How to Become a Millionaire

Many people aspire to being a millionaire but not so many people are pushing their self hard to reach that particular goal. In a world where being a billionaire is now the new target for the rich, becoming a millionaire is a real possibility for many an average Joe and it mostly comes down to good management, sensible thinking and occasional calculated risks.

Becoming a millionaire won't happen simply by sitting there and praying for money or entering the lottery every week and it won't happen by simply reading how to make it happen – after learning what tools to use and mindset to adopt, the rest of the real effort is up to you actually doing something to achieve this goal.

Method 1 of 6: The mindset

1. Believe in the goal of becoming a millionaire. This isn't something to discuss about "possibilities" or "maybes". You must believe that you both deserve to be and will become a millionaire. Many people don't truly believe they deserve more money than they're already getting. In fact, many people discount wealth as being bad, dirty, an evil, and something ignoble to pursue. Yet, this ignores the reality that money creates opportunities both for yourself and for others. With more money, you can help more people just as much as you can help yourself. For example, you will have far greater opportunities to help others through charity donations, mentoring, creating projects that people can be a part of and possibly even providing jobs if you're a business person. None of these things are tainted reasons for wanting to be rich.

• Determining that you don't deserve to be wealthier is akin to determining to undervaluing yourself. Don't pursue this route of thinking any further. You deserve to reap rewards for the hard work and hard thinking that you put in to your endeavors.
• Decide what you plan on doing with your new found fortune. If you have no idea what you will be doing with your newfound freedom, chances are it will be harder having money than not. Money does not equal happiness. If you already had a million dollars, what would you spend your days doing? Answering that question might also be the answer to how you should go about making your millions. Follow your passion.
• Are you someone who goes around saying, "I don't want to be rich", with an air of pride at what you're going through? Consider what you would think if a rich distant relative died and left you a few million. Would you still say, "Oh take that money away and give it to someone else. I don't want to be rich." Be honest with yourself.

2. Decide what your motive for being a millionaire is. If you are struggling with the "ignoble" thoughts about the pursuit of money, hammer them out now. If you don't face them, they will dog you and interfere with your ability to become a millionaire. They can easily erode your faith that you can or deserve to become a millionaire and that you have what is needed to make and sustain this level of money in your life. Ask yourself:

• Why do I think that having more money is ignoble? Is it because I am too scared to put myself out there, to announce to the world, however subtly, that I am not afraid to make more money? Or do I simply distrust myself worth and daily convince myself that I cannot make more money than I do already?
• Do I like the idea of a comfortable lifestyle? What about that should cause me to fight the gaining of more money in my life? Should I tie myself down to a "near enough is good enough" existence for all times?
• Can I be bothered putting in hard work to reap rewards? Whether this is hard intellectual or physical work is neither here nor there – it is a rare person indeed who has millions fall on their lap without inputting effort. And for those who do inherit or win their millions, the result is often one involving mismanagement because the value of those millions is diminished by lacking the understanding of the effort taken to get them first. Be prepared to cherish the opportunity to put in the effort.
• How passionate am I about becoming a millionaire? You need to be passionate or you won't remain focused.
• Do I have other priorities stronger than targeting becoming rich? This question is important. It isn't wrong to say "yes, I'd rather live by the sea and paint all day". That's your choice and if it makes you happy, go with it. However, you can't balance such a pursuit (usually creative pursuits) with a desire to become a millionaire, so don't try to juggle both. Choose one or the other and be content with the choice.

3. Don't confuse the financial freedom of being a millionaire with being a glamor-driven spendaholic. This latter image is the antithesis of a true millionaire. Most millionaires have a rather frugal mindset, ready to reinvest money repeatedly, keeping a careful eye on the money they do have and finding ways to grow it continually. It is often the less wealthy or those newly wealthy but lacking in future focus who splurge on all the trappings of wealth to evidence their ability to do so (known as "aspirationals", people who want to be rich, act rich but aren't rich). Continue like that and soon the money runs dry when it isn't balanced by continued proper investment and consideration for continued sustaining of the income generation potential of your initial million or so. While being glam and flashy is your prerogative, only behave this way if you're also carrying out the careful calculations behind the scenes to protect yourself against huge loss and you remain oriented on the future maintenance of your wealth.

