077 Millionaire Money Habits That Matter

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Are your habits making you wealthy or.

Are they keeping you poor?

Here's what I know. Wealth is a behavior. It's more having to do with your.

Behaviors than it is to do with your money.

Now, I get it. It might be confronting for me to say it's your habits that are giving you the money issues that you might.

Be dealing with right now.

But here's the beautiful thing. When you understand that it's just a matter of changing habits so you can have a different money story, a different money trajectory, and a different financial future. In this episode of the affluent entrepreneurship, we're going to talk about millionaire habits that matter. We're also going to talk about what.

It takes to build a habit. I'll see you in the episode.

This is the affluent entrepreneur show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money, and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom because that's what it really means to be an affluent entrepreneur.

Foreign.

Welcome to this episode of the affluent entrepreneur show. You know, let me talk to you about this friend of mine, and here's a guy that I have known since, oh, my gosh, my high school days, and I remember us having repeatedly having this conversation. Now, he, he did well on his income side. He made well into the six figures, multiple six figures.

And he's making money, but he's not building wealth.

He's not creating wealth. He doesn't, I mean, he's living literally check to check, but he's making, you know, anywhere between 15 and 25,000amonth.

That's a lot of money. That's good.

And he's sitting back saying to me.

I don't know where my money goes. Going.

You'Re saying that as if it's.

Got its own mind and it's doing its own thing.

But the reality is money goes where we tell it to go. Money does what we tell it to do.

And if we're not conscious, if we're not intentional about telling it what to do.

Then you get to a point.

Where you go, I don't know where my money goes.

This is all about.

Habits.

This is all about behavior.

This is all about choices. This is all about decisions.

And if we want to change our money situation.

We simply have to change our habits.

Now that might sound simple, and it is simple, but it may not be.

Easy because habits are tough.

You know, we think that we can't change our income. We think we can't change our behaviors. I need to buy that I need to do this or I can't increase my, my cash flow. But I got news for you. In today's world, there are a lot.

Of opportunities to change things if we choose to.

And I know that this may be confronting. I know that this may be like.

Oh, this, this one stings a little.

Because it stung for me when a.

Mentor said to me, dude, the reason you're where you're at and I wasn't in a good place is because of how you're behaving. It's because of the choices you're making, and it's because of the habits you have in your life.

Well, if, when I got past the.

Emotions of defensiveness and how dare you.

Who do you think you are?

And got real with myself.

Was right.

So all I'm asking you is to be open to the idea that if.

You change some of your behaviors, if you shifted some of your habits, could your financial future change? My guess is yes. And in fact, my experience with working.

With people in the affluence blueprint in my master's program, my one on one clients.

Is absolutely.

When we change what we do, when.

We change our habits, when we change our behaviors, they get different results, okay?

And so this whole episode is about that. Now I want to start off with this whole idea of how, how do you build a habit? What is, what is the habit building? And I'm going to walk you through a six step framework, and then I want to walk you through 15, okay? 15 millionaire habits that matter that are going to make a difference. So let's, let's jump to the iPad, let me walk you through the habit building framework, and then we'll talk about some specific tactical habits that you want to make sure you have in place. All right, so first thing is that we need to understand why. Look, if we're just changing a habit to change a habit for the sake of changing a habit.

That doesn't help us any, you know, because that's hard. That's like quitting smoking cold turkey. When they came to me and said.

Hey, you have cancer. And someone said to me.

Sugar fuels cancer. I had a why? Oh, wait a second.

Okay, I had a sweet tooth. I ate healthy, but I had a sweet tooth. The fact of the matter is that once they told me that sugar fueled cancer, I equated sugar with death, with losing my bladder, okay?

And I. I loved life too much.

I wanted to be with my wife. I wanted to be with my son and his wife and my granddaughter and my puppy.

I want.

I want to live.

I don't. Why. So cutting sugar out actually wasn't that hard. What I did, literally what I did is as soon as I did, I went on a water fast for three days. All I had was water, waters, and minerals, and that's it to cut the connection with the sugar. Now, I was going to do it five days, but I was still scheduled for surgery. And I needed to make sure that I had sustenance in me before I.

Went into a major, major surgery.

