Chris Prefontaine leads a group discussion on what separates top earners. The top 1% make about $682,000 annually versus $170,000 for the top 10%. The group identifies their common habits: written goals, saying no, seeking mentors, outsourcing low-value work, and staying comfortable with discomfort.
Chapters
'Cause I want to get you thinking about what sort of the 1%ers do. But listen to these stats. This is from the IRS in '21. So people that filed in '22, these aren't old. Top 1%, top 1%. I thought that number would be so high. In United States, adjusted gross income, $682,000. I'm rounding. Top 5% in the entire country, $252,000 adjusted gross. This blows my mind that you had the opportunity, we all have the opportunity to do these in a few deals. And top 10%, $169,800 adjusted gross. $169,000. You're in the top 10% in the country. Is that surprising to anyone? What do 1%ers do differently? There's no wrong answer, but I want to get us around that and get us thinking about that. John, Judy?
Yes. Yeah. So we'd say successful people read, they exercise, they have positive mindset, do affirmations. They have a clear vision of where they want to go and why. And they keep that somewhere, like their goals, like somewhere they can see it. John, jump in.
Yeah, I think you're hitting the big ones. So like consistent personal and professional development, whether it's reading or other means.
I don't—
I'm sorry, I don't remember if Judy said exercise or not.
Yep.
Yep.
I think you hit the major ones, Judy.
And journal, meditate, like, so we had some stuff like that, like more spiritual, whatever that is, you know, for an individual. They prioritize their time, they say no, they have like a not-to-do list. And they Pay people to do that or delegate it.
Love it. I heard a lot of overlap. We'll do ours in a second. But I also heard one we didn't come up with, which was the clarity, which I'm always harping on. It's funny we didn't come up with that in our group. Clarity. Because clarity equals exponential growth. I don't care what you say. If you came into bootcamp, you heard me say it 10 times, right? When we get clarity, we get the— that's when the growth comes through. That was good. You guys only had 2 people and you nailed a bunch. And Kim, when you're doing this to the best you can, just— you can lump some together, like taking care of health/exercising. You know, they could be all in one line type thing if you can make out when you're going through it.
Okay.
Because I talk so slow.
Okay.
Who else? I've got Atlas in front of us. Who else? I can go, Chris. Okay, Rick.
Oh, uh, we basically got a lot of the same overlaps. We had, uh, reading all the time or lifelong learning. Uh, they have a different mindset. They definitely have a propensity for goal setting. Um, I, I was taking a word that you keep saying, stacking. They like to stack what they've accomplished and then what they learned, and they just grow from there. Uh, they show up and they know how to delegate lesser value. things rather than laser focus on high-value things. And they also understand you have to sacrifice at the beginning to get to the goal that you want at the end.
A lot of overlap said differently, which is really cool.
Yeah.
Uh, someone else was chiming in right when you volunteered. Who else wants to volunteer? Then we'll do ours.
Yep.
Um, they're coaching, uh, they seek out coaching and they're accountable. And they, they get with like-minded people and focus on income-generating activities, which goes into consistency.
Love it. Again, it's, it's gonna be neat to see a list because the different words used to describe similar. Um, I'll read ours, and if someone feels like they You got one that didn't hit, like that clarity one. That'd be, that'd be cool. No, no order, just as I scribbled. And I did lump some already together. Discipline slash routine. Uh, seek help and mentorship. I think every single group so far came up with that. Taking care of health, almost everybody came up with that. Choose who they hang out with. Um, I hope you guys wrote down last week, I think it was, that book Who's in Your Room. If you didn't, that's a writer downer. Um, hire out lower value, hire smarter people. There's a little twist. Plan time off. I don't know if that came up yet, but that's a super important reset, and most of us chargers have a hard time doing that. Yet every time we do it, it's productive. Um, we wrote the word experiences next to time off because for the 1 percenters, that's usually how they expand their thinking, like an experience of going to see or do or experience something. The word experience. Um, this is an awesome kind of micro one, but it's— I guarantee you they don't do it, and that's stay off social media. Super big time suck. Constantly educating— everybody came up with that one.
Improving—
it's one of our values as a company. Unafraid to fail slash get back up. Um, as I was prepping for a QLS Live, it's one of the things I I'm, I'm hitting if it makes it to the end edit, and that is if they're in the 1%, they get knocked down 2, 3, 4, 5, a dozen times, right? Um, and I think it's good for us to remember that when we hit a little curveball, like a seller upset us, a buyer poo-pooed something. Like, these are small things that we're gonna stack and character build because of, but sometimes we're in it, we want to kill them. And me too. So this is a good reminder.
Keyword.
Bail forward. Awesome. Joint partnerships, I thought was a good one because that's that goat that you can lump that in when you're doing these joint partnerships with who they hang out with. So they're careful who they hang out with, who they do business with. Uh, take responsibility. That was a rusty one. That's huge. Um, example, um, blaming other people for the— like the markets. It's because of the market. It's because of this. It's because of my deals. Because of myself. It's because of it. No, it's not. We're responsible for our actions. As soon as we do that, that's Joe Vitality, by the way. As soon as we take responsibility, we see growth. That's that was our that was our group. But two words I wrote down while you guys were all talking: exposure and proximity. You've heard me talk about it a lot, right? We got the QLS live event coming up. It's such a good environment for you to get around, experience different people, and it's in Boston instead of Newport this year.
It's just totally different.
Proximity and exposure. Talked about exposure last week, right, on all the calls.
Did—
does someone have one or two that we didn't hit? Gotta be one or two we met. Matthew?
There's a couple things. So I wrote down, uh, they're very good at having short-term pain for long-term gain. So they, you know, can make sacrifices in the present for a better future. Um, and, uh, And the same thing that on the breakout I had it, now it disappeared again. Um, oh yeah, they're comfortable being uncomfortable, right? So they keep pushing the envelope of comfort in order to grow. I guess that goes into the lifelong learning and the reading, but even more so, like, they're good in putting themselves in uncomfortable situations.
Well, and, and so almost consciously, you guys are all high 6s, but it's almost like you'll see people at the QLS live event that See some of you guys cranking deals. They're at a starter level. They know they'll make more money. They're afraid, and they're— and as soon as they go to make a move, they feel uncomfortable. Instead of going, that's good, this must be good, to what Matthew said, they go, ah, then I'm gonna back off. Wrong gut, in my opinion. Wrong gut feeling.
This—
you should like welcome it, because once you stretch that— I think I told this funny story before, but Kim used to get a chuckle. I had a rubber band on my hand And it'll be a reminder that when you, when you stretch it, even though you can't see by the eye, it grew, right? It changed shape. It's the same with us. And she used to get a kick out because she'd snap it all the time and nothing to do with my goal. But that's a reminder that the rubber band, when it expands, then never goes back to the same shape. So welcome it. Yeah. Do we miss any other ones, guys, that you could think of?
Having gratitude.
Ah, huge. Yep, we didn't hit that. Abby with the savior here. Nice.
