15 Character Traits You Notice When Hanging Out With Rich, Successful People

If you want to be rich and successful, then you have to learn how to hang around rich and successful people. They should feel like you're one of them, not like you're an outsider. When you hang around successful people long enough, you'll see that they just move differently.

Now, just a quick note here: if you'd like to dive deeper into this, today on our app we look at what behavioral economics says about the way high net worth individuals make decisions differently, especially in high stake situations. If you don't have the app already, head to the App Store and download it. Once you've done that, you can scan the QR code on screen, which will give you a 50% discount. You'll also get a free 7-day trial, no cost to you upfront, and you get to test out the value for a full week.

All right, now that that's done, let's get back to the task at hand. We're so accustomed to the famous loud billionaires on our screens that it's kind of easy to miss the more subtle ones walking right next to you.

Successful people have certain character traits, you know, specific behaviors, habits, and mindsets that set them apart from everyone else. And we're not just talking about people with money here. We're talking about those people who, yes, they have money, but they also know how to enjoy their lives, who look good, who other people love being around. If you want to be like them, you have to become them first.

Today, we're talking about the traits you need to adopt to do exactly that.

Starting off at number one: their conversations mirror their values. When you hang out with rich people, you'll quickly notice they're obsessed with talking about money. It's not in an "oh, I'm messed up and I'm broke this month" kind of way. Oh no, they talk about their ideas for where they'll invest and grow their wealth. They'll talk about the good and bad things they've heard about emerging markets and successful or failing businesses.

They talk about it because financial success, wealth accumulation, and economic stability are their core values. And it's your core values that will always be the central topic of your conversations with people. What you talk about with your friends also reflects your core values; it reflects the life ethos you're following, whether you like it or not.

So pay attention to the main topics of your conversations with your friends. You living your life according to those topics, so you have to ask yourself if that's the way you want the rest of your life to go, too. Are you happy to stay focused on these topics and live your life according to those values? It's worth spending some time thinking about it.

Number two: they balance gaining respect with being fun and entertaining. Gaining someone's respect can be serious and stuffy, and you have to know when to give and take, when to step back, and when to push forward. It can be a pretty boring dance, to be honest.

Okay, but when you watch successful people, you'll see that the dance isn't really that boring at all. There's something about it that makes everyone have fun, and that's because they know how to balance gaining respect while having fun. It's most noticeable in their conversations. The words are composed, deliberate, and self-assured. Their words convey a sense of calmness and trust, but their tone and expressions are exciting, energetic, and full of joy.

It's like a performance. The words have already been written by the writer, but the tone, the performance, that is up to them. Lights, camera, action!

Number three: they use their imagination to convey empathy and presence. Do you have any of those friends who will constantly interrupt you in the middle of a sentence? They're not even trying to be rude; they're just totally unaware of themselves and have no social etiquette. That doesn't happen with very successful people. They're great listeners.

They know that good listening skills convey a strong presence, and they're always wanting that presence to be known and felt. Being a good listener isn't just about hearing words. No, it's about being able to think of yourself in that situation, and for that, you need to tap into your creativity and imagination.

That'll help you to know when to allow the other person to keep on talking to build the story you have in your head and when to stop and ask questions to fill in the blanks you've got in your story. Those are the people everyone wants to be around and work with.

Number four: their first impression in important places is always calm, cool, and collected. If you've ever worked in a country club, a ski lodge, a golf estate, or any of the other places that rich people love to go to, you'll notice they always walk in looking put together.

They're not going to come in fumbling and dropping things, which can be difficult when you're carrying rackets, gear, and golf bags. They're not going to walk in with their hands full, looking down at their phones, and almost walk into someone else. They're walking into a place where they're going to see other wealthy people, where their clients, bosses, and future business partners might be hanging out.

Those people need to know that you have your life together. They want to see preparation and confidence, and something like fumbling with your gear and looking nervous and scatterbrained? Well, it conveys the opposite message. Stuff your things into your bag before you walk in, and walk in with your head held high. Scan the room and smile brightly.

Number five: they've learned that social intelligence beats abrasive authoritativeness. Being rude to staff and pulling the "do you know who I am?" behavior might have been valued a few decades ago, but look, it is not valued anymore. The most successful people know this. They know it well.

They know that the people they’re with will create a judgment about them based on how they treat everyone else. That's just what our brains naturally do. So they know they have to be interactive, classy, and refined with everyone, including staff and servers. Rudeness makes everyone uncomfortable and sets off warning signs for all of the people around you.

