Rich people get rich by doing the things that have made others rich: they read, delay gratification, back their strengths, set specific goals, put effort into things that scale, make money work for them, learn from mentors and play the long game. Being born poor is not a choice, the video says, but dying poor is. It argues that about 1 in 10 people choose to change their financial destiny, which shows wealth is no accident or luck, and that it is simpler than people think.
Here are 15 habits, grouped into five sets, plus a bonus about being paid for results.
Watch the full video here, or skip to the breakdown below.
The 15 habits at a glance
- 1 to 3. Read a lot, sacrifice the present, back your strengths (0:43)
- 4 to 6. Own your fate, set financial goals, get more out than you put in (5:00)
- 7 to 9. Make money work for you, grow income, think in abundance (10:19)
- 10 to 12. Play the long game, understand the machine, learn from mentors (14:14)
- 13 to 15. Ride change, act instead of manifesting, get comfortable with big problems (20:20)
- Bonus. Get paid on results, not effort (23:48)
1 to 3. Read a lot, sacrifice the present, back your strengths
Habit one is reading. The script says the average CEO reads over 50 books a year while the average person barely reads one, probably fiction, and that CEOs earn on average 180 times more. A study it cites says 88% of successful CEOs credit continuous learning, often through heavy reading. A book lets you absorb in hours what someone spent a lifetime learning, costs $20 to $30, and shows a realistic timeline for how success unfolds. Every book, the video says, makes you 1% richer, and the gains compound.
Habit two is sacrificing the present for the future, or delayed gratification. Pre-rich people put up with a rough stretch so they can eat caviar later, and the key difference is that they can see a light at the end of the tunnel. With no money to invest, invest time. It takes about seven years on average to get rich, so the sooner you start the sooner you arrive.
Habit three is going all-in on your strengths. When a child fails Spanish but loves computers, parents hire a Spanish tutor, investing in weaknesses to secure mediocrity. The rich do it the other way, doubling and tripling down on what comes naturally, because what looks like hard work to others feels like play to you. Then you follow the money, even if that means leaving a comfortable town, and burn the boats. The more volume of effort you put out, the more likely you are to get lucky, and the future-rich know luck can be manufactured.
4 to 6. Own your fate, set financial goals, get more out than you put in
Habit four is believing you are responsible for your own fate. Some people wait their whole lives to be saved, and those who become rich realize the savior is themselves. As the script puts it, if you are not building your own life, someone else will hire you to build theirs. It cites 79% of the world’s millionaires and billionaires as self-made as of 2025, 4,600 new millionaires every day, 1,700 of them in the US, and a doubling of US millionaires since 2020.
Habit five is setting financial goals, not wishes. A rich person does not say they want to be a billionaire, they say they want to make $100,000 by year-end, which works out to $274 a day or $8,334 a month. Then they ask what they earn now, how to raise earning power and where the growth opportunities are. You cannot hit a target you cannot see. A business school study found people with written goals are 10 times more likely to succeed, so write yours with a pen on paper.
Habit six is getting more out than you put in, through leverage. Most people are paid linearly: one hour, $20. The rich put in effort once on building the factory rather than the product, so 1,000 hours might return $1,000,000 because you build once and sell a million times. Examples are a book that sells for the rest of your life, media that can be watched by an infinite number of people, and code that the world can buy. The highest form sits at the intersection of media and code. You get rich by taking large amounts of risk with small amounts of money, and stay rich by taking low risk with large amounts.
7 to 9. Make money work for you, grow income, think in abundance
Habit seven is having money work for them. Normal people earn and then spend. Rich people buy income-generating assets with what they earn and spend only what the assets generate. Early in their careers they do not spend earned income for long stretches, live below their means with minimal expenses, and reinvest everything. A couple might live off one salary while the other’s goes into a business or assets.
Habit eight is focusing on increasing income instead of cutting spending. A penny saved is a penny earned, the video says, but nobody got rich saving pennies, and being frugal keeps you poor. The most you can cut is 100% of spending, but there is no limit on income. That means decoupling earnings from units of time, since as long as you trade hours for money you will not be rich. In its words, rich people buy time, poor people buy stuff, ambitious people buy skills and lazy people buy distractions.
Habit nine is thinking in abundance rather than scarcity. The world is not zero-sum, and someone else’s success does not limit yours. The hardest ceilings are the ones we set ourselves. Research cited links an abundance mindset with life satisfaction and financial success, and a scarcity mindset with weaker decisions and long-term planning. Its practical question: where is the money? If it is in a mountain, pick the mountain already making others rich. You need a delusion of grandeur, it argues, because people who say be realistic have no idea what your reality can become.
