Momentum Podcast: 24

Habits of The Self Made Billionaire Part 2

by Alex Charfen

Episode Description

Individually self-made billionaires look fundamentally different. When we compare one against the other, it's hard to see what makes them similar, and easy to see what makes them eccentric and unique. Through obsessive research of successful people throughout history, I developed the 10 Habits of the Self Made Billionaire. I was able to confirm and get even closer to the results these patterns created in my professional career when I worked side-by-side with and consulted with individuals who went from somewhat humble beginnings to 10 figure wealth and massive contribution. The secret is, self-made billionaires are just like you and I, only with the habits that create success. The good news is, you can adopt these habits as well, and you don't have to be a billionaire.

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Full Audio Transcript

I'm Alex Charfen and this is the Momentum podcast created exclusively for empire builders, game changers, world makers, shot takers and creators of all kinds. Those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy and obsess about creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution. Sure we pay attention to their rules but only so that we can bend them, break them and rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny, we define it. We don't understand defeat because you only lose if you stop and we don't know how.

While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority. The few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future and instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters, clearly the most important the people in the world because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution and we always will be. This is episode 25, the ten habits of self made billionaires, part two.

Like I said in the first episode, my research, my time around some of the most successful people in the world showed me that they have habits and ways of creating success, ways of creating momentum in their life that the average entrepreneur not only doesn't use, but in so many ways the average entrepreneur does the opposite of what the most successful people do. As I go through these, I want you to think to yourself how do you treat each one of these habits. What is it like in your life, because I want to demonstrate for you, especially in the second half of this podcast, how it would seem that when you look at the habits of billionaires the average entrepreneur almost seems like they're trying to do the exact opposite of what the most successful people do.

As I go through this, you take a read on where you are and I'm going to start with habit number 6. Billionaires rely on communication systems and it's not just billionaires. Every successful entrepreneur who's left their mark on the world, relies on communication systems, because everyone knows that in order for your business to succeed, clear communication is essential. But over the years I've had the chance to meet with many successful entrepreneurs and most of them share a surprising trait. They have trouble communicating. In fact, billionaires, the most successful entrepreneurs tend to have the greatest trouble with communicating. Most of them that I met have dyslexia. They have trouble reading. They have trouble spelling. They have a hard time with electronics and systems and they really see the world in a different way, so how is it possible that they succeed when their communications are vital to their companies, how do they compensate for this overwhelming lack of communication ability.

When I met Daymond John who is the CEO, I think he's still the CEO of FUBU, you have to understand that FUBU was partnered with Samsung. I used to work with Samsung as a consultant. It is massive multi billion dollar organization, so one guy, Daymond John from Shark Tank is partnered with all of Samsung and when we sat down at dinner, I remember it distinctly, he turned the menu towards me and said, "What are we having? It would take me 45 minutes to read this," because he's dyslexic. He can't read. How is it that someone like that can still run multi billion dollar organizations? It's really simple. Billionaires rely exclusively on communication systems. Not their own skill. Billionaires create ways to accurately track progress, measure results, optimize performance. They understand the importance of being able to gain perspective through context and the use systematic communication methods that are consistent and reliable. By doing this, they fill in gaps where their own abilities are lacking and they create momentum. Good luck on trying to get a 'got a minute' with a billionaire. Everything is in a system and everything's expected.

Here's your takeaway. Do you have the right communication systems in place? Are you communicating with too many people, too few? Are you getting 'got a minutes'? Are you interrupted during the day? And are you doing what most entrepreneurs do? Are you relying on communication skill? Billionaires exclusively rely on communication systems. Every communication in their lives, for the most part, goes through some type of a system, a method, a process, an organization so that it gets to them in the right way, but the average entrepreneur seems to want to avoid communication system and relies almost exclusively on skills. For you, look for better ways to document your communications. Make them predicable and make them the simpler the better.

Habit number seven. Billionaires require push communications. I can't state this clearly enough. Every billionaire I've ever worked with, in fact anyone I've ever worked with that's over nine figures in company value, requires push communications. Here's what that means. They don't wait around for someone to communicate with them. They don't go around seeking the information they need, researching their answers for hours. In fact, they expect the information they need to be curated, concise, and delivered directly to them without having to ask.

This is part of the communication systems. Billionaires expect things to get pushed to them. To receive them. People who are worth billions, don't get that way by miring themselves with insignificant or impertinent information. They know exactly what they need to see, and when they need to see it and how. The people who are responsible for creating momentum in a billionaire's world are required to communicate this information without being asked. It's there on time. It's delivered on schedule. They are proactively pushing key information to the top of the 'to do' pile each and every day so that the most successful people in the world know where to invest their time, their effort, their energy to create the most momentum.

Here's a take away for you. When you set up your teams, it's important to communicate expectations clearly. While many top performers might know how to push communication to you, to the most important person in the organization, that's you, take the time to discuss exactly what kind of information you want and what you require to be successful. Every day in my morning huddle, the numbers I need to see are there without me asking for them. That's push communication. Think of where else you can install that in your lives and you cut down on the random acts of communication that confuse all of us.