It doesn't matter if you're wealthier and more successful than the person you were rude to. People will lose respect for you when you don't show respect to others. The classiest and most refined, respected people out there? They are kind to everyone.

Number six: they fix a problem before it becomes a problem. Now this is especially true when there's an issue or misunderstanding between two people. Most people want to avoid confrontation and hope it'll just go away. Some even believe that taking the high road means to let it go and allow someone else to get away with what they're doing.

These passive responses just create bigger problems. Successful people know that the moment there are whispers of an issue, they have to set the time aside to meet up and discuss things, or give them a call and hash it out right then and there. And that behavior is transferred to other parts of their life, too: problems with potential business deals, issues with employees or with profits.

You're not going to dodge a challenge by delaying or avoiding it when it's coming at you. You either tackle it head-on or eventually it'll take you out.

Number seven: they embrace their need for control and predictability. They find ways to save time, not money. While you're listening to podcasts on how to let go of control and be more spontaneous, successful people are leaning into their need for control and directing it to the right places.

Can you control the way someone else acts? No, of course not, and yet that's what most people spend their time ruminating about. Successful people know that their best way to use their need for control is to plan their day to a tee. Every moment is accounted for; nothing is wasted. Why would you waste your most valuable resource anyway? That is crazy.

And the way to get the most out of this resource is to plan your day meticulously. That way, you can see which parts of the plan align with your goals and which ones don't. If they don't align with your goals in the long or short term, then they shouldn't be there.

Eventually, you'll get an assistant who can do all that planning for you, but for now, this one's up to you. Plan your days as if time is running out, because you know it kind of is.

Number eight: they can see the rewards from delayed gratification. Progress, growth, and reaching your goals takes time, and none of it can happen quickly. Delayed gratification also requires you to give something up now so it can grow to reach the benefits later.

If you can't clearly see and feel those future rewards, then my friend, it is going to be really hard to let go of the small things that are keeping you happy right now. You need a vivid imagination and a strong sense of self to see those rewards off in the distance.

But if you can do this, oh, you will be unstoppable.

Number nine: they use introductions to efficiently market their personal brand. Successful people have a habit of introducing themselves by their first and last name and then adding a short detail about what they do. They do this with pride and confidence, and it doesn't seem pretentious or pompous; it seems efficient.

You don't always have to mention what you do for work; that could be saved for career and business meetings. But saying your first and last name conveys a strong sense of self-identity and it makes a lasting impression. Your personal brand is the story that you want people to know about you, and introducing yourself with your first and last name gives people the full name of that story.

It might feel kind of strange when you first start doing this; some people might throw a comment or two at you. But you know what? They will remember you.

Number ten: they've learned to never break their promises to themselves. If it's not on the schedule, it's not happening. Now this might seem kind of the same as planning their day to a tee, but it's not really. There are steps in the road to discipline and structure, and planning is just one of those steps.

The next one is sticking to that plan. Successful people make a mental promise to themselves that if it's on their schedule, they have to do it, no matter how tired, hungry, or annoyed they are. If you say you're going to do something and you don't do it, you're constantly breaking your trust in yourself.

If your promises to yourself don't hold any weight for the small things, they're definitely not going to matter for the big things. The idea of not following through on something is unfathomable for these people, especially when the follow-through is dependent on them. If it's out of their control, they'll do everything they can to get control over it.

It's discipline, structure, and knowing that you will never let yourself down, and that is a great safety net to have.

All right, so now we're going to move on to some more mindset-oriented things. The underlying ideas that form their habits and behavior.

Number eleven: they aim for perfection but settle for growth. Successful people are obsessed with self-improvement. They don't want to just make a lot of money; they want to do it all. They want to live longer, healthier lives.

They want to be the most well-spoken person in the room while also seeming like the most humble, relatable, and fun person to be around. They're incredibly fit, and working out at the gym is factored into their daily lives. At the same time, they can go out for dinners, drinks, and cocktail parties every night if they want to.

They'll get their eight hours of sleep, wake up in time for the gym, kick ass at work, and be right out there the next night again. They'll play ball with their kids and go on family holidays. From the outside, they seem to be living, loving, and doing it all.

Most people think that successful people are unhappy, but they're not. They don't have time to be unhappy because they've filled every minute with doing the things that get them closer to each and every one of their goals.

