Getting Rich Your Own Way

If you are really serious about becoming wealthy, there are five primary ways that fortunes are made.

Become an Entrepreneur

The number one road to riches, at the head of the list and on the top of the hit parade throughout U.S. history, is entrepreneurship, starting and building a successful business.  Entrepreneurship includes every kind of business, from farming and trucking to real estate and computers.

Seventy-four percent of self-made millionaires in the United States, going back 200 years, come from self-owned businesses.  An Individual starts with an idea for a product or service, turns it into a business, builds it up from the ground floor, and as a result becomes wealthy.  Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, John Jacob Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Ross Perot, Sam Walton, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, and Larry Ellison are all people who started with little or nothing and built their own successful businesses.  And there are millions of others.

Work Your Way Up

Another way to become rich is as a highly paid executive of a successful company, or as an employee of a company that awards stock options that become valuable.  Ten percent of self-made millionaires in the United States are men or women who have joined large corporations, or companies that became large, and worked for these companies for many years.  They usually worked hard; were promoted and paid well; earned stock options, bonuses, and profit sharing; and as a result of holding on to that money, became millionaires and multimillionaires.

Paul Allen started Microsoft with Bill Gates, sold out when he became ill, took much of his share of the company in stock, and is now a multibillionaire.  The Seattle area is famous for having so many “Microsoft millionaires,” people who went to work for Microsoft in the 1970s and 1980s, sometimes as secretaries and programmers, received stock options, and became wealthy when they exercised them.  Many senior executives receive bonuses and profit sharing worth millions in a single year.  Working for a large company that grows, pays well, and shares its profits is a major source of wealth.

Many executives have stayed with their corporations for many years; have risen to positions of seniority; are paid extremely well; are given stock options, profit sharing, and bonuses; and as a result of holding on to the money, they became millionaires. Not so long ago, Lee Iacocca, the chairman of Chrysler Corporation, was paid $26.7 million for one year. Michael Eisner of Disney earned a $150 million bonus. It's not too hard to become a self-made millionaire if you're making that kind of money in a year.

Become a Professional

A major source of self-made millionaires consists of professional people—doctors, dentists, lawyers, architects, engineers, and others with advanced degrees who can charge high fees for their services. These people earn their degrees, dedicate themselves to becoming very good at what they do, rise to the top of their professions, earn high incomes, and then hold on to the money. Ten percent of self-made millionaires in the United States fall into this category.

Get into Sales

An important source of self-made millionaires is salespeople and sales consultants. Five percent of self-made millionaires in the United States are men and women who are experts and at the top of their fields in selling. They never started their own businesses. Few of them went to college or earned professional degrees. Instead, they became very good at selling a product or service, and were paid well for doing it. In addition, they managed their money well, invested it intelligently, and made it grow until they were millionaires or better.

Fully 99 percent of self-made millionaires in America come from these four categories:

1. Self-owned businesses.............................................. 74

2. Senior executive positions.......................................... 10

3. Doctors, lawyers, and other professionals.................... 10

4. Salespeople and sales consultants............................. 5

Total............................................................................ 99

All the Others

The final 1 percent of self-made millionaires includes all the people who have made their money in the stock market, with inventions, in show business, through the authorship of books and songs, as lottery winners, and all other sources.  Unfortunately, because this group gets so much publicity, many people think that they are typical of the people who get rich.  The fact is that they are quite rare.

To get wealthy, you don’t have to depend on luck, windfalls, or inheritances.  It’s like trying to find anything else – the way is easier and the results more positive if you know where to look in the first place.  Now that you know where 99% of the wealth comes from, where are you going to look?

Brian Tracy is a legendary figure in the fields of management, leadership, and sales. He has produced more than 300 audio/video programs and has written 28 books, including his just-released book Getting Rich Your Own Way. He can be reached at www.briantracy.com

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