24 February 2010
Who are the millionaires?
If I asked you to name the first 10 millionaires (or billionaires) that come to your mind, who would you think of first? In my mind, I would probably pick a few CEOs such as Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, but after that, I’d likely move on to some of the popular and monetarily wealthy movie stars, professional athletes and music artists. If I knew their names, I may even throw in a few lottery winners. I think most of us would come up with a similar list. But who really makes up the majority of millionaires in the United States? If we were to combine all of the stock brokers, inventors, actors, directors, authors, songwriters, athletes and lottery winners, what percentage of millionaires would you guess that they make up? 10%? After all, there aren’t that many wealthy out there, and there are quite a few of these people, right? Wrong! Recently, there has been as many as 9 million millionaires in the U.S. alone. Out of those 9 million, the group I listed above makes up about 1% of these. Well then, the rest must be doctors and lawyers and other highly skilled professions, right? Wrong again.
Lets take a look at the breakdown:
- Stock Brokers, Inventors, Actors, Directors, Authors, Songwriters, Athletes and Lottery Winners: About 1 Percent
- Salespeople and Consultants: 5 Percent
- Doctors, Lawyers and Other Professionals: 10 Percent
- Business Owners: 74 Percent
While we tend to focus on the Famous, and strive for our children to grow up to be Doctors, Lawyers or Athletes, the real wealth is in smart business decisions.
On a personal note, it may seem as if I’m focusing here a lot on money. I want to be clear that money itself is not my motivator for attempting to gain wealth. Doesn’t compute? Basically I’m saying that money can buy freedom from the standard work model in today’s society. That is what I’m after. 200 years ago, you didn’t see nearly as many work environments like the ones you see today. Sure, there was a wool factory here and there, but most people subsided on what they produced that was of value. You can argue for that today, but it’s a short argument. How many people do you work with that are obviously being paid for something other than the value that they bring to the company? It has become standard practice to pay people for their time whether or not they produce, but not pay well. The only way to workplace freedom is to actually produce something of value and do it well, and that generally can’t be done within the walls of an office.
Statistics above from No More Mondays by Dan Miller
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