Making Friends with the Rich & Famous
A 2004 Gallup poll conducted shows relationship between people's income and their number of friends. Here is a table summarizing their findings.
Percentage of people with more than 5 close friends
and more than 5 acquaintances, by income
Revenue (000s) |
Close Friends |
Aquaintances |
Less than 10 |
22 |
68.7 |
10-20 |
25.8 |
74.4 |
20-30 |
24.5 |
75.3 |
30-40 |
25.4 |
80.7 |
40-50 |
29 |
83.6 |
50-60 |
31.5 |
80.3 |
60-80 |
30.7 |
86.4 |
More than 80 |
34.3 |
86.3 |
As you can see from the table, people with higher income are more probable to have more close friends and acquaintances. This could mean one of two things:
• As you earn more money, you'll make more friends
• As you make more friends, you'll earn more money
Both are true to a certain extent. But point no. 2 is what is our concern. Can you really grow rich if you make more friends? And if that is indeed true, how do you make friends with the rich and famous?
There is an age old myth that goes: “Take the incomes of the five closest friends you have and average them. Your income will be very close to that!”
Asking and observing people, I've found this to be true for most people. But why is it true? Because your thinking changes according to the friends you keep.
Robert Kiyosaki in his book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” talks about the difference between his rich dad's and poor dad's thinking. His poor dad thinks “This can't be done, it's impossible.” And his rich dad thinks “How can this be done?”
You will become like the people you hang out with.
That makes sense. But why does having more friends improve your chances of being rich? The answer in one word:
Contacts.
The more people you know, the more opportunities you'll see.
A study conducted on job opportunities showed that 80-90% of the jobs aren't even advertised. They are filled by acquaintances of people who are already working in that firm.
This is true for most other fields too. 90% of money making opportunities aren't advertised. But if you know some insider, your chances of bagging that opportunity improve tremendously.
The story of how contacts helps one guy become rich beyond his dreams
Mary is actively involved in community service. She becomes the president of United Way of King County in 1975. Mary passionately tells about her son's company to all of the other community service advocates working with her. One of the people who hears Mary talk about her son's company so passionately is John Opel.
Five years later, John Opel – president of IBM is looking for a computer operating system. Guess where does he go? To Redmont , Washington to meet Mary's young boy – Bill Gates.
Because of that one deal with IBM, Bill Gates has today become the richest man alive. It's doubtful that IBM might have sent people to Redmont to see a small company like Microsoft if John Open hadn't heard the name before.
Ah – the power of contacts!
How do you make more friends and acquaintances?
The easiest way to make more friends is to write thank you letters to strangers. Read a good article? Write a letter to thank the author. Received good service in a restaurant? Write a thank you note for the server. Met a person in a party? Send him a thank you letter the next day.
Write one thank you letter a day and you'll soon find new, exciting and profitable opportunities every day!
Writing is better than calling up people too because most rich and famous people have screeners who will screen their calls. But if you write a good thank you letter, the screener will always show it to the benefactor.
Bonus story
Princess Diana's Secret
How did a dorky little girl bloom into one of the most charismatic ladies
She was known as “Shy Di.” She was a kindergarten teacher when she married Prince Charles and became the princess of Wales. More than 750 million people witnessed her wedding on TV on July 29, 1981. And each and every one of those observers could make out that she was inexperienced and introverted – even through TV!
She has been called many a names – gawky, dorky, shy. Yet, in just a little more than a decade she transformed herself. At the time of her death in 1997, her fame and popularity surpassed that of the Queen! She was arguably the most well known and lover personality of the world, and more people cried on her death than anyone else's in the history of the world!
How did a young and shy princess turned herself into one of the most charismatic and loved personality of the world?
To let you in on a secret, she was still shy. But she made an effort to reach out to people – which gave her an image of being charismatic.
Her big secret of reaching out to people? She wrote thank you letters to everyone from waiters and servers to security guards and drivers to CEOs and presidents. Everyone from top to bottom received a thank you note from the princess and then became her personal evangelists.
She transformed her self from a dull and dorky kid to the charismatic and kind princess – not by changing herself, but by thanking people around her and thus changing their perception of her.
Action Summary:
- Write just one thank you note a day, everyday. Be disciplined enough to write just one letter a day and your fame will grow far and wide too.
- It's been 11 months since I started writing one thank you note a day. My experience? I've received free appetizers and other goodies. Very busy CEOs and presidents who charge hundreds of dollars per hour to even speak have personally called me to thank me on receiving thank you letters! People have gifted me everything from employee discounts to $3,500 seminar seats. The number of referrals I receive have jumped up too! Just by writing one thank you letter a day.
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You should start writing one thank you letter a day from today onwards itself! This won't only help you in making money online, but will improve your life offline too! Make it a habit and your income will double within a year!
Now that you know a key secret to success, lets take a look at the best way to launch a website:
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