There are many factors that go into a person achieving truly independent wealth. Luck is one, experience another, innovation still one more. But a recent book from Sarah Stanley Fallaw of the Affluent Market Institute narrows down two personal qualities that virtually all millionaires seem to share in their roads to success: Resilience and perseverance.
The book is The Next Millionaire Next Door: Enduring Strategies for Building Wealth, a followup to the 1988 book by Fallaw's father Thomas J. Stanley The Millionaire Next Door. It's based on extensive surveys of over 600 millionaires conducted between 2015 and 2016. Here's Fallaw:
"Millionaires and other economically successful Americans who pursue self-employment, decide to climb the corporate ladder, or strive to create a financial independence lifestyle early do so by perpetually pushing on."
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Ideally, anyone with an interest in building a successful business would be able to cultivate perseverance and resilience in themselves. But Fallaw says these qualities aren't always "for the faint of heart," and it can require a lot of discipline to condition yourself not to give up at major setbacks, and to keep persevering until your goals are met. As she puts it:
"To build wealth, to build one's own business, to ignore critics and media and neighbors, you must have the resolve to keep pursuing your goals past rejection and pain… Millionaires and other economically successful Americans who pursue self-employment, decide to climb the corporate ladder, or strive to create a financial independence lifestyle early do so by perpetually pushing on."
And even then, you can't do it alone. As Fallaw writes:
"Those who pursue this path to economic freedom meet daily hurdles to becoming so in thanks in part to their neighbors, community (both in-person and virtual), and companies pursuing them for their financial and cognitive resources."
So if you're looking for any particular avenues of personal improvement, you may want to focus on these two qualities for greater financial and personal growth.
