What does it mean to be a success? Depending on who you ask, the answer can vary, but typically they follow a particular pattern. Something like the person has to be incredibly wealthy and have a strong network of people who themselves are highly resourceful.

That or they just drive a nice car.

For me, the definition is more complex than that. After seeing how billionaires behave around people, it’s obvious that money isn’t really everything. Owning a nice car or flaunting material wealth really doesn’t do much either.

Success is more of a personality. It’s a certain kind of attitude and mindset that pushes us forward and makes us better people.

Success isn’t exactly how it’s taught in the self-help industry.

And you can get that distinction when you look at these particular sets of advice. Think of them as rules of success that will help you in so many ways.

If there is any piece of advice that you take away from this, let it be this one: always act broke. 

The reason boils down to what I hinted at mere moments ago about how billionaires behave around other people. Today there are several examples of people with a lot of money ruining certain things. Like how a billionaire hockey coach etched his family’s names on the Stanley cup rather than actual staff.

Or how Elon Musk did a Nazi salute at the end of a speech. It’s not directly harmful, beyond emboldening sympathizers, but it does echo a lot of Musk’s overall beliefs and sentiments towards humanity.

In the end, billionaires behave this way because they lack empathy and have no sense of grounding. And what tends to help with developing those kinds of emotions and perspectives is to either be in those situations or to act like it.

In the end, having too much money is a mental illness, as it brings out some of the worst traits in people and gives us a sense of isolation as well. What keeps people grounded is tapping into our emotions and trying to understand other people. And so acting broke can be a good avenue for that—especially if you’re someone with a lot of money or your version of success is someone with a lot of money.

But how does this look in practice? Well, it’s rather simple:

• Avoid the high-end brands of clothing. A report in 2024 covered that luxury brands use the same materials as fast fashion anyway, so why pay a premium?
• Use cash for all of your purchases whenever you can, as it’s a good psychological tool for how much money you can spend at events or dining.
• Make a point of using public transit more often.
• Splurge on occasion and do so with a hard limit.

If that all sounds like normal people behaviour, that’s because it totally is.

Yeah, that’s right.

As much as it hurts me to say it, getting a day job is not as bad as it sounds. Although in this economy, I can imagine it’s harder than it looks.

It’s almost like the show Undercover Boss, where the purpose of getting a day job is seeing problems from different perspectives. There are several benefits to diversity in terms of position in a company, ethnicity, or skill. And keeping a day job in a way can help with that even when you’re already a success and thriving.

Regardless of your definition of success, when you hit that ideal level, it changes you. But above all, it changes how you see the world around you and how others perceive you. And so sticking to living a more ordinary life and acting like little has changed can be a good form of stability as you figure things out.

A cornerstone of success that many talk about is persistence or focus on goals, but it ultimately feeds into one thing: positivity. And so, it makes sense that in order to maintain that positive attitude, we need to avoid negative sources as much as we can.

I say this over trying to eliminate all negativity because negativity can sometimes be helpful. This is on top of the fact that trying to remove negativity is impossible. Things like doubt, anger, and frustration can be useful tools in the right kind of contexts on top of checks for your other emotions.

But what we can control is how much negativity we have in our lives and allow from other people we spend time with.

And so being mindful of our space to some degree can feed into success. This doesn’t mean avoiding or cutting off people who show the slightest hint of negativity, but rather actively seeking out people looking to elevate themselves.

The world sucks right now for a variety of different reasons, but it’s one thing to sit on your current situation and self and do nothing and another to keep growing and challenging yourself.

People throw the phrase “leave your comfort zone” around like it’s nothing these days, and to some degree, it feels like it. After all, you tend to hear it most from famous and rich self-help gurus who haven’t changed their business practices for years and years.

But I do believe there is some genuineness to it when you actually adopt it.

Instead of using it as a means to buy another course, take some time to figure out what you really want to do in your life. Ask yourself what something you could do that can break up the loops and cycles that you have in your life is.

And actually commit to the bit.

If it hasn’t become obvious already, allow me to spell it out: success habits tend to lean into one another and enhance the loops in your lives.

Living with everyday people builds up humility, empathy, and understanding. This in turn leads to valuing positivity and seeking out people who are positive and forward-thinking. Connecting and enhancing those relationships with those individuals would require leaving your comfort zone a little.

And that experience is only enhanced when you know what you desire out of life by knowing who you are.

Self-discovery keeps us real and encourages us to be curious about life and ourselves. It keeps us grounded mentally too. It’s a vital cornerstone to us. And by leaning into it by asking ourselves questions and discovering ourselves, we can always adapt and try new things.  

When it comes to living life and finding success, you don’t always have to stick to one thing your entire time. We are multi-faceted, and where we go in life should be similar.

Successful people with status often times have no impulse control. They would be quick to pick up material things that, in the end, don’t really matter.

One of the better pieces of advice regardless of where you are in life is if you have to buy something expensive, sit on it for a little while. Be deliberate rather than make snappy decisions.

This feeds into the whole idea of acting broke as well since those with limited resources will make the most of said resources.

Embodying that idea and concept can ensure you look at actions, decisions, and things that will make the most positive impact on your life and on those around you. All that’s required from you is a bit of patience.

A lot of rich and powerful people got to those positions of power because other people enabled them in one way or another. The issue more broadly, though, is that people have grown more selfish over time and do not even acknowledge those that got them there.

We have CEOs who steal from employees even though that business wouldn’t be around if it weren’t for those people.

We have politicians who continue to self-deal and enrich themselves even though they are meant to serve the public.

And there are gurus who operate more like cults rather than people who want to genuinely help people.

It’s really a shame that the worst of humanity is on top. However, things can really change when we make changes in our own lives. One way of doing that is making the advantages, perks, and achievements we’ve obtained useful to other people too.

It doesn’t have to be to every single person on the planet, but when we start thinking about the collective we rather than the singular me, we approach problems differently and our perspective broadens.

I know I’m one to be talking about this given how much out of shape I am and that I’m still overweight, but it’s still important. It’s less that looking after your health will ensure money flows into your life, but more that when you take care of yourself, the more you’ll be energized to tackle things in your life.

This is in addition to being in good shape to enjoy the benefits of your hard work when you get there.

You don’t need to be rocking six-pack abs or have the body of a supermodel, but rather focus on what you think is healthy for you. From there it’s looking into habits that can ensure you are working towards that physique little by little.

Ultimately getting your body moving around and staying somewhat active will be of greater use to you than living a sedentary lifestyle.

And last but not least, if you want to lead a life of success, you need to embrace failure. As counterintuitive as it sounds, it’s similar logic to how if we want positivity in our lives, we have to experience some negative emotions.

It’s less about making sacrifices or growing through suffering and more about accepting that sometimes we’re going to fail.

Instead of trying our best to prevent failure from happening, accept how events plan out and adjust course. People are not perfect after all, and mistakes are going to happen.

Beyond that, failure is a humbling experience that keeps us grounded to that reality, as self-help often pushes us to think far more highly of ourselves. Sometimes to degrees that are completely unreasonable.

In the end, knowing that failure or setbacks are going to happen on our journies no matter what gives us that humanity that we need. 

Success is what we make of it in the end. All that really matters is the rules that we set ourselves and what we consider a success and live by that. The beauty about success, though, is that you don’t need to be that person right this very moment. In fact it pays to not be in that position and to work towards what you consider a successful life for yourself.

People are works in progress, after all. Continuously growing at our own pace.

Really, the more you think about it, the more that success becomes the type of person you want to be. The person that best represents your current values and beliefs. And that’s what these pieces of advice try to deliver.