Success Secrets of Self Made Millionaires (3)

By Bayo Ogunmupe Life long learning as the prescription for greatness is the caption of the rules encapsulated by the seventh secret of success. It means continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in your career. You must be both an authority and encyclopedia in your chosen field. Since an average person utilizes less than 10 percent of his natural ingenuity, you have an unlimited capacity in brains and intelligence to learn to attain excellence. There is no goal that you cannot achieve by applying the power of your mind to your situation. Your mind is like a muscle; it develops only with use. Just as you have to strain your physical muscle to build them, you have to work your brain muscles to build your mind as well. The good news is that the more you dedicate yourself to lifelong learning, the easier it is for you to learn even more. There are three keys to lifelong learning: First, to read in your field for 60 minutes each day. Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. Reading for an hour each day translates to one book per week. One book per week will translate into 50 books per year. Fifty books per year will translate into 500 books over the next 10 years. Since the average adult reads less than one book per year, when you begin reading one hour per day, one book per week, this alone will give you an incredible edge in your field. You will become one of the smartest, most competent and highest paid people in your profession by simply reading one hour each day. The second key to lifelong learning is to listen to audio programmes in your car as you drive from to place. The average person sits behind the wheel in his car 500 t0 1,000 hours per year. this is the equivalent of 12 to 24 forty hour weeks or as much as three to six months of working time that you spend in your car. This is the equivalent of two full time semesters at a university. Turning your car into a university on wheels turns you to leader in your field of endeavor. This is why audio learning has been dubbed the greatest breakthrough in education since the invention of the printing press. The third key to lifelong learning is to attend every course and seminar you can possibly find, making you great in your field. This combination of books, audio learning and seminars will save you hundreds of hours and thousands of naira and many years of hard work in achieving the financial success you desire. In deciding to become a lifelong learner, you will be amazed the effect this will bring to your career. Thus, lifelong learning is a major factor in your becoming a Nobel prize winner in your field or self made millionaire in business. An American millionaire, Clement Stone once said: Apart from earning to pay your upkeep, if you cannot save money, the seeds of greatness are not in you. That explains paying yourself first to mean saving money for the morrow; which is the eighth secret of success. In fact, if you save just N100 per month throughout your working life and you invest that money in a cooperative fund that grows at 10 percent per annum; you will be worth more than one million naira by the time you retire. This means an average worker if he starts early enough, can become a millionaire over the course of his working lifetime.