We encountered the term the New Rich for the first time in Tim Ferris' book The 4-Hour Work Week. To put it simply, the New Rich are the class of people who abandon the predetermined life-plan: go to university, find a steady job, settle down, pay the mortgage for the next 30 years and enjoy life when you retire.
The New Rich create luxury lifestyle and passion-driven international businesses. They are well-aware that time and mobility are assets playing in their favour so they become digital nomads, manage remote teams and help multiple clients in different time zones. Their modus operandi is YouEconomy.
Success magazine outlined in a comprehensive report what is in YouEconomy for you. This kind of economy in the 21st century is your Stairway to Heaven, or to the class of The New Rich. YouEconomy is an umbrella term that covers the freelance economy, gig economy and the sharing economy I wrote about previously on Huffington Post.
According to ''Freelancing in America 2015'' report people working in YouEconomy fall into five categories: independent contractors, diversified workers, moonlighters, temporary workers and micro entrepreneurs.
It all starts with the mindset shift as Tony Robbins explained it. "The first step really is deciding you're no longer just going to be a consumer. You're going to be an owner... You've got to decide, instead of being the chess piece to become the chess player."
In YouEconomy creation comes before consumption since people are sharing resources, knowledge and technology, working as freelances, and making multiple income streams. Assets which ''have sat idle previously'' are now rented apartments on AirBnB or taxi cars on Uber platform.
It is beyond tempting to do the job you love, when you want it, how you want it and with the people you like. And once you have experienced the freedom of living life on your own terms, I can tell you from my own personal experience, you are not going to get back to the regular 9-to-5 workforce. You will not be one of those people whose eyes are glued to the watch or calendar asking, ''Is it 5 o' clock? We are done for today. Gosh, our vacation is only a week away.'' Instead you are going to focus on three most important things, not only every single day, but every single second: How do I experience this moment fully and get into the state of peak performance? How do I cut off things that do not matter and give more of my unique gifts to the world? How do I create more value for other people?
Recently a colleague on the Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality project I joined has asked me how I was. I shared with her this very secret to productive and happy work, ''Although I do my best every day to upgrade myself and work incredibly long hours, it does not feel like work in the traditional sense. You know, for many people an 8-hour work day is a drudgery labour. I prefer to look at business with curious eyes. What matters to me is that my job is dynamic and I can grow and learn every single day.''
Therefore, this class of New Rich is capable of creating products and services that people need and they are passionate about. Then the New Rich can automate their business model thanks to the Internet and as a result decide intentionally to enjoy life right now, not at the retirement age.
Now let's have a look at crucial characteristics that these successful people have because it takes more than desire to live the life on your own terms. You actually need to commit and follow through because being your own boss requires even more responsibility that working with the guidance of a supervisor.
1) The New Rich can better control how they spend their time than the average employee.
Time is the only source that cannot be earned back so you have to own it and plan it in advance. The New Rich have identified that their most important daily activity, which leads them to fulfilling their long-term vision and increases their revenue most should be performed in the morning. This certainly is not checking social media or email. This most important activity involves laser-focus, strategic thinking and contemplating without being interrupted.
Therefore, for the New Rich mornings are sacred as they understand that their will power tends to naturally fade as the day progresses. Because they achieve so much at the moments when other people are just waking up, they get to allocate the rest of their day on scheduled meetings, managing others, checking their emails and following up with clients, administrative activities, learning and exercising.
Peak performance is best achieved when we allocate our intention to the most important business activity first thing in the morning.
2) They have more control over their earnings than the typical employee.
For most of us, financial education is not something we learned in our families. Very often, the assumptions our parents had about money and successful life are the beliefs they had inherited from their parents. Many times those beliefs got used up like old furniture or car. In new circumstances ─ the economy of the 21st century they cannot serve us well, but once we understand what does not work anymore, we can go for a massive change.
If we want to expand the amount of money we earn at the moment, we have to take deliberate actions every day to become more valuable to the market, our clients and our bosses (even if we are bosses to ourselves). Ask yourself, ''How would your financial future change in case you read for 20-30 minutes every day about personal finances and international market opportunities?'' It is best to read both books and high-authority articles at certain time of the day. Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie and Robert Kiyosaki are your reading inspiration in the morning, whereas you get informed about international business from the press during breaks later in the afternoon.