Number twelve: they protect their lives by sharing carefully. Wealthy people are incredibly private. You won't see them dressing in head-to-toe brand names; that's reserved for celebrities who are paid by brands for promotion and for people who believe that money will buy them respect.

In conversations, these folks decide what kind of information they're willing to share and with whom. They won't tell everything to everyone, even their best friends. They're intentional about the messages they're conveying and who they're saying it to, and you should be this way too.

You're not inauthentic for not sharing every aspect of your thoughts and actions with the people closest to you. It's important to maintain a little bit of mystery and excitement. You protect yourself, and you learn way more about people when you sit back and let them talk instead.

Number thirteen: they first consider the long-term impact of their actions. You know, for a lot of people, when they're planning their goals and playing Tetris with their time and the steps they need to take to reach their goals, they look at how to remove some things, reduce costs, and find more time.

These are all short-term cutback behaviors; they're not focused on growth in the long term. When successful people need to make more money, they don't look at what groceries they're going to take out of their cart. In fact, they've probably never done that, not even if there was a time when they were struggling financially.

Instead, they'll figure out how to make more money, and it won't be through a second job or a side hustle. They'll shop around for investments, real estate, or private equity—places where they can put their money and reduce their taxable income. This mindset is transferable to other parts of their lives too.

Number fourteen: they know that when you stop, you lose momentum. Stopping isn't the same thing as resting and refueling yourself. You need to rest and refuel yourself to be able to run smoothly, but stopping? Well, that's when you've got no plan for that time and no idea what you're going to do with it.

You know what happens when you don't have a plan? Well, you forget what you're supposed to be doing in the first place. You forget your long-term goals; you forget your benchmark for those goals. You forget how your actions influence that benchmark and, ultimately, influence the goal.

That's how you lose track of them. But let's look at this for a second: maybe your one goal is to get fit and healthy. You plan your workouts, meals, and your times for them at the first of the month. You don't do this the second month, but you figure it'll be okay.

But on the first day of the second month, you decide to take an unplanned break. You flop over on the couch, and then it gets a whole lot harder to break that behavior the next day, the next week, or month. Now you've lost momentum.

But to keep going, you have to keep going. Rest? Absolutely. Rest, but make that rest a part of your plan. It should be structured and a part of your progress.

Number fifteen: successful people have a strong internal locus of control. In psychology, the internal locus of control is just a fancy way of saying someone's belief in the control they have over the events and outcomes in their lives. They truly believe they can control their success because they can control their actions.

To them, luck and fate don't have much to do with it; it's completely up to your actions. You have to truly believe that you can influence something to have the motivation to continue doing it. Any kind of mindset that thinks setbacks and success are because of bad or good luck isn't going to understand how action gets converted into success.

You have to stop blaming your failures on other factors and stop crediting your luck for all of your achievements. It's you, okay? It's all you—the good, the bad, the great, and the ugly.

And you know, since you stuck with us until the end, you're getting a bonus, my friend. Today's bonus is that successful people know that you're closer to them than you think you are.

Now we tend to put the wealthy on a pedestal, far above us, with habits and mindsets that we hear about and think we won't be able to follow ourselves. But this is absolutely not true. You can follow all of the character traits we spoke about in today's video, even if you're not rich.

You don't need to be rich to have the same character traits as them. In fact, you first need to adopt those traits before you can reach the same kinds of levels of success. Your success depends on you starting here by following these behaviors, which means that you're not that far away from them at all.

So instead of measuring how far above you they are by comparing your bank account balances, measure from how often you follow these beliefs and actions that we spoke about here today. Some of them you'll do sometimes, some most of the time, and some of them never. But you probably are further along than you thought.

Now it's time to perfect the ones you're already good at, improve on the ones you tend to sideline, and get to work on the traits that you haven't given much thought to yet.

And that's it for today, my friend. Don't forget to download our app if you want to dive into the behavioral economics and understand how wealthy people make their decisions. Remember, to get the discount from the QR code on screen, you have to first have the app downloaded on your phone.

From there, you get a 7-day free trial and a 50% off discount from the yearly subscription. We hope that by sharing some of these traits with you, you'll realize the traits of success that you already have and discover the ones that you still need to work on.

After all, if you want a seat at the table, you have to first think like those already sitting there.

We'll see you next time. Alexir, until then, take care.