The Bridge to Tomorrow

Do you know where you will be in five years?

What will your life be like, five years from today?

What would you like your life to look like five years from today? 

If you don’t know where you are going, the path to take really doesn’t matter.

In my research of the rich and the poor, the poor did not do much, if any planning, for their future.

The reason?

They were not very optimistic about their future.

And that was because they possessed some negative beliefs that held them back in life.

In particular, they did not believe they were in control of the circumstances of their life.

That’s too bad because, as my research showed, poor people can become self-made millionaires.

In fact, 41% of the self-made millionaires in my study were raised in poverty.

And my research is validated by famous poor people:

• Oprah Winfrey was raised poor. 
• Ben Carson, renowned neuro-surgeon, former Presidential candidate and Secretary of the Housing and Urban Development federal agency, rose from poverty.
• Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks, was poor.

I could spend the rest of my life writing books about poor people who became millionaires — there are so many!

So, how do poor people rise from poverty?

They start by creating a vision of their ideal, future lives.

Sometimes this vision is in writing — a script that paints a picture with words about what their future lives will be.

Sometimes this vision is represented by pictures of the things they want in life.

And sometimes this vision is just inside their minds.

The next step in the process, is to build a bridge that will take them from poverty to wealth.

This bridge almost always involves changing their habits:

• They forge the Rich Habit of Reading to Learn. This gives them the knowledge that will help them become virtuosos in some field, industry or profession.
• The forge the Rich Habit of Deliberate Practice. They develop skills and then practice those skills every day until they become virtuosos in some field, industry or profession.
• The forge the Rich Habit of Building Rich Relationships. They surround themselves with other success-minded, upbeat visionaries, like themselves. 
• They forge the Rich Habit of Saving Money. You can’t invest what you don’t have. They save money by living below their means and then, at some point, they invest that money wisely. This almost always requires that they take some calculated risk.
• They forge the Rich Habit of Formal Education.  They go to college, grad school, obtain Ph.D.’s, etc. This usually requires that they incur Good Debt – debt that is an investment in themselves.
• The forge the Rich Habit of Dream-Setting. They pursue some dreams.
• They forge the Rich Habit of Finding a Success Mentor in life. Success mentors teach you what to do and what not to do. They guide you along the right path in life by showing you what to read, how to develop skills, and how to practice so that you can perfect those skills.

The path from poverty to wealth is never an easy one.

But the one thing all self-made millionaires have in common is a bridge — they build a bridge that takes them from the Today Me to the Tomorrow Me.

That bridge, however, is not built by bricks, mortar or steel.

It is built by habits.

About Tom Corley Tom is a CPA, CFP and heads one of the top financial firms in New Jersey. For 5 years, Tom observed and documented the daily activities of wealthy people and people living in poverty and his research he identified over 200 daily activities that separated the “haves” from the “have nots” which culminated in his #1 bestselling book, Rich Habits – The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals. Visit the website: www.richhabits.net