Brian Tracy recounts his early goal to be a millionaire, initial failures, then a study of self-made millionaires which led him to identify repeatable habits: persistent goal-setting, a mindset focused on financial independence, disciplined saving/investing, avoiding get-rich-quick schemes, and relying on long-term compounding (8–10% annual growth example). He emphasizes responsibility, deliberate design, and that one can change direction at any time.
Hello, I'm Brian Tracy. When I was in my teens, I had a dream to become a millionaire by the time I was 30. When I reached the age of 30, I was broke. So I set it back to 35. When I reached age of 35, I was broke as well. And then I began to give small seminars. Once a man called me a businessman. He said, could I come and speak to his 800 independent representatives on how to become a self made millionaire? And I said, of course. And then I hung up the phone and I realized, geez, I have no idea how to become a millionaire. I've wanted to be a millionaire most of my life. I don't know anything about the subject. So I began to study self made millionaires. I found two things. Number one is that self made millionaires have been studied for years and years and years. Millions and millions of dollars so we know who they are and where they come from. And number two is that if you do what other self made millionaires have done, people who started with zero and became a millionaire within one generation, you soon get the same results they do. And if you don't, you don't. Now the starting point of becoming a millionaire is to remember the greatest discovery of all of human life, which is that you become what you think about most of the time. If you sincerely want to be rich, to achieve all your financial goals and to retire as a self made millionaire, one of the smartest things you can do is to develop the habits of thinking and acting that enabled others to become self made millionaires. What is so hard about this to understand? Most people are thinking of how little money they have. They worry about being broke, they worry about lack and poverty. They're worried about the prices of everything. And they're wondering why they're not flourishing financially. Because they're thinking about poverty and lack rather than prosperity and abundance. Now these habits of financial success are learnable as all habits are by practice and repetition. In other words, you can program yourself to think like self made millionaires. And remember, it has to start on the inside before it ever comes true on the outside. So the first discovery about the thinking patterns of self made millionaires is that they have the habit of thinking in terms of financial independence money. Most of the time, from an early age or at a certain point in life, they become focused on achieving specific goals for financial independence. They think about it most of the time. Self made millionaires discipline themselves to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to achieve those financial goals. They organize and reorganize their entire financial lives, their earnings, their investing, their insuring and spending activities in such a way that they're all coordinated and helping them move toward hitting those specific financial targets. Now, here's an important point. Achieving financial success is very difficult and it does not happen by accident. It happens by very deliberate design and a long period of disciplined persistence in doing the things necessary. Now, at a certain point in life, each person comes to a crossroads with his or her financial goals. One road leads in the direction of earning, saving and accumulating, while the other road leads in the direction of earning, spending and getting into debt. And 80% of the population take that road because it's fun and easy. Now, as a fully responsible adult, you must decide which road you're going to take. And no matter what road you've taken up until now, you're free to choose the road that you're going to follow from this day forward. One of the great lines that I teach is that it doesn't matter where you're coming from, all that really matters is where you're going. You can't change the past, but you can totally change the future by taking a different direction. Today, the starting point of achieving financial success and joining the self made millionaires club is for you to accept complete responsibility for your financial life. Most self made millionaires organize their financial goals and financial lives in such a way that their net worth increases about 8 to 10% per year on the amount of money that they have working. They set financial goals and they don't look for get rich quick schemes or easy money. They are patient, persistent and farsighted. They discipline themselves to save and accumulate money all over many years. They don't speculate, they don't take risks and they don't look for fast ways to make money quickly and easily because there aren't any. As a result of these habitual ways of thinking about their money each year, their wealth grows a little bit. Eventually they pass the million dollar mark and usually keeps on going. As Einstein said, compounding is the greatest power in the universe. So the key to success is get rich slow. Don't try to get rich quick. When you become the kind of person who can set financial goals and accumulate a million dollars or more, you'll also be the kind of person who can earn the second and third million as well. You know, we used to say, and I started this when I was poor, is making the first million is very hard, but the second million is almost inevitable. Why is that? It's because you have to develop totally different qualities to earn the first million, but now you have the qualities and earning the second million is much easier. And even if something unfortunate happens to you and you lost all your money, you'd be able to make it back again fairly quickly because you would have become the kind of person who can become a millionaire. Once you become that kind of person, you never lose it. There's a great story about Mike Todd, a theater director who had invested all of his money in a production and lost it all and was broke. And someone once asked him, hey, Mike, how does it feel to be poor? He said, I'm not poor. He said, poor is a state of mind. I'm just broke, and that is temporary. And within a few months, he was back on top again. He was once more a self made millionaire because he had the mindset. So self made millionaires did not gain financial success merely by luck. Luck does not factor into it. In order to become a self made millionaire, you must set financial goals and work toward achieving financial success every day. And if you do that persistently and consistently, day by day, week by week, month by month, you will achieve all your financial goals.
