15 Ways Rich People Simplify Their Life for Success

With billions in assets, shareholders to answer to, and employees to consider, you'd think that rich people lead pretty complicated, tangly lives, right? But in truth, they've always kept it as simple as possible, and that's how they reach those levels of success. Steve Jobs once said, "Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple."

Simplicity isn't about dumbing things down. No, it's about getting great results through clarity. Simplicity takes focus, discipline, and cutting through the noise, and those things aren't easy. But once you get there, you'll be able to move mountains, my friend. Complexity is the enemy of execution. So, let's get to the root of nailing that execution. Here are 15 ways rich people simplify their lives for success.

Number one: Everything in life is seen as an asset or a liability. Every action you take and decision you make either brings value to your life or it takes value away from you. If you see everything in your life that way, then your decision will be quick and simple. If it adds value, do it; if it doesn't, throw it out. When you work on developing a new healthy habit, there are going to be moments when you question whether it's worth it. Should you miss your friend's birthday because you're working late on a project that could get you a promotion? If you know which one will bring the most value to your life, then your decision will be easy. Everyone's values are different. Even your values now might be different from what they were 5 years ago and what they will be 5 years from now.

Number two: Show, don't tell. In almost every conversation, every plan, and every deal, there's a moment where you have to convince the other person to see your side of the story. The better you get at this, the easier your life will be. You won't have to fight people to get what you want; one conversation with you will be enough to persuade them. But what do you say in that conversation? One of the most important lessons they teach in journalism is to show, don't tell. Paint the picture, photograph the different outcomes, let people see what you mean. Don't just give them the information; give them scenarios, emotions. Make them feel like they're already there. If you can do all of this in three sentences, they'll be all yours.

Number three: Don't prioritize your schedule; schedule your priorities. Author and businessman Stephen Covey said it best when he told us to forget about prioritizing our schedule. An interesting take from someone whose schedule is notoriously jam-packed and rigid. It's not just about filling your days with doing something; it's filling your days with doing the things that bring value. Now schedule your days with action assets, not liabilities. A simple life means your schedule is your lifeline. You should never have to think about what you're going to do next; it should be there on your calendar, ready for you to step into it. Focus only on the things that are the most important to you. Spend more time on those things and cut out the rest.

Number four: Big ideas trump the day-to-day details. Details make the day long, complicated, and time-consuming. Larry Page of Google and Alphabet fame said that when you're working on a premium product, focusing on the small incremental changes and adjustments just don't cut it. It complicates things; it leaves too many tabs open. You get successful by focusing on the big transformative ideas. They force your mind to zone in on a core focus. That kind of success needs consistent major breakthroughs, and those breakthroughs come from pushing bold, visionary goals that challenge the status quo and push the boundaries of what is possible. Your goals should be realistic and achievable; your ideas should push the boundary of every goal and test the limits of your potential.

Number five: Theme your days. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey kept his work life simple with one hack: theming his days. On Mondays, he focused on management; Tuesdays might have been for big ideas; on Wednesdays, it was meetings and deals. Theming your entire day so rigorously might not be possible for everyone, but you can absolutely theme your early mornings, your late mornings, and afternoons so that for that block of time, you're only focusing on one thing. Focusing on one thing traps your mind in a good way to roll onto that subject matter so you're in the zone. Different zones at different points of the day, completely focused on one task, allows your brain to dig deeper and become more efficient at it. After a few hours of constantly changing tasks and topics, your brain jumps around and stops it from getting beyond the surface level of anything. Theming your days allows you to dig in so deeply into a task or topic that by the end of your day, you've reached the bottom, and that is where innovation lives.

Number six: Spend deliberately. Spend selectively and invest the surplus. Budgets are important, right? No surprise there; they give you guidance and a framework for channeling your money into the right sources. They give you the surplus for those investments. It might seem like rich people spend frivolously because they have so much money, but they got rich by making sure every expense contributes to a specific purpose or goal. We can get bogged down with the details of a budget, and it's hard to keep track of every expense, so naturally, it just goes into a pile. You have to ask yourself what purpose or goal each expense contributes to.

There are blocks or categories to the way you spend: nights out with friends—what's the purpose of that? Well, if it's to relax and make you happy, then that is your category. Block your rent, food, gas, and bills in a survival category. Block your savings, investments, and retirement plans in a future life category. Every time you spend money, simplify that expense by mentally putting it into one of those blocks. It's a strategy that will help you see if that expense contributes to your overall goals or if it's some kind of robotic reaction to good marketing, wanting to fit in, or feeling pressured. With those blocks, it's easier to catch yourself and allow you to spend money in a more deliberate, mindful, and selective way.

