The subject of wealth, how it is made, how it is managed and how it is transmitted has preoccupied man since the advent of time. People dream of wealth. Nations go to war over it. Empires collapse because of it. In ancient or ancient times, warfare and plunder were the easiest paths to amassing wealth. Think of Genghis Khan as a personification of this bygone and forgotten era. Today wealth is made by mastering critical disciplines, three of which are essential. Master them and you will be on your way to riches. Neglect them and your wealth will be transitory at best or you will revert to scarcity over time at worst.
Some of the richest people on our planet today, both dead and alive, are embodiments of these disciplines. According to Forbes magazine, there are 1,826 billionaires in the world, and the top 500 control 67% of the wealth. In no particular order, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Carlos Slim, Mark Zuckerberg, Aliko Dangote, Jack Ma, Carl Icahn, and George Soros, all billionaires in their own right, have mastered these three disciplines. Are here:
1. They see the big picture
This is sometimes called trend spotting. Very few people on earth master this discipline and the few that do are super rich. Take the case of Aliko Dangote, whose wealth is greater than that of Richard Branson and Donald Trump combined, nothing but mastery of all three disciplines has propelled him to the position of the 67th richest person on the planet. She might have ranked higher had it not been for the dire drop in oil prices and the resulting adverse move in the exchange rate against the Naira. Being from one of the poorest countries in the world with a per capita income of $3,000, compared to $54,000 in the US, $63,000 in the United Arab Emirates and $84,000 in Switzerland, has not stood between him and this achievement. How did he do it? He mastered seeing the big picture. Realizing Nigeria’s huge population and poverty, he began investing in basic commodities like flour, cement, sugar and salt, and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.
The same can be said for Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Tony Elumelu, to name a few. As the microcomputer revolution brewed, Gates and Jobs spent endless hours mastering the emerging industry, including programming and coding. In Gates’ case, it was “so intense” that some of his friends left him. A long time ago in Nigeria, when the financial services or banking industry was being deregulated, Tony Elumelu moved heaven and earth to obtain a banking license. To make sure he didn’t miss out, he bought a dead bank, Crystal Bank for Africa, and brought it back to life. Today, Tony is one of the 50 richest people in Africa. Seeing the big picture is one of the greatest disciplines you must master to alter your destiny. Steve Jobs calls this discipline connecting the dots. Right now there is a new industry brewing, IoT (Internet of Things), which Bill Gates has predicted will be bigger than computers and the Internet combined and 99.99% of the people on the planet haven’t even heard of her. Do you want to be ultra rich? Start connecting the dots.
2. They are competitive
When it comes to competitiveness, the ultra-rich have no rivals. Sometimes you hear people say that the ultra-rich are “bad”, because they will negotiate to the last penny. They never leave a hundred on the table. That’s why Apple would spend millions suing Samsung for copyright infringement, Microsoft would police the entire world to remove counterfeit software, and Richard Branson would swear never to do business with the Nigerian government again for breaking a contract.
The ultra-rich employ the best lawyers, accountants and economists to guide and advise them on their every move before taking any action. When it comes to competitiveness, among billionaires, Donald Trump is unmatched. Bill Zanker, the founder of The Learning Annex, once offered Trump $10,000 to appear on his platform and Trump didn’t budget until Zanker upped the ante to $100,000, and as Zanker mentioned in Think Big and Kick Ass, in co-authored with Donald Trump, the deal took his business to a whole new level. If you want to be ultra-rich, you must master competitiveness. Competitiveness is not just about negotiation, it is the ability to be decisive and engage in mental leaps of imagination to achieve goals.
3. They are cunning
This is the final discipline mastered by the ultra-rich to ensure that their wealth lasts and is passed on to the next generation. If you look at the list of the richest people, you will know at least four billionaires from the clan of Sam Walton. Sam Walton was the founder of Wal-Mart, the world’s largest supermarket chain. Forbes named him the richest man in America in 1985. Despite his wealth, he drove a Ford pickup and never hired a driver. Also, despite being the richest man in the world, Bill Gates does not own a superyacht. Apple’s Steve Jobs lived in a modest house in Palo Alto on a half-acre of land. Despite his wealth, Warren Buffet still goes to work every day, even at 85 years old. Richard Branson hardly wears expensive suits. His approach stresses the discipline of being cunning. He compares these billionaires to NBA headlines, boxers and rock stars and you’ll soon understand why an average boxer retires penniless despite having made millions by age twenty-four. Floyd Mayweather, whose wealth is estimated at $300 million, recently told ESPN that he has bought cars worth an estimated $15 million. That’s not all, Josh Towbin of Towbin Motorcars told USA Today’s Martin Rogers that his dealership sold Mayweather “over 100 cars” in a span of 18 years. According to Towbin, Mayweather’s car fleet includes 16 Rolls Royces. If you want your wealth to last, be smart. Being cunning is not the same as being greedy, it is about deploying your wealth in the most strategic way possible to survive.
When writing about wealth, authors mix cause and effect. The authors emphasize the actions that lead to wealth or the characteristics of the rich, such as taking risks, being action-oriented, and delaying gratification, while neglecting the anchors or inner disciplines that make wealth lasting. I dare say that taking risks will not only ruin you, it will guarantee your failure. The ultra-rich avoid risk like the plague. The redesigner takes the risk, as Jay Abraham advises, to turn the tables in his favor. What about being action oriented? This does not guarantee anything. What if you are taking steps in the wrong direction? What about delaying gratification, which behavioral scientists have elevated to the status of a mantra? This is also pure myth. You can deny yourself the good things in life until your kingdom comes and still end up in penury if you fail to master all three major disciplines in combination, chief of which is seeing the big picture.