.
I recently read with shock, an article on Insider, about a Texas engineer who fears that she’s earning a lot of money.
Convinced that she was unable to manage all the money, she approached a financial consultant for advice. She also requested the consultant to manage the money on her behalf and recommend good ways to invest her money.
The financial consultant recommended a financial plan that included maxing her 401(k) and savings, investments, giving to charity, tax plans and a host of other ways to ensure a comfortable retirement.
Chrometophobia (intense fear of money) is a common condition with most people. Nobody knows exactly why this happens, but it is commonly believed that the condition has something to do with upbringing.
Most people are brought up in an environment of lack of money, therefore they believe that money is associated with evil. The condition doesn’t go away even when we become adults, because by then our minds are already conditioned.
This affects our spending habits and our ability to become rich, which makes it difficult to save any money for the future. This happens because we are subconsciously trying to get rid of this ‘perceived’ evil called “money”.
13. ‘Shiny’ Object Syndrome
Most people will not become millionaires because they suffer from the ‘shiny’ object syndrome. Like a small child chasing after shiny objects, everyone suffers from the shiny object syndrome - a major distraction on the road to success.
Most people believe that to become a millionaire one needs to have that one lucky break like winning a lottery or stumbling upon a secret formula. In fact most people believe that the millionaire trait is something you’re born with.
What a myth!
According to Forbes, 80% of the world’s richest people in 2017 were self-made meaning that only 20% inherited their wealth. In fact 20% of those 80% are women.
14. Time Management
It has often been said that “Time is Money” and it is.
Most people will not even come near to becoming millionaires because they cannot manage their time.
There are only 24 hours in a single day and this is the only time available to each one of us.
We are obligated to spend 8 of those hours either working, going to school or attending college.
And we are mandated by nature to spend 8 of those hours sleeping. The remaining 8 hours are to be spent at our discretion. We can spend the time either on the couch watching television, movies, playing games or on a beer-drinking spree at the local pub.
The proliferation of social media has ensured that entertainment is brought into our bedroom.
Alternatively, we can also spend the time attending a business course or building a business that would one day make us millionaires.
The difference between the rich and the poor is decided on how we spend the discretionary 8 hours.
15. Bad Financial Model
Since most people shun financial education, they’ll never learn how to select the best financial vehicles.
As such most people opt to consult financial advisors because they never spent time learning about money, and how to identify the best investment vehicles.
Unaware that even these financial advisors need subsequent financial advice from other experts, they trust their money to these people who end up investing their hard-earned cash in slow investment vehicles that cannot even beat inflation.
If you like my answer vote for it, and consider reading my other answers on various topics in entrepreneurship, success, technology and life, at my Quora profile.
