Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! After covering the basics of investing and starting your own business, I believe that it’s about time we took a step back and looked at the bigger picture. This is why today’s article will be a tad more generic. I’ll give you a couple of quick ideas on how to build wealth and how to lead a more successful life.
Basic principles of success
Some of those points may seem obvious to some of you, you’d be surprised by how many people fail at them. Hundreds of self-made businesspeople (me included) have put these principles to use and believe me when I say this – they really get the job done! It’s all in the details folks!
On the importance of financial freedom
If you want to be successful, you need to be debt-free. If you find yourself in an unfortunate financial situation, try your best to free yourself from the bonds of debt immediately! I’ve said this many times before, and, with the risk of repeating myself, I’ll state it again: Financial freedom is absolutely vital for leading a happy, productive, and successful life. The more time you spend worrying about dealing with bills, mortgage payments, and debts, the less time you have to work on yourself! I’ve already posted a couple of articles on this topic, and, if you’ve missed them, I suggest that you check them out before proceeding, “5 Stocks To Buy In August“, and “Why Should You Invest In Vegan Stocks?“.
Dealing with financial difficulties
If you’re having a hard time with a project or business of yours, instead of giving up on the entire thing, try to be more conservative with your spending. Approach it with a side-job mentality and build from there. Additionally, you should never – ever – leave your job before your business truly gets off the ground. Yes, this can take a couple of years. But you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket!
This can be especially stressful on those of you who already have families or loved ones that rely on them. Sometimes it can feel like everything is just a step away from falling apart, like your project is about to crash and burn, leaving you with nothing to show for all that time and effort you invested. In these times, remaining level-headed and staying on track is doubly important. Realize that our time on this Earth is limited. You’re not only building a stable life (wealth included) for yourself – you’re mainly doing it to secure a future for those who come after you. If you give up now, you’d be letting them down! Do everything in your power to remain on course and never give up!
Income vs savings
If you already have a stable job, things will be much easier. As a matter of fact, I suggest you do your best to secure a nice position for yourself in an already established company before starting a business or project of your own. Registering a business name and getting a website together can be done on a very limited budget – that much is true. But if you really want to get something serious going, you’ll need a lot of resources. At the bare minimum, you’ll need:
- A base of operations – While this may vary, depending on your field and niche, most companies will need a place in which to conduct their business. This can be anything from a small office with a couple of laptops, a warehouse for supplies to a big office building, complete with break rooms, meeting rooms, and the likes.
- A competent team – in the modern world, reputation is everything. This is doubly important for small and medium-sized teams – you’ll need all the recommendations and positive feedback that you can get. And good reputations don’t build themselves!
- A well-designed and functional website – Probably the number one requirement for running a successful modern business, a good website will not only help with getting your message out there but also generate tons of leads passively. Not to mention that it’s much more cost (and time)-efficient than running advertisements or handing out leaflets.
- A solid marketing program – no matter how great your product or service is, the clients can’t get to you if they don’t that you exist!
- Good advisors – For a beginner, having access to reliable lawyers, accountants, business consultants, and investment experts will make your life easier. For a business that’s looking to grow and expand, they’re a necessity, not a luxury!
And do you know what all of those things have in common? That’s right – they all cost money. Money that you’ll need to get from somewhere, without going into debt. And what’s the best way to get money? By having a solid job, of course!
Here are the 12 ideas on how to have a successful life
Master the art of setting goals
The very first step of having successful life is learning how to set goals. And while it might sound simple at first glance, believe me when I say that this topic is so expansive that it deserves a full-length article of its own. As a matter of fact, there are countless books, focused entirely on the art of goal setting! For the purpose of this post, however, I’ll give you a short checklist:
- Focus on your passions – don’t dive into things that you aren’t passionate about. That’s just a recipe for disaster.
- Look into SMART goals – a simple, yet effective system of setting goals, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely is a great place to start. You want any goal to be specific, your progress towards it – easy to measure, the end result needs to be within the realm of possibility, relevant to your current situation, and doable in a certain time frame.
- Don’t just aim for “getting rich” – if your goal is too generic, getting lost along the way is a huge possibility.
- Write down your goals – writing things down helps you keep track of things easier and helps with overcoming commitment issues.
Do the math
Establishing proper goals can take a while, but sitting down and figuring out how to actually achieve them is a whole new level! Now is the time to do the math and see what you need to do (you can refer to my list of bare necessities above).
Educate yourself
No matter how good you might be at what you do, there’s always room for improvement. And, if you’re just planning your business now, chances are that you don’t yet know everything about running it. After all, if you already had all the skills and knowledge, you wouldn’t be reading this article – you’d be busy running your successful business!
I’ve written many articles on the importance of self-improvement, reading, and learning new skills, so I won’t go into details here. I will, however, suggest that you at least skim through my previous posts to get a better idea of what I’m talking about – I’ll leave some links for you at the end of this post!
