Home Money Consciousness 30 Signs People Achieve Wealth and Success

30 Signs People Achieve Wealth and Success

Shannon June 28, 2022

Every self-made millionaire was once just the kid next door. Have you ever wondered if their friends and family all saw greatness in them from an early age, or it was a surprise to everyone wants to grow up?

If you’re on your own journey of trying to become a millionaire, you might wonder if you are destined to achieve that goal as well. It turns out that most millionaires have certain traits in common. If you have some or most of these qualities, you just might be on your way to becoming a millionaire.

Most millionaires were passionate about earning money at an early age. Credit: Shutterstock

30. They Earn Money at an Early Age

In the United States, most places will not hire you until you are 16 years old. And if you were raised by parents who insisted that you focus on your education, you might not even have your first job until you leave college. But people who were born to be millionaires are often eager to earn money as soon as humanly possible. If you were someone who eagerly asked to mow your neighbor’s lawns, babysit, or do whatever you could to make money from the time you were young, it is a sign that you are motivated to succeed.

Were you a prodigy at investing? Credit: Shutterstock

Some of the most successful people in the world started business ventures when they were young. When Marc Cuban was 12 years old, he started selling trash bags door-to-door. At the tender age of 6, Warren Buffet sold cans of Coca Cola and chewing gum. P.T. Barnum, the man who would grow up to found the Barnum & Bailey Circus, began his business ventures by selling lottery tickets at his local general store.

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Self-made millionaires tend to be over-achievers. Credit: Shutterstock

29. You’re an Overachiever

There are some people out there who feel satisfied with themselves if they just pay the bills. Future millionaires would never be okay with the status quo of what most people consider “normal.” They want to go above and beyond what the average person does.

Successful people try to achieve more than the average person. Credit: Shutterstock

According to Psychology Today, most successful people are over-achievers, and they always have been. These are the people who were striving to be better in sports, academics, and games. However, the real key to this over-achievement is when it comes from self-motivation. For example, if you were forced to get straight As because your parents told you to, you might lose that motivation to overachieve once you’re an adult. But if you inherently have this internal fire in your soul, it’s a good thing for your financial future.

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Sometimes, successful people were popular in High School. Credit: Shutterstock

28. They Were Popular in High School

There are plenty of millionaires out there who were nerds in high school. They were not popular among their peers but were motivated to succeed. However, popular people are charismatic and know how to make friends. This helps someone get very far in life in any field.

Successful people tend to get along with others really well. Credit: Pexels

Sure, there are some Bitcoin millionaires out there who achieved their wealth by sitting in front of a computer screen. But in most cases, being good with people means making a lot of money. For example, Jeff Bezos knew that people wanted convenience in their lives, and this became the basis of Amazon.com. If you want to think about a revolutionary idea that will change the business landscape, you have to find opportunities for products or services that people will actually want to pay for. The only way to do that is by truly understanding people.

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Most millionaires are incredibly good looking. Credit: Pexels

27 They Are Good Looking

Statistically speaking, good-looking people have an easier time getting places in life. Studies have shown that beautiful people get hired more quickly, and tend to move up in the workplace quicker than their less-attractive coworkers. There is even an entire book on the subject called Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful.

Beautiful people are more likely to get hired and move up quickly. Credit: Pexels

You can’t control if you were born looking like the traditional sense of “beautiful.” However, you can still do your best to dress and groom yourself to look more attractive. And if you’re a woman, makeup can do amazing things. If you look at photos of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, you can see that they both have gotten better-looking over the years.

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According to statistics, successful people are usually tall. Credit: Shutterstock

26. You’re Tall

This bullet point might sound silly, because how could height possibly have anything to do with success? According to statistics, tall men tend to earn more, and 60% of US Presidents have been taller than average. There are several theories about why tall people tend to succeed more than short ones. It could be that their height gave them a sense of confidence all their lives. Or, it could also have something to do with the fact that human beings are still animals at the end of the day, and they see height as an “alpha” trait.

Taller businessmen tend to succeed more than shorter ones. Credit: Shutterstock

However, even though there is an average of taller men being more successful, don’t discount yourself if you are short. There are plenty of people out there who are incredibly successful no matter what their height may be. Look at Peter Dinklage, Danny DeVito, Bruno Mars, Tom Cruise, Winston Churchill, and Napoleon Bonaparte. All were shorter men who dominated their respective fields.

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25. You Like to Take Action

Some people tend to procrastinate with getting things done. They’ll easily decide to push something off until tomorrow, and they don’t seem to care about meeting deadlines. These are the kind of people who usually do not become millionaires.

