The truth is everyone craves to be wealthy. We secretly wish we could be like the wealthy. We look at them with a combination of admiration, envy, anger, skepticism, confusion, and awe. And sometimes, wonder. Sometimes they inspire a few.

Yes, sometimes we unconsciously ask, how could the super-wealthy be so lucky, while we’re mired in poverty? In our supplication, we query the almighty for punishing us so much while blessing the super-wealthy. Our pastors direct us to pray and not stop until we are blessed. Remember, they tell you, someone held onto an angel and said I will not let you go until you bless me. We do these even when we can see with our naked eyes what the wealthy do differently.

On the other hand, we resent the poor irrespective of our level of piety. We look at them with contempt, and sometimes hatred. Sometimes we shrug our shoulders in amazement how the poor managed to squander all the opportunities they had all their lives. Secretly we attribute all the evils in the world to the poor. We sometimes secretly wished the government could ‘do something about them.’

Yes, the super-wealthy rule the world. They live in the biggest mansions and own the choicest properties. They ride the most luxurious cars and marry the most beautiful women. When they speak their words are carried by news media around the globe.

The super-wealthy abound in commerce, politics, entertainment, sports, IT, real estate, finance, oil and gas, to mention a few. In short, they abound in every sphere of human endeavour.

The following names, not in any particular order, readily come to mind when we talk about the super-wealthy: Andrew Carnegie, Joseph Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Bill Gates, Mukesh Ambani, Warren Buffet, Charlie Munger, Jack Ma, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, Jay Z, , and Aliko Dangote. Of course we should not forget Elon Musk.

Among the super-wealthy you can count Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, unbelievers, Blacks, Whites, Browns, mixed races, men, women, and people from all continents.

What exactly then separates the super-wealthy from the poor? If not some undue advantage in opportunities, skin color, religion, intellect, industry, talent, place and time of birth, what?

In the 9 secrets of the super-wealthy I share with you the basics of the unvarnished secrets you must live by if you want to join the ranks of the super-wealthy.

As you may already know, massive success as Tony Robbins talks about is 80% psychological and 20% mechanics. So to start with, the super-wealthy understand the psychology of business success in spades and are adept at mastering the 7 levels of business. Here are the 9 secrets they operate by:

1. They Develop Wealth Consciousness
   This is the number one critical skill you must acquire if you want to be super- wealthy. The wealthy pay undivided attention to nurturing and multiplying their wealth. For instance, Bill Gates attributes his wealth not so much to what he makes as Microsoft’s co-founder, but to the excellent work of his portfolio manager, Michael Larson.

On the other hand the poor spend their money on whim and acquiring liabilities to boost their ego. They eat out, attend clubs, stage parties, celebrate and donate generously just to be thought of as “rich.” In short, the poor tries to copy the “Millionaire Next Door.” To be wealthy, be wealth conscious and focus attention on not just making money but how to grow it and make your money work harder for you. Wealth consciousness is the number one secret of the super-wealthy.

• They Use Time Well
  Time is the most precious and scarcest resource. As economists say, its supply is inelastic. You can’t store or warehouse it, you can’t stop it, and you can’t increase it. Effective use of time requires a mindset that abhors procrastination and perfectionism. The super-wealthy use time well; sadly the same cannot be said of the poor. While time is an abstract, how you use it is a mindset.

But do you know that the wealthy and the poor have the same amount of this most invaluable resource? From birth until death the wealthy and the poor have equal amount of time daily: 24 hours. You will be wealthy to the extent to which you judiciously use this limited resource. On the surface this might sound like a time management course but it’s not. It’s about time allocation. Time allocation is the second secret of the super-wealthy. As Alex Hormozi of acquisition dot com harps on, “If you master time you master material success.”

• They Focus on One Thing at a Time
  To be wealthy, develop FOCUS. Focus on one thing at a time. While the wealthy focus on one thing at a time and do it extraordinarily well, the poor generally pursue many ends at the same time thereby dissipating energy. Whenever the wealthy pursues an end, he burns his boat and never looks back. On the other hand the poor always hedges his bets.

Take as an example, Jeff Bezos. He focused on E-Commerce, Bill Gate on computer coding, and Jay Z on entertainment. On the other hand, the average poor never pursue anything to the logical end. He may be in real estate today, network marketing tomorrow and motivational speaking next tomorrow. As the Chinese say, the person who pursues 20 rabbits catches none.

• They Think Big
  If you look closely, all the wealthy think big. Jeff Bezos is not just building an E-Commerce company, but the most customer-centric company on the planet. Bill Gates did not just go out to build Microsoft, but the biggest software company in the world. Not to be outdone, Mark Zuckerberg’s empire now includes Facebook, Instagram and Messenger and Elon Musk is gunning to colonise Mars.