Work on your self-discipline
Generally speaking, the harder your work, the quicker you’ll be able to get to your goal. As with most things, your experience may vary based on the type and field of your business, but more often than not more work will mean faster and (better!) results.
If you’re having troubles with motivation, ask yourself –do you really want to achieve your goal? Is this really your “calling” in life? Is this how you’re going to “make it” big? If you answer with “yes” to any of these questions, then it’s simply a matter of pushing through your laziness. Otherwise, you might want to consider going back to the drawing board!
Get things done right
When you’re trying to get a business off the ground, there’s no room for distractions. Set strict “working hours” for yourself and focus on getting things done. And yes, this means abstaining from most of the usual distractions. No social media, no YouTube videos, and no random chats with your friends during work hours! Treat your business like a serious project, because it is one!
You don’t have to do *everything* by yourself!
Yes, you might have a solid grasp on most aspects of your business (and if you don’t – try your best to learn as much as can as quickly as you can!), but you’re just one person with limited time. If you’re getting involved in every single detail and trying to do everything on your own, you aren’t going to get very far. Taking care of production, sales, distribution, marketing, website maintenance, and accounting could work at the very start of your business. But as soon as you have more than a handful of clients, it will slow things down to a crawl.
As a business leader, your main job is to *lead* the business towards a brighter future. And you can’t do that if you’re spending every waking hour on menial, repetitive tasks. Find yourself a good team and don’t stress about outsourcing some of the more repetitive tasks. Your people are (hopefully) professionals and their time is best spent doing what they do best!
Constantly look for ways to improve your business
The best thing about modern technology is all of the statistical data that it gives us. If everything has been set up correctly, all of your sales, production, and distribution information should be a mere mouse click away! This allows you to quickly and easily see the exact results of all the calls, deals, and decisions that you’ve made. Use your information to draw conclusions and steer your business in the right direction.
Don’t overindulge
Don’t go on random spending sprees. Ever. Not only is this horrible for your image (and self-control), but it can also devastate your wallet. Remember that, at the end of the day, you need money to make money. Running your business takes resources and the more resources you put in, the more money will come out (provided you get things right). A short vacation every now and then is fine. Random spending sprees and not.
Invest
That’s a big one. As a matter of fact, I believe that learning the why, when, and how of investing is so important, that I’ve written an entire article series about it (you can find a link at the bottom of this page). Generally, you will want to invest most of your earnings back into your business, but getting an investment gig or two on the side will greatly benefit you in the long run!
Find a good mentor
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Sure, you could figure everything out on your own, but this means that you’ll make mistakes. Yes, that’s right – nobody is immune to making mistakes! But in business, mistakes usually cost two things – time and money. Both of which also happens to be the main factors that stand in the way of business growth. So here’s my suggestion – why not look for someone who has already walked the same path and learn from their (costly) mistakes?
No matter how unique your idea or niche, there are at least a couple of people out there who’ve tried and succeeded in doing something similar to your project. And, more often than not, they’d be willing to share their experience if you approached them. Then there’s also the “generic” type of business coaches and mentors, who can teach you about important things that every business owner needs to deal with sooner or later. A good mentor will not only help you avoid failures but will also help you achieve your goals much faster!
Work on networking
If you want to succeed in the business world, you’ll need connections. Knowing the right people can help you find great team members, learn about crucial market changes in time, snatch good deals before your competitors can get their paws on them, explore new fields, expand your horizons and get new ideas. As a business leader, one of your main jobs is to create connections. Rich and successful people generally prefer the company of other rich and successful people, since they usually share similar qualities and interests. Furthermore, they tend to be more open-minded and uplifting. You’ll rarely find successful people who drag others down or try to talk them out of their ideas. Instead, they’ll usually try to uplift their peers, instilling them with confidence and positivity.
Build a solid portfolio and work on diversifying it
So, your business is up and running. You’ve got a happy and productive team and the clients just can’t get enough of your product or service. You’ve also managed to establish a solid network of professionals to exchange ideas and experience with. Now finally comes the time to kick back, relax and go on a month-long vacation to spend all of that hard-earned money right? Wrong.
As I mentioned above, if you want to have a successful life in the long term, you’ll want to put as much of your profits as possible back into the business. In this case, however, you might want to think bigger than your current project.
Once you’ve got good connections, you can start looking at the bigger picture – joint ventures and group investments can put incredible opportunities at your fingertips! Everything that you’ve done before can now be scaled up. Instead of investing in a small apartment, you could buy an entire building. Instead of working on a project with a team of 20 experts, you’ll suddenly have access to hundreds of qualified professionals. A smart business leader will use this to expand and diversify his portfolio and secure his success for years to come!
Ebooks:
Seminar:
Recommended for further reading:
- Mindset – Updated Edition: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential
- Keys to Success – Napoleon Hill
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
- How to Make Money in Stocks: A Winning System In Good Times And Bad
- Stock Market Investing For Beginners: The Investment Guide
Recommended Links:
Thanks for sharing this very useful blog. 🙂