 I spent the first decade of my life in a remote village in Nigeria, where nobody talked about money. Everyone went to the farm and waited for the harvest period. I was later moved to a town when I was around 11. There, people talked about money. But what did they say about it? Well, all they said about how to make money and how to become a millionaire centered on luck, good jobs and hard work. If you were lucky to be born to wealthy parents or politician, you'd be rich. If you were born to poor parents, then you'd have to study hard in school so you can get a good job. In all, if you're lucky, somehow you can have some breakthroughs and become a millionaire. Those are the things everyone believed in the society where I grew up. Still, at some point in my life, I was confused and wanted to figure out if there were some predictable ways to become rich. Since luck, a good job and being born to wealthy parents are really out of my capacity to influence. I discovered the way to predict my future and that is by having valuable skills. Skills are like tools we use to manage our minds, work, businesses and careers. We can also see skills as tools to get things we need or to convince others to give us. You think about all those tools a car mechanic has to get his work done. Those are similar to skills we need to achieve our aims in life. In today's video, I'll be sharing with you five important skills every future millionaire needs to have. Yes, some of these skills may be difficult, but remember, if things are easy, everyone would do them. One, ability to focus on days, not years. Why are most people excited every December 31st? It's very simple. A year is over and tomorrow is a new year. They have set big goals and made mountain-like resolutions. Next year is going to be different, they tell themselves. Until January the 17th, when, according to some studies, most people have forgotten their new year resolutions and have fallen back to their normal lives once again. For those who want to become rich, you must be skillful in the art of focusing on days. Simply forget about years and months, focus on days. I set goals every week and every day. Those are what matters. Yes, you should have a few long-term goals, but they are always easy to push aside and they are for lazy people. Real people who achieve massive success take responsibility of their days, even though it's difficult. Take care of your days and the future will take care of itself. Two, courage to launch the imperfect product. A few years ago I had a friend visit me at home and as we spoke I told him about the fact that people have started paying for my new book, even though I was yet to complete the book. Not just the book, almost every business project, product or business I ever launched were launched imperfectly. For me, movement is better than perfection. If you want to become rich, you have to value movement. Mark Zuckerberg said, move fast and break stuff. Most people in our world weigh too much because they're afraid of looking stupid. You must be skillful in the art of getting things started, even if they aren't perfect. One proverb in my country goes, if you don't go, you can't return, meaning if you don't start, you can't perfect. And if you don't start, you can't improve. And if you don't start, you can't be perfect. Today, when I look back at many stupid things, products and businesses I've started, I become ashamed of myself. But if I had not been courageous enough to push out those imperfect products, I wouldn't get feedback to improve them. If I had not been courageous to start those businesses that failed, I wouldn't have learned how to start those that succeeded. It's that simple. 3. Ability to unlearn what worked yesterday The big problem with success is that it's not like accounting formulas or physics theories. The mathematics formula you were taught in high school is the same your children will be taught because that which was yesterday's formula will still work forever. When it comes to becoming rich, financial literacy involves a lot of unlearning as much as learning. This is a difficult thing for most people to do because human minds hate change. You have to be smarter than the average human being. You have to understand that the world we live in is continually changing. You have to unlearn what you want new and be open-minded for new insights. One of the best ways to do this is to have young people around you or in your team. It's easy for you to see where the world is going by listening to smart individuals who are around the ages of 18 to 27. Having this age demographic as part of your team can make a lot of difference. 4. Ability to make others do what you ought to Every rich person knows how to get others to collaborate with them. Every poor person I know lacks this skill because it's somehow difficult, especially when you're starting. I hired my first employees in the year 2009, even though I was broke and was struggling in the business world. Since I started in the business world, I've always thought about a partnership, collaboration, getting people to be on board with me. Many people believe this is possible only when you have money. But as I've told you, I started doing it when I was the poorest man in the world. A little exaggeration here. 5. Ability to remain poor even when you're richer than most people Most people think it's challenging to make money, and that's partly true. However, if you think it's difficult to make money, wait till you start making a lot of money. Then you'll discover that it's even more difficult to keep and grow money. I often hear people saying things like, I want to enjoy the fruit of my labor, just after they start making more money than most people. The problem with that is, the fruits of your labor are not as much as you often think they are. Take for instance, if you've never made $100,000 a year in your life, when you start making that much money, it looks ten times bigger than it is. And that tricks you into spending like a millionaire. One year later, and you'll discover you're poorer than you thought you were. Growing money is a skill, and it starts by living as though you're poorer than you are. After I had my first breakthrough in business, I simply continued living as though I had an average income. Today, I live on about 20% of my income. Even though I live in many ways more affluent than I used to, I would have ramped up that living three times larger if I didn't consider growing my wealth to be more important. First, you have to be hyperproductive to become rich. The best way I know to do that is to focus on days, not years, because it's easier to take responsibility for your daily failures than to wait until the year is over. Second, you can't be successful if you want to get everything right from the beginning. You must be courageous enough to launch your product even when it's not perfect. You must have the courage to start that business even though the probability of success is low. Third, no one becomes rich by doing it alone. Learn how to collaborate, partner with people and get others to do it with you. That which you are doing alone. Fourth, unlearning yesterday's wisdom is sometimes more important than learning something new. Learn, unlearn and learn again. Fifth, delay gratification. Let your fruits grow big before you start enjoying them. This, like others already mentioned in this video, could be very difficult, but you can't become wealthy if you're not disciplined. I hope this video helped someone. Thanks for watching. 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