Good news: I have many of the habits of billionaires.
I just confirmed it.
It’s that insomnia time of the month, which means I was up this morning at 4:30 am, doing all the rituals that help me get back to sleep: watch a so-so show on my iPad (Walking Dead, can’t seem to love it) get up and eat cereal (Crispix, now and forever), browse the dregs of Facebook.
This last one means clicking on links that are normally in the “too boring/ we all know what it’s going to say” category. So I opened up a Huffpo piece on 20 habits of billionaires, by a young dude who’d worked with Oprah and some other richie rich I’d never heard of. I was able to check off almost all.
Here’s a sampling, including the one that has apparently brought me down.
Be curious.
Check! I’m very curious about people. Wait, nosy counts as curious, right? I would like to read everyone’s emails and overhear every conversation ever had, please. I’m the stranger who will move closer to you instead of away when you’re fighting with someone in public on your cell phone.
The Sony hack wasn’t my doing, but it would’ve been if I had those skills. I’m just glad they shared their findings.
Leverage yourself.
Meaning, delegate stuff to other people. Check! I send out my laundry every couple of days. This frees me up to get in my genius zone.
Invest in yourself.
Check! These eyelash extensions ain’t free, people.
Surround yourself with “better” people.
Check! Almost everyone I know is better than I am. Especially my husband. He cleans as he goes, always leaves bigger tips at restaurants, and showers before the gym. If he found 20 bucks on the street, I think he’d turn it in to the police. He goes through the garbage and pulls out the plastic stuff that should’ve been recycled, though sometimes he’s wrong. Most takeout containers have the 5 or 6 on the back, which means they go in the garbage.
Take enormous risks.
Check! I recently taught a live webinar which, though it’s not exactly primetime TV, was enough personal exposure to make me sweat through my yellow silk shirt. BTW, that doesn’t always come out at the dry cleaners.
Also, I often eat things off the floor.
Never eat alone.
Well, this one explains everything. It’s why I don’t have the option of retiring at 45, and why I don’t have Beyonce performing at my birthday party. If this is the habit you need to become a billionaire, I’m toast.
I love eating alone.
Because my husband is in the restaurant business, there are many nights when he’s not home till midnight and I’m left to what he calls my “lonely girl” dinner. This means:
1) Newspaper spread out on the rolling steel-and-glass coffee table in front of the couch (which I’m not allowed to eat on but tough titties.)
2) Delivery food choices that Steven finds tragic, so they’re exclusive to Lonely Girl Dinner events.
Two regulars: rotisserie chicken from a place called Dirty Bird, which always finds a way to screw up the order and then get an earful from me on the phone about how they just lost a very good customer; or The Grand Sichuan’s hot and sour soup, greasy chow fun, and heart-healthy steamed chicken with vegetable medley to balance it out.
Steven cries when he sees a vegetable medley. He thinks it’s the most depressing item in the food kingdom. So it’s a staple of Casa Lonely Girl.
3) Real Housewives, Parenthood, or any other show that requires viewing by one’s self.
I can’t watch either of these in front of my husband. During Real Housewives, he talks over the shrieking women, often making fun of the most surgery-altered in a deep tranny voice, and keeps asking “How much of this is left?”
During Parenthood, I get too embarrassed, because he always seems to come in during the treacly musical montage at the end where people are living, loving and learning life lessons.
So these are perfect with a bowl of pathetically mixed-together Chinese food. Like, hot and sour soup poured on top of the sauceless steamed chicken. Or mish-mash of chow fun and rice. It’s a judgment-free zone.
4) Ice cream, and then seconds on ice cream. Mushed up with milk. I know, this is called a milkshake, but it’s really not because I eat it with a spoon, not a straw.
If I knew giving up this habit would make me a billionaire, I might be willing to go meet up with friends for every meal. But you know what? If Oprah says she never eats alone, she’s lying.
No way she calls Gayle to join her every time she comes across a plump, juicy chicken. Girlfriend eats hot wings in bed, for sure, and she’s doing just fine. So this list is bogus.
Maybe I just need to send out the laundry more often.
Now you.
Do you share the “success habits of billionaires”?
Which one is keeping you from billions?
Do you love to eat alone?
TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS.
I knew a billionaire who had his lunches scheduled out for months with people who he admired, friends, business partners and people who sought him out for mentoring. He was very picky about who he would have lunch with. I would imagine that 5-6 days/week of deliberate lunches would help a person really get ahead of the crowd! the problem I have with spending that many meals mid-day with someone is it throws me off track and leaves me with so many new ideas I can’t stand it…. I wish he were still alive so I could ask him about it… Thanks for pointing this neat thing out.
Now I really want to have lunch with that billionaire. He’s so elusive — not just because he’s choosy, but because he’s dead. A combo I can’t resist.
I agree, lunch throws me off track completely. It feels like the work day is over, and I’m done.
First of all, I’m a raving fan! I love your work, I stalk your page and dream of one day working with you. Yes, I have it as one of my goals for 2015!! Woot Woot!! You are a total rock star, but I am sure you didn’t need me to tell you that!!
Success strategy to be a billionaire: Be you and don’t be afraid to look like a dork doing it a.k.a. – killer confidence.
So many times people doubt and worry about what other people think. Do you remember those guys who made millions (okay, maybe not billions) on that TV turned movie “Jackass”?? What about the Jersey Shore or many other reality shows. Those guys don’t give a rat’s *** what people think of them and they are making bank!! Sho-nuff! (I only talk like that at home.)
Anyway, that’s an additional strategy that many people forget.
Be confident. Be You. Pack your pockets!
