A lot of people mistakenly assume that true wealth is simply growing your financial net worth. If you think like that, you could not be more wrong. Wealth is a balanced and holistic concept. In this post, we have listed 10 principles that can help you in achieving true wealth in a deeply personal as well as a purely financial sense.

1. Be Deeply Motivated

You cannot sit back and let luck take over when you want to build wealth. Your motivation needs to come from somewhere deeper than regular external trappings. You need to find a cause that will transform your life and drive you to overcome all obstacles which keep you from attaining financial freedom. Internally driven goals can be:

• Charity
• Freedom
• Growth
• Leadership

2. Add Value to Whatever You Come Across

Everyone is better off when they add value to the world. Giving more will only help you in the long run. This is an important step in building true wealth. You can greatly improve your life when you help others get better. Exploitation may bring you initial riches, but they won’t provide fulfilment and happiness.

3. Don’t Compromise on Integrity

People think they need to sell their soul to get rich. That’s not true. You don’t need to do things that would prevent you from meeting your father’s eye. You don’t need to harm others, encroach on their property, or violate moral law despite what we may see the FBI doing and all those rioters undermining their own cities. You don’t need to lie, cheat, insult, or damage the environment in your pursuit of wealth – we’ve seen that too much in certain cities in America that many people have moved away from.

You don’t even have to stretch the truth even though we see that all the time in California and New York politics and the White House. Never compromise on your integrity for expediency. There is no amount of money that can replace a clear conscience, a good night’s rest and a peaceful mind.

4. Be Brave and Courageous

You need to have courage to be responsible and a self-starter. You need to be brave to develop new skills and walk new paths. Courage is needed to put extra efforts for standing out from the crowd. In short, you cannot build wealth if you don’t have what it takes.

5. Stay Disciplined

Wealth is an accumulated mass of many small things that are compounded together over a person’s lifetime. Your daily habits play an important role in making and breaking your success. Investing, reinvesting, saving and growing your business and financial intelligence are vital to building wealth. You need to be consistent and persistent in your efforts. You risk falling prey to procrastination without discipline in your life.

6. Don’t Indulge in Conspicuous Consumption

Wealth is not instant gratification. Instead, you become wealthy when you invest your today’s wealth for a more comfortable tomorrow. You should consider living modestly in terms of time, energy, and money. Happiness is not directly related to material trappings. They only keep one from fulfilling their purpose. You have a decision to make every day – consume today or be wealthy tomorrow.

7. Create Supportive Environment

Life has an endless stream of distractions that can sidetrack your plans for building wealth. You can overcome these distractions with focused, persistent and consistent action. The best way to do this is by creating a support system which helps keep you focused on your financial goals.

Your relationships, family environment, financial habits, work environment, and daily rituals should be designed proactively for keeping you interested in creating wealth. They should support and reinforce your plans.

8. Build Wealth by Applying Leverage

You cannot get wealthy on your own. You cannot build wealth by trading time for riches. You need to work smarter instead of harder. These are a few principles of leverage you need to apply:

• Marketing Leverage
• Network Leverage
• Knowledge Leverage
• Financial Leverage
• Time Leverage
• Systems and Technology Leverage

9. Make Your Wealth Work

Wealth is not a one-off standalone concept. It is similar to a business entity. You need to run your money the way you would run a business. Use competitive advantage, accountability, accurate record keeping and leverage to get where you want.

10. You Don’t Possess Wealth

You need to understand that you are a steward to your wealth and not the owner. You would eventually need to move it to others. Money comes with tremendous responsibility. You need to ensure that you create maximum benefit for others who come across the wealth created by you. This can be done using your temporary stewardship wisely.