• A millionaire does not have to have a mansion, a sports car, a wardrobe larger than a house, all the diamonds a person can possibly wear, etc. These are images of glamor, not necessarily manifestations of fulfillment. Indeed, if you haven't worked out your greater purpose for living, all these trinkets are mere distractions that will prevent you from focusing on what matters in life. Becoming a millionaire isn't the answer to all the problems you can't be bothered to face internally. 

4. Get rid of the phrase "if only" from your vocabulary. It will always hold you back. If only you had a fairy godmother, you wouldn't need this article, so it's time to get real.

Method 2 of 6: Your health and stamina

1. Be in good health before embarking on a journey to become a millionaire. Making money and making good decisions that create more money in your life require that you are in good shape. Keep fit, eat well, and take good care of your body. It is your health that will provide you with the energy and resources needed to keep going on the commitment to becoming a millionaire. If you neglect your health and allow yourself to be overwhelmed by stress, fatigue, doubts and resentment, then you are far less likely to succeed. 

2. Be tenacious. Success requires an ability to keep getting up after failures. There will be plenty of failures as you try to find the best ways to make a million or more. This isn't about the safety net of an average salary and the boss's orders being met each day. To become a millionaire, you have to be prepared to make decisions that won't always succeed but if the risks aren't taken, then the potential for success won't be realized either.

• Are you okay with being humiliated? No, few people would say yes to that. However, you need to be prepared to cope with humiliation when things go so wrong that people have huge smirks on their face and wag their finger at you saying, "I told you so". Realize that acting like that makes them feel good but that it's also a chance for you to learn from what hasn't worked. Brush off the humiliation, analyze what went wrong, and start again, until you get it right. Looking like a fool comes with the territory, so you'd better get used to it.

3. Check your self-confidence. If it's low, now is the time to build it up. High self-esteem (not self-absorption) and good self-confidence are essential traits to help you on your way. However, don't let this delay you. You can fake it until you make it and the more you practice being confident, the sooner it becomes a part of who you are.

• If you have a problem with how other people see you, becoming a millionaire will be difficult. You risk being weighed down by trying to mollify their expectations instead of forging a path ahead that improves your chances of becoming wealthy. People will think whatever they think whatever you do; at least give them reason to think it!
• Be sure to remain modest in outlook though. Self-confidence is not about egotistical shows of wealth!

4. Realize now that people will stand in your way. You'll be admired and detested all at once. There will always be a group of people that stands to one side mocking or naysaying the choices of those who stand up and decide to do big things for themselves. Even if you're secretly squirreling away money and not making overt displays of being well-off, people will sense that you're doing better and living with less worry than them and that alone bothers some enough to vent their own resentment and annoyance your way. Expect it but don't take it personally. Develop a thick skin and a heart of great compassion. As long as you've examined your motives for becoming a millionaire, you should already know within yourself that what you're doing to become richer is of value to the world as a whole.

• People usually try to stop you for one of two reasons. If they care about you, they'll be worried that you are going to fail and be disappointed or harmed by the experience. If they don't so much care about you, it's possible that they're worried about you showing them up for not being able to seize the initiative to improve their lives as you're seeking to do. The best way to deal with the fears of either type is not to deal with them. Pull yourself right away from the negativity and listen to your own reasons for committing to this trajectory.

5. Unearth your sense of humor. You're going to need it. Making money requires a flexible nature and a sense of the sublimely ridiculous. Don't allow yourself to be let down by the overly serious attitudes of others and in turn, don't be too serious about the money game itself. Be serious about the rules of the game and how to play but don't get so caught up in the game itself that you take yourself too seriously and forget to enjoy the venture.

