7 money Lessons I learned from training rich people

I worked as a personal trainer for a big gym for over ten years. I helped people with their health and fitness, and I also learned many lessons from financially successful people.

It turns out rich people share many similarities, from how they make their money to how they spend it. These people became millionaires for a reason.

I was in a very privileged position to observe what worked and ask questions about the mistakes they made along the way. These lessons helped me pay down a house in less than five years, pay for a car in less than a year, and have financial freedom in my 30s.

These are the top money lessons I learned from training rich people:

They are not afraid to talk about money

Woman showing a money sign

Turns out that the more you talk about a subject, the better you get at it.

The opposite is also true.

The less you talk about something, the more in the dark you will be on that particular subject.

Don’t believe me? Think about something in your life you have been working to improve. Maybe you wanted to lose weight.

When was the last time you talked about losing weight with someone. Ideally, a personal trainer?

Chances are, you haven’t spoken to professionals that can help you with your problems.

The wealthy individuals I trained daily were not scared to talk about money. That is one of the skills that creates an abundant mindset.

They would even share details of their own expenses or how much money they were making. The point is, I was shocked that I could ask them anything related to money without feeling like I was intruding.

It took many years to learn that money lesson. The more secretive you are, the less help you get.

You can only see things that you bring into the light. Bringing things into the light means talking about it with other people. Ideally, people that are already doing good in the area you want to improve.

For example. If you want to make more money, bring this thing into the light:

  • How much you spend on clothes, technology, subscriptions, and shopping.
  • How much do you actually work? Are you maximizing your time at work or simply waiting for the day to pass by?
  • How much of your discretionary income has been spent on stuff you don’t even use.

When these things are brought into the light, you can finally see them with your own eyes. You can talk about how you can improve bad spending habits with someone you trust.

Doing this will help you see yourself in an unbiased manner.

Once you become aware, you can take action.

Rich people build businesses

Through many years of interacting with rich people, I discovered that most of them were business owners.

Some of these wealthy individuals had more than one active source of income. But the truth is, they have at least one thriving business.

Another thing is that they had worked for other people when they started, but after a few years, they ventured out on their own.

Having your own business gives you much more freedom of time; you can choose when to work. A business also allows for tax deductions at the end of the year, which offset your revenue.

Starting your own business is not for everyone, and it takes a lot of time, effort, and dedication. But the statistics don’t lie; the average millionaire has multiple income streams.

Related: Exposing The Emotional Link Concerning Money

They are focused

Millionaires have a fantastic ability to stay focused on one goal. I saw this trait myself in the gym.

The most successful people wrote down their goals and worked hard to achieve them. Even if this meant being in pain in the short term.

This contrasts with the average person with shiny object syndrome trying to do all things simultaneously.

The ability to stay focused is crucial when it comes to making money, time is limited. If you try to start three or 4 different businesses to see which one is the best, you’ll waste a lot of time.

Related: 3 Best Ways To Crush Unhealthy Money Habits

Most millionaires I trained were always talking about their work and their business. It’s almost as if that was the only thing that existed in their minds.

This level of commitment is not for everyone, especially if you have a family. But it is a required trait in the beginning stages of your business career.

They persevered for a long time

clock with bills in the background

The media loves overnight millionaires. They are always showcasing someone who started a business in a few months, and they’re suddenly wealthy in a short amount of time.

This is hardly ever the case.

From what I saw. For most of my clients, it took at least a decade to reach millionaire status. This lesson has stuck with me over the years.

You have to work at something for a while before it finally takes off. The key is to keep going, to continue pushing through the obstacles.

Becoming a millionaire does not happen linearly; it happens exponentially.

It takes a particular type of person to go through the pain and suffering with running a business.

The pressure is tremendous, some worked 80-hour per week on busy seasons.

Like exercise, anyone can be consistent for a couple of months and maybe even a few years. But only those that stay consistent for decades get the real rewards.

They understand people

Team working together with a rich business owner

It is crucial to understand how to motivate people when you want to make it rich.

Psychology plays a significant factor when you have to hire someone new. It takes practice to know who will be compatible with the rest of the team, and a good team is what makes companies successful.

Understanding people comes in handy when negotiating salaries. Knowing how people think and what is essential for them is a high-level skill that millionaires have.

My wealthy clients knew how to find talent. Their employee headcount ranged from 10 to 80 people, and managing that many can be hard.

The lesson: be fair with people, promote the people that work hard, and be fair to those who are no longer willing to change to be part of the team.

They care about their health

The biggest lesson that one of my millionaire clients told me was this:

“You can always make more money, but you can never get more time.”

They all wanted to be healthy and stay healthy to enjoy their time.

For some, this meant more time with their family, and for others, it meant more time and energy to get more work done. Either way, exercise allowed them to be healthier and live better lives.

Remember that these people worked way more than the average person working 40 hours per week. Even then, they made time to come to the gym to exercise for an hour.

This mentality is very different compared to an average person that doesn’t see exercise as an investment in the future.

People with high blood pressure and high blood sugar develop diseases in their older years that could have been prevented with some exercise.

They were good at delegating

You’ll need a big team when you want to achieve big goals. This is where knowing how to delegate work comes in handy.

The term self-made does not mean one person, and most of the time, it is an entire team of people working towards the same goals.

My millionaire friends knew how to ask for help and that you don’t have to do everything alone. It’s ok to hire subject matter experts who can help you get to your destination faster.

If you hire a cleaning person. You’ll have more time to start that side hustle you have been postponing all this time.

If you hire someone to cut your grass or fix something around the house. You’ll have more time to devote to your hobbies, which brings you more joy than doing house chores.

If you hire a personal trainer to help you look and feel good. You’ll have more time and energy that can be used to make even more money or simply enjoy with the family.

The biggest lesson here is that there are people to help you with whatever problem you have. If it can be solved with money, it’s not really a problem.

Because there are a lot of problems in life that cannot be solved with money. Especially if those are problems related to health.

Learn the lessons from millionaire people

Wealthy people think differently than ordinary people. The skills that make people rich are:

  • Persistence
  • Consistency
  • Health minded
  • Delegating skills
  • Starting a business

These skills can be acquired over time with the right knowledge and dedication.

I’m happy I could see firsthand how people became successful and how much commonality there was among them. These lessons have helped me tremendously to pay off debt and start the side hustles that now provide for my family and me. I hope they can do the same for you.

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