I've met hundreds of unsuccessful people that had me fooled from hello. Talking and interacting with them led me to believe that they were “financially” successful beyond my wildest dreams. They would constantly shell out viable solutions to real problems, spit out great ideas, hold interesting conversations on various topics, and best of all, they were very professional. In many cases, these exceptional individuals held at most mediocre positions and enjoyed mediocre salaries. After meeting these people, and discovering that most of them weren't millionaires, I began to panic and wonder if I'd ever enjoy financial freedom…after all, these people were quite impressive and seemed to know much more than me about business, money and life.

In addition to meeting several financially unsuccessful geniuses, I have met a number of what I would deem successful idiots. I'm not by any stretch of any imagination stating that all, or even most, successful people are idiots; I'm simply implying that financial success isn't necessarily a direct byproduct of knowledge, great ideas, charm and professionalism. Many of these financially successful people were millionaires…but why? Yes, some of them married into wealth or inherited it from family and were lucky enough to have smart people working for them. A few of them were lucky enough to have successful friends and rode their coat tails but, for the majority of them, I found that two main elements brought them financial freedom.

Obviously, you need to know your business before you can make real money in it. You need to know how it works, why it works, how to make it work, how to constantly make it work better and how to be professional; but you can learn these things and be “smart” through experience. There are several variables that make up financial success and I'm not claiming to know all of them. I'm claiming that most financially successful people I've talked with, or heard of, have had two very noticeable characteristics about them. They did what they said they were going to do and they did it full force.

To be successful at anything you have to do it. Do what you tell your friends and family you are going to do. Sure, talk about it with your friends, lose sleep thinking about it all night, daydream about in class or at work, but you have to take Nike's wise words and Just Do It. TO BE SUCCESSFUL AT ANYTHING YOU HAVE TO DO IT. You don't even have to own your own business to be financially successful – many people enjoy great success working for someone else. These people still do it – if they have a great idea on how to better please their clients, sell more homes or increase website traffic they do it and are rewarded for it. How many times have you noticed that a client likes things a certain way, e.g.—a follow up email after every meeting or daily reminders on what you need from them. How many times have you noticed these things and not done it every day for every client or in every situation. We get lazy and laziness doesn't earn money.

The second ingredient to financial success is hard work. I doubt any professional athlete sits on their butt every day playing video games or any CEO of a successful company sat in their office surfing the internet. Hard work pays off and there are few that made it on their own without hard work. Yep, I see the infomercials and testimonials stating that millions were made and nothing was done. I like to believe that this is either a fluke or bull. Stay up late working; don't go out with friends, make sacrifices, live work and financial success will follow. I'm not saying to ignore the wife, life and your kids, but don't sit around and wait for financial freedom to knock on your door and present itself to you as a wrapped gift without HARD WORK.

By doing what you say and working hard you'll learn your business and how to make more money. You'll gain knowledge and, even though you may be an idiot, you'll be a financially set hard working idiot that knows your business and most importantly, you did what you said you were going to do!