To a large degree what you accomplish in life will be far more determined by your team

 I grew up lower middle class and could always tell there was a difference between me and people from money, they had a different mind set and seemed to see a bigger picture that was foreign to me. After reverse engineering their attributes for 20 years and working with a lot of 1%ers, these are the key lessons that I’ve found they understand, and the rest of us don’t.

Top 10 Lessons from the Top 1%:

Lesson 2: Be a Player, not a Biller

• Billers: Most of us are billers. Billers assume that a situation is fixed and they play a fixed role within that situation. Whether it is at school or at work, billers wait in line and do as they are told. They fulfill their job description and draw a paycheck. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing, there are some very smart, talented, and successful billers. However, on the stage of life, billers are the actors carrying out the part written for them and participating in a production put on by somebody else. “All the world's a stage, And most of the men and women merely billers.”
• Players: Most of the Top 1% I’ve observed are players. Players believe they can take control over a situation and change it to their liking. If they’re tired of walking a few blocks to work, they start a company renting out scooters. If they don’t like their job, they create a new job within their company and convince management to pay them for doing it. Players are always engaging in situational engineering — telling stories, convincing people, working out deals, aligning incentives, building teams, etc.
• On the stage of life, players are not limited to acting. They decide which play is going into production, where it will be performed, they design the set, host auditions, and recruit their preferred director. Players have a much more fulfilling and engaging life and a much larger circle of influence. Be a player.

Lesson 3: Build Your Team

• To a large degree what you accomplish in life will be far more determined by your team — family, friends, partners, allies, mentors, teammates, etc. — than by your own individual ability. Whether you’re trying to build a company, get a good education, research a book, etc. a good team can be all the difference between success and failure, a life of realization and growth, or one of ignorance and loneliness.
• Sometimes we are acculturated to feel jealous and intimidated by people who are better than us. Not so with the top 1%. They’re more likely to think, “Damn you’re good! Think of all the possibilities!” The more skilled the individual, the more the team builder wants him on the team. The more talented or successful the team member, the better for the team builder. It’s all about “we”.
• So the next time you go to class, or step foot on the field, or hang out with cousins, think, “How can I get this person to be on my team?”

Lesson 4: Build Human Capital

Invest in yourself and prepare for the Creative Economy. In agrarian and industrial societies it was about your work ethic and strength. In the information age it was about how much you knew or quickly you could learn. In the Creative Economy it’s about collaborating with people and doing things that have never been done before. Routine work is increasingly being automated. We used to edit our own videos, but now Google Photos has AI that does it for us. How do you thrive in the Creative Economy? Here are some strategies:

• Get a foundational degree. Studying in fields like engineering, math, computer science or physics show the world that you’re smart, hard working, and can learn almost anything. You can go into consulting, fintechentrepreneurship, technology, etc.
• Plan to quickly get a masters degree if you can. This shows the world that you have some research skills for building a more in-depth expertise on a particular subject matter.
• Start a company. Even if it’s just for the learning experience. Forming a team, launching a product, explaining your ideas to other people all help you develop a great mindset to thrive in the Creative Economy.

Lesson 5: Compound Your Life

• “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.” ~ Not Albert Einstein, but still good advice.
• Early investments whether in the stock market, in relationships, in your career, in your team, need time to compound.
• Don’t throw away your teens or your 20s. Many people view their 20s as a time of “exploration and self-discovery”, which is fine unless that actually means just “partying and gaming”. Don’t fritter away your early years only to wake up as 30-somethings and see peers that got their game on early and are already experiencing the early fruits of success. Think of Warren Buffett who started investing at the age of 11. If he had waited and instead started investing in earnest at age 35 (24 years later) and died at the average age of 78, he would be worth $1.8B dollars, which is still an extraordinary amount of money, but not enough to make Buffet a household name or one of the richest men in the world. Bill Gates programmed through the night as a teenager because there was only one computer at the U of Washington and he could only get time on it when no one else was using it.
• Learn from the 1%, get your game on as early as possible, and allow time for it to compound.

Lesson 6: Beware of Entropy

The Universe tends toward disorder. It may take two years to build a gorgeous house, but only a few seconds to destroy it.

• Small mistakes and bad habits, especially early on, can destroy your life. Run-ins with the law, substance abuse, or even moments of indiscretion (wrong place wrong time, driving while sleepy) can have a huge long term impact on your life.
• Avoid divorce if you can and situations where you can lose a lot of money. As Benjamin Graham outlines in book “The Intelligent Investor”, one of the best ways to grow your wealth over the long term is to avoid taking risks that result in huge losses.
• The Top 1%ers have a healthy fear of entropy and are always trying to build in protections and steer clear of negative outcomes.