Number seven: Say no to almost everything. When it comes to being asked to do things, how often do you say no versus saying yes? Yes, on the one hand, saying yes could open you up to more opportunities and experiences, and those are life assets. But the caveat here is that it can lead to you investing your time and energy into the wrong things. You lose focus on what really matters, and you end up overcommitting yourself. Saying no helps you filter out the noise and other people's expectations of you versus what you actually want from your life. Warren Buffett has often spoken about the importance of saying no. No, know gives you more focus, deeper expertise, and more energy, and all of those things lead to better results. There's a strategy known as the 25/5 rule: you write down your 25 biggest goals, and then you circle your top five. You only focus on those five goals—forget about the other 20. You say yes to those five, and you say no to everything else, at least for now, at least until you've gotten that first done.

Number eight: Don't waste time on details. Reaching your goals takes planning, right? But how do you draw the line between an effective plan and avoiding the actual goal by focusing too much on that plan? The most noticeable crossing of the line is when you focus too much on the aesthetics, the minor details, and the excessive worrying over small potential setbacks. You're wasting your time. Successful people have a formula where an idea starts with just five steps. Once you execute those five steps, you add five more to the next level. You don't need to plan the next level up just yet; that's you confusing the plan and the execution. Details could add a small amount of value, sure, but they just don't significantly contribute to your overall goal.

Number nine: Pillars to structure plans and create simplicity. We have a lot of content in the Alux app. Our daily sessions, courses, and collections cover everything from finance to emotional regulation, dealing with toxic people, learning to negotiate well, and learning about humanity, culture, and the world. These are multiple avenues that can complicate things, right? But they're important because we cover life, and life has thousands, if not millions, of avenues. So, we had to figure out a way to streamline these paths so that no matter how different they are, they can be grouped towards specific purposes. That's where the five pillars of a good life come in. They are finance, emotions, intellect, relationships, and physical health. Each piece of content there focuses on one or two of these main pillars.

And, Alexer, you need a pillar for everything you do in your life. They have to hold up your actions and your decisions. When you take action or make a decision, you need to know what pillar it's for. You can't analyze every single action or decision individually; you don't have enough time or mental energy for that. But you can understand your pillars and how your actions and decisions fit in with them. Once you nail that down, what you do and decide gets easier, more efficient, and has a greater effect on your acceleration. The richest people in the world know this; they understand this. It's exactly why we designed the Alux app to be this way. If you haven't already, we encourage you to download the Alux app and give it a try.

You can sample, pull out the value in there for a whole week free of charge. On the fifth day of the trial, we'll send you a reminder just in case you forgot and don't want to continue, so no accidental surprise charges on your card. Check it out by going to alux.com/app.

Number ten: Ask questions immediately until you get to the bottom. Somewhere in life, as we were growing up, we developed this idea that asking questions makes us look stupid because it shows you don't understand something. But actually, knowing what you don't understand and being able to articulate that shows people that you have a willingness to know, a desire to understand, and that willingness to know signals that you're able to understand it. That's what people value most. The moment you hear something that you don't understand, when a question pops into your head because the direction isn't clear, say that question out loud. If the explanation is more confusing, just keep asking questions. Someone who knows what they're talking about should be able to fill in the gaps for you pretty quickly. Someone who doesn't will give you answers that are even more convoluted and confusing. Rich people aren't afraid to ask questions because they know it doesn't make them look stupid; it makes them seem more engaged, more knowledgeable, and people know that they want to understand because they have the ability to get there.

Now, we do have to say here: don't just go asking questions for the sake of it, okay? And definitely don't ask questions that have already been answered; you'll only annoy everyone, and the message you send is the exact opposite of what you intend. It sounds like you're not paying attention, so listen intently; ask immediately, fill in the gaps in your knowledge so you come away knowing exactly what the other person was saying.

And on a similar note, number eleven: Call out the wrong information on the spot with the right information. You need the people in your life to know what they're talking about. About your friends, those who work for you, and those who work with you, their opinions and ideas influence your actions. So when they're wrong, and you know they're wrong, you have to call it out. Ultimately, they could be running with information that could negatively affect you.

We don't all have the right information all of the time, but if you know something is wrong and they're repeating it, it is up to you to clear it up, and then both of you can move forward. If you hear something that isn't right and just allow it to continue, you'll end up questioning and doubting all of your future conversations with this person. It's also important that when you point out what's wrong, you follow up with the right information. Don't just say, "That's not right," and leave it there. And if someone does this to you, take it on the chin, okay? This isn't personal; it's actually great because you've learned something new. They've stopped you from embarrassing yourself in the future. Now you can regroup and push forward in the right way.