And so I did it for three days, but it was enough to break the connection, to sever the habit a bit. But I had a why that was going to drive it, and that why was living. Okay, so whatever the habit is, we need to connect it to why. So the first step of habit building is to get to a why. The second step is then to declare it. To make a statement, a bold statement, not just to the world, but more importantly to yourself. To declare it. To say, hey, I'm no longer going to have sugar. I'm going to make investing a priority. I'm no longer going to be living. Check to check on credit card. Make the declaration first in the mirror.

To yourself.

Second.

To those around you.

Because that will bring you to a place where you have a little bit more pressure to stay in alignment and.

Congruent with their declaration.

So as soon as we did this with the sugars, first off, we cleansed.

The cabinets of anything that had processed sugars.

We started reading labels. Lord knows how much has sugar in it. But I made the declaration. I made the declaration. My wife, she agreed to this next thing to help me do this, because the next step in habit building is accountability. So I found an accountability partner in my wife. But I also found an Accountability partners in my close friends. So even when we were out to, to. To dinner or anything, they knew my rules. They knew that I was trying to build this habit. So they didn't do things to erode that.

They did things to support that.

My wife did things to support that. She, she changed the way, way she cooked. We changed what we put in our house. But I had an accountability partner to help. So as you're starting to look at your finances, your money, your life, these habits, doesn't matter what aspect of your life you're in, understand your why. Declare it to yourself, declare it to someone outside. Find an accountability partner or partners to support you in the journey.

Because shifting habits, let's face it, sometimes ain't so easy. But to have someone saying, you got this, keep going is huge. To have someone in your corner is big.

To have someone that checks in on.

You and with you is huge.

Okay, then step four in building that habit is list out the actions, three to five maximum actions that you take that you can take, that start to create the habit and integrate it into your life, to make it a way of life for you. Because when we do that.

When we do that now all of a sudden it becomes physical, it becomes actionable, it becomes something of what you're not just what you're trying to be, but what you're doing. And they all support each other. And then we move to step five. I now know the actions. I have accountability. I have my why. I know that I've declared it and that is this.

Remove the friction to changing the habit.

So here's the deal. When I said I wasn't going to do sugar, we removed all the sugar from the house. I removed the temptation to stay on my old path. I removed the friction.

So whatever the habit is.

That you're trying to create, whatever could be the friction point that will move you away from the habits you're trying to create.

You want to remove as much friction as possible.

And then last step.

Forget others. Here's what I mean by this.

It's really important for you to live.

Your life your way.

If people around me want to eat sugar, if people around me want to live on credit cards, if people around me think that it's important, more important for them to live an ostentatious lifestyle even though they can't afford it, that's on them.

But I'm not going to be pulled into it.

I'm going to live my life. I'm going to live it my way. I'm going to create habits My way.

And those that are close to me support it. Those that are against it or create friction or are trying to test it probably are not long for my close.

Knit friends at least. Okay, so forget what others are saying. Forget what others are doing. Do you? Because you matter. Right?

So that's the, that's the six, six steps to habit building that I've used for years to build the habits that I have. And, and it doesn't matter. Like I said, whether it's health, nutrition, financial relationships.

Use this. It works. It works.

Okay, so now let's get to some millionaire habits that matter. Okay, let's. Let's talk about the habits that matter.

The first.

Is this. It goes back to the very beginning. Know your why.

See.

Most people that create wealth come at it because they have a reason beyond the wealth to come at it. They're more successful because they have a.

Reason beyond the money.

What is your why? Make sure. We talked about it earlier in this episode, but make sure you know it now. The other thing that happens here is that when you start to do this, they, and these are habits that I found in my conversations with millionaire billionaires. People that are starting out, people that are making only $100,000 and they are consistent as they journey to million, to millionaire status. Okay.

Is to confront your demons.

Here's what's going to happen. As you start to grow, as you start to go, as you start to build wealth, your demons are going to come out.

Those demons are your money stories. They're the inadequacies, they're the guilt, they're.

The shame, they're the embarrassment that the things that you observed as you were.

Growing up, they're the things that you never dealt with. You saw your dad and your mom have problems with money. You saw people that were bad with money, or you saw people that had a lot of money but were bad people.

And until we confront those demons, they will rise and they will play games with us. So rather than suppress them, have the.

Conversations around them confront the demons.

Let's separate the interpretation of what happened from the facts of what happened. So you can move on and move better. Because your money doesn't define you. Your financial wealth, your where you came from doesn't decide the level you can grow to.