It is not always possible to quit the unfulfilling job immediately, especially when finances are tough. So those who look for a smooth transition should armour themselves with extra willpower and do what they love in the evening: after official working hours are over. Gradually, this additional time investment into learning and side projects would provide them with a new revenue stream and extended client base. Then they would be able to use this extra money and mitigate the risk of transition from a full-time employment to being their own boss.
3) The New Rich are rapid learners interested in prosperity of others, not just their own.
The world we live in is a heaven if we are interested in life-long learning because we get to capitalize on assets that our parents and grandparents acquired, while we work in industries and global markets that were not available to them. This abundance of opportunities and curiosity should lift us up when things do not work out in our favour since there may be something even better around the corner.
What can be a better motivation for you to learn your entire life than to become an elite performer in your scope of work?
Malcolm Gladwell popularized in his book Outliers the research of Anders Ericsson: it takes on average 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in the field. Prodigy musicians, athletes, business people have accumulated the huge amount of hours during a short period of time. Ericsson and his team have asked musicians from Berlin's Academy of Music, ''Over the course of your entire career, ever since you first picked up the violin, how many hours have you practiced?" Although most of them had begun playing at the age of five roughly, by age twenty elite performers had around 10,000 hours of practice on average (some of them even scoring on 25,000), while the less capable performers had a total of 4,000 hours.
So, the next time you want to take on a new instrument such as a digital piano or an electric violin, remember to be patient about your performance, even though it is just a hobby. It takes many hours of deliberate practice to achieve mastery in any field but if you have a system behind it and if you are advancing in the industry which is quite new, you do get to have an advantage over competitors who are not focused.
4) They harbour a travel lifestyle.
Once the New Rich have mastered their organizational skills, they can merge travel and work they love together. These digital nomads are capable of packing quickly and using their laptop to the max across time zones.
We might have fallen into this mind trap at some point: we need a vacation from our exhausting work and doing what you love efficiently and travelling are difficult to accomplish. The truth is somewhere in the middle and the New Rich can testify that from their own experience. They have tested different options and have decided to stick to the ones that resonate best with them.
You do need to recuperate from frequent flying and jet lag. It is important that you devote some time to sightseeing and savouring local cuisine, when you will not think about work. And when you do business in a new environment, you will be focused on peak performance, since you have recuperated your strength before.
Digital Nomads live according to the claim, ''Collect experiences, not things'' and what they invest into travel memories makes them the New Rich. They decide to stay at Niagara Falls Hotel just to be in the closest place to the falls; they travel the Trans-Siberian railway and stop by villages to ride on wild horses; or they volunteer at host cities during the Olympic Games. All of those memories might get published on their travel blog, Instagram or other social media feed so as to enhance their brand and connect them to international contacts.
5) The New Rich surround themselves with like-minded peers.
Last but not least, the New Rich are aware that we become the sum of five people we most commonly spend time with. They have removed energy vampires from their circle of friends and instead formed a peer group of driven individuals that push them to the higher level with the attitude, ''You can do it! Just like I did!''
They are also well aware that you need to dress up for the professional role you set your eye on. In case you are not at the position you aim at, dress up as if you are already there. As a modern businessman you may want to try these stylish men's suits even though your office is remote or you are constantly on the wheels. As a business woman, tailor-made clothes and carefully-chosen accessories help you accentuate your radiant style and personality, while you stay sleek and professional.
Companies emphasize the importance of peer groups in their own policies when they create competitive and creative culture of work and play. One consultancy wanted to recruit more women so they organized transport and catering for that special networking day in the region. The event was unusual but only at first, it was a day of playing golf where talented women get to meet their potential supervisors and each other.
Many global businesses get to expand outside of working hours on golf courts, at the restaurant dinners, or in the gym as like-minded people bond together. And if you are interested to pursue golf, the leading sport for patience in business, dress up to the nines in golf attire and try out these best golf gps and golf rangefinders.
In business like in any other sport, exponential growth becomes our everyday reality when we change the perspective, get better tools and focus on what we can uniquely contribute to YouEconomy. Let us know in the comments section what you think about this topic.
Photo credits: JustLuxe, Success, Flickr, Her Campus, Meet Up
Do you feel determined to move to a next chapter in your life, but you are uncertain how to start? To book a consulting session with Milena Milicevic, reach her out at LinkedIn.
Milena's current projects focus on helping companies and Millennials in the 4th Industrial Revolution through three streams: business development in ICT sector, event management, and content marketing.