12 Billionaire Habits You Can Copy Too
Achieving wealth is by no means about luck, but hard work and dedication; find out what are the billionaire habits you can copy and get yourself on the path toward richness!
Many people think that billionaires had it easy. That their success either came from luck or family money. The truth is people don’t see what goes on behind the scenes, the insane amount of hours that billionaires work and have worked to get where they are.
On top of working hard, successful people usually develop systems and habits that help them cope with a highly stressful life and help them grow even more. There are quite a few billionaire habits you can copy, but first…
The importance of habits
How many times have you made New Year resolutions… and didn’t stick with them for over a couple of weeks? I know, I am guilty too. It’s hard to break the bad habits and develop and stick with the good ones.
However, habits shape our lives. Charles Duhigg, author of the book “The Power of Habits”, reported that our brain loves habits. In fact, habits create neurological cravings and whenever we stick with that habit, our brain releases pleasure chemicals. This shows us how important it is to get rid of the bad habits and develop new, healthy, success-minded habits – like the ones of the most successful people on Earth.
Let’s see the great habits of billionaires so we can incorporate them into our own lives.
1| They wake up early…
A study found that 90% of executives, billionaires or not, wake up before 6 AM on weekdays. It can’t be a coincidence, can it? One of the favorite morning habits of billionaires is, indeed, getting out of bed early.
There are multiple reasons to consider this habit. Not only can you get more things done when no one can distract you, but also it’s been proven that people who go to bed early and wake up early and follow their body’s natural circadian rhythm are more focused and alert, and less at risk of developing depression.
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, wakes up every morning at 3.45 AM, and before starting his workday he checks his email, exercises, and has a coffee. While waking up before 4 AM might be a little extreme, he is in good company.
Jack Dorsey, the billionaire co-founder of Twitter, wakes up around 5 AM so that he has enough time to meditate, exercise, and make coffee. He gets more done by 8 AM than most of us will do in our whole day!
Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, also wakes up at 5.45 AM to exercise and have a good breakfast, while Jeff Bezos doesn’t set an alarm clock but trained himself to wake up naturally with the sunrise.
2| … but still get a good amount of sleep
People who sleep more get less sick and have a sharper brain. Plus, a good quality (and amount) of sleep improves your outlook on life, among a few other benefits.
Billionaires are listening: Jeff Bezos gets 8 hours of sleep every night, which he has said it’s necessary for him to be able to make the high-level decisions he needs to make in his everyday life.
And so does Tobias Lutke, founder of Shopify, who tweeted that he needs around 8 hours of sleep a night to be successful.
Even Bill Gates, who previously thought that “sleeping a lot was lazy”, has changed his mind and gets at least seven hours of sleep. He said that even if he had convinced himself that he didn’t need much sleep, he knew that operating on caffeine and obsession with his work wasn’t enough to make him as sharp as with a good night’s sleep.
Resting well is one of the success habits of billionaires…and you won’t have trouble following this one, will you?
3| They follow a routine
Billionaires thrive on routines and daily rituals. Following a strict routine helps them not only to jump-start their day, but also to find a good balance between their work life and their personal lives.
Let’s start with their morning routines, one of the daily habits of billionaires.
Every morning Oprah wakes up at the same time, brushes her teeth and takes her dogs for a walk. While she has her coffee, she reads a daily aphorism, and then takes the time to meditate. This is followed by a daily workout in her backyard.
Jack Dorsey, the billionaire founder of Twitter, wakes up, meditates for 30 minutes and then completes a 7-minute workout three times. As precise as that. Elon Musk is not one to waste any time, so he wakes up and immediately checks email for half an hour, then showers and goes to work – he is too busy for even breakfast.
Routines help billionaires not waste energy and time on small decisions – that’s why Mark Zuckeberg wears the same outfit everyday. But we’re not talking only about morning routines: most billionaires have a routine for how they organize their week, as well as a night routine.
Jak Dorsey has a precise week routine where Mondays are for management, Tuesdays for product, Wednesday for marketing and so on. The same concept works for Sara Blakely, the billionaire founder of Spanx, who assigns a theme to every workday.