Lesson 7: Create a Ton of Value

• Always honor value exchanges, meaning that when you commit to provide something of value, you uphold your end of the bargain. People are always trying to find ways around this by scheming and playing politics, but learning to add value in a given situation builds your skills, confidence, and reputation.
• You may not always be compensated for the value that you create in the short term, but it’s a lot easier to become highly compensated when you generate a ton of value for your employer or customers. Use your Situational Intelligence to find out what is important to your company, to your boss, and make it happen.
• People that have long experience in value creation can sniff out the fakers in a matter of minutes. Don’t be a faker.

Lesson 8: Master Situational Intelligence

What is Situational Intelligence? It’s the ability to make the most sense of a situation — any situation — and use that understanding to make better decisions.

In the 1900s it was all about general intelligence or IQ, and for the last 20 years it’s been about Emotional IQ, but in the future it will be about Situational Intelligence. Why?

Because one of the main reasons the Top 1%ers get better results out of situations than the rest of us is that they very often have a better grasp of the situation. That sounds like a tautology, but it’s amazing how many people don’t know of or fail to grasp the importance of Situational Intelligence.

To put this into perspective, most of us when we chart our course in life, like choosing what to study or applying for a job in a different division, we often don’t have a very good system for analyzing our different options. But this is not the case for the Top 1%ers. They talk to people and consider their feedback. It’s the difference between blindly going into medicine “to help people” and really doing your homework of shadowing doctors and understanding who the decision makers are in the health care industry (FDA, insurance companies, etc.) to ensure that you’ll actually be able to make a contribution once you finish that medical degree.

Make situations and major life decisions a topic of serious investigation.

Lesson 9: Be Yourself

• Affluent people know they are great at at least some things. Maybe this allows them to be more comfortable with their shortcomings and preferences. I've been surprised to find that affluent people are refreshingly candid: “I’m not good at math” or “My doctor says I need to lose 20 lbs. if I want to live a long life” or “I don’t know anything about cars.” Focus your energies on what you’re best at, compensate for your weaknesses where you have to, and let the rest go.
• 1%ers are great at unapologetically owning and articulating their preferences — even if unconventional. This makes people around them more comfortable by removing uncertainty and conveys an air that the 1%ers are in charge of their life. Before you know it, instead of people judging you, they will better understand you and automatically accommodate your preferences.

Lesson 10: Form a Power Couple

It’s no secret that certain venture capitalists highly favor start-ups with founding teams over individual founders and this is for good reason. Working with partners can be a more robust arrangement, provide balance and carry you through the hard times. It’s the same in your personal life.

Many of the Top 1%ers are a part of a power couple. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay, straight, or platonic, facing life with a stable, high functioning, emotionally supportive partner at your side can help super-charge your success.

Would Tommy Caldwell have ever scaled the Dawn Wall of Yosemite’s El Capitan had it not been for his six year partnership with fellow climber Kevin Jorgeson? Hard to say, but no doubt they accomplished much more together than they would have without their amazing partnership. Hard to overstate the importance of having someone that gives you valuable feedback, keeps you grounded, and shares your goals in life.

Lesson 1: Stay Connected to People

And finally, the coup du grâce: Stay connected to people.

The Top 1% mind their schedule and calendar like the rest of us, but it’s not just about the minutes and the hours for them, it’s about people and relationships. I’ve been surprised to find that affluent people have a culture of connectedness, certainly there are some loner a$$holes in the top 1%, but the default is that their relationships are a very important part of their life and they devote real time and effort to keeping their connections healthy and vibrant. I think they’re on to something, consider:

• An 80-year study conducted by Harvard on hundreds of participants found that a key to longevity, health and happiness is to maintain relationships.
• Loneliness has been found to be as bad for your health as obesity, alcoholism, and smoking and is a significant predictor of poor health.

Why are relationships so important?

First, let’s define what a relationship is:

You have a relationship with someone when you are both willing to change your mind or your habits based on what the other person says or does.

Many of us, especially as we age, do not want to be wrong, or change, or get out of our comfort zone. Having a real relationship involves trust and makes you vulnerable because something the other person says might trigger that you need to make a change. But this process is super healthy for your mind and your heart. It keeps you young, literally.

Cheers.