The five ways to become wealthy

The United States is the land of opportunity, where there are umpteen rags to riches stories. Countless people have started with nothing but their ideas and dreams and an unbreakable will to succeed despite all odds.
Based on over 25 years of research into the wealth generation strategies and patterns of American millionaires in the United States, motivational speaker and master trainer Brian Tracy points out that there are five ways to get rich in the US.

• Inherit wealth (good luck!)
• Achieve it through your professional – like, being a doctor or a lawyer
• Become a top executive at a top company, ie. make the climb up the corporate ladder.
• Win it (you are working at very low probability!)
• Start a business ie. become an entrepreneur.

Brian cites entrepreneurship as the best way to become wealthy and he provides some simple tips and action exercises to get started. Excerpts from his newsletter below.

Starting your own business has been and will always be the high road to becoming wealthy for most self-made millionaires. Entrepreneurship in America offers more opportunities and opens more doors than all other possibilities put together. This is why it has been said that if you have the ability to start your own business and you don't do it, you are a fool. I'll repeat that. If you have the ability to start your own business and you don't do it, you're a fool.

Where do you start?
You start by getting your finances under control. The very first thing you do is you make a decision to get your finances under control. Some years ago, a man named George Classon wrote a book called The Richest Man In Babylon. It's a classic on financial success and what Classon said in that book was that the key to becoming wealthy is to pay yourself first. Take ten percent off your earnings, off your gross income every month and put it aside. Learn to live on ninety percent or less of your gross income. So the very first thing that you do is you begin to save your money.

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

First, 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 will change your life.

Second, immediately register your own business or sole proprietorship. Open a bank account, get business cards and letterhead and create the corporate entity under which you can do business. Your business opportunities will appear far sooner than you think. If you build it, they will come.

To get more useful tips on a wide range of topics and get his immensely useful and inspiring newsletters, visit BrianTracy.com.

Start your own business!

If you wanted to be really wealthy, then running your own business is the way to go. Of course, there are rich salaried people too and working for a company might be a lot less stressful in the near-to-medium term, but there's a lot more to be gained in starting and running a successful business enterprise.

Of course, starting a business is by no means extremely easy; but if you can start young and devote yourself to it, you are giving yourself much great chance for success. Rhonda Abrams of ThePlanningShop, publisher of books for entrepreneurs, gives some simple tips to start a business to graduating students of 2008 (personally, pay particular attention to the last one: work hard! ... and of course, work smart!) . While you are it, here's a simple tip from me to build a sustainable, successful business: Start small, but think big.

Tips to budding entrepreneurs from Rhonda, published in this article in USA Today:
• Do something cool. Lots of people succeed in business doing something completely mundane — there's plenty of money to be made selling dental supplies. But you're young, so do something fun, challenging, interesting.

• Choose a business that will make a difference. Go ahead, start a business that will save the planet, people or animals. The hottest thing in business today is "social entrepreneurship" — for-profit companies with a greater purpose. You can make money and make a difference.

• Develop a business plan — at least a very simple one. Sit down and think through what you're going to do, how you're going to do it, and how much money it will take. And you'll need a business plan when you go out and raise money to fund your new venture.


• Choose a concept with low start-up costs. After all, you're broke. But I was broke when I started my first company. Internet-based companies can be dirt-cheap. There are still plenty of opportunities in social networking and user-generated content sites. Personal and business service businesses are also inexpensive to launch.


• Start with a friend, or friends. But draw up a simple agreement to clarify who owns what, who does what, and what happens if someone drops out (Hint: They should lose everything). Hey, you could be starting the next Facebook; you don't want them coming back and suing you for their share of the billion dollars.


• Make a sale. Find someone to buy what you're selling, whether it's an ad on your Internet site or a client for your service business. Nothing teaches you more — and emboldens you more — than having a real customer.


• Get some good business advice books. Even through you made it through college using Wikipedia, I know just how much is missing — and how much misinformation there is — on the Internet. And I'm not just saying this because I write business books — honestly!


• Work hard. You thought you worked hard in school? I know you did, since most students must work while they go to school. But you're going to have to work even harder to make your business a success. Don't let that discourage you — you don't really need sleep at your age.