Successful people do the exact opposite. As soon as they know something needs to get done, they take action. They realize that there is no time like the present. The quicker you get an issue resolved, the faster you can move on.

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Wealthy people don’t struggle to live below their means. Credit: Shutterstock

24. They Live Below Your Means

So many people struggle to save money and stop overspending. Bankruptcy courts are filled with people who couldn’t stop themselves from spending more money than they actually make. But if you are one of the very few people who never had an issue living below your means, congrats. That means you are more likely to be a millionaire one day.

Is it easy to live frugally for you? Credit: Shutterstock

Millionaires don’t feel tempted to overspend because they understand the value of investing. Whether it’s reinvesting their earnings back into their company, or taking that money to buy more real estate, that money will grow, rather than getting wasted. Once you start putting money into a venture that is going to develop into something incredibly valuable, it doesn’t feel so difficult to live below their means.

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Millionaires tend to have a sense of urgency about their goals. Credit: Shutterstock

23. They Have a Sense of Urgency

Some people have a lackadaisical attitude towards their goals in life. They might think that “someday” they will accomplish their dreams, but that day almost never comes. This is why most millionaires have always lived with a sense of urgency. They realize that most big accomplishments take years of hard work and dedication to achieve. So if they don’t start right now, the time may never come.

If not now, then when? Credit: Shutterstock

If you have always lived your life believing that getting things done right now is much better than putting it off until later, you’re probably successful. And if you continue to live with this same sense of urgency in all your endeavors, you just might become a millionaire.

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Most successful people have had mentors to help them. Credit: Shutterstock

22. They Had Mentors In Your Life

The road to becoming a millionaire isn’t exactly commonplace. Many successful people have had older friends to look up to as a mentor, especially when they have questions about their progress. A mentor could be an older relative, a professor, or a life coach.

Mentors can help guide you during difficult times. Credit: Shutterstock

Sometimes, mentorship is not a life-long relationship. The right people might come in and out of your life when they are meant to be there. However, these people help you to build confidence inside of yourself when most other people might not see your true potential. It is always important to build your own confidence without seeking approval from others, but having it from someone whose opinion truly matters can make a big difference.

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Optimistic people tend to go farther in life. Credit: Pexels

21. They’re Optimistic

No one is happy and optimistic 24/7. We are all human and there will be good and bad days. However, future millionaires have the ability to stay generally optimistic about their future no matter what happens. Michael Jordan once said, “I hope the millions of people I’ve touched have the optimism and desire to share their goals and hard work and persevere with a positive attitude.”

Of course, there are many who are cynical when it comes to optimism. They believe that it comes from a place of ignorance. However, pessimism has rarely done anything to help. As human beings, we have the ability to fix a negative situation and come back from the toughest times. You’re stronger than you think.

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It is better to earn more money instead of penny-pinching and remaining poor. Credit: Pexels

20. They Focus More On Earning Instead of Saving

No one ever saved their way to a billion dollars. Sure, maybe if you start saving in a Roth IRA from your early 20s, you could get to one million by the time you’re old enough to retire. But living out your life as a millionaire when you are still young enough to enjoy it only happens by figuring out how you are going to earn more money.

No one ever saved their way to a million dollars. Credit: Pexels

Many millionaires started out with a goal of doubling their income every year. No matter who you are, you probably have a chance to grow in your field. The opportunities will begin to appear once you truly manifest those results.

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Staying stuck in the past will prevent you from moving forward to the future. Credit: Shutterstock

19. They’re Not Stuck in the Past

Memories of the past can be incredibly painful or may fill you with nostalgia for how amazing things used to be. Both of these things can be toxic because we cannot go back in time to fix our mistakes or relive the ‘good old days.’ The more you dwell on the past, the more difficult it will be to focus on the future.

Try to picture a good future instead of dwelling on the past. Credit: Shutterstock

Millionaires are always pushing the envelope to get to the next step in their lives. They rarely hang on to the past because they realize that the only way to make progress is to live in the present and prepare for the future.

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Most successful people don’t smoke cigarettes. Credit: Pexels

18. They Don’t Smoke

You may have noticed that most celebrities and millionaires don’t smoke cigarettes, but it’s incredibly common among the poor. Everyone knows that smoking is unhealthy, and we have all had that drilled into our heads since elementary school. While it’s true that successful people want to maintain their good health, they also realize it’s a huge waste of money to smoke. A pack of cigarettes can cost anywhere between $5 to $10. Quick math will tell you that if you smoke a pack a day, it could be as much as $70 per week on something that is literally going to go up in smoke.

