Step 1: Delay gratification:
At the cinema today, while waiting for our tickets to be checked outside, I noticed a majority had already started eating their popcorns. Some had even gone halfway. What’s the purpose of popcorns than to serve as entertainment DURING a movie?
Delayed gratification is a virtue lost on a majority of Nigerians but its actually the biggest predicator of Future wealth. If you can’t earn money today and keep it for later, you will most likely never be rich or at least long-term rich.
This reminds me of the “Stanford Marshmallows Test”.
In 1972, a group of Stanford researchers conducted a study amongst school kids by giving them Marshmallows with the promise of a bigger portion of they held on eating it right away. A follow-up study was conducted in 1988, 1990, 2006, 2011 and 2012. The kids who held on for later, turned out to be vastly more successful in Life. Their brains even developed differently.
Delayed gratification can predict wealth in the sense that things start small. If you can’t save today, tomorrow when you see a business, you can’t start it. When you see a life changing opportunity, you can’t grab it. In most things in life, there is no “Blowing”. Even if you find a way of making money, it will go faster than it came if you can’t delay gratification to a time when its properly invested and bountiful.