<ul><li>Understand the different outcomes that could happen (both positive and negative)</li><li>Calculate the expected return or loss of each outcome</li><li>Attach a probability to each outcome</li><li>Understanding the magnitude of the return or loss</li><li>Multiply the probability by the magnitude (probability of winning * value of win) — (probability of losing * cost of the loss)</li><li>Add up and subtract all of the expected returns and losses</li><li>To get started you don’t need to know the exact probabilities. Just following the process will give you unique insights you wouldn’t have had otherwise.</li></ul>

Using Decision Trees

Elon Musk uses decision trees to make big decisions (a tool that uses a tree-like graph or model of decisions and their possible consequences, outcomes, and resources). They are particularly useful for avoiding stupid risks and big bets that aren’t likely to succeed.Most became a billionaire by making unlikely big bets, as their expected return statistically was much higher than safer bets.

Use Decision Trees 

One of the best ways to get information is not from just being better at searching Google, it’s from learning how to build a network and get the information you need through that network. This network should include people’s lessons learned and hacks, topics that are too sensitive to talk about because they make someone look bad, and tacit knowledge (knowledge that people have but aren’t able to articulate).

Build Deep, Long-Term Relationships

Having a powerful vision is essential for all entrepreneurs, but if you are going to excel, your stakeholders need to buy into your vision.Storytelling is a learnable skill and can help you transmit your vision to such a degree that others feel it’s inevitable and critical. Great stories transport people into another world and, in doing so, alter their beliefs, evoke emotions, and significantly reduce their ability to detect inaccuracies.

Use Storytelling

Become the best in one core area by continually investing in it over time, rather than jumping from trend to trend and starting over each time.To apply this principle to your business, identify a core customer need that will likely stay the same (even as technology and culture evolve) to which your company is uniquely positioned to cater, and build your company around it.

Invest In What Will Not Change

Your analytical skills have to be honed in and this involves frequently brainstorming, preparing for worst-case scenarios and working around your own limitations.

Developing An Analytical Advantage

<ul><li>Get close to people who have accomplished what you want to accomplish. </li><li>Learn from other fields and bring insights into your own to find unique perspectives.</li><li>Build a lab, not an experiment. The more experiments you make the more you learn.</li><li>Be good at pulling out the wisdom of others, as many are not able to articulate how they succeed.</li></ul>

Developing An Information Advantage

We are wired to want to fit in socially, meaning not going against the flow. But courage is a skill that can be practiced by doing little things that cause you to feel uncomfortable and socially awkward, but with zero real negative impact.

Standing Up Against The Herd

Doing what everyone else does is going to bring you average results. Whenever you’re betting against the consensus there’s a significant probability you’re going to be wrong, so you have to be humble, seek out and understand relevant information and learn to analyze things differently.

Think Independently 

<ul><li>Brainstorm as much as you can to avoid availability bias (choosing the first solution that comes to mind rather than the best solution).</li><li>Test as many potential solutions as you can afford to. This avoids the confirmation bias of rationalizing the one solution you chose.</li><li>Evaluate the criteria for each experiment. </li><li>Learn from every experiment, successful or not. </li></ul>

Checklist To Avoid Stupid Mistakes

Warren Buffett attributes a large part of his success to consistently avoiding preventable mistakes by religiously following basic tenets and ideas he knows will work.To counteract the often negative influence emotions can have in investment decisions, Buffett uses several checklists, including ones for investing, problem-solving, and psychological biases.

Use Checklists To Avoid Stupid Mistakes

Things constantly go wrong no matter how smart and hardworking you are. So, continuously and methodically consider ways a plan could go wrong and plan how to avoid each obstacle.Make a list of how to fail, so you will be prepared when roadblocks come. Apply this principle by listing the ways the project could fail by probability and prioritizing actions that can be taken to avoid failure.

Analyze What Can Go Wrong 

Fascinated by this question for my whole career as a serial entrepreneur and writer, I've read more billionaire entrepreneur biographies than I can count, researched what they have in common, and met and interviewed several. Without a doubt, luck plays a central role.

7 Things That Self-Made Billionaires Do Differently

“Number one: Sales cures all. There has never been a company in the history of companies that has ever succeeded without sales. Anybody who has ever told you, ‘Don’t worry about sales, you can grow it and worry about sales later,’ they are lying to you. They will fail, you will fail. You have to be able to sell and do you know who the biggest salesperson in your company has to be? You.”

“I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.”

“What I love doing is creating things I can be proud of, and if you create things that you can be proud of, the byproduct of that can be that you become a millionaire or you become a billionaire, because people like what you’ve created.”