Smoking might appear to calm you down, but it doesn’t really. Credit: Pexels

Aside from the money, millionaires have the knowledge to know that it doesn’t help their life in any way. People who smoke claim that it helps them relax. In reality, science has proven that smoking cigarettes actually does the opposite. If you struggle with smoking, and you haven’t been able to quit, we recommend reading Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Quit Smoking Without Willpower.

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Successful people tend to have an open mind. Credit: Shutterstock

17. They Are Open-Minded

Most successful people earned a lot of money because they have an open mind. Instead of seeing things in black and white, they can analyze a situation and see how things can be somewhere in-between. And when they are asked to try something new, they go for it.

Open your mind to the possibilities of what life could have in store. Credit: Shutterstock

Inventors, business people, writers, and investors all have to pay attention to the world around them, and that means accepting that the world is always changing. They know how to take advantage of these changes as they come along. People who are stuck in their ways and rarely think outside of the box are destined to stay stuck in their ways, and that includes in terms of income.

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Dream big, set goals, and take action. Credit: Shutterstock

16. They Enjoy Setting Goals

When you were young, your teachers probably asked you to make a list of goals about what you wanted to be when you grew up. You probably had a huge list of things you were hoping and dreaming to do. But as an adult, it sometimes becomes more difficult to set new goals, especially once you have a full-time job and get settled in life.

Millionaires enjoy setting goals for themselves. Credit: Shutterstock

Millionaires are the type of people who never stopped having that excitement of goal-setting. They might make lists, or have a daily planner where they write down their daily tasks. In the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, he recommends writing down your goals every single day, so that you never forget what you are trying to work towards.

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Surrounding yourself with successful people is one of the best ways to thrive. Credit: Shutterstock

15. They Are Surrounded With Other Successful People

When you think about millionaire and billionaire friendships, you might see a lot of celebrities hanging out with one another. In reality, there is no secret society of successful people taking over the world. The reality is that successful people tend to gravitate towards other people who they know are on the same wavelength that they are.

Sometimes, success happens when you meet the right people. Credit: Shutterstock

No matter how loyal you are to your old friends, if you become significantly more successful than them, there will come a point where your relationship falls apart. They will begin to feel inferior compared to your accomplishments, and they might even try to drag you down to their level. Your lifestyles might begin to change from one another. Or, they might end up hanging onto your coat tails and mooching off of your success. It is far better to be surrounded by other people who are equally as happy, motivated, and hard-working as you are.

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Having multiple streams of income can help someone become a millionaire. Credit: Shutterstock

14. They Have Multiple Streams of Income

Most millionaires did not get rich from having a regular 9-5 job. With the exception of some doctors or CEOs, the majority of millionaires had to earn their money by creating multiple streams of income. The sources of that income will change depending on who you are, and what field you are in. So we can’t give one-size-fits-all advice.

It is best not to put all of your eggs in one basket. Credit: Shutterstock

An example of someone with an amazing catalog of income streams is Graham Stephan. He is a full-time real estate broker in Los Angeles, so he earns a commission whenever he helps someone buy a house. Graham is also a YouTuber, so he earns from Google Adsense, Amazon Affiliates, and sponsorship through his channel. Then, he owns properties that generate rental income. Lastly, he has an online course where he teaches people about real estate. If you want to see him explain how much he makes every day, check out his video titled How I Make $45,000 Per Week.

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Keeping up with the news is important to know what is happening in the world. Credit: Shutterstock

13. They’re Up to Date on Current Events

If you want to be successful, you need to know what’s going on in the world. Whether things are good or bad, it’s crucial to be aware of current events, because they could help to make or break any business venture that you might try to get into. For example, if you decide to start a gasoline company right after the BP oil spill, you would know it was incredibly bad timing.

Donald Trump has made a lot more people care about politics. Credit: Shutterstock

Most millionaires were the type of people who would read the newspaper every morning. Warren Buffett was known to read through books of stock charts so that he could understand the market on any given day. Today, we are so lucky to have the Internet, where world news is at our fingertips.

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Divorce can significantly lower your net worth. Credit: Shutterstock

12. They Aren’t Divorced

Everyone’s personal situation is different, and it’s certainly possible to be wealthy and divorced. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are proof that life happens. However, these men became wealthy before they got a divorce. Statistically speaking, people who get a divorce have far less money. A study of 9,000 people from the Ohio State University’s Center for Human Resource Research showed that divorce reduced someone’s wealth by 77%. In contrast, when people get married, their wealth tends to go up by 93%.