Too often we let those demons, those stories hold us back.

And those that move beyond it and created wealth, created a rich life.

They confronted their demons. Now are they done?

There's other demons, there's new demons.

As you grow, there's other things that you have to do with.

I still deal with it. I'm human. I still struggle with some of this.

But I know that it's on the journey. And I will always, instead of suppress it, instead of ignoring it, I'll identify it and I'll work through it. Same thing that I do with my clients.

We work through the demons. Because every step of the way, there'll be a new demon. We just got to work through it.

All right, then number three is a habit, is that most of them accept.

Then it's not going to be a straight line. You know, our path to growth isn't just going to be this. It's going to be a lot of this. Okay, that's okay. The problem is when we turn around and when we hit a down spike, you know, a valley instead of a.

Peak, what do we do?

Which leads to habit number four. Habit number four is that they stay in motion. You stay in motion. You keep moving. Here's the thing that happened, you know, in March when The market dropped 30% in a matter of weeks.

People freaked. They ran out of the market. They sold. They said, oh my gosh, Armageddon is coming. I'm out of here.

And what do you think they did?

Most of them sat on the sidelines. But we know what happened since then.

The market went back up.

It recovered.

And not only did it recover, it surpassed.

And a lot of people built a lot of wealth since March of 2020. Now we're in a similar situation.

More volatility, increasing interest rates, high inflation.

All those things going on. People are starting to sell.

When you see the market going down, it's because a lot of times it's because people are selling.

Most people will sell out of fear.

And then they said, I'll sit and wait. So they stop their forward motion, which.

Means that they stop their progress.

So we need to stay in motion. Then from that you'll see that the next habit that many millionaires have is that they avoid debt.

Now what?

What do they avoid? They actually avoid destructive debt. Now I look at debt, I have a whole episode on, you know, how to get out of debt the affluence way. I'll make sure it's hooked up here because I have a different view on debt. What they avoid doing is financing a.

Lifestyle, destructive debt, consumerism, if you will.

They will buy what they can afford.

They will live below their means, but.

They will not finance it. And so we want to avoid that at all costs. And millionaires will not use debt to finance consumption. They will use debt to finance wealth.

Creation, it's very different.

Okay, Leads me to habit number six. Habit number six is.

They buy cars.

For the long term. It's interesting to see.

I, I will see people that.

Will rotate in and out of cars every.

One, two or three years.

But it's a highly depreciating asset, which means that it's not a good asset.

To go in and out of. Okay.

Most of the time you'll see that a lot of people are driving cars that are, that they've had for one now. They take care of it. It may be an expensive car. So I drive an expensive car. I've had it for a lot of years. I take care of it. It looks great. I don't need to turn it in because I don't have the newest gadget. That's where we start to make emotions, emotional decisions that can cost us. So now.

Some people love cars and they're going to do it as long as you're conscious, intentional, aware, I get it. But by and large, if you look at the habits that millionaires have, they buy cars and they do it for the long term and they don't constantly rotate in and out of car payments. Okay, Number seven, they protect their liquidity.

Especially during times like this.

During times like this, when there's volatility, when there's downturns, when there's, you know, these kinds of things, your liquidity becomes your opportunity to jump in and take advantage of things that are coming your.

Way that happen during downturns, when things.

Go on sale, when people have to get out, you, you can step in, help them get out and get yourself a good deal.

Okay.

So part of that liquidity is to be able to take advantage of opportunities.

As they present themselves.

The other part of that liquidity is to give them the peace of mind.

That they don't have to worry about things.

So when you combine not having destructive debt with making sure that you protect.

Your liquidity.

It'S easier to live no.

Matter what the market's doing.

See, I want to be in a place which we are, where it doesn't matter whether market's going up and down. It doesn't matter whether we're in recession or not. We're good.

We're good.

That's why we talk about. One of the critical outcomes in the affluence blueprint is complete freedom. And one of the freedoms in complete freedom is mind. Freedom to have peace of mind.

And the way you do that is to build the wealth creation machine that we talk about and making that Happen. And, and this part of that is going to be making sure that you have enough liquidity for your situation, your circumstances, to carry you and to cover you as you move forward.

Leads me to number eight. Number eight is that millionaires invest regularly.