Warren Buffett goes to bed at the same time every night (10.45 PM), while Mark Cuban puts his kids to bed and then exercises for an hour while watching basketball games. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, always leaves the office at 5.30 PM sharp, has dinner with her children and then goes to bed religiously at 9.30 PM.
What do Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates do? They wash the dishes every night to relax.
4| They are disciplined
No, billionaires are not superhumans – they are simply more disciplined than the average person.
Billionaire Andrew Mason, co-founder of Groupon, said that being successful has a lot more to do with discipline than intelligence.
He said “I often meet people who seem smarter than me yet are less capable because they don’t have the self-discipline and/or self-confidence to introspect on their ability to do what they think they’re going to do and find ways to iteratively improve. Amazingly, it’s as simple as that. It’s kind of a sore spot for me because I can’t understand why people don’t take it more seriously.”
Of course, billionaires might feel lazy the same way that you and I do, but they act on their commitments. Even when they don’t feel like doing something, they power through; it’s one of the top habits of billionaires.
Michal Sololow, a Polish billionaire businessman, said in an interview that there are always things he doesn’t like doing, and that he can often hear a lazy voice that lives inside his head, but that he still forces himself to do the things he doesn’t like.
Even if many people think otherwise, billionaires usually made gigantic sacrifices to be where they’re at, and worked non-stop for years before seeing the results. It definitely takes discipline to attain that type of success, and you could be benefitted from adopting the discipline habits of billionaires.
5| They meditate
Until a few years ago, meditation used to be something that only very spiritual people understood and exercised. Nowadays, it’s proven that meditation helps decrease stress, improves sleep, and helps develop greater emotional control.
This is probably why many billionaires have started reaping the benefits of meditation, and why big companies such as Google and Amazon offer meditation classes to their employees.
Oprah said multiple times that meditation is one of the most important tools in her growth journey, and in fact she meditates twice a day, 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening. Billionaire investor Ray Dalio agrees, and cited meditation as the “single most important reason” for his success.
Finally, billionaire coach Tony Robbins meditates for one hour every day, and said this single powerful tool completely changed his life. This is one of the billionaire daily habits that you can start implementing in your life right now!
6| They work out regularly
Billionaires work out regularly, and not just because they want to keep fit. There are many proven benefits of regular exercise, both physically and mentally. Regular exercise makes you feel happier, increases your energy levels, helps with relaxation and sleep quality, and improves your brain function among other things. All things billionaires clearly care about.
Mark Cuban exercises 6 days a week for one hour. He likes cardio activities such as playing basketball, working the machines at the gym, and even taking aerobic classes.
Richard Branson exercises almost every day before breakfast. He alternates playing tennis with other activities such as swimming, cycling, and kite-surfing.
And finally, Oprah Winfrey goes for “45 minutes of cardio six mornings a week, four to five strength-training sessions a week, incline crunches, and stretching,” according to her trainer.
7| They read, read, and read some more
You probably heard about the reading habits of billionaires, right? They spend a considerable amount of time reading and educating themselves on different topics. “That’s how knowledge builds up. Like compound interest,” – said Warren Buffett.
He spends a whopping 80% of his day reading. Now, that might seem a little extreme, but Mark Cuban, for example, reads for 3 hours a day, and Arthur Blank, billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, reads two hours a day. See the pattern?
They read to get inspired, to learn, and to increase their focus. Billionaires tend to prefer books about business, biographies, and in general books that inspire self-improvement.
And if you’re thinking “ I have no time to read!”… Well, what about cutting the time you spend marathoning Netflix or scrolling through social media? In fact, it’s been studied that the average American spends around 14 hours a week on social media, while the average millionaires spend only 2.5 hours a week. The rest of the time? They read.
8| They are “cheap”
In today’s society, living frugally has gotten a negative connotation. We are encouraged to spend, spend and spend, and that’s how so many people end up living beyond their means and take on debt. But that’s not how the super rich live. Billionaires, in fact, tend to live way below their means; it’s one of the secrets of the rich and successful to continue to be so.
But I wouldn’t say they’re cheap – they’re frugal. And there’s a difference between being frugal vs cheap.
Generally, they lived frugally before becoming billionaires (which definitely helped them grow their wealth), and they stuck with this habit later on.