“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”

“Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio’s market value. If you aren’t willing to own a stock for 10 years, don’t even think about owning it for 10 minutes.”

“When I look back on whatever my past has been and the successes, my greatest rewards have been the people and the relationships that I’ve had. The money has been an accident. I mean, it’s a good accident, but I happened to be playing a game that I love.”

“We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.”

“I thought back on my running career at Oregon. I’d competed with, and against, men far better, faster, more physically gifted. Many were future Olympians. And yet I’d trained myself to forget this unhappy fact. People reflexively assume that competition is always a good thing, that it always brings out the best in people, but that’s only true of people who can forget the competition. The art of competing, I’d learned from track, was the art of forgetting, and I now reminded myself of that fact. You must forget your limits. You must forget your doubts, your pain, your past.”

“I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars, there’s a certain freedom, meaningful freedom that comes with that. But once you get much beyond that, I have to tell you, it’s the same hamburger.”

If you want to become a millionaire - or, dream big, a billionaire - start thinking like one. And what better way to get a glimpse inside successful people's heads that to study the wisdom they've already imparted?

9 quotes from self-made billionaires that will change how you think about money and success

Billionaires are often highly disciplined and set extraordinarily high standards for themselves and the people around them. Of course, they have lazy and unmotivated days but they don’t allow themselves to slack off.You can’t be successful if you don’t hone your skills. Limit the distractions and temptations that hinder your progress, show up and be eager to grow your skills.

Practice Discipline

Routines and rituals are sets of habits that, when practiced consistently, lead to profound, long-term results. Most billionaire routines start early in the day and include exercising, reading and contemplating.It doesn’t matter when you do your routine activities. What counts is that you commit to doing them — even when you don’t feel like it.

Commit To Routines

Billionaires love setting aside alone time. .. To think. They might do this by meditating or some other relaxing activity they enjoy.

Contemplate

Many billionaires are avid readers of a wide range of topics from fiction and nonfiction.Keep a priority list of titles based on your interests or recommendations from mentors — anything that will add value to your life. If you want to go the extra mile, mark interesting passages and write down notes, thoughts and ideas.

Read

Billionaires maintain their health by exercising regularly. They also often practice meditation or stick to a nutritious diet.Many incorporate their favorite sports into their workout regimen and claim that sports teach us about winning and losing, essential skills in business and life.

Take Care Of Your Health

Most billionaires wake-up around 5:30 a. m. Waking up early gives you more time to think in silence, work undisturbed and mentally prepare for the day.It’s important to note that getting less sleep isn’t what makes you successful. The majority of billionaires function best after seven to eight hours of rest; they simply go to bed earlier.

Wake Up Early

There are billions of people in the world, and only a tiny fraction of billionaires. These are the people who have created phenomenally successful businesses and changed the world in significant ways. What's their secret to achieving such impressive accomplishments? What are their belief systems? What gives them the energy to pursue ambitious goals?

I interviewed 21 self-made billionaires about their secrets to wealth and success-here's what I learned

“If something is important enough, even if the odds are stacked against you, you should still do it.”

Elon Musk (Founder Of Spacex, Tesla Motors And Contributor To Paypal): Musk, at 12 years old, taught himself to code and sold a game he made for $500. When he moved to Canada, he worked odd jobs including tending vegetables, shoveling out grain bins, and cleaning out gunk from a boiler room in a lumber mill.In university, Elon sold computer parts to make extra cash and turned his 10 bedroom fraternity home into a nightclub on the weekends and charged a cover. Since then, he’s built several companies, including SpaceX, Tesla Motors, PayPal, and zip2.

Hustle Early In Life

“It’s important to be willing to make mistakes. The worst thing that can happen is you become more memorable.”

Sara Blakely (Founder Of Spanx): She started her billionaire journey when she was 27 years old, out of her Atlanta apartment and revolutionized the way women look in their clothes. She also started the Sara Blakely Foundation to help women through education and entrepreneurship and later joined the ‘Giving Pledge’, a commitment to donate the majority of her wealth to help others who truly need it.

Give To Those Who Truly Need It

Warren Buffett (CEO Of Berkshire Hathaway): He’s an American investment wizard and businessman who started investing in stocks at 11 years old and real estate investing at 14 years old. He’s had a few businesses and grew Berkshire Hathaway into one of the most valuable companies in the world based on his ‘invest what you know’ mentality and strategically investing in undervalued businesses for the long term in many industries.

Learn To Grow Your Investments

“I don’t believe in pitfalls. I believe in taking risks and not doing the same thing twice.”