Method 3 of 6: The actions

1. Think about becoming a millionaire. Now you've done that, stop it. It's time to start doing something instead. However, do spend some time reading other millionaires' advice. Some suitable books to read include:

• Thomas J Stanley, The Millionaire Next Door (2004) and Stop Acting Rich... and Start Living Like a Real Millionaire (2009)
• Alexander Green, The Gone Fishin' Portfolio.

2. Stop spending and be thrifty. This is a key element of becoming a millionaire. Either you have the money in savings or you're spending it on things. You can't have both if you're aiming to become a millionaire. Most millionaires (a net worth of $1 million to $10 million) are living a very frugal and cost-effective life, without hyper-expenditure. This includes:

• Keep the cost of your residence under half a million dollars.
• Don't buy a second home; rent your holiday homes instead.
• Don't buy a boat. Rent one when you need it.
• Buy quality clothing but don't pay ridiculous prices. A suit under $400 is about what you should pay.
• Wear inexpensive watches, jewelry, and accessories.
• Don't collect things.
• Drive a reliable but affordable car of an ordinary brand.
• Avoid prestige and luxury brands. They're the same thing over-packaged and targeted at aspirationals and those with millions more than you'll probably ever get. But remember, you can have some millions if you spend wisely.
• Stop equating spending with happiness. A total no-win way to think.
• Stop comparing yourself to others and trying to keep up with them through spending.

3. Enjoy the finer and often free or least expensive things in life. If racing about the city in a Ferrari and living a champagne lifestyle on your wage thrills you, forget becoming a millionaire anytime soon. Becoming a millionaire means enjoying the less showy, simpler things in life, such as:

• Visiting museums, art galleries, zoos, nature reserves, parks, sporting events
• Entertaining friends and spending time with friends
• Community volunteering and activities, being involved
• Visiting the library and other civic places
• Gardening, craft, painting, caring for pets, etc.
• Raising money for charities and beloved causes or lending a hand
• Following spiritual pursuits including thinking about the bigger picture
• Spending time with family of all ages
• Exercising such as jogging, walking, running, cycling and swimming
• Studying, attending lectures, writing poems, etc.

4. Live beneath your means. Whether you choose to follow the subsequent suggestions about getting into business, living beneath your means is an important part of accumulating wealth over stuff. In order to do this realign your focus of what matters to you. What sorts of achievements and recognition do you want in life that doesn't involve consumption?

5. Consider what you're doing now. If you're in a regular, salaried job, the chances are that you're not going to become a millionaire, even if you forgo almost everything and live like a total hermit and save most of your salary. At that rate, you might be lucky to be a millionaire when you're bitter enough to enjoy it. And look at it this way – you're making your employer richer, not yourself. Does that feel good? This requires you to step outside of your comfort zone - are you ready for that?

• If you define yourself by a profession or trade, you're going to find it hard to let go and wander around the world of being an entrepreneur. While your trained skills can be of great importance to you in a wider context, they can hamper you in the pursuit of becoming a millionaire. Millionaire teachers and plumbers aren't as commonplace as you might like to dream.

6. Be prepared to get into business. Salaried jobs are going to be a much slower and possibly impossible way to become the millionaire you want to become. A salaried job might make some CEOs into millionaires quickly but the responsibility and the potential for huge liabilities are somewhat off-putting for most people and it's a slow and not necessarily sure rise to the top of companies large enough to pay salaries in the millions. Are you prepared to sit around and wait for such a possibility, that may or may not happen, or would you rather be at the helm of your millionaire status?