When you get a divorce, you may be required to split assets. Credit: Shutterstock

These statistics on divorce may speak more to the fact that stability and happiness contribute more to someone’s wealth rather than divorce itself. When people are happily married, they may feel motivated to succeed for the good of their family and partner. But after a divorce, you lose thousands of dollars in legal fees, and men typically have to pay child support and alimony to their ex-wives. Once you are in this situation, it becomes exponentially more difficult to grow your wealth. One solution to this issue is to have a prenuptial agreement before you get married. That way, you will have the security of knowing that even if you get a divorce, you will not lose everything that you worked hard for.

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Everyone is good at something, and they need to find that strength. Credit: Pexels

11. They Play to Their Strengths

Everyone is good at something. No matter who you are, you have talent. This could be singing, dancing, customer service, or a knack for mechanics. Whatever your natural talent is, you should try to lean into that, and play to your strengths. By doing this, you’ll have the easiest time succeeding.

What is your strongest attribute? Credit: Pexels

There are so many people out there who choose to go down the wrong path simply because they know it has made other people a lot of money. They ignore their own natural talents because they are trying too hard to be like someone else. In the words of Coco Chanel, “Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping it transforms into a door.” Try to find the path of least resistance, and it could be your door to success.

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Millionaires usually know how to make decisions quickly. Credit: Shutterstock

10. They Make Decisions Quickly

Most millionaires have to make a lot of decisions in their daily life, and they have to make the executive choice within a matter of minutes. In Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, he says, “Those who reach decisions promptly and definitely know what they want, and generally get it.” The reason why they can make decisions so quickly is that they go with their gut instinct. They trust themselves, and that the universe is going to put them in the right direction.

Sometimes there will be multiple paths in front of you. Credit: Shutterstock

There are some people out there who are having a difficult time making a decision. It may be that their heart is telling them to do one thing, while their brain is telling them to do something completely different.

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Millionaires need to have confidence no matter what. Credit: Pexels

9. They Have Thick Skin

The richer you get, the more people hate you. Once you started to earn any amount of notoriety for your work, haters start to come out of the woodwork. These are toxic, and often mentally ill people who are trying to bring someone down a peg, because they are miserable with their own lack of accomplishments. Casey Neistat has a great video on this subject called “Haters are Losers”.

At the end of the day, you need to be prepared to ignore the haters. Credit: Pexels

Sometimes, this negativity can be enough to stop people from succeeding in their field. They might go home crying because someone was too viciously competitive with them. Millionaires are the types of people who have thick skin. They don’t care if you try to bring them down, because they have enough confidence to know that they are on the path to doing what they are meant to be doing. Sometimes, it can feel like no one understands you, or they think you’re crazy for trying to live outside of the box. That is until you succeed. Hindsight is 20/20.

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Can you stand to hold off on gratification? Credit: Shutterstock

8. They’re Good at Delayed Gratification

Success takes a very long time. There is no such thing as an “overnight success” and if someone promises you that you can get rich quick, they are a liar. Millionaires are great at delayed gratification. Whether it’s saving money in an investment, or waiting for a business to turn a profit, they know how to continue working hard every single day, and wait until they deserve to celebrate and treat themselves.

Sometimes you have to hold off things you want. Credit: Shutterstock

The average person has a difficult time telling themselves “no.” This is why we have such a huge obesity epidemic, and why so many people get into debt because they overspent on their credit cards. If you want to be rich, you need to start thinking about the long game.

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Rich people don’t go crazy when they meet a celebrity. Credit: Shutterstock

7. They Don’t Swoon Over Celebrities

There are some people out there who go completely crazy over celebrities. Think about the hoards of fans who scream and cry when someone like Justin Bieber is on stage. Instead of seeing him as a normal human being, they hero-worship him like he is some sort of god. The same thing happens when there is a huge celebrity scandal in the media. Some people refuse to accept the fact that their favorite celebrity made a mistake because they love them so much.

Some people worship their favorite musicians and entertainers. Credit: Pexels

Even when they were young, millionaires were never the type of people to go crazy over celebrities. In fact, they can see aspects of themselves in someone famous, because they are equally as hard-working. They realize that everyone is a human being, and some people just so happened to lean into their talents and work hard to earn a sense of notoriety.

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Businessmen are all about improving themselves. Credit: Pexels

6. They Focus On Self-Improvement

Most people are not born being a perfect person who is capable of earning a million dollars. They all had to work on improving themselves. Whether it’s going to sports practice, singing with a coach, writing every single day, or taking classes, every single millionaire had to go through some type of training. And even once they have achieved success, they continued to work on self-improvement, because they realize there is always room for growth.