Guy Laliberté (Co-Founder And Former CEO Of Cirque Du Soleil): He started as a street performer playing the accordion, walking on stilts and eating fire. In 1987, he co-founded a circus troupe in Montreal and took a big risk moving it to Los Angeles which eventually led to it becoming the famous Cirque du Soleil.In 2009, he became the first Canadian space tourist and his spaceflight was dedicated to raising awareness on water issues making it the first, in his words, ‘poetic social mission’ in space.

Be Comfortable With The Uncomfortable

“You become what you believe. You are where you are today in your life based on everything you have believed.”

Oprah Winfrey (CEO Of Oprah Winfrey Network): Considered one of the most influential women in the world, she is an American media mogul, producer, talk show host, author and philanthropist.She grew up in poverty and by the time she was fourteen, she suffered physical abuse, molestation, and the death of her first newborn. A few years later, she won a beauty pageant, got her degree in speech and performing arts and became an ABC news anchor.

Circumstances Don’t Matter

Mark Cuban (Owner Of The Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theatres, Magnolia Pictures And Chairman Of Axs Tv): Before his billionaire days, he learned to stretch his dollar by living of ketchup and mustard sandwiches, couch surfing, and living on the cheap. In university, he made extra cash teaching dance lessons and hosting disco parties.He lived on the cheap for a long time in order to build and grow his businesses and investments into a multi-billion-dollar empire.

Learn The Real Value Of Money

Jack Ma (Founder Of China Yellowpages And Alibaba): His mental toughness and resilience got him through many failed school and university exams. After graduating, he went on to dozens of rejections from jobs.Before becoming rich, he was kidnapped on a business trip to Los Angeles, threatened with a gun, and held captive in Las Vegas before managing to escape. His mental toughness, resilience, extreme determination and passion to achieve his goals eventually paid off and he went on to build a massive internet empire.

Learn To Be Mentally Tough

Zhou Qunfei (Founder Of Lens Technology): When she was 16, due to financial hardship and a need to support her blind father, she dropped out of school to work as an operator in a watch glass company.She learned the ropes of the glass making business by studying alone at night and relying on books to create different technologies. Now, her company supplies touchscreen glass to a quarter of all smartphones in the world.

Learn The Power Of Curiosity

In Bloomberg's top 200 billionaires, over half are self made; 137 to be exact. Together, those 137 are worth about $2 trillion. And the percentage of self-made billionaires is growing from year to year at an amazing rate - proof that it is possible to achieve this dream.

10 Self-Made Billionaires In The World That You Should Learn From

The difference between self-made billionaires and the rest of the pack is that they don’t leave their achievements up to chance. Instead of waiting for success or wealth to fall in their lap, they take actionable steps every single day to inch closer to the finish line.Becoming a billionaire might seem like an impossible pipe dream, but the amount of self-made ones is increasing every year.

Everybody wants to be successful — however, not many actually make it a reality.

If you take a look at self-made billionaires, you’ll notice they aren’t constantly pursuing fancy handbags or shiny sports cars. Take Mark Zuckerberg, for instance, who has over 50 billion dollars and drives a Volkswagen Getta.Really successful individuals know that true luxury is being able to pursue their dreams, instead of being shackled to their spending. So they make a daily effort to grow their wealth and use it on future endeavors, instead of blowing it on the latest “must have” purchase.

1) They’re frugal

Self-made billionaires take time to study the trends, concepts, and financial news each day to become an expert in their field and stay up to date on what’s current. Many trade publications and blogs exist to help keep you current on what’s important so you can get ahead.

2) They’re lifelong learners.

Regular physical activity can give you back four extra hours of productivity each day. It can also boost your mood and prevent diseases like stroke, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and depression.If you haven’t already, add about 30 minutes of exercise into your daily routine to get the blood flowing and improve your mental clarity so you can be at your best.

3) They exercise

We talk about our physical health all the time, but mental health is just as (if not more) important for the self-made billionaire. Lately, people have become more aware of the benefits that sitting and clearing your mind can bring, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-meditation-changes-your-brain-2015-1">including improving memory and dealing with stress</a>. Billionaires are no different .

4) They meditate

Financially, start saving your money and investing as soon as possible. Self-made billionaires realize the enormous value of compound interest, and that a small amount invested now can become a fortune later.You don’t have to be young to achieve success, but you should adopt the attitude that it’s never too early to start thinking about your future. Don’t be afraid to take a leap in your career, even if you think you’re too inexperienced.

