Towards the end of the year 2015, I discovered a new business idea. Analyzing how to take advantage of this opportunity, I discovered I would need a whole lot of money, far more than I had at the time.
To cut the long story short, after some back-and-forth negotiation, I was able to get all the money I needed as an investment loan from a friend. From there, I was able to transform my businesses, and the rest, they will say, is history.
Today I’ll be discussing with you one important instrument the rich use to create wealth that poor people don’t use or use for the wrong thing.
Now let’s get started.
You see, one important ability the rich have is their ability to persuade other people to make sacrifices for them. These sacrifices may be in the form of loans, partnerships, getting their employees to work harder, or anything else. While most poor people complain that nobody helps them, the rich don’t wait for people to help them. They go out, meet people and persuade people to support their vision.
We all know that our lives could be transformed if we can get other people to so much believe in us they are willing to invest in our ideas. But most of us simply don’t know how to get others to believe in us.
We know our lives could be transformed if only we can persuade other people to support our vision but most of us are not persuasive enough to make that happen.
The few among us who know and understand how to get others to sacrifice for them, invest in their ideas, support their ideology, work hard for them, etc. are those who become rich and successful.
Think about anyone who is wealthy today, and I’ll tell you they became wealthy because they were able to get other people to make sacrifices for them.
Persuasiveness is a great instrument the rich use to create wealth.
Take, for example; Steve Jobs was able to get $250,000 from Mike Markkula by persuading him to believe in Apple Inc., in the early days of Apple.
Mark Zuckerberg was able to get $500,000 from Peter Thiel in the early days of Facebook.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin were able to get $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim in the early days of Google.
Jeff Bezos was able to get $40,000 from Nick Hanauer and many others in the early years of Amazon.
We can go on and on to show how the rich were able to get others to believe in them.
Now I know what many people who are reading this article will start thinking at this point; “You see, these guys are lucky. If I too can get someone to believe in me and invest in my idea, I can become rich”.
Well, you’re wrong. If people don’t believe in you or are not willing to invest in you, most of the time it’s your fault or the fault of your idea. Napoleon Hill said, “There is too much money in the world for those who know how to use it” and I believe that.
If you want to see this in its practical application, watch Shark Tank. Shark Tank is a TV Series where potential entrepreneurs meet investors and convince them to invest in their businesses.
Almost all the Shark Tank’s seasons are on YouTube and I challenge you to watch them. If you pay attention, you’ll notice that while some entrepreneurs would try to get a few thousand dollars from investors and fail, some will get more money than they asked for.
What is the difference here? Very simple. Investors will literarily beg you with their money if your idea is truly innovative, and you’re able to convince them. Again, it’s about you and your idea, so if you think the world is against you, and no one is willing to help you, I suggest you check yourself and your idea.
The problem with most people is that they either don’t know how to come up with what others can get excited about or they don’t know how to persuade people to believe in them.
You must know how to do these two. You must know how to come up with what people want and you must know how to persuade people to see what you’re seeing and believe in your idea.
Let me give you 5 tips that can help you:
- Believe in yourself
Look at anyone who is able to persuade people for any cause. You can be sure he/she is confident. If you want to be very persuasive, the first thing to do is to be confident.
You just have to believe in yourself or you won’t be able to get people to see what you’re seeing. One tough thing about confidence is that you cannot fake it. If you have it, it naturally shows.
If you lack it, the more you try to fake it, the more obvious it shows in your body language that you don’t believe in yourself. To persuade others to support you in any way, you must believe in yourself. Very deeply.
- Believe in your idea
Go and listen to speeches of people like Martin Luther King Jr. listen to someone like Steve Jobs talking. Listen to Winston Churchill’s speeches. Aside from the fact that these men are confident, it’s too obvious that they believed in their ideas.
Winston Churchill so much believed in his call to fight against the enemies of Britain that he sometimes went to the battle together with Britain’s soldiers, even when he ought not to.
If you want to be able to persuade people to support your idea, you must believe in an such idea and be willing to die for it to come to reality.
How many people do you think actually believe in their own idea? Maybe 1 out of 100 people. Most people cannot die for their ideas. They don’t believe it can change the world. They don’t believe it can transform some lives. Yet, they want others to support such ideas.
When you don’t believe in your own idea very deeply, you’ll lack the enthusiasm to make others believe in it. And when people don’t believe in your idea, they cannot support you to make it a reality. It’s just common sense, you know.
- Learn about communication/public speaking
Sometimes you may believe in yourself, and in your idea, but you won’t know how to communicate with others. And that will be the end of your idea. The point here is, people cannot see what is going on inside of you.
You’ll need words to paint a good picture for them to see what you’re seeing. Most people don’t know how to do this and that can be a big problem.
Reading a few books about communication and conscious practice can help you to become a better communicator.
- Learn about negotiation
All of life is about negotiation, and negotiation skill even becomes more important when you need other people to support you in any way. People don’t do things out of mercy. You must learn how to get other people to support your cause by negotiating with them.
We recommend you should read a few books on negotiation.
- Don’t take rejection personal
Most people who wish that others support them think that the first person they speak with should say “Yes”. Life will become heaven if that can happen all the time.
Most often, you’ll have to suffer rejections from tens of people before someone would believe in your cause. You must be strong enough to remain motivated, even when certain people don’t believe in you.
In summary, none of us can go through life alone. For us to succeed, we need other people to make sacrifices for us. To get others to support us, we must be persuasive.
Persuasiveness is a skill you must master if you want to go far in life.
Thank you.