How Self-Made Billionaires Create Success

Phil Knight, Ray Dalio, Meg Whitman, Larry Ellison, Jack Ma, Mark Cuban, Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, Charlie Munger and Sheryl Sandberg have something else in common apart from their wealth.

If you ask most people what the key to success is, they will probably answer hard work. That’s partially true, but another critical factor also plays an important role.

Let’s think about the word ‘success’ for a moment: What does it mean to be successful? Is it getting rich? Is it having a high-paying job?

Is it living a lavish lifestyle? Most people will probably answer ‘yes’ to all of these, but there’s a more subtle dimension that is often overlooked: intelligence.

The key to success is harnessing your intelligence or the knowledge of other smart people to act on your goals.

This is why billionaires always train themselves to be consistently smarter. They know that being smart (instead of just working harder) is the ultimate secret to long-term success.

While working hard contributes to success, training your mind to think analytically, make better connections, and be more decisive can do more for your success.

Many self-made billionaires commit quality time to learn from others, read insightful books, gather as much experience as possible and even make learning lifelong.

It’s not enough to know — you have to apply to gain insight, learn from experience and repeat what works.

“Pattern recognition is gained through experience,” says Meg Whitman. Your brain can only make more intelligent connections based on what you already know. And you improve what you know by learning from others, doing the real work, or getting your hands dirty.

You can’t improve your pattern recognition skills or become more intelligent if you are not ready to learn deeper, wider and broader.

Phil Knight, Ray Dalio, Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, Sheryl Sandberg, Jack Ma and many self-made billionaires have publicly declared their high-volume reading habits.

Learning from others is an essential part of becoming smarter and staying smart. In his book, Principles, Ray Dalio says the knowledge he gathered from experience and learning from other intelligent minds over the years became his principles.

“Principles are fundamental truths that serve as the foundations for behavior that gets you what you want out of life. They can be applied again and again in similar situations to help you achieve your goals,” he writes.

Billionaires and other successful people follow specific routines, rituals, habits, and principles to stay smart and keep their brains sharp as they age.

Self-made billionaires don’t have all the answers, so they surround themselves with smarter people.

No self-made billionaire is a lone success. They learn from others and draw insight from other intelligent people around them.

There are a ton of books about becoming smarter and acquiring new knowledge, but there is no better way to become smarter than by learning from the people who are already smarter than you.

“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none, zero. You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads — and at how much I read,” Charlie Munger said.

Another key to staying mentally sharp as you get older isn’t learning a new skill but training your brain to think more efficiently — gathering mental models (thinking tools) to improve your chances of making intelligent decisions.

Charlie Munger explains, “Well, the first rule is that you can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try to bang ’em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form. You’ve got to have mental models in your head. And you’ve got to array your experience, both vicarious and direct, on this latticework of models.”

You can’t improve or upgrade your life until you change how you think. Many self-made billionaires keep an open mind — they think like scientists and stay curious.

Mental models reduce your chances of making wrong decisions.

“The upside of painful knowledge is so much greater than the downside of blissful ignorance,” says Sheryl Sandberg.

To stay ahead or protect their wealth, many of them are constantly learning new ways to grow or preserve their wealth and make intelligent decisions to stay ahead of the competition.

“Life is growth. You grow or you die,” writes Phil Knight in his book, Shoe Dog.

Warren Buffers spends 80% of his time reading. Elon Musk read to learn how to build rockets. And most importantly hired other highly intelligent minds to help him build his empire.

“My wife hates that I read more than three hours almost every day, but it gives me a level of comfort and confidence in my business,” says Mark Cuban.

To improve your chances of success, your only option is the willingness to outlearn everyone.

Self-made billionaires have knowledge advantage.

They know more than the average person because they commit to finding what works now and can deliver in the future.

Self-made billionaires play the long-term game by gathering experience, repeating what works and reinventing their productivity process when it’s not working.

Knowledge is power, and the ability to train oneself is a vital trait of successful billionaires. What these self-made millionaires and billionaires have in common is the desire to be the best version of themselves.

Being smarter is not an end goal in itself; it is a means towards an end. The end is being able to make a positive impact on the world.

Being a smart person can seem out of reach for most of us. But it doesn’t have to be — you can train your mind and become smarter over time and leverage that knowledge to improve your life.

The fundamental obstacle to wealth and happiness is knowledge.

It’s the essential foundation for success. If you can take the time to find the right knowledge and apply it in your life, your circumstances will change.

“Everything I read was public,” Warren Buffet said in an HBO documentary. “Anyone could buy the same books and magazines. The same information was available to anyone who wanted it. Turns out most people didn’t want it.”

Anyone can learn to become smart, competent and build a better life.

Start by learning from self-made billionaires. Most of them have written their secrets in books. Find biographies and autobiographies — that’s how you become money smart.

Success intelligence is within reach if you look at the right places.