They not only do they look for opportunities, but even when the opportunities aren't there, they're slowly, they're continually investing. They are in the investing game. They are prioritizing investing. They effectively. And some of you might have seen me draw this before, but too often you have people that the way we live our life is we make income.

We pay for our lifestyle, and we see what's left. And what's left, we invest. The problem with that is that if you don't have anything left and, and there's. There's a high percentage of people making over a hundred thousand dollars a year that still live check to check.

That means nothing's left.

Well, that means you're not investing. That means you have no financial future. That means that even if you had a little bit to invest because you financed your life first.

And investing was.

Second, you're building a financial future on the scraps.

Wealthy people, millionaires do it differently. They look at it. Let's do that in green. They look at it and they say, I make income, I make investing a priority, and then I create my life.

And what they do is, they say if my life isn't the one I want because I don't have enough left over, then we go back to figuring out how do we make more income.

To make that happen. Okay.

But they invest regularly and they make it part of their regular habits.

Number nine, if you are in a situation where you are an employee.

Max out.

Your employer plan, max out the match. If they're matching the money that you're putting in, it's free money.

Take it. I get it. There's a whole lot of people that are trying to say 401ks and Vegas, they're stealing from you. They're not. Okay. Typically the people that are saying that come back to wanting to sell you something like an insurance policy or something else, and they're stealing from you when they do that. If you start to look at the stats, there's a millionaire study, 10,000 millionaires, the majority of them, created their millions in the 401k plan. Now you got to look at it and make sure that you have low fees and all that type of stuff. But at a minimum, I want to max out what the match is, so I'm getting the free money from the Employer. And too often, we're not even involved with it, and we put leaving money on the table. If I put $100 on the table, would you pick it up? Yes.

Well, what happens if you sat back and said, if I put a hundred dollars in the kitty and my employer put $100 in the kitty, would that be a good thing? Yep. To me, 100 plus 100 is 100% return.

Why are we not taking it? Time to take it. Max it out. Number 10. Number 10. Stay in your lane. All right? Do not. Do not try to worry about keeping up with the Joneses. The Joneses are freaking bankrupt, all right? It doesn't matter what other people are doing. It doesn't matter if someone else just got a brand new Denali or they built this big house or they're spent. They're spending money like crazy. You don't have to keep up with them. You define your life your way. You live it your way. You decide your way. That's the habits that millionaires have.

They live their life.

They live it by their design.

Okay, number 11. Number 11 is that they maximize tax deductions. They understand. Look, I get it. You will have a partner in all your wealth building, your business journeys, your income journeys. That partner is the tax. The tax person, the tax man, the tax woman, whatever it is, however you want to call it, they're your partner. They're going to take 20, 30, 40, 50%, depending on where you live.

So it becomes really important for you to maximize the tax deductions and the tax code. Now, some people say, oh, you're taking advantage of the tax code. No, the tax code was written with.

Specific provisions in there.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with using the provisions for what they were meant for. Now, I'm not talking about not recognizing it. I'm not talking about doing something that is illegal. You have an obligation. Now, some people would argue, but you have an obligation to pay your tax. But what you don't have an obligation.

To do is to overpay your tax.

You have a right to minimize the amount of taxes that you pay. And by minimizing the amount of taxes that you pay, you maximize the amount of wealth you create and cash you keep in your pocket. So it's important to make sure. You may not be educated on it, I get it. But make sure that you have a proactive cpa, tax advisor, tax strategist, someone that's just a tax preparer that is sitting back and doing the forms for you. They're looking back at history I want someone that's going to look forward for you and say, what can you do proactively to reduce the amount that you give the government so you can keep the more in your pocket for you, for your family, for your heirs, for your children, your grandchildren, for your legacy. That's your right.

And there's nothing illegal, inappropriate, or untold to it. Okay, number 12, I'm off my soapbox. Number 12 is diversify your income streams. I've been talking about this a lot lately.

Listen, multiple income streams is no longer a luxury. It is a requirement.

Whether it's a side hustle or in a business having only one place where income is coming in from can be.

Your single point of failure, your choke point.

If it goes away because of a pandemic, if it goes away because you can't work it, if it goes away because, because you get fired or legislatively.

It goes away.

You have a problem.

