By MPH Photos @ Shutterstock.com

What does it take to be a successful investor? Good question. How about thisโ€”what does it take to be a successful survivor? Do you really need the word โ€œsuccessful?โ€ You either are, or youโ€™re not. Right?

Being an investor shouldnโ€™t be confused with being a speculatorโ€”someone who hopes prices go up. An investor thinks about the work that goes into creating generational wealth. The best way I know how you do that is by being an investor in yourself.

I learned a great lesson about being an investor when delivering newspapers as a kid. One of my customers tipped me four nickels for every dollar, or 20%. That was a good tip. He could have โ€œaffordedโ€ to tip a lot more, but I think he enjoyed teaching me the math of it.

By being an investor in myself, I could get more houses to deliver to, keep the existing ones with good service, and the tips would add up. Rubbing two nickels together wasnโ€™t going to make me a millionaire, not yet, but I was learning the process.

Action Line: Thereโ€™s plenty of ways to separate you from your money. Penny stocks are oneโ€”trading cryptos may be another. Think about how you made your money like I didโ€”one paper at a timeโ€”or one shift at a time, etc. When you remind yourself of how long it took to make what you haveโ€”what you had to doโ€”you wonโ€™t be separated from it so easily. Youโ€™ll be an investor. Youโ€™ll be a survivor.

Originally posted on Your Survival Guy.