5 years of studying the wealthy taught me most people misunderstand what it's like to get rich

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The media loves to spotlight overnight success stories — and people love to read about people who become rich overnight.

It gives the average Jane or Joe hope. Who can forget the publicity received by some of these overnight success stories?

• Justin Bieber in 2007, when his You Tube videos suddenly caught the attention of some powerful individuals in the music industry.

• Joe Namath in 1968, when he led the Jets in winning the Superbowl.

• JK Rowling in 1997, when Harry Potter became an "overnight" success.

• Elon Musk in 2008, when his Falcon rocket became the first privately built rocket to reach orbit and everyone suddenly knew who Elon Musk was.

The media is obsessed with sudden success stories because they sell. That is why lotteries that grow into the hundreds of millions and the eventual lottery winners get front page press. The media loves to portray success as some overnight event, forever changing the lives of individuals.

Reality, I’m afraid, is not so exciting. Success is almost never overnight. It is almost always part of a long process — oftentimes, a decades-long process.

The self-made millionaires in my five-year Rich Habits Study were hard-pressed to define their success according to an event. This is because, for most of the self-made millionaires I studied, success was not an event. It was a process: a progression of one thing to the next, completely under the radar of their consciousness. It was impossible for them to see success happening in real time, even when it was happening, because the events are not so obvious.

The fact is, success has many moving parts. It requires the creation of a vision, defining the dreams within that vision and the pursuit of many goals. During this success journey, there may be hundreds of goals and dozens of dreams, each one drawing the would-be millionaire closer and closer to success and wealth. With all these moving parts, it’s virtually impossible to boil success down to an individual turning point or event.

It is very much like apples growing on a tree. You hardly notice them growing until they are big enough to be picked and eaten. Only then do people take notice.

In my study, it took the average self-made millionaire 32 years to reach millionaire status. But once they did, many took notice. Family, friends, peers, and acquaintances became suddenly aware and wanted to know the secret to their “overnight” success.

But there is no overnight success. Success is the byproduct of years and years of investment, good daily habits, devoted focus, hard work, overcoming obstacle after obstacle, and fanatical persistence. From the perspective of the self-made millionaires in my study, there was no singular event.

A 32-year success journey, I suppose, simply isn’t a sexy thing to write about in a Justin Bieber world.

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