Thinking big is not about hubris. It’s about being methodical, seeing the bigger picture of “what could be.” It’s about having an uncanny purpose larger than your life and setting your sails accordingly in the direction of that without being distracted by other “opportunities” along the way. It’s about saying “No” to a thousand things so that you can say “Yes” to the “one thing” that matters to you.

As Tony Elumelu once said, translating vision into a strategy that rakes in billions is no mean task. Thinking big is one of the hallmarks of the wealthy. Really, why think small if you can think BIG by focusing on one grandiose end at a time? The people who make the most money stick with the same thing for a very long period of time.

• They Rub Shoulders with Other Super-Wealthy
  Don King, the boxing promoter, once told Dennis P. Kimbro, the co-author of Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice, his plan for becoming a billionaire was “by hanging around billionaires, learning all they know.” So the super-wealthy rub shoulders with other super-wealthy.

By networking they remain sucked into the world of the super-wealthy and continually reprogram their mind. By hanging together the super-wealthy mentor each other and are always in the know what is coming next. You can’t be wealthy unless you reprogram your mind to think like the wealthy. The super-wealthy don’t just run businesses, the run portfolio of businesses.

• They Work Super Hard
  Most of the time, the things associated with the super-wealthy are Gulf Stream Jets, Super Yachts, Golf Courses, Ocean Blue Islands, Hot Air Balloons and mansions designed in heaven. These are what you see at the front end. But peel the curtain a little and what you’ll see at the back end is hard work.

Many believe hard work does not matter in today’s digital world where you can “set everything up to work on autopilot.” Beware; nothing could be further from the truth. Do you know that Jeff Bezos preaches hard work and customer focus in everything Amazon does? Till date he exhorts his people to keep the mindset that says, ‘It’s Always Day One’, meaning maintaining the spirit of entrepreneurship of a start-up.

If you’re not willing to work hard, then perish the thought of getting wealthy. In his Good to Great, author Jim Collins wrote about the concept of the “flywheel.” That’s what hard work is all about. No wealth is ever created by standing with hands akimbo, expecting a breakthrough, a lucky break or a miracle.

• They Master Trends

Asked why he dropped out of Harvard, Bill Gates said he knew the window of opportunity that the personal computer industry presented would never open again in his lifetime. Jeff Bezos left his highly paying job as a VP in an investment company, burned his boat and went to set up Amazon even when ‘internet business’ was not proven. Seeing the changing buying habits of Americans, Sam Walton set up what is now the biggest behemoth in the world, Wal-Mart.    

• They Believe in their Vision
  Where ever you see a super-wealthy, you’ll see a powerful vision and purpose. Steve Job’s was to ‘put a dent in the universe’ and he stuck to it until he was kicked out of Apple only to return 13 years later as Apple’s saviour. Col. Sanders suffered humiliation for years to see to the birth of Domino Pizza because he believed his recipe was absolutely the best in the world.

Thanks to the power of vision, Pascal Dozie, who had earlier founded erstwhile Diamond Bank (now part of Access Group), put all his eggs in the MTN basket on the advent of GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) in Nigeria and emerged super-wealthy. The same can be said of Tony Elumelu. Following the deregulation of the financial services industry, Tony Elumelu moved mountains to get a banking license and today sits atop a portfolio of businesses that encompass insurance, oil and gas, hotels,  banking, healthcare, real estate, you name it.

• They Keep Learning
  Learning in this context is not about amassing many PhDs and MBAs in assorted disciplines. Learning is not about endless webinars. It’s about getting personal coaches to make you better and performing at your peak in all dimensions of life.

A study by Forbes found that 60% of the super-wealthy started out dirt poor but through a dint of hard work, learnt to overcome the bad hand that fate dealt them at birth. One well documented example is John H. Johnson of Ebony Magazine fame who in his day rose to become the 400th richest American.

In his Succeeding Against the Odds, he said his family was not only poor, but they were the ‘poorest of the poor.’ John H. Johnson learnt to speak despite being born with a stammer; he learnt to believe in himself despite being born into extreme poverty, he learnt to sell and ended up buying the insurance company that first employed him. So don’t blame your stars, just keep learning and wealth will be within your grasp.

Here are the 9 secrets of the super wealthy I’ve shared with you: wealth consciousness, use time well, focus on one thing at a time, think big, rub shoulders with other super-wealthy, work super hard, master trends, believe in vision, and keep learning. If the 9 secrets of the super-wealthy have made you uncomfortable, rather than brush them aside, think how you can start doing things differently by using next-level mindset, tools and capabilities to position you to be more, do more and achieve more.