Peace & love,
Kristin 🙂
I pack my pockets with hersheys kisses that are still around from the holiday bowl in our building’s lobby. Do you still want to stalk me?
If yes, I’m delighted. I welcome any raving fan.
If I didn’t care what people thought, life would be so different. And I’d be so fat!
So I checked ALL the boxes…yet, here I sit, not in my Manhattan flat with outdoor space, a helipad or a St. Barth’s backup. What gives? I agree, this MUST be bogus. I never eat alone, but that’s my shit (come on, when you see someone eating alone, you know you think they must be grubby over-eaters, only eating alone to hide that they are eating, AGAIN!). However, I do daydream about eating alone. I imagine it feeling so very empowering – I don’t need you, I can eat alone.
I also never watch the Real Housewives when husband is around. I get the same thing…
“How long can you listen to these women shrieking at each other?”
“I’m telling you, Nene is a MAN!”
And, OITNB. EVERY time I watch that show, he shows up during the most awkward girl-on-girl scene and suddenly my sexuality is questioned.
New rule – don’t eat alone, watch TV alone.
That’s exactly what eating alone is for: grubby overeating!
Steven’s favorite “tranny” was Kelly Bensimon. Now, he does his man talk over Brandi.
re OITNB — been there, just how it down when Steven used to walk in on The L Word. The worst is Sex and the City. That’s true must-watch-alone TV.
Ha!
I thought my husband was the only one !
Thanks for sharing!
Nope! Where’s your husband? Restaurant biz also? Stripper?
Oh, Man. Does eating cupcakes secretly in the kitchen while distracting your toddler with cartoons count as “eating alone”?
Because if so, this kid is keeping me from being a billionaire. And I can’t eat them WITH her, because she’s as much of a cupcake fiend as I am.
Damnit.
It is not eating alone if you talk to the cupcake. Ask if you can pick its brain. And then, pick off all the frosting.
I wish I could get a cartoon to distract ME from eating cupcakes. Kids are so easy in that sense. They actually forget the food is there, don’t they.
really? don’t eat alone? I also have a husband who works late into the night from early in the afternoon except for 2 nights a week. I’m doomed.
If you eat alone knowing I’m doing it too, then neither of us is really alone. Let the bank know to expect a flurry of income from this shift.
I’m with you, Laura! I, too, have the “invest in yourself” part down to a science. My high-maintenance beauty schedule would exhaust mere mortals.
But I also almost always eat alone. Unless eating while reading Facebook posts from friends counts as eating with other people. Then I’m golden. 🙂
It totally counts as eating with people! And it’s the most efficient way to do so, because you don’t need to split the check and end up paying for someone’s extra glasses of wine when you only drank club soda.
As for beauty routines, I’d love to figure out how many dollars each year of age over 35 has added to mine. Scratch that, no I wouldn’t. I’d cry.
lol! I don’t have to add up my expenses because Sephora does it for me. They give you a VIB Rouge membership (which entitles you to goodies throughout the year) when you spend $1,000 annually. I’m good through 2015, if that tells you anything. And I named my cat Sephora. I clearly need an intervention.
That’s awesome. I am in the trade-up club, for which they don’t award you VIB status but should. It’s where you take one thing back and buy 5 more things to make up for it.
If I had a pet though, I’d have to name it Time Warner Cable, because that’s who takes all my money.
I definitely need to surround myself with better people. I think I am the better people to others. That sucks balls.
I’ve actually been trying to do that for years, but no success yet. Not in the “I’m a vegan environmentalist” department and you’re not, but the “I’m uber successful” department. I want to hang with those people. Hi, Tony Robbins, need any friends?
So…if any of you are super duper successful and want to be friends with a future billionaire. Hit me up. But only if you’re creative and have a sense of humor. That’s also on my list of friends I want.
Maybe that’s my problem…my list is too specific.
Wanted:
Creative, funny, (very) successful friends. That’s not too much, right?
Hit. Me. Up.
I have one friend who’s so uber successful that, if we’re the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with, allows me to hang with 4 homeless junkie gambling addicts and still do all right.
Hoping that works out the way it’s supposed to.
I feel like there was math involved with that comment. It brought me back to terrifying word problems.
But I think I got the gist. I just need one uber successful friend and then hangin’ with the losers will be ok.
There was totally math involved, and you aced it – which means you probably bring up the math acumen average of your 5 closest friends.
Maybe. But the fact that you just used “acumen” correctly in a sentence simultaneously brought the average up and then down when I had to look up acumen to reassure myself that I knew the definition of the word. Yikes.
I don’t eat alone… my dog is there. Maybe he’s a millionaire.
You should start hanging out with billionaire dogs, and see what happens.
Laura,
I wrote a comment and went to correct it. Result: comment lost forever.
Maybe you can find it in the Cloud, or become a billionaire by discovering how to find such stuff which emasculates millions or billions of user hours. Or influence
AOL, for which I’d pay you millions, not billions.
Anyway, keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll bet millions that you make it as a billionaire. Not just hard work, but unexpected surprises will come your way.
With billions of no-see-ums of love,
Dad
Hi Dad,
I feel terrible that my blog has been emasculating your user hours. I know how important it is for those to feel manly.
Maybe from now on, you should compose your replies on an index card, your favorite medium, and then copy it into the reply field. Or is that emasculating?
Thank you for your million-dollar support.
xo
You are amazing, Laura, and while we don’t have the exact same culinary tastes I almost prefer to eat alone. Probably mostly because by the time I usually do eat I’m like a dog at the chow bowl.
Keep up the beautiful work!
Dog at the chow bowl! Exactly. That is even my chewing pattern, if I’m left to eat in private. Thanks, Rick!