7.Look at what people need, not necessarily at what you want when deciding on a business. When deciding on a business, you might be drawn to all the pretty and glamorous opportunities in the world. Things like making movies, iPods, and dresses. The trouble is, many people have already truly cornered those markets. However, there will always be things people need and they need them to be done well. Things like garbage disposal, energy creation, providing products to the health and dying industries, etc. These may not be as glamorous as you'd like but they're essential and noble in their own right. In addition, the certainty of customers should not be overlooked lightly. People won't die without an iPod but they will die if their drinking water is either inaccessible or unclean. Choose a business that provides what people really need and be prepared to put in the effort to make your products and services either the best, the most price efficient or the unique.

8. Have a frugal start up. There is much talk about "looking the part". There isn't much point looking the part if it cost an arm and a leg to get it and you lack clients to pay for it. Get yourself a fabulous suit that is worn every day and makes you feel confident and ready to meet people but be very careful with your office fit-out and other business elements. Here are some ideas to help you initially:

• Consider hiring offices that someone else furnishes, cleans and that get shared around. Spend only the time needed in them, to cut costs.
• If you do have your own offices, hire furniture or buy it cheap at auction. Use flowers and posters to prettify it rather than trying to make bold statements about how much you can afford. You can't afford much when starting out, so conserve, conserve, conserve.
• Lease anything that needs to be constantly updated, computers being number one in this group.
• Keep staff expenses under strict control from the beginning.
• Fly economy. Or use Skype and other online forms of virtual conferencing and avoid flying at all.
• Be eco-aware and turn off unused items all the time. Save the planet and your bottom line.
• Transfer this thinking to all of your life.

9. Monitor cashflow with an eagle eye in your start up business. This is one time in life where obsession is a good quality. Every cent counts and if it's not in your savings or being churned back into your business, it's in someone else's pocket.

• Don't neglect the viability of your business. Always pay attention to what isn't working and remedy it at the earliest possible opportunity.
• Don't neglect the mundane but essential parts of running a business, like timesheets, tax, petty cash, invoicing, etc. Do them with clockwork regularity or employ someone who is capable to deal with these things.
• Keep reassessing your overheads. If they spiral out of control, reduce them. Remember that thing about humiliation above? Better to be humiliated and save your business than to be prideful and lose it.
• Deal with bad debt as soon as it rears its head. It isn't going away, so the earlier you face it, the better.

10. Find a mentor who has walked the walk and seek advice. Surround yourself with already-made millionaires. They can be found in several places, there's even a private online club where you can have a millionaire mentor personally show you how to make money in many areas online.

Method 4 of 6: Active decisions for passive income sources

1. Familiarize yourself with savings. If you're used to maxing out the credit card and not saving much, you're going to find it hard to become a millionaire at any stage in your lifetime. Begin by opening a savings account purely for keeping aside money and add to it regularly. This should be different from your every day savings account that you use to draw bill payments from and it should preferably be one that has a higher interest rate than your usual savings account options.

• Having a savings account is one of the many ways where you can set your money up to work for you. Your initial deposit of money grows whether you make additional deposits by interest. Learn the different types of accounts, including accounts like IRAs.
• Savings requires good self-discipline. Spend time working on any bad habits that take away from your self-discipline. Focus on what you can accomplish by saving rather than hoarding stuff or showing off to others through conspicuous consumption.

2. Invest in stocks. If you're gung-ho for individual stocks, buy stocks of the companies whose products and services you use or purchase. One of the best ways to invest in individual stocks is through an investment club; you may want to consider forming one with your friends. However, whatever way you choose to buy stocks, get really sound and good financial advice first. Do your due diligence on that financial adviser - check their reputation and record of accomplishment first

• Blue chip investments may be slower and less exciting than other stocks but in the long-run, they're sounder.

3. Buy mutual funds. Mutual funds are an investment of other investments. When you own a mutual fund, you own the securities (stocks, bonds, cash) within the mutual. With mutual funds, you are pooling your money with other investors and diversifying your investment.