Number twelve: Plan the method and follow the plan. There are really only two steps to getting what you want. Everything else is an evasion or an excuse: you plan how to get there and then you follow the plan. Your excuses, your focus on potential problems that might crop up, and your sadness about the barriers you face only complicate the execution. And you know that's not to say that these things aren't real, but they just don't help you with actually getting there.

You can choose to spend your time complaining and punctuate your goals with all kinds of "buts," but you know you're also choosing to stay where you are. The actions you need to take to get to where you want to go are simple. You're the one making it complicated by making your sentences longer than they should be. "I want to own my own home, but I wasn't born with money, so I have to work two jobs to save up and be extremely frugal and it's just not fair." Look, okay, all of that might be true, but you're also bogging your mind down with details that are not going to amplify your actions. Cut the rest and leave it at, "I want to own my own home." That's it, okay? That is where you stop.

Number thirteen: Learn and study the things everyone else thinks are complicated. If you can understand the things everyone else thinks are complicated, then you already have an advantage over the competition. You should know and understand things like tax basing and unrealized gains in your portfolios. If you don't, then you haven't found the right source to explain it to you, and you have to keep searching until you get that "aha" moment and you understand. You complicate your life even more when you toss out important lessons and factors of the way the system works because you don't immediately understand them. Successful people know that if they can understand the things everyone else thinks are complicated, well, they can use that understanding to simplify their lives and sometimes make money.

Number fourteen: Remove decisions for things you don't care about. Mark Zuckerberg is known for wearing the same style of gray t-shirt every single day. It's clear he doesn't care about style or the way he dresses, so why should he spend time thinking about it? There are things in your own life you probably don't care much about, and when you're aware of these things, you can remove the other options so that you don't suffer from decision fatigue. For example, if you like to go to the same five restaurants because you know their food is good and you don't like trying other places, whatever. Remove the options of going to other places and stick to those five. Don't fool yourself by considering them or thinking, "Maybe one day I'll go to a different spot." You're only wasting your time and mental energy here.

Sometimes you won't actually care about things that other people find incredibly important to them, so you compromise your energy to fit in, but you don't have to. It's an incredible waste of time, and the sooner you figure out what doesn't matter to you, the sooner you remove options and save your decisions for things that you do care about.

Number fifteen: Obstacles are speed bumps, okay? Not stone walls. No matter how big the obstacle you're facing could be, you have to see them as speed bumps. Because with speed bumps, you take a knock and you keep on driving. If you see it as a dead end or a stone wall, then you're going to spend too much of your resources trying to figure a way out of it. You'll want to work out how to get through it or break it down or build a stronger machine that can go over it. But successful people see every obstacle as a blip on their radar. Okay, there's no vision that can't be realized, no matter how crazy everyone else thinks it is.

If you allow even one thing to cloud your vision, then you open up the door for it to be clouded by everything else too. Some of their demands and expectations are unreasonable, sure, but it's those unreasonable expectations that allow them to keep on going, even if they're stumbling along. If you allow even one thing to cloud that vision, well, you open up the door for it to be clouded by everything else too.

Alright, Alexer, since you stuck with us all the way to the very end, here is your bonus: Perceptions and expectations shape reality. In billionaire investor George Soros's book, The Alchemy of Finance, he dives into what seems like a pool of complicated, nuanced strategies for investing: the theory of reflexivity, the role of market sentiment, the fallibility of human knowledge. They all provide incredible details and ideas about what influences the market, but we can take this knowledge and apply it to daily life too. Soros focuses on two important things: perceptions and expectations.

So, he says that market prices are influenced by collective beliefs. Those are perceptions. Expectations lead to distorted realities. They're not just predictions; they're active forces that change the outcomes. So, when you understand that your perceptions and expectations shape your outcome, your life will become pretty simple. Because all you have to do is look at those perceptions and expectations—truly look at them—and you'll have an idea of what your future looks like. Success doesn't come from following trends or assuming that life has a set of rule books that it follows. It comes from understanding how these things influence each other. Trends are valuable, but only for a short time; at the inflection point, they lose their value. Life follows a certain pattern or path until it doesn't. Expecting this path to always follow your predictions will distort your reality.

So, if you can understand these two things—that the way you see the world, and the way people see you, and what you expect from life, and the way something should perform—if you can understand how they shape outcomes, well, you'll be able to shape the outcomes yourself and get what you want. Shaping reality seems complicated, out of reach, and untouchable, but understanding perceptions and expectations? Well, that you can work on right now.

That's all from us today, Alexer. Let us know in the comments how you simplify your life. What are some rules or philosophies that you follow to cut out the noise? We can't wait to hear from you, so please jump into the conversation in the comments. Thanks for spending some time with us today, my friend. Until next time, take care. [Music]