Do You Think Like the Wealthy?

The latest Time Use Survey by the American Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals some very interesting data about how people in the United States spend our leisure time. Take this quick survey and write how many minutes a day is spent in each of the following four tasks, and then try to guess the amount of time the average American spends on each activity. 1. Shopping 2. Watching TV 3. Financial Management 4. You write as time spent on each of socialization of the activities? Now let's see if we can associate the activity with the number of minutes that the average American spends in the activity. AB C. 2.4 minutes 154.2 minutes 6.6 minutes D. 39.6 minutes you surprised by some of the answers? The average American spends only 39.6 minutes of socialization. They spend 2.4 minutes a day managing their finances, 154.2 minutes per day watching television, and 6.6 minutes a day of shopping for food. The fact that most of us spend 154.2 minutes a day watching television may not shock many of you, because it is a well known fact that average Americans watch much television. That does not do well, but probably not a surprise. What about 2.4 minutes per day, or about 72 minutes per month we spend in managing our finances, it did shock many of you? Certainly, I was shocked. If we consider the impact of the management of our finances can have on our lifestyle and the future of watching TV is very surprising to me that we spend very little time to improve our finances. Why do you think the average American spends as much time on TV, so little time for financial planning? I suspect that watching TV so much because it gives us instant gratification or entertainment value, while investment requires a long-term return is not tangible in the short term. One of the key factors of differentiation between the rich and the middle class is its ability to focus on long term and do things in the short term, which will provide long-term income and changes in lifestyle. The rich tend to think in decades. Most multi-million dollar business that plans to reach 10 or more years in the future. There is power in this way of thinking long term. Do it consistently and you will be rich. Make a regular habit of thinking about what you want your life be like in 5, 10, 20 and 30 years from now. Do the same for your business and develop plans to support the vision and action.