So when you look at millionaire habits, what they do, money habits, is they diversify their income streams. They have income coming from multiple sources. Now we talk about in the affluence blueprint, the five incomes. And, and so what I want is, is to make sure that you have multiple streams of income. And if one gets shut off, you're not, you're not choked out.

Okay?

So you want to diversify your income streams, especially in an uncertain time. This is a perfect time to start looking at ways to scale your income. Diversify your income and optimize your profits.

Optimize your cash flow.

Okay, number 13.

Make money a regular conversation.

We don't talk about money because we've.

Been told it's impolite.

We're not supposed to.

My gosh, why would we talk about money? We shouldn't do that. You're all materialist. No, no, I'm sorry. The fact of the matter is, is that if we want to create good money habits, if we want to create good money knowledge, if we want to bring generosity, wealth into the world, we need to have a conversation around it. If I want to change problems, I got to start with having a conversation. The problem now is that if there's a problem and we don't want to talk about it, it's never going to get solved. I don't care whether it's money relations, anything. If we ignore it, it's simply going to get worse.

So let's not ignore it.

Let's have safe, sane conversations around money. Make it a regular conversation. I started talking about money with my son at 9 years old.

Have a conversation with your spouse, your significant other, have conversations. I'm not talking about bragging. I'm not talking about, you know, giving all the goods of what you make and all this stuff. But what does money mean? How does money work? Understanding that we're not taught this in school, we never have these conversations. So there are some people that will go and figure out on our own, but there's others that just never do because they're scared of it, they're embarrassed, whatever their beliefs are, those kinds of things. But that is affecting where you are financially. Millionaires will have money conversations.

And it's not about just money. It's about generosity, it's about impact. It's about all kinds of things that come from the money.

Number 14.

Number 14 is have a team.

I don't expect you to do this on your own.

Get the right advisors in your world. You know whether it's the right type of financial planner.

But watch their bias.

Are they focused on selling you specific investments because they get commissions? I'm sorry, I'd walk away.

Ask them for transparency in how they get compensated. And if they aren't open about it, walk away. But make sure that you have good counsel, good people around you that are willing to challenge you in a loving way, but support you in your journey and your vision, that have knowledge and credibility, that have experience and have done it. Financial advisors, CPAs, attorneys.

Coaches, mentors.

Make sure that you have a team around you. You don't have to do this yourself.

But you are the captain of the ship. They're going to stand side by side to help you navigate.

But you make all the decisions, the.

Final decisions, and then remember this last one, and this one's a struggle for some.

Your personal wellness matters.

When it comes to making money and building wealth.

When you sacrifice your personal wellness on the path, you have no richness in life because you have no life.

I had a wakeup call with the cancer.

Now I was living what I thought.

Was a healthy life. I wasn't a smoker, wasn't a drinker.

Don't know why I got the cancer.

Never will know why I got the cancer. However, I do know that if I.

Don'T care for my vibrancy, if I don't care for my health, I do know that I can't enjoy what I'm creating. I can't be as generous as I want to be. I can't get behind the movements and the missions that I want to be behind. I can't impact the lives the way I want to. I wouldn't be able to speak to you.

I wouldn't be sharing my life at the highest level with my wife, my granddaughter, my children.

And the people I love.

Personal wellness is the ultimate habit. To make sure that you have the capacity and the ability to generate the wealth and the financial vision that you want. Right. I hope this helps.

There's 15 actionable habits that millionaires use. I want you to go back through. Pick some of them, get them in your place, get them in your life. Follow the habit building framework to make that happen.

I promise you, 12 months from today, if you do this, things will change, things will shift, things will be different. Okay. All right.

I hope you found this of value. And if you have questions or anything that comes up, do me a favor, make sure that you let me know. Send me, send me a dm, send me a note, send me a voice text to, you know, askmel now.com and we'll bring it on the show.

I'll answer it. I might even bring you on the show.

So in the meantime, I'm going to hook up a couple of videos for you and make sure that that'll help you. One on, on what do you do with your cash and another on how.

Do you get out of debt properly?

I'll hook those up for, for you over here. We'll make sure that it helps you out to move you down the path to creating good millionaire habits in your.

World so you can have a new financial destiny.

I look forward to chatting with you soon.

I look forward to seeing you on the road and until we get a chance to do it again, always, always strive to live a life that outlives you. Cheers.

Thank you for listening to the affluent entrepreneurship with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of building your money machine where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.