10 to 12. Play the long game, understand the machine, learn from mentors
Habit ten is playing the long game. The difference between poverty and prosperity is often patience and long-term vision. Put in the work for long enough and you eventually win, and the video says you do not need to be special, you just need to want it more. The poor class thinks in days, the middle class in months and quarters, and the rich in decades, which is why they invest in education early. Like the gym, you do not see a six-pack after one session, and your mind needs the same training.
Habit eleven is being curious about how the machine works. Everything around you was sourced, refined, assembled, marketed and sold by someone for profit. The poor consume the world and the rich reverse-engineer it. The line is that curiosity is capital: the creator gets paid and the consumer pays. You need two things, one technical, how to create something worth more than the raw material, and one psychological, how human needs and desires work.
Habit twelve is studying and being mentored by successful people. A great mentor can save you a decade of mistakes and millions of dollars in bad calls. Sitting near a high performer, the video says, boosts your performance by 15%. Mentorship is borrowed wisdom, the most expensive trait is pride, and the rich do not take money advice from broke people. Trees do not hang around with grass even though they started in the same place. Without a real-life mentor, books and podcasts can fill the role.
13 to 15. Ride change, act instead of manifesting, get comfortable with big problems
Habit thirteen is understanding that the world changes. Each shake-up is another chance to get rich. The internet gave us blogs, e-commerce, social media, the gig economy, crypto and now AI, and each wave produced billionaires and hundreds of thousands of millionaires. Whoever learns the tool first has an advantage over legacy players, and the last thing you want to be is the farmer who skips the tractor because his cattle do fine.
Habit fourteen is taking action instead of manifesting. Most people live in their heads, make plans and wait for life to start, or say they are putting it out into the universe. The rich see something they want and create it, and make it pretty later. When they do not like something, they change it. The line to remember is that what you are not changing, you are choosing. Outcomes are the result of effort.
Habit fifteen is being comfortable with big problems. Your business will not grow past the level of your own growth, and the video says you do not want $10 problems. Being comfortable under stress comes from past performance, and the rich build the capacity to handle stress and complexity over longer periods. A multi-million-dollar life comes with multi-million-dollar problems. If something feels scary, that is a sign of progress, because all rewards sit on the other side of fear.
Expect bigger problems, and read them as proof you are moving.
Bonus. Get paid on results, not effort
The poor get paid per hour, the lower middle class by effort, the upper middle class by knowledge, and the rich by results. A supermarket clerk working 10 hours at $10 earns $100. A gardener charges $250 to trim a garden because they know how much effort goes into it. A doctor prices their specific knowledge, so you are paying for expertise rather than manual labor.
The super-rich tie their rewards to performance. A hedge fund manager charges 2% of the funds managed and 20% of the profits generated. Solve a million-dollar problem for someone and, the video says, it is fair to ask 15 to 30% of it, assuming nobody else can solve it cheaper. It might take you 10 minutes or three months, but you price on how valuable it is to them, not how hard it is for you.
This single difference will make more millionaires than anything else on the list.
Pick one and start
None of the 15 habits needs a starting fortune. Reading, goal-setting, learning from mentors and acting rather than waiting are all available today, and the bonus is a pricing decision rather than a talent.
Choose the habit you currently do the opposite of, and change that one first.
FAQ
What do rich people do differently from poor people?
It lists 15 habits, including reading a lot, delaying gratification, backing their strengths, setting specific financial goals, building things that scale, buying income-generating assets, learning from mentors and thinking in decades.
What is leverage in building wealth?
It is putting effort into building the factory rather than the product, so one piece of work earns repeatedly. Examples are a book, a video or software that many people can use. It calls media plus code the highest form.
Why do the rich focus on income instead of cutting spending?
Because the most you can cut is 100% of spending, but income has no limit. Being frugal alone keeps you poor, it says, and that earnings must be decoupled from hours worked.
How should you set a financial goal?
Make it specific and written down. The example is making $100,000 by year-end, which breaks down to $274 a day. It cites a study saying people with written goals are 10 times more likely to succeed.
What does it mean to get paid on results?
It means pricing based on the value you deliver, not the hours or effort. A hedge fund manager takes 2% of assets and 20% of profits, and the video says solving a million-dollar problem can justify asking 15 to 30% of it.
Keep reading
- 15 Things Poor People Think Rich People Do (That They Actually Don’t)
- 15 Ridiculous Things Rich People Have to Explain to Poor People
- 15 Things Poor People Don’t Know About Making Money
