Have you ever stumbled across the “million dollar person” debate? It is one of those ideas that linger in your head long after you hear about it.
And in all fairness, it’s really a simple concept. Most people believe, my former self included, that all there is to being a millionaire is having the bank account showing the numbers.
And though I would never argue if you make my bank balance just about right as for me to call myself a millionaire, much smarter people than me say that there is an easier way of getting there.
In order to have a million dollars, you have to become a million dollar person.
By becoming the person that is able to attract the millions, the issue then is not “if”, but rather “when”. And getting there is a simple game of reverse engineering played day in and day out.
Napoleon Hill was a reverse engineer
It’s a general rule of thumb that whenever common sense is being questioned like this, defense mechanism kicks in. So the question understandably goes – how come, if it is that easy, I don’t already have the money?
The answer, one that is even more straightforward – well, it is not easy.
What Napoleon Hill did, and it turned to be quite effective, was observing a certain number of successful people (millionaires, for our purposes here), and finding, mostly through correlation, the probable reasons for them being so successful.
This, in a nutshell, was how his book “Think and Grow Rich
What fascinates me though, is that nowadays we have software solutions and so much information available to us that even one after-school project would make this best seller outdated (in terms of reverse engineering, that is).
Basically, you can handpick your capitalist heroes, and by only using the internet compile such a detailed database which will help you extrapolate what all of these people share in common.
And since in my book correlation quite often equals causation, I cannot but think that following their practices will without doubt bring you to their level of success.
Want to play basketball like a pro? Train like Jordan.
Want to write like Isaac Asimov? Try reading his library and practice the way he did.
Want to play the violin like Joshua Bell? Well… you get the picture.
And same pattern of thought applies to making millions. What do these people all share in common? They get up early? What, like before 5? They jog, exercise, eat healthy? They meditate? They embrace positive mantras? What?
Napoleon Hill was one of the pioneers of personal development. And he founded his philosophy upon the idea of lifestyle design. It had a century to evolve and take similar shape even in Tim Ferriss’s books. And if you observe what Earl Shauff, Jim Rohn right after him and all the way to Tony Robins, preach, you will notice that it is all about a sermon written from behind.
If it is that easy I should have had the money by now.
Well, not really. Try and analyze a handful of millionaires and compare your daily rituals with their own. I guess that both you and I are not surprised they differ from one another.
And it is as it should be. Otherwise we would have been millionaires by now.
By embracing the fact that in order to make millions you first need to become a million dollar person – one with the right attitude, mindset, level of passion, dedication, enthusiasm, resolve – you, and I both, are one step closer to all those zeroes suddenly adding themselves on our accounts.
There is a saying that goes something like this – “if you take all the money from the rich and give them to the poor, you will not have to wait for long before the money are back to where they first were.”
And this really emphasizes the idea that most of the people who have the millions first became the kind of people who attract such amount of money, and only then they capitalized.
Now here is a though I like to wrap my mind around: If you think that becoming a millionaire is impossible, think of it like this – become the person who is likely to attract million dollars, and it is kind of the same thing. And this, though hard, is not impossible. Not at all.