The Millionaires

 

Vocabulary

inherit	promote	secondary
primary	dedicate	accordingly
field (2)	senior (3)	enterprise
average	category	relative (2)
achieve	junior (2)	real estate
bonus	share (2)	stock options
empire	self-made	approximately
amass	based on	compensate (2)
resolve	hit parade	according to
fortune	executive	commercial (2)
own	consist of	ground (2)
laundry	mundane	vending machine
lease	consume	consultant
lottery	comprise	bottom line
cover	publicity	media coverage
throw	invention	proprietorship
register	expertise	treasure chest
earn	average	opportunity

 
 
 
 
If you are serious about becoming rich, here are the six primary ways that you can achieve this, starting with nothing. This is based on over 25 years of research into American millionaires.

1. Inheritance

The first way: you can inherit wealth. About 7% of all millionaires inherited their money from their parents or a rich relative.

2. Professionals

A second group of millionaires consists of professionals: doctors, dentists, lawyers, architects, engineers and accountants and other highly trained and skilled individuals.

These people attend university, often earn advanced degrees and dedicate themselves to becoming very, very good at what they do, rise to the top of their professions, and eventually get paid, very, very well.

The top 5% in every field earn far more the average person in that occupation. And then hold on to their money. About 9% of millionaires fall into this category.

3. Senior Executives

The third major way to become rich is as senior executives. Around 9% of millionaires in the United States are men and women who have joined large corporations, or companies that became large, and worked very hard there for many years.

They were eventually promoted and paid well, along with receiving stock options, bonuses, and profit sharing.

Michael Eisner of Disney Corporation received a $126 million dollar bonus in a single year. Lee Iacoca of Chrysler Corporation was paid $26.7 million dollars as a bonus in a single year.

4. Sales

Another group of the rich, approximately 5%, are salespeople and sales consultants (but only the best in their field). Few of them went to college or earned professional degrees.

Instead, they became very good at selling a product or service, and were compensated accordingly. In addition, they managed their money carefully, invested it intelligently, and made it grow until they amassed millions.

5. Entrepreneurship!

The number one road to riches, at the head of the list and on the top of the hit parade throughout history, is entrepreneurship: starting and building a successful enterprise.

An individual begins with an idea for a product or service, turns it into a business, builds it up from the ground floor, and as a result earns and keeps the profits and becomes wealthy.

Entrepreneurship includes every kind of commercial activity, from farming and trucking to real estate and computers.

History of Entrepreneurship

Fully 71% of millionaires in the US, going back 200 years to Benjamin Franklin, come from self-owned businesses.

In the 19th century, fortunes were built by people like Andrew Carnegie, Jacob van Astor, Thomas Edison, Commodore Vanderbilt, J. P. Morgan.

In the 20th century, especially in the last few years, businesses and fortunes alike have been built by Bill Gates, Steve Case, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerburg and Sam Walton. Each of them started with nothing and succeeded in building an commercial empire.

Starting your own business has been and will always be the high road to wealth for the non-rich. Entrepreneurship offers more opportunities and opens more doors than all other possibilities put together.

Mundane Products and Services

And, by the way, studies of self-made millionaires have found that most of their wealth had come not by providing high-tech or industrial products, but in very mundane services, in things that people need and consume every single day.

In fact the greatest single source of riches is . . . laundry-cleaning businesses! Next comes commercial or instant printing businesses, followed by vending machine leasing!

The Tally

And so 99% of self-made millionaires come from these four categories: self-owned businesses – 74%; senior executive positions – 10%: doctors, lawyers and other professionals – 10%; and salespeople and sales consultants – 5%.

6. All Others

It may come as a surprise to many, but all other rich people, including lottery winners, professional athletes, Hollywood stars, pop musicians, bestselling book authors, and those who have made money in the stock market and by inventions — comprise the final 1 percent of all millionaires.

However, because this last group gets so much publicity and media coverage, people think they are common among the rich. The fact is they are quite rare.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that there are SO many ways for you to become a self-made millionaire, that’s it’s almost impossible for you not to achieve this goal, if you are really serious about it, and then find out how to do it.

Where does your road to wealth begin?

Three Action Steps

Now, here are three things you can do immediately to put yourself onto the high road to personal wealth:

First, decide what it is that you really enjoy doing and then throw your whole heart into doing it extremely well. There is a direct relationship between passion, excellent performance and the kind of high income that leads to financial independence.

Second, when you have enough expertise and experience, register your own business or sole proprietorship.

Third, resolve today to begin saving your money a little bit at a time. Set a goal to save 10% of your earnings, to put it away and to never touch it. This is both your opportunity money and your treasure chest. This will change your life.

Questions

1. There are numerous, even many, ways to become rich. True or false?

2. Did the writer elaborate much about inheriting wealth?

3. How do professionals differ? What do they have in common?

4. Anyone with a university degree will automatically become rich. Is this correct or wrong?

5. Name the third way of becoming rich. What’s the third way of becoming wealthy?

6. Do you need to attend university to become a (successful) salesperson? Do all salespeople become wealthy?

7. The writer has a bias or favorite way of becoming rich. Yes or no? Why might he or she believe entrepreneurship is the “best” way to get rich?

8. Only large-scale industrial and high-tech ventures bring riches. True or false?

9. Are many people surprised about the sixth way of becoming rich? Why would many people be surprised? Does the writer seem to recommend it?

10. A recurring theme is “They hang on to their money”. Is this significant?

 

A. Before reading this text, how did or do you think people became rich? What are the ways do people think or thought that people became rich?

B. Do you personally know any millionaires? How did they become rich? What is their profession, occupation or business?

C. Who are the rich people in your community, town or city?

D. What could you do to become a millionaire?

E. Are more people becoming rich? How is this happening?

F. What will happen in the future?