Bill Gates is probably the most famous billionaire in the world. With a net worth in the tens of billions, his impact in the world of technology is unparalleled.
Most everyone is familiar with his success in the business world and also his philanthropy.
Most people would love to have success like Bill Gates; however there are very few who have cultivated the necessary habits.
While mimicking some of Bill Gates’ habits probably won’t turn you into a multi-billionaire, it can help you accomplish some of your goals.
So how can you adopt some of Bill Gates’ habits?
Bill Gates is and has always been a voracious reader. In a recent Forbes interview, his father, William H. Gates Sr., revealed that his son was always an extreme bookwork. As a child, Gates Jr. devoured science fiction and even encyclopedias. Everywhere he went, he carried a book with him.
Eventually, the elder Gates had to draw the line somewhere and insisted that his son could continue with his habit as long as he didn’t bring any books to the dinner table.
Today, the younger Gates is still an avid book reader consuming everything from inspiring biographies to philosophical works to intellectual periodicals. However, Bill Gates Jr. now encourages others to pick up the reading habit. He frequently posts lists of his reading material to increase interest.
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1. Start Your Day Right
Bill Gates prefers starting off his day by treating his body to some exercise. Each morning he starts his day by spending an hour on the treadmill for his cardio requirements. The list of benefits we gain by starting our day with exercise is exhaustive.
For one, it gives you a metabolism boost throughout the day helping you to burn more calories and lose weight. It also contributes to decrease your stress levels and helps you to remain more focused and energized throughout the day. This will undoubtedly boost your performance as you go through the day. Early morning exercise also benefits you at night as it affords you a better, more restful night’s sleep.
2. Never Stop Learning
There is a lot of value attached to being exposed to various experiences from an early age. When Bill Gates was in the ninth grade his school bought an early personal computer making Gates completely enthralled with the devices.
Gates was allowed to leave his mathematics class to learn programming. The first program he ever created was a Tic-Tac-Toe game. He never looked back. In college, Gates made it a habit of sitting in on classes for which he had never even signed up. Gates continued this thirst for knowledge to this day.
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3. Give Credit to Others
There is little stopping Bill Gates from taking all the credit for his achievements. He is, after all, a genius inventor and one of the richest men in the world. However, Gates has instead opted to live by the philosophy “give credit where credit is due”.
When asked in an interview for the best business decision he ever made, he replied that it was none other than picking the right people for the job and that choosing Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen as a business partner was perhaps the most important decision he has ever made.
The point that Gates highlights is clear. Not only is it important to choose the correct people to help guide us towards success, but we have to practice an attitude of gratitude as well. We must highlight the accomplishments of those whose work we value.
4. Learn From Your Mistakes
Learning from one’s mistakes is one of the biggest factors in maturity and growth. Bad decisions and their aftermaths furnish us with the most important lessons we can ever learn. Experience cannot be your teacher unless you are willing to heed the lessons.
Bill Gates once related that the success of Microsoft was in part due to the success of his leadership team in recognizing mistakes; mistakes that could prove costly in the future. Gates wasn’t afraid of changing course once a decision showed itself as being ill-advised. Unfortunately, for far too many people, it takes a lot of mistakes to learn a single lesson. Learning from our mistakes helps us to develop wisdom and discernment.
5. Trust Your Judgment
People who we come across in life will disappoint us and sometimes abandon us. Often they don’t have as clear vision as we do and allowing them to make decisions on our behalf could have disastrous consequences. This illustrates for us why it is important for us to trust ourselves. When Bill Gates came up with the idea for Microsoft his ideas were shot down as impractical.
He envisioned the world in which computer chips would become so powerful that computers and software would soon become ubiquitous. Very few people shared his vision.
However, Gates believed in the purity and clarity of his visions and decided to trust himself. The rest, as they say, is history. While it is good practice to heed sound advice, sometimes the advice we receive reeks of fear and indecision. Indecision and self-doubt leave us in a haze of inactivity. Self-trust means that we will make decisions with our needs and safety at heart.
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There is merit in studying the habits of those who have arrived at the pinnacle of success in their various fields. While we don’t wish to clone their success, studying their habits is a way of learning what drives them and makes them tick.
We can then apply these lessons learned in our lives and engineer the type of success that each of us wants. Bill Gates has no equal in the world of technology, managing to bring a fledgling technology into millions of homes. Learning of the habits he cultivated and duplicated them in our lives can go a long way towards bettering our world.