 We tend to assume that if we work hard and save money then one day we will end up wealthy. A mass and wealth does not only involve working hard, it also entails taking hard decisions and making frightening moves. In this video, I will show you 9 hard things you may have to do if you are going to be wealthy. 1. Exploit your gift When you are the best at something, you find that opportunities come to you. American author Napoleon Hill once said there is something that you can do better than anyone else in the world could do it. Search until you find out what this particular line of endeavor is, then organize all your forces and attack it with the belief that you are going to win. Although you can do anything better than anyone else if you set your mind at it, there is a unique purpose for you. Finding that one thing however is a challenging task which is why most people do not bother about searching for it. If you want to be rich then you must dedicate your time and resources into both finding and developing your unique calling. There is a difference in growth between learning a skill and developing an inborn talent. Find your one thing, learn more about it, work on it, practice and evaluate. 2. Cut necessary expenses One of the biggest obstacles in some people's path to getting rich is expenses. A lot of people spend more than they earn. Some others spend within their means but the rich do not do any of that. They make sure their expenses are less than their income. With expenditures on entertainment reduced, they have enough money to save, put aside for emergency and invest both in business and on their personal development. If you want to be rich, learn to make budgets and track your expenditures. Thankfully, applications like Honeydew, Trim, etc. will make it easy for you. As much as you can, avoid impulse spending. Focus your life with only the necessities and in no time you will be saving a lot more than what you previously did. Indian self-help and personal finance author Manwa Arora says when you know the impact of little expenses, you will realize that there is nothing little in this world. 3. Make investments Most wealthy individuals will tell you one of the most essential keys to success has been taking calculated risks but the majority of the population sticks with a safe route. Although one investment mistake could tear away a large chunk of your assets, you cannot amass so much wealth by playing safe. For you to accumulate wealth, you must be bold enough to grab opportunities and make investments, which of course is not an easy thing to do. You have to move out of the comfort of just saving to take in investment risks. However, you must be wise and calculated with your investments. Many investors suggest that you diversify. Legendary investor Warren Buffett suggested putting 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund so that if the market crashes, it will still be fine by cashing the 10% rather than selling the stock with a bad price. 4. Build other streams of income One success habit amongst wealthy people is that they don't depend on a single income source. The daily patterns of 233 wealthy individuals were studied and compared with 128 lower earning individuals. The results show that most self-made millionaires generated their income from multiple sources. 65% had three streams of income, 45% had four streams of income, and 29% had five or more streams of income. Having multiple streams of income enables successful people to navigate through economic crisis. Building other sources of income is quite challenging. You have to learn to adapt to being uncomfortable. You may have to work longer hours, travel more often and even lose your job in the process. The stress that comes with planning and being able to share their time correctly is one primary reason why many people choose to stick to only one income, their job. If you want to be a fluent and remain well-to-do, you must look into other ways to make money and get on them. 5. Ditch a few friends The fact that the people you hang out with the most have a significant impact on the choices you make cannot be oversized. There is a connection between your friends and your finances. Research has shown that when it comes to financing, there are three types of friends that if you continually hang out with, sooner or later, you will become bankrupt. The first are those who spend more than they have. You may end up completing the payments for them. The second are those who largely depend on their parents' wealth. You will spend the little you have to meet up to the standard of their reckless spending. The last are those who are comfortable living large and broke. They will lure you into wasting money on trends. Breaking a friendship which has lasted a while can be a tough thing to do. However, if you want to be rich, you must fish out those friends whose impact are not suitable for your financial life and make the tough decision of letting go. 6. Abstain from get rich quick schemes Have you ever wondered why the majority of world-renowned millionaires are above 50 years of age? Even though it is possible to become financially successful at an early age, most millionaires hit it at age 50. The generation of today is made up of individuals who are not ready to strive and genuinely climb the ladder of success. So, they out for get rich quick schemes. And indeed, the offers made by many of these Ponzi organizations are often tempting and irresistible. It is even harder to ignore them when everyone around you seems to be making money from them. However, wealthy individuals understand that it takes patience to become successful. Not only in finance, but in every aspect of life, thus they hold patience as an essential virtue. They will instead work hard and smart, wait for their rewards, then give out money to so-called money-dubblers. Wealthy individuals live a moderate life, ignore get rich quick schemes, invest in their future and retire rich. 7. Develop the study culture For a lot of people, reading is not on the list of things they like to do. However, reading is a habit that many entrepreneurs and millionaires have in common. The study carried out by Thomas Crowley reveals that about 85% of self-made millionaires read at least two or more books each month. An entrepreneur and investor Warren Buffett is one of these examples. According to him, he spends 80% of his day reading. In the early days of his investment career, he would read 600 to 1,000 pages in a single day. Research shows that 85% of wealthy people read two or more self-improvement books per month. Only 11% read for entertainment, compared to 79% of the poor. And a whopping 94% of wealthy people read news publications, compared to 11% of non-wealthy people. If you have the ambition of a mass and wealth, you have to make reading your thing. 8. Be disciplined One reason for financial problems in life is lack of self-discipline. Self-mastery and self-control. It is the inability to delay gratification in the short term. Studies have revealed that after a lifetime of work, the average American family has a net worth of about $8,000. Learning to be disciplined is harder than it seems, especially when it comes to the area of finance. You have to be disciplined enough to say no when unfavorable demands are placed on you. You have to be committed to your saving plans. You have to be disciplined enough to resist the urge to make an impulse payment. You even have to be disciplined enough to stick to your budget and not get some additional chocolates at the payment counter when you go shopping. Discipline is an essential skill that you must have if you ever dream of a mass and wealth. 9. Pay your debt Another habit that separates the millionaires from the rest of the world is how they manage debt. Bad debt, like credit card debt, compounds many times faster than the best investments even cold and can quickly outpace your ability to learn and pay it off. According to Kari Schwab-Promerance, board chair and president of the Charles Schwab Foundation, debt is a major obstacle to reaching financial goals from everything to buying a home to retiring. It affects people of all ages and backgrounds at different life stages. Borrowing is pretty easy. It's paying it back. That's hard. If you want to be rich, you must take a stand towards getting into debt. Well, if you have been reckless before, deciding to pay off accumulated debt is quite challenging. It seems like you're giving out money without a corresponding value return. However, for you to attain your financial dreams, you have to clear up all pending debts first. The truth is that you are not $5,000 rich if you have a savings of $5,000 and a bad debt of $4,000. You only own $1,000. The self-made rich aren't necessarily smarter than anyone else, but they have mastered some essential principles that help them get ahead and stay ahead. If you'd like to join them at the top, then learn from them.