The ultra-wealthy, those people with a net worth of $25 million or more often have a few key habits or characteristics that have an outsized impact on their great success. 

One of the key characteristics we see is the ability to deeply understand what they do extremely well that generates significant wealth, coupled with the discipline to stay focused on doing those specific things.

In short, they know the right course to run on, and then they stay on that course. Here's how to take a page from their wealth-building playbook. 

Knowing Your Course: To achieve significant success in your endeavors, including building significant wealth, you should be focusing on what you bring to the table that a) you do exceptionally well and b) empowers you to generate great success. Both conditions are needed.

How do you get there? Experience is often your best possible teacher. Becoming truly adept at anything takes time. Ten years of concentrated hard work and career-expanding experience is often cited as a requirement for becoming exceptional at a skill. It's over these ten years or more that you identify what you're especially good at that is also convertible into money, lots of it, and learn how to most effectively use those skills and knowledge. 

Mistakes are a powerful way to learn what not to do. But it often takes time for trial and error to run its course and reveal its lessons. It takes time before you can master the nuances, get that intuitive feel for what you do best, and be able to really use your skills and talents to become exceptionally wealthy. 

You've likely been in quite a few different environments over your life. Some were more comfortable than others. Some you added a lot to, and some you didn't. Think of situations in your life or career where you were able to significantly contribute and where those contributions helped move you to greater success and wealth. As precisely as possible, identify the ways of thinking or skills or abilities you brought to the table. As you review a number of such situations, identify the capabilities that overlapped. 

As you evaluate your abilities and how they made a difference in your personal net worth, you need to be critical of your accomplishments. You're looking for a very few things at which you're especially proficient and that make a big difference in your ability to become wealthy. 

This is your “course.” It's what you are best at that translates into personal wealth. 

Important: Be sure to home in on the skills that really count. You likely have many skills and talents. However, it's also likely that only a very small number of them are the ones that are truly instrumental in enabling you to generate great success. That's what we see with many of the ultra-wealthy. While they may be able to do a lot of different things well, there are usually just a handful of things they really excel at that also make a meaningful difference.   

SIDEBAR - Improve Strengths, Not Weaknesses:  “Turn those weaknesses into strengths” is advice we tend to hear time and time again when the topic of how to become more successful arises. Unfortunately, that could be some of the worst advice we ever get. 

When we look at millionaires and billionaires, we find that they are much better than the rest of society at recognizing three things that help them excel in business and in life: 

• The things they do really, really well 
• The things they are average or merely “run of the mill” at doing
• The things they're awful at doing 

They usually gain these realizations over time through their professional and personal experiences—with the bad experiences teaching the biggest lessons about where they rise and where they fall. Regardless, once self-made millionaires and billionaires learn where their true strengths lie, they take the hugely important step of focusing all their efforts in those areas and only those areas as much as humanly possible.  

The Upshot: Highly successful people seek to always strengthen their strengths, not shore up their weaknesses. This approach contrasts starkly with the advice most of us received growing up,that we should strive to constantly get better in the areas where we lack skills and abilities. 

Staying the Course: After learning the best course, a characteristic of the ultra-wealthy is staying the course. They stick to what they know they do extremely well, and they rarely deviate from their course or get distracted by “shiny objects” that cross their path. 

Once you know what you do extremely well that also is highly profitable, you need to ensure that you are not derailed. Concentrate on the abilities that can be monetized. Minimize time spent on skills and talents that do not translate into personal wealth. Don't be overly concerned about shoring up skill areas where you're lacking you'll likely just end up with what we call “stronger weaknesses” instead of mastering new capabilities. (See “Improve Strengths, Not Weaknesses” for more.)

Of course, you can't just ignore tasks and responsibilities that aren't your strong suit. That's where delegating comes into play. The ultra-wealthy tend to be excellent at delegating whenever and wherever possible—especially in areas where they aren't extremely high performers. That's because the ultra-wealthy tend to know the skills and talents they don't possess that are nonetheless important in enabling them to amass significant personal wealth. So they seek out these abilities in others employees, freelancers, strategic partners, third-party providers and the like. 

Bonus: When you focus only on your strengths, those strengths can become even greater, helping you become more refined and more proficient. That, in turn, can help you build even more wealth. 

Straying From the Course: We find that the ultra-wealthy tend to do a much better job than others at intensely focusing on skills that leverage their moneymaking abilities. But they aren't immune to temptation. Even the ultra-wealthy can stray from their course, usually with adverse results. 

There are a number of possible reasons for this, but the most common one is hubris. When people generate significant success over and over, it can give them the idea that whatever they touch will essentially turn to gold. When this happens, these people often drift from the course that made them wealthy. 

Example: Consider an entrepreneur who built a widely profitable manufacturing company. His intimate understanding of the psyche of engineers and his in-depth knowledge of logistics were instrumental to his company's success. The problem is that these insights and abilities are not always transferable to other fields something the entrepreneur didn't appreciate. When he later set up a production company to make movies, he lost most of his fortune. 

Example: An entrepreneur was able to craft a great vision for her company that inspired her partners and employees, as well as vendors and suppliers. Her motivational skills were exceptional. She focused on the big picture, not the details. However, when it came time to sell the company, motivational skills alone were not enough to ensure the best price. Her unwillingness to delegate some of the negotiations resulted in her making some unforced errors and not maximizing the value of the business. 

The upshot is that even the ultra-wealthy can sometimes forget their limitations when it comes to personal wealth creation. When they do, and they think they're great at things they're not, the outcomes are usually poor.  

Don't Fall Into the Trap: The same logic likely applies to you, too. Excessive self-confidence born from a long-track record of profitable endeavors can prove disastrous when people fail to stay the course. If you cross over from confidence to arrogance and delusional self-importance, you may end up working on endeavors requiring proficiencies you simply don't have. If you're unwilling to give up some control through delegation, this can set the stage for wealth erosion instead of creation. 

To help you avoid distractions in a systematic way, consider applying what's known as the rule of the four D's to every task, in this order:  

1. Drop It: If there is no compelling reason to spend time on a task, then drop it. 
2. Defer It: If you are unsure whether a task will result in a positive benefit, defer it. Schedule a time to reevaluate it and decide at that time to drop it, delegate it or do it.
3. Delegate It: When a task lies clearly outside of your core competencies, delegate it. 
4. Do It: If a task is part of one of your core competencies and if none of the previous three D's are appropriate, then and only then do it. 

Disclosure: Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated is not a legal or tax services provider and you are strongly encouraged to seek the advice of the appropriate professional advisors before taking any action. VFO Inner Circle Special Report, By John J. Bowen Jr., © Copyright 2025 by AES Nation, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means, including but not limited to electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or any information storage retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Unauthorized copying may subject violators to criminal penalties as well as liabilities for substantial monetary damages up to $100,000 per infringement, costs and attorneys’ fees. This publication should not be utilized as a substitute for professional advice in specific situations. If legal, medical, accounting, financial, consulting, coaching or other professional advice is required, the services of the appropriate professional should be sought. Neither the author nor the publisher may be held liable in any way for any interpretation or use of the information in this publication. The author will make recommendations for solutions for you to explore that are not his own. Any recommendation is always based on the author’s research and experience. The information contained herein is accurate to the best of the publisher’s and author’s knowledge; however, the publisher and author can accept no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of such information or for loss or damage caused by any use thereof.