The main secret to getting rich on your own accord (i.e. not just being lucky) is in setting up your investments for recurring income.There are two types of income: recurring income and one-time income.
Paychecks are one-time income. Why? Because you have to show up each time you want a paycheck. Contract workers who are paid hourly are the most extreme example, as they get paid only when they show up to work each hour. Not that there is anything wrong with paychecks and contracting, mind you, but it needs to be recognized as one-time income. Other forms of one-time income are sales. Sell a craft or a car, you get one sum, and to get more income you have to do the work all over again.
Renting homes is recurring income. Rent a home one time and income keeps coming in month after month after month. Stocks which pay dividends are another source of recurring income. Forget "growth" stocks (they are for serious investors and corporate Directors, the rest tend to get screwed), it is dividend stocks that bring in recurring income. Purchase stocks such as PBT (8% dividend) or AXM (15% annual dividend) or CLP (7% dividend) and you don't have to worry about the price of the stock itself going up or down, as you get your quarterly dividend checks no matter what. For a one-time purchase, you get recurring income. Leverage your brokerage account (brokers such as Datek charge about 3% interest for margin loans) to purchase even more dividend stocks and you can turn 15% annual interest on AXM into 27% interest even without compounding. Those are hefty checks coming in each quarter.
Other forms of recurring income are from creating a movie, recording a song, writing a book, leasing land, or placing your employees on-site with a client's company.
Are these things realistic? Can the average Joe do these things to get recurring income? Of course. Any American can buy a house and lease it out. Any American can open a $500 stock account with Datek or e-trade. With a few small contributions and the purchase of stable dividend-paying stocks, great wealth can easily be achieved.
The average American drives a $25,000 car. This car is bought on credit and paid off in 3 to 4 years. If a person decided to keep their existing car rather than buy a new one, and instead applied the monthly payments for what would have been the new car into a stock account for the purchase of dividend-paying stocks, by the time that "new" car would have been paid off you can have well over $100,000 in your account with tremendous annual income flowing in just from those stocks.
But a FAILURE to invest in recurring income will put many people on the edge. They will always have trouble paying their bills and will never understand why they aren't getting ahead.
Getting ahead isn't about working hard so much as it is about making your money work hard for you.