How to Think
Like a Billionaire
-Mark Morgan Ford
In his thoroughly entertaining book The Prime Movers, Edwin A. Locke gives this example of
the way entrepreneurs think:
An average person observes
evergreens growing along the roadside and thinks that they look pretty,
especially when partly covered with snow. At this point, his thinking stops. An
entrepreneur observes the same trees and thinks, “These trees would look good
in people’s living rooms at Christmas. I wonder what people would pay for them?
And he would continue to ask such
questions as:
- How hard is it to grow evergreens?
- What investment is required?
- How big should they be before being cut?
- How difficult would it be to cut and transport them?
- How much would it cost?
- How long would they keep before losing their needles?
- Where would they be sold?
- What would the competition be like?
- Could I make other, related products – e.g., wreaths?
- Can I make money in such a seasonal business?
- How much?
- How can I get started?
This kind of active, directed
thinking is one of the things that separate entrepreneurs from the rest of
humanity. In fact, the most successful entrepreneurs in history – all of them
mega-billionaires by today’s standards – seemed to have dynamic, pragmatic
minds.
Locke gives plenty of examples,
including these:
Thomas Edison: He was a “virtual thinking machine. Almost until the day
he died, his mind poured forth a torrent of ideas, and he might track as many
as 60 experiments at a time in his laboratory.”
Steve Jobs: He bombarded people with his ideas – his investors, his
board of directors, his customers, his subordinates, and his CEO John Scully.
Henry Ford: “He threw himself into every detail, insisting on getting
small things absolutely right…. But he never lost sight of the ultimate,
overall objection. He had a vision of what his new car (the Model T) should
look like. From all the improvisation, hard thought, and hard work came a
machine that was at once the simplest and the most sophisticated automobile
built to date anywhere in the world.”
You may be thinking, “Hey, I’m no
Thomas Edison or Steve Jobs or Henry Ford.” Well, neither am I. And I could
rattle off a dozen multi-millionaire entrepreneurs I know who don’t have that
kind of brain capacity either.
Raw intelligence is not the issue.
If it were, Einstein would have been wealthy. What matters in the world of
commerce is how you think.
Some people, whether because of
their upbringing or their DNA, have a natural billionaire mind. But just about
anyone who is smart and ambitious can learn to think like a billionaire.
You can transform your mind
completely and permanently in a matter of a few short months by making small
changes, one at a time. It will take some effort, though. As Joshua Reynolds
once said, “There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the
real labor of thinking.”
Begin by vowing to talk to every
successful person you know or meet. Tell them how much you admire what they
have accomplished and ask them how they do what they do.
You may be amazed at how open they
will be to such inquiries. Nine times out of 10, they’ll be eager to tell you
just about everything they know.
Unfortunately, many of the twentieth
century’s greatest entrepreneurs have been disparaged by historians and the
media. As Locke points out in The Prime Movers, if you mention the names
Andrew Carnegie or John Rockefeller or Cornelius Vanderbilt to most people,
they think “greedy robber barons who took advantage of their circumstances.”
They know nothing about their accomplishments. What they know, for the most
part, is based on persistent myths that prevent them from learning from these
men and prospering.
Locke says:
“It is often claimed that the Prime
Movers have been viewed with suspicion at best and with distaste or repugnance
at worst…. The most basic motive [of those who envy them] is… hatred of the
good for being good… it is hatred of the Prime Movers because they are
intelligent, successful, and competent, because they are better at what they do
than others are.
“The ultimate goal of the haters of
the good is not to bring others up to the level of the most able (which is
impossible) but to bring down the able to the level of the less able – to
obliterate their achievement, to destroy their reward, to make them unable to
function above the level of mediocrity, to punish them, and, above all, to make
them feel unearned guilt for their own virtues.”
When you become super-successful,
you’ll have to learn how to handle the people who are going to resent you for
achieving what they themselves have been unable to do. But first, you have to
get yourself into that enviable position. And you do that by practicing the
thinking of the great entrepreneurs who thought like billionaires and so
amassed billions.
I’ll be writing more on this subject
in the future. But for right now, here are eight characteristics of the
billionaire mind that you can emulate:
1.
A “normal” person is
concerned with protecting his ego. When dealing with a problem he doesn’t
really understand, he pretends he understands the contributing factors and
doesn’t try to find out what anyone else thinks. A person with a billionaire
mind asks questions incessantly. He has no ego when it comes to learning. He
knows that knowledge is power.
2.
A “normal” person has
a consumer mentality. He looks at a hot new product and thinks about how he
would like to own one. A person with a billionaire mind has an entrepreneurial
mentality. He looks at it and thinks, “How can I produce this or something
similar in my own industry?”
3.
A “normal” person is
wish-focused. He daydreams about making gobs of money. A person with a
billionaire mind is reality-based. He is always analyzing his own success and
the success of others and wondering how he could learn from it.
4.
A “normal” person,
when confronted with a challenging idea, thinks of all the reasons why it might
not work. A person with a billionaire mind sees the potential in it and
disregards the problems until he has a clear vision of how it might succeed.
5.
A “normal” person
resists change. A person with a billionaire mind embraces it.
6.
A “normal” person
accepts the status quo. A person with a billionaire mind is always looking to
make things – even good things – better.
7.
A “normal” person
reacts. A person with a billionaire mind is proactive.
8. A “normal” person looks at a successful
business owner and thinks, “That guy’s
lucky.” Or “That guy’s a shyster.” A person with a billionaire mind thinks,
“What’s his secret?” And, “How can I do that?”
Start by being humble and asking
questions. Do this until it becomes a habit. Then take on another
characteristic of the billionaire mind – like looking at a successful new
product and thinking, “How can I do something like that?”
Go through the list, mastering one
characteristic at a time, and within three months you will be able to create
new businesses almost automatically. You will become a natural leader. Money
will flow to you like water coming down a hill. And then you’ll be ready to
deal with all the “normal” people who are jealous of your incredible success.
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Thoughts Here…
