Want to get to the top financially? Take advice from those who are already there.
Career highlights:
* Author of the national best-seller, "The Spiritual Millionaire" and "The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class"
* Entrepreneur and self-made millionaire at age 33
* Hosted "Flames of Truth," a motivational radio program, for five years
* Hosts seminars and teaches success principles to individuals, churches and companies across America
Financial guru Keith Cameron Smith, author of the best-selling "The Spiritual Millionaire" and himself a self-made millionaire at age 33, invested $100,000 and two years of his life to meet face-to-face with some of the world's wealthiest people to learn what makes them tick.
Overwhelmed by the life lessons they imparted, Smith holed himself up in a North Carolina cabin and, in one week, distilled their wisdom into a 100-page crib note for successful thinking, "The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class."
Some of the distinctions are commonsensical (millionaires think long-term, the middle class, short-term; millionaires take risks, the middle class avoids risk). Others are quite illuminating (millionaires ask themselves empowering questions, the middle class ask themselves disempowering questions; millionaires learn and grow, the middle class, not so much).
Smith, who became independently wealthy with a string of furniture stores in his hometown of Ormond Beach, Fla., continues to seek opportunities in networking and real estate as he travels the country teaching financial success principles to individuals and companies.
As part of our Financial Literacy tuneup, Smith shares with Bankrate his insights into how to think like a millionaire.
You were not born wealthy.
(Laughs) Oh no. I grew up on the lower end of the middle class. My dad never made more than $25,000 a year. He sold auto parts to different garages. He had different routes to a couple of different towns around Florida.
Did you attend college?
I went to college for two weeks and said that's not for me. I'm on the list of millionaires that just did it in the real world and didn't go to school. School is phenomenal for some people. Some people absolutely need to go to school as part of their purpose. But some people don't need to go to school. They don't need to get a good job so the government or your corporation can take care of you, because as we know, that formula doesn't work anymore.
When you go through failures like I have and like other millionaires have, you learn something on an emotional level that you cannot learn when you go to college. When you get intellectual knowledge from a book or a lecture, it's not the same as investing money in something and then seeing all that money disappear. When you learn something on an emotional level, that is what really starts making you stronger.
Your original goal was to be a golf pro, right? What happened?
I had an apprentice position at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach when they first got started. I helped them get their pro shop up and running and I had my handicap down to about a four and I thought for sure I was going to pursue golf as a career. I took the PAT, the player's ability test, a couple of times; that's where you have to play a couple of rounds and shoot like 150 between two rounds of golf. And I could never do it; my nerves just couldn't handle it. But that was one of the turning points in my life. I sat down with the pro there at the time and asked how long it was going to be before I could really start making good money. I was making $20,000 a year as an apprentice. He said, "I'm going to be honest with you, it's going to be at least five or six years before you can move up." And I said no way, I'm not going to sit here and make $20,000 a year for five or six years.
How did you lift yourself out of the middle class?
Education. I started learning, but it wasn't education in the school system. It was education from my real-world experience as an entrepreneur and taking risks and having some good successes and some failures, too. Those are always tough when you go through them, but I honestly can say, thank God for those, too. Because those are the situations I really learned the most from, so I had some new knowledge to apply on the next endeavor.
Your book seems to strip down dozens of motivational books to their essence.
What I tried to do in my book was to stay away from specific areas like real estate or stocks or small businesses and instead encourage people to pursue their own passion to create wealth. What would they love to do to wake up and make money every morning? That's the key to it. By far, one of the biggest things I learned talking to all these millionaires was they really enjoyed whatever they were doing.
Career highlights:
* Author of the national best-seller, "The Spiritual Millionaire" and "The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class"
* Entrepreneur and self-made millionaire at age 33
* Hosted "Flames of Truth," a motivational radio program, for five years
* Hosts seminars and teaches success principles to individuals, churches and companies across America
Financial guru Keith Cameron Smith, author of the best-selling "The Spiritual Millionaire" and himself a self-made millionaire at age 33, invested $100,000 and two years of his life to meet face-to-face with some of the world's wealthiest people to learn what makes them tick.
Overwhelmed by the life lessons they imparted, Smith holed himself up in a North Carolina cabin and, in one week, distilled their wisdom into a 100-page crib note for successful thinking, "The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class."
Some of the distinctions are commonsensical (millionaires think long-term, the middle class, short-term; millionaires take risks, the middle class avoids risk). Others are quite illuminating (millionaires ask themselves empowering questions, the middle class ask themselves disempowering questions; millionaires learn and grow, the middle class, not so much).
Smith, who became independently wealthy with a string of furniture stores in his hometown of Ormond Beach, Fla., continues to seek opportunities in networking and real estate as he travels the country teaching financial success principles to individuals and companies.
As part of our Financial Literacy tuneup, Smith shares with Bankrate his insights into how to think like a millionaire.
You were not born wealthy.
(Laughs) Oh no. I grew up on the lower end of the middle class. My dad never made more than $25,000 a year. He sold auto parts to different garages. He had different routes to a couple of different towns around Florida.
Did you attend college?
I went to college for two weeks and said that's not for me. I'm on the list of millionaires that just did it in the real world and didn't go to school. School is phenomenal for some people. Some people absolutely need to go to school as part of their purpose. But some people don't need to go to school. They don't need to get a good job so the government or your corporation can take care of you, because as we know, that formula doesn't work anymore.
When you go through failures like I have and like other millionaires have, you learn something on an emotional level that you cannot learn when you go to college. When you get intellectual knowledge from a book or a lecture, it's not the same as investing money in something and then seeing all that money disappear. When you learn something on an emotional level, that is what really starts making you stronger.
Your original goal was to be a golf pro, right? What happened?
I had an apprentice position at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach when they first got started. I helped them get their pro shop up and running and I had my handicap down to about a four and I thought for sure I was going to pursue golf as a career. I took the PAT, the player's ability test, a couple of times; that's where you have to play a couple of rounds and shoot like 150 between two rounds of golf. And I could never do it; my nerves just couldn't handle it. But that was one of the turning points in my life. I sat down with the pro there at the time and asked how long it was going to be before I could really start making good money. I was making $20,000 a year as an apprentice. He said, "I'm going to be honest with you, it's going to be at least five or six years before you can move up." And I said no way, I'm not going to sit here and make $20,000 a year for five or six years.
How did you lift yourself out of the middle class?
Education. I started learning, but it wasn't education in the school system. It was education from my real-world experience as an entrepreneur and taking risks and having some good successes and some failures, too. Those are always tough when you go through them, but I honestly can say, thank God for those, too. Because those are the situations I really learned the most from, so I had some new knowledge to apply on the next endeavor.
Your book seems to strip down dozens of motivational books to their essence.
What I tried to do in my book was to stay away from specific areas like real estate or stocks or small businesses and instead encourage people to pursue their own passion to create wealth. What would they love to do to wake up and make money every morning? That's the key to it. By far, one of the biggest things I learned talking to all these millionaires was they really enjoyed whatever they were doing.
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