Method 5 of 6: Blue moon opportunities

1. Be ready to make use of luck when it arises. Luck is not something you can conjure up. However, when luck and your preparedness to leap on an opportunity collide, be ready to take advantage of the luck. Many people are too afraid to trust lucky opportunities but if you are well prepared, the risk can be reduced while the opportunity can be amazingly good for your wealth.  

2. Tie your fortunes to an emerging industry. This carries a huge amount of risk but can pay off well if you have done your homework, hedged your bets and still have something in reserve for when the risk goes belly-up. 

3. Audition for game shows. Game shows earn their money by the audience, not the contestants. Seek to win Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. If you don't know the answer to the question, just guess you have a 25% chance of getting it right, if you do know the answer, then say it.  

4. Gamble. Join every other hopeful at the races, in the casino and placing bets. Or buy lottery tickets. And sit around waiting and waiting and waiting. Hope is a wonderful thing when it gives you motivation to keep going but it's a terrible thing when all it does is cause you to wait for some perfect day of someone else's making. It isn't going to happen and all those stories about big winners are a drop in the ocean compared to all the people who haven't won the lottery, the bet, the game, the whatever.

• Gambling is time consuming. It can also be exhausting. Wouldn't you rather put that time and effort into something more likely to produce real dividends?

5. Marry a millionaire. Slim chances. Moreover, this millionaire may not see his or her money as yours. There may be a pre-nup, you may have to eschew your friends, family and former lifestyle to deal with this person's quirks and honestly, is this the best plan you can come up with?

6. Inherit it. What are your chances? Well, first you have to be in a family with a millionaire. Then you need to be favored ridiculously enough to be included in the will. And there are never any guarantees that you'll either be in the will or what the will leave you with. There are plenty of tales of Great Uncle Joe going potty in his final days and deciding to leave his millions to the cat home and his favorite socks to the family. Besides which, waiting around to inherit your millions is a sad way to lead a life. Ultimately, inherited wealth tends to bring a sense of complacency with it. If you're wanting to become a millionaire to change the world, then this isn't likely to be your best approach.

Method 6 of 6: What next

1. Stop reading this article and all the other books about becoming a millionaire. Get out there and start doing. Go on, be off with you.

• The time is right. The place is right. You are the right person. Anything else is an excuse.

2. Know Your Outcome. Start with the beginning in mind. If your goal is to make $1 million then write it down, put it in front of you where you see it every day. You can't hit a target you're not aiming at.

3. Get Committed. Get emotionally associated, connected, to why it's a must to make the million dollars. Visualize your life and what it will be like when you have the million dollars. Think of all the good you will do with the money. Then think of how crappy you're going to feel if you don't make the money. Who are you going to hurt most?

4. Brainstorm an Action Plan. Rarely does anybody to a straight path to make $1 million. Write down at least 30 ideas for ways to make $1 million.

5. Find Your Business Sweet Spot. There are only three pieces to this. First, know your strengths that are unique to you, or at least where you can add unique value. Then find a market, a group of people, who want what you have to offer. Finally, you have to make sure those people will pay money for what you have to offer.

6. Define Your Brand. A brand is nothing more than a belief system that people have about you and your business. People will want to do business with somebody or some company they believe will solve a specific problem they have. You must be seen as the solution to that problem.

7. Create Your Business Model. Your business model must be either high fidelity or high convenience. If it's high fidelity you will have fewer customers who will pay a lot. You need 100 customers at $10,000 each to make $1 million. If it's high convenience you will have many customers paying you small amounts. You need 100,000 customers paying you $10 each to make $1 million.

8. Decide on Your Exit Strategy. The simplest way to make $1 million is to create a business, an asset that you can sell. People will often pay 2x annual earnings for a business. That means a $500,000 a year business can be sold for $1 million. That beaks down to having a business that makes roughly $40,000 per month.

9. Make More Profits from Existing Customers. The fastest way to increase your income is to sell more products and services to your existing customers. Find ways to add even more value, and offer the products and services to your existing customer base.