Habit eight. Be intentional with what you consume. I'm going to say it again because this one is so important, especially in today's world of the unlimited amount of information that we can put out there, that we can see, that we can download, that we can read. Be intentional with what you consume. Consumption in the absence of intention is waste unless you get lucky. Billionaires are incredibly intentional with their consumption of resources. They don't read. They don't look at information. The don't consume data. They won't even pick up a book unless they know why they're doing it. Typically the information they need is relevant to specific issue or decision and if there isn't a need, they ignore it.

In fact, the most successful billionaires and entrepreneurs that I've worked with, are violently ignore information they don't want. If they go to a restaurant where there's a television on and it's playing something they don't want to hear, they will leave or ask for it to be turned off. They like to control environments so that the wrong information doesn't sneak in. This isn't arrogance or ignorance, it's strategic thinking that helps them understand. They ask how does this help me build momentum and progress towards my specific purpose and if it doesn't, they don't look at it.

If your information in your life isn't moving you where you want to be, it's taking momentum away. Billionaires know this and you should too. Here's your takeaway from this habit. If you don't know why you're reading or receiving the information that you're putting in front of yourself, either figure out why it's important or get rid of it. Stop watching the news. Stop getting upset about things in the general public. Stop paying attention to things that aren't moving your business forward. If you want the same success as the people who are at the top of the world, be obsessed with that success and with very little else. Because the average entrepreneur today seems to be in a competition to see who can absorb the most information and they're certainly not curating it and being intentional with what they consume.

Tenant number nine. This is another habit that billionaires have. Make decisions based on data and narrative, not just data. Billionaires don't gamble. They know that numbers lie just as frequently as people. You never see a billionaire take a position on popularity or numbers alone. Instead billionaires make their decisions based on a blend of data and narrative. They want to see the numbers and then they want you to tell them how you get there. Why? Because they know the value of dual perspectives. One rooted in numbers, the other rooted in people. If you rely solely on data, a single mistake, an incorrectly recorded data point could dramatically skew the ability to make the right decision. If you rely solely on narrative, communication from people, your reasoning is subject to swings and popularity, or sentiment, or what people are feeling. It's like making a decision without anything objective to back it up. Only by analyzing the data and having clear communication and narrative with the right people, can you grasp enough of the picture to make quality decisions. That's why when a billionaire's making a decision they get both, and you should too.

Heres the takeaway. Take another look at the numbers you see regularly and consider the narrative around them. What's their context? If you have a team, ensure the numbers they report are joined with a report explaining them. Get the narrative in all cases and you will see the numbers you look at change. They become more important. They're easy to understand. You will get more out of them.

Habit number 10. The last one on the list and maybe one of the most important. Be proactively transparent. Many people think transparency is a willingness to answer questions, but what separates billionaires, especially the ones I've been around from the majority of the society, majority of people I've ever met, is that they are proactively transparent. Billionaires proactively communicate with the intention to avoid misunderstandings and eliminate any type of drag in their organization. They know that vague goals and an unclear purpose can stop momentum in its tracks, so they don't wait for people to approach them with questions, they understand the importance of actively showing up and sharing what they need, what they want, and even what they're feeling.

I'm thinking of one of my friends who is known as one of those people who always knows what's going on in any meeting. You've probably heard this about Richard Branson or Michael Dell, or there's legendary figures in the business world that seem to always understand what the pivot point in the meeting is. What the most important issue going on is and here's what I've observed. I've watched people operate at a level where you would think they knew everything going on in their organization. They walk into a room and even though there's ten executives in a room, within five minutes they know there's a sales conversion issue. They're talking to the VP of Sales and that person is spilling their guts. How do they do that? They walk into the room. They start asking questions and when the VP of Sales seems uncomfortable, they say something like, "You seem uncomfortable. Why don't you explain to me why." I watched it over and over and as soon as they are actively transparent like that, the person tells them exactly what's going on.

For you, think of anything you don't communicate to your team. Think of the times that you're holding things in. Think of the times where you're not saying what you're really feeling. Those are all opportunities for you to be proactively transparent. Being proactively transparent can be uncomfortable at first but it's an accelerator for you, your team, your relationships and everyone around you to find momentum because when we hold things in they come out eventually. When we're proactively transparent, everyone around us knows what to expect. They might not love it. They might not want it all the time but they know what to expect and it creates momentum.

For you, after hearing these ten habits of self made billionaires, what are you going to change? How are you going to adjust? Because here's what I know about being around billionaires over and over again in my life. They are just like you. They have challenges, weaknesses, things that bother them, frustrations, but they have this set of ten habits that creates massive outcomes in the world, allows them to achieve on a global scale. Let's them move the world around like puzzle pieces and create unlimited and indefinite momentum that changes the world. My hallucination is, you adopt these ten habits and you can too.

Thanks for listening to the Entrepreneurial Personality Type momentum podcast. I'm excited to share this stuff with you because by applying this to your life, you will increase the results you get. You will increase the outcomes you chase, but most importantly, you will live in and feel momentum. If you haven't yet do me a favor, leave us a review for this podcast. Let us know how we're doing. That's one of the main metrics iTunes uses to grade us and if you want to know more about the personality type behind every billionaire in history and how they share it with you, download my book, The Entrepreneurial Personality Type at freemomentumbook.com. And don't miss episode 26 where I go into the keystone bio hack that will change all of the momentum in your life. Thanks for being here and we'll see you on episode 26.

Thank You For Listening!

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With gratitude,

Alex

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