The next article features a transcript with Clay Clark (Entrepreneur of the Year) and Caleb Taylor discussing the habits of millionaires and what it takes to be one on Thrive15.com, one of the most practical business coach and business conferences out there!
Caleb: My name is Caleb Taylor. I’m a host here at Thrive15, and today we will be sitting down with Clay Clark, the palest man in the world and founder of Thrive15. The topic today is how to become a self-made millionaire. Guys, if Clay Clark can do it, I promise you, you can, too. He’s going to be telling us exactly how that’s done. Today, we’ll be looking at specific habits that all these self-made millionaires share and tell you how to apply those same habits in your own life. These habits are simple. We’ll walk through each step with you and teach you how to implement them immediately, whether it’s your budget or mindset.
All right Clay, today we are talking about the ten characteristics of the self-made millionaire. You are a self-made millionaire. We were all thinking, if you can do it, other people can, too, right?
Clay: Yeah.
Caleb: It’s not as hard as we’re led to believe.
Clay: I want to make sure we’re clear on this, because I think a lot of people have fallacies about this.
Caleb: Okay.
Clay: To become a millionaire, it means if you take all your assets and you add them up together, your total net worth would be a million dollars. A lot of people would define a millionaire as being someone who makes a million dollars a year, or who has a million dollars of cash. I want to make sure everybody’s clear on this. If you had a million dollars of cash today, you would now have 400 thousand dollars of cash, because after taxation you would lose it all.
Caleb: Right.
Clay: I want to make sure your goal here would be to have a million dollars of net worth. That would be the goal here. I think a lot of people are trying to bet a million dollars of cash, and I’m telling you, every time you put a dollar in your bank, you have pay taxes on that.
Caleb: Right.
Clay: You really would have to have two millions dollars to have a million. I think it’s important that we all think about this from the very beginning. To be a millionaire, that means you have a million dollar net worth.
Caleb: Got it.
Clay: Your assets versus your liabilities … million dollars.
Caleb: Got it.
Clay: Cool.
Caleb: You passionately believe that anybody can do this. This isn’t something that’s crazy. It’s not unobtainable. Where does that belief come from?
Clay: One, I want to, again, I’m not trying to belabor nuances, but I think anybody who is diligent; who is hard-working, meaning that they apply effort consistently; anybody who has high integrity; anybody who has a discernible skill can do it.
If you have a skill, and you have integrity, and you’re diligent, you can do it. I’ve seen it happen time and time again. If you don’t have any skills, and you’re not diligent, and you don’t have integrity, you cannot ever do it. If you’re watching this and you’re like the get rich quick guy, you’re like, “I just want to get rich as quick as possible, and then I’m willing to compromise my integrity. I just want to bet it all.” If you’re that kind of person, you’re not going to ever get there.
Caleb: Right.
Clay: If you’re watching this, and you have no skills at all, you’re not going to do it. You have to learn skills.
Caleb: Right.
Clay: Everyone can do it if you have those three things.
Caleb: I like it. I know there’s a book that you’ve read, The Millionaire Next Door, written by Thomas J. Stanley, PhD, and William Danko, PhD. That book really challenges the belief that most people have about what millionaires are. Who are millionaires? A lot of times we think, oh, that’s just the wealthy getting wealthier, but this book really challenges that, doesn’t it?
Clay: Yeah, well, The Millionaire Next Door, as we get into it today. That’s the guy who lives next door to you who is a millionaire, and you don’t even know it. The book The Millionaire Next Door talks about America’s wealth today, and they start to show that eight out of ten Americans who are millionaires today earned it themselves. They didn’t inherit it. They weren’t second generation.
Caleb: Right.
Clay: They didn’t win the lottery. These are people who earned it the hard way.
Caleb: What was that number? How many?
Clay: A little over 80 percent.
Caleb: Wow. Yeah, we don’t think that way. We’re told not to think that way often.
Clay: You always say, well, that’s old money. I remember people growing up with, I hung up with growing up, they would say, “Well, that’s old money. They come from money.”
Caleb: It’s more comfortable to think that way, right? Because if you don’t have it, they had something that you didn’t.
Clay: It’s a lazy thought. It’s easy to say, “I could never do that. They come from money.”
Caleb: Right.
Clay: It’s easier to think that way.
Caleb: We’re going to dive into those points, and what we’re going to do is specifically dive into the ten characteristics, like we said, of the average millionaire, so that you, everybody around the world, can learn how they themselves can learn how they, themselves can become a millionaire.
Clay: All around the world.
Caleb: Let’s start with characteristic number one here. Characteristic number one is, we are married with children. Here’s a quote from that book we just mentioned, The Millionaire Next Door. It says, “I am a 57-year-old male, married, with three children. About 70 percent of us [millionaires] earn 80 percent or more of our household’s income.” Why is that important? What is that quote saying?
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Clay: What it’s saying is that, right now, I mean there’s a lot of women watching this who feel like they can’t become successful. Well, Sara Blakely became the first, the woman who became a billionaire the fastest.
Caleb: Spanx.
Clay: The Spanx founder, yeah. Oprah has become a billionaire. There are women shattering that belief, but right now the average millionaire is really, in America, is a 57-year-old dude who has kids. I think it’s important that we think about that because I meet a lot of people who are in their 30s and 40s, and they say, “Because I have kids, I just can’t start a business like you can.” You know, “I have kids, so it’s harder for me to take a risk. I can’t be crazy. I’ve got to work at this job, because I’ve got to provide for my kids.”
Well, I have five kids, and you were around them last night. These are great kids.
Caleb: Oh, I love them.
Clay: There’s a lot of pressure, but I will tell you, again we come back to those three. You have to be diligent, you have to have a skill, and you have to have integrity. I find that to be a parent, and a good parent, you have to have integrity. The kids actually drive you to work harder, so it’s not a hindrance. It’s actually something that will help you.
Caleb: The reason this is the first characteristic is again kind of breaking down that idea that we have, or maybe excuses that we have in our heads. Like you said, “I can’t do it. I’ll get there maybe someday, but I can’t right now, I have kids.” Most millionaires …
Clay: A lot of people say, “I have health problems.”
Caleb: Right.
Clay: “I have kids. It’s really hard for me to make money.” I can tell you this, my kids, they keep having these teeth that need to be pulled. It’s like a thousand dollars every time. I’m like, just keep it in there. Kids get sick, they twist ankles, they break arms. Things happen. A lot of people are sitting here on the sidelines of life, watching the millionaires on TV, saying, “I can’t become successful because I have kids.” I’m telling you you’re wrong. You can do it.
You can do it, regardless of whether you have kids and all the expenses that go with it. In fact, that’s going to help you because you’re going to be one of the more motivated people.
Caleb: Right.
Clay: Married people, as a general rule, out-perform non-married because they have this sense of obligation to provide for their dependents.
Caleb: They can’t fail.
Clay: They can’t fail.
Caleb: That’s principle number one, we’re married with children. It’s taking away all your excuses. You can do it.
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