5) They start early

Many people spend most of their lives climbing the corporate ladder, trying to get ahead of the next person. In reality, the most successful people have found a way to go against the tide of what everyone else is doing. Sara Blakely, <a href="https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/17-inspiring-women-entrepreneurs-on-how-to-be-successful.html">the youngest self-made billionaire woman in the world</a>, made a shapewear that went against the things other companies were doing. Similarly, Arianna Huffington created a whole new type of media platform, <a href="https://medium.com/the-mission/what-if-everything-is-possible-7828d050579#.m276qz4y1">which critics said was “un-survivable.”</a>

6) They do things differently

One thing all billionaires and big thinkers have in common is that they were told “no” at some point in their lives. The trick is to keep swimming against the tide.Realize that “no” is just someone’s opinion, nothing more. The difference with these success stories is that they pushed forward past these bad experiences and rejections, and even used them as a springboard for success. They realize that no rejection is set in stone — it’s just one person’s (often flawed) viewpoint.

7) They don’t take “no” for an answer

"A truly enlightening work filled with fundamental strategies that have worked for others.Martin Fridson documents the essential principles inherent in every billionaire's success." -Gordon Bethune Chairman of the Board and CEO Continental Airlines Self-made billionaires all have one thing in common: they excel at making money. But hard work, thrift, and focus are only part of the story-you hold the rest of it in your hands. How to Be a Billionaire is the first comprehensive picture of the real strategies and tactics that built the great business fortunes of modern times. Packed with engaging accounts of titans like Ross Perot, Richard Branson, Phil Anschutz, John D. Rockefeller, Wayne Huizenga, Bill Gates, J. Paul Getty, and Kirk Kerkorian, How to Be a Billionaire will show you principles that can increase your wealth and business acumen to the mogul level. How to Be a Billionaire looks at the careers, the methods, and the minds of self-made billionaires to distill the common keys to titanic accumulations of wealth. Each chapter explores a specific strategy and brings it to life through extended profiles of past and present masters of the art of making money. Do you think innovation is the best way to prosper in business? Sam Walton, founder of the Wal-Mart retail chain, would tell you otherwise. The key to Walton's success was supreme devotion to copying the methods of other successful discounters. What could be less complicated than buying low and selling high? But the ascent of Warren Buffett, John Kluge, and Laurence Tisch to billionaire status depended on much more than an eye for good bargains. And if you're looking to thrive by outmanaging the competition, look no further than Richard Branson. When the founder of Virgin Atlantic needed to reduce his staff by 400 people, 600 volunteered to take off a few months on sabbatical. How to Be a Billionaire identifies the methods, beliefs, and behaviors every businessperson must understand and emulate to reach the pinnacle of riches. A manual for success that can benefit every aspiring tycoon, it is a fascinating read for anyone intrigued by wealth and how it's gotten. Praise for HOW TO BE A BILLIONAIRE "How to Be a Billionaire offers fascinating insight into the subject of building wealth. As a result of his exhaustive research, Martin Fridson is able to explain the wealth-creation process from a unique perspective. As the reader will discover, there is no single formula for success, but there are certain categories into which these concepts can be placed. My personal advice is to remember the words of Winston Churchill who said, 'Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.'" -Ross Perot "Martin Fridson has created the ultimate roadmap to the American Dream. He comes as close to extracting a formula for the acquisition of wealth as any book I have ever read." -Jeff Sagansky CEO, Paxson Communications "Martin Fridson's book has a number of very insightful and thoughtful analyses, something you don't pick up in many business schools." -Philip F. Anschutz Chairman and CEO, The Anschutz Corporation "How to Be a Billionaire is a powerful arsenal of dead-on strategies for increasing your personal wealth and business acumen. Marty Fridson details the tactics of self-made billionaires with great intelligence and insight. I wish this book had been available when I was starting my career." -Spencer Hays Founder, Tom James Company Executive Chairman, Southwestern/Great American, Inc. Chairman, Athlon Publications

How to be a Billionaire

We bring you lessons from self-made billionaires to point you in the right direction

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

💵
Lessons From Self Made Billionaires

7 Things That Self-Made Billionaires Do Differently

9 quotes from self-made billionaires that will change how you think about money and success

I interviewed 21 self-made billionaires about their secrets to wealth and success-here's what I learned

10 Self-Made Billionaires In The World That You Should Learn From

How to be a Billionaire

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

💵Lessons From Self Made Billionaires

7 Things That Self-Made Billionaires Do Differently

9 quotes from self-made billionaires that will change how you think about money and success

I interviewed 21 self-made billionaires about their secrets to wealth and success-here's what I learned

10 Self-Made Billionaires In The World That You Should Learn From

How to be a Billionaire

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

💵
Lessons From Self Made Billionaires