10. Build Systems and Scale Up. This is the entire secret to a massive acceleration in your income. If you create a product that sells for $100, and you know that $50 spent on advertising consistently produces 1 sale, you have a winning model, as long as you picked a large market. Scale up.

11. Hire Great People. Looking back, one of the biggest reasons I was able to go from a $60,000 a year income to a multi-million dollar business was because I hired great people. This is why all the large corporations focus on team-building and leadership -the only way to have a great team is to be a great leader.

Tips

• Think wise, think big, think practical and think about the steps and sacrifices you're going to have to take to get where you want to be.
• Money can never buy true happiness. Do not lose your friends and family over making money.
• Make it about something else than money. It has to be fun. You are doing it to become financially well off, but few wealthy get off on that alone.
• Don't use a credit card much, all the excessive spending will come back to haunt you, and you may end in debt. Try getting a debit card for daily purchases, they're a lot easier to deal with. Use your credit card only for emergencies, and to establish your good credit.
• Make friends with people who are different than you. They can be the greatest source of inspiration and guidance if you are open to their different perspective.
• Make friends with people who share the same goals and values. It will reduce your downtime, and give you pleasure when you are down.
• It is OK to be cheap, but never be cheap on things that give you value.
• Think a lot on why you want to become rich, what exactly you want to buy, what lifestyle you want. Make it specific, and date your time for having it and why it matters to you.
• Find a "system" that has been proven to make people become millionaires. The top five producers of millionaires today are: technology - internet marketing, direct marketing, home-based business, product distribution, and investments (stocks, bonds, real estate investment / development). Usually, the most stable and reliable forms of income would be from internet marketing, technology, and real estate, with internet marketing, and home based businesses requiring the least money to set up. Investments like real estate and stocks are usually quite risky and time consuming.
• Never invest more than you are willing to lose. This is particularly important when you start. The older and more experienced you get the less risk you are likely to take, or the better you are capable of taking it.
• Make it a game. Looking for opportunities to make money is supposed to be fun. Never sweat it.
• Plan. Define what you want, act on it, and evaluate often to see how you are going.
• Money represents value. You might come to the understanding that you make money on giving something that other value more than they pay. You spend the money to get something that is more valuable.
• Control your expenses. You get rich on the difference between that and what you make.
• Help others. Learn to be a caring individual that makes the world better for people around yourself. It will lead to more positivity coming your way. Also, donating to charities can come back to you in the form of tax deductions.
• Read. The more you know the more you will perceive to be possible, the more you can make.
• If possible, make the maximum out your retirement fund provided either by your government or your work. Then proceed to put as much money in to an account like a Roth IRA.
• Try not to take any big loans, because that's "big" money that you'll just have to pay back, and you could end in debt for that also.

Warnings

• Money doesn't always buy happiness (but it can take care of almost everything else).
• The internet is full of scams. Do not invest any money in them unless you know they are legit.
• Never steal money. Don't get any ideas about robbing the bank.
• Be prepared to make choices that are different than most people around you.
• Do not brag about how much money you have. Thieves will be more likely to target you.
• Outside of saving your money, there is no guarantee that you will make money through stocks. You should be wary of anyone who tells you otherwise.
• Keep riches and wealth in perspective i.e. don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg. In other words, avoid neglecting the source of the wealth e.g. decent health.
• Unless you are the wealthiest person in the world, there will always be someone with more money than you; there will always be someone with less money than you.
• Have a clear conscience, and make sure you as well don't lose all the other important things in life like relationships and social interactions. Money has no worth without these.
• Some people steal to become rich. Of course, that's an option but it's illegal.

Sources and Citations

• Alexander Green, Beyond Wealth, (2011), ISBN 978-1-118-02761-5 – research source

http://personal-growth.org/how-to-make-a-million-dollars-top-10-steps/ Original source, used with permission.