You would think that Warren Buffett, whose net worth is a whopping 84.6 billions, would live in a mansion. Yet, he still lives in the house in Omaha that he bought 50+ years ago for 31,500 dollars. Mark Zuckerberg also drives inexpensive cars and shops at Costco to find better deals.
Ingvar Kamprad, founder of the giant Swedish brand Ikea, takes the bus to move around or drives a 20-year-old car. He still flies economy class and of course, his house is mostly fitted with affordable Ikea furniture.
Again, David Cheriton, a billionaire investor and professor at Stanford University, drives a 2012 Honda Odyssey and even cuts his own hair.
And maybe, it’s because real happiness doesn’t come from living a lavish life. Richard Branson said that according to him, “If we’re talking about personal luxuries — and the luxury of being your own boss — the biggest reward is the amount of time one can find for family and friends.”
9| They love what they do
“Doing a job that you don’t like is like saving up s&x for your old age” said Warren Buffett.
In fact, billionaires all have one thing in common: they love what they do.
They have a passion for it, which makes them go on and never give up even when they receive rejection – in fact, this passion is what leads them to be billionaires in the first place.
Steve Jobs said: “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”
10| They have multiple streams of income
Billionaires don’t have one single income stream, and this is something that millionaires and generally wealthy people have in common with billionaires. In fact, research shows that billionaires and millionaires have an average of 7 different income streams.
I’ll give you a few examples of income streams they might have so that it’s easier to understand why diversifying your income sources is so important to build wealth, and why it’s one of the best habits of billionaires.
The first one is their primary business, which is usually the business they became billionaires with. Other income streams that all billionaires generally have is an investment portfolio (in stocks, ETFs, venture capital funds, etc) and a real estate portfolio (properties and lands).
Other income sources can be the spouse income, as well as item collections (for example cars, art collections, ancient books, etc). And then there are some billionaires that have some “hobby businesses” that came out of their passion for something, for example, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos that have an aerospace manufacturing company.
11| They spend time with other success minded individuals
It’s been studied that billionaires and millionaires are much more aware of how they spend their time and resources, and with whom, than most of us are. And there’s a basic explanation for this behavior.
You might have heard the famous quote by Jim Rohn: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” And in fact, we start behaving and thinking like the people we surround ourselves with. This means we want to surround ourselves with people who are positive and support us to be the best version of ourselves.
Les Brown says: “If you run around with nine losers, pretty soon you’ll be the tenth loser”.
That’s why billionaires surround themselves with other successful people who always try and grow more. It’s known for example that Warren Buffett spends multiple hours a week playing bridge with Bill Gates!
12| They eat healthy…generally
A study by Harvard proved that what we eat affects directly the function of our brain. High-quality foods rich in vitamins and antioxidants nourish the brain and protect it from free radicals that can damage the cells. On the contrary, processed and highly refined foods can harm the brain and promote inflammation.
Billionaires clearly rely on their brain power, and most of them follow a healthy diet. Richard Branson, for example, starts his day by having muesli and fruit for breakfast, while Jeff Bezos stated that he takes his time every morning to have a good breakfast which doesn’t feature “fatty convenience foods.”
Oprah Winfrey’s diet is composed of tons of fruit and vegetables, nuts, fish, and lean meat. She also avoids high-fat dairy products and limits her consumption of white flour and white sugar.
Mark Cuban eats the same thing for breakfast every day: a cup of coffee and two high-protein, high-fiber, and low-carb cookies. Sara Blakley instead skips the coffee, but starts every day with a smoothie made with blueberries, cinnamon, kale and spinach, which she accompanies with a green tea with cashew milk.
However, not all billionaires seem to care about their diet. Warren Buffett has breakfast every morning at Mc Donald’s, where he always orders one of three items: two sausage patties, a bacon egg and cheese sandwich, or a sausage egg and cheese sandwich. He also drinks multiple cherry cokes per day. Bill Gates is another one who loves his cheeseburgers, and more often than not he will have a cheeseburger for lunch.
Hardly healthy, but good news – it means you can probably indulge in your comfort food and still become a billionaire!
Let me know how many of these habits you are following!