Millionaires know how to find their inner strength. Credit: Shutterstock

Some of the most successful people in the world like Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and Barack Obama read dozens of books every year, and most of them would be considered nonfiction self-help books. There are also plenty of YouTube channels, podcasts, and audiobooks about motivation, success, and much more.

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Investments tend to earn more money than traditional savings. Credit: Pexels

5. Their Savings Are Investments

If you have money in a savings account at all, you’re already ahead of the game compared to most Americans. Studies show that most people have less than $1,000 in their bank account. However, most savings accounts only give you 1% or less in interest. this is a very small amount compared to investing in the stock market, a business venture, and more. Middle-class people are more interested in putting their money away and forgetting about it in their savings account. But people who are eventually going to become rich someday make a point of learning how to invest to maximize their earnings from their savings.

Calculate how much your investments will make over time. Credit: Pexels

Future millionaires don’t have a traditional savings account. Instead, they have an investment they know will make more than a 1% return every year. We can’t give you financial advice, so you will have to do your own research to find something that works for you. But after some quick math, you’ll see that 1% earned per year will most likely never make you a millionaire.

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Always keep going after your goals. Credit: Shutterstock

4. They’re Persistent About Goals

Most millionaires did not have any easy road to success. They might have had doors slammed in their face a dozen times or heard hundreds of people tell them “no” before their first “yes.” But they believed in their goals so much, that they continued to be persistent with achieving them. Failure was not an option if they knew what they were passionate about.

Make a list of the goals you actually plan to follow through on this year. Credit: Shutterstock

There are some people who are naturally persistent about their achievement. But if you struggle to have the confidence to keep going in the face of rejection, just remind yourself how many successful people failed before they won.

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Rich people know how to take risks in order to profit. Credit: Shutterstock

3. They Know How to Take Calculated Risks

There is a lot of advice out there saying that millionaires all know how to take risks. While this might be true, there is a huge difference between taking a leap of faith without any safety net versus a calculated risk. Successful people are educated on a subject matter before they take a risk with their money. This is why Warren Buffet refused to invest in Bitcoin for so long. He claimed he didn’t know enough about it.

Successful people tend to be good at taking calculated risks. Credit: Shutterstock

When it comes to taking risks, Use the analogy of going on a camping trip. Some people who have been through wilderness survival training could go into the woods without just the clothes on their back, and somehow build a shelter. But if you ask someone without any survival training to do the same thing, they are likely to have hypothermia or pneumonia by the next morning. If you want to be prepared to go out into the woods, bring a backpack full of survival gear. Or get some training. Better yet, get training and a survival kit. Your likelihood of success is going to be exponentially higher.

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Successful people tend to be really efficient with their time. Credit: Shutterstock

2. They Manage Time Efficiently

Patrick Shyu, the former Tech Lead of Facebook, has a YouTube channel where he gives his advice about coding and how to become a millionaire. In one of his videos, he explained that his classmates would call him a “nerd” for wanting to spend recess doing his homework, but he didn’t care. From an early age, he realized that it was a more efficient use of his time to do homework at school so he can maximize his time at home playing video games After all, if you’re forced to spend eight hours in school, why waste one more hour on homework? No one told Patrick that he should do this. He just instinctively knew this was a better use of his time.

Can you manage your time wisely? Credit: Pexels

Whether you’re growing a business or trying to move up to the top positions in your career, you’re going to need to manage time efficiently. So if you are the type of person who wakes up early, stays organized, and knows how to get things done quickly, you’re more likely to be a millionaire someday.

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Do you care a lot about getting “likes” on social media? Credit: Shutterstock

1. They Don’t Seek Social Validation

In today’s world, we are conditioned to care about “likes” on social media. Ten years ago, these little digital numbers on a screen didn’t have so much power over our lives. But now it is closely tied to someone’s self-esteem. Influencers and entertainers need likes and comments in order to prove to brand they are worth sponsoring. So if you’re a public figure, it would make sense for you to care about that. This is such a small segment of the population that actually earns a real tangible reward from social media. So why does everyone care?

Unless you’re an influencer, there is no need to chase likes online. Credit: Shutterstock

Future millionaires don’t care about seeking social validation. In fact, the work they have to put in behind the scenes is considered very boring. Instead of going out partying, they might be burning the midnight oil on a Friday night reading stock charts. Nothing about that is “cool” or “Instagram-worthy,” but they are more likely to be a millionaire compared to the person who is taking drunk selfies.

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