Billionaire takes control when creating wealth

I just recieved AdvantEdge Newsletter from Nightingle and I like to share part of what I have read with you:

History's billionaires didn't build a better mousetrap and wait for the world to beat a path to their door. They improved someone else's mousetrap and then took it to the world.

According to folklore, the way to create a spectacular fortune is to build a better mousetrap, then let the world beat a path to your door. However, if you study the individuals who took this advice to originate many of the great ideas in business and technology, you'll be surprised to learn how few struck it rich.

Billionaires have another strategy — and if you look into how history's billionaires created their fortunes, you'll be surprised to discover how few of them invented anything.

For instance, Bill Gates, the wealthiest person in the world, didn't invent the products that made him rich. Microsoft's first successful product, DOS, was derived from a product created by Gary Kildall, a pioneer in the software industry who died at 52 in a barroom brawl and who was well short of the billion-dollar mark in net worth. Microsoft Windows®, in the popular view, was copied from Apple Computer®, but the technology didn't even begin at Apple. Its uniqueness, the Graphical User Interface (GUI) was originated at Xerox®, which never effectively exploited it.

Gates did, however, have one exceptional insight. He understood how to make money from a product. It must have been tempting for Gates to simply sell DOS to IBM for use in its personal computers. At the time, that would have been a big sale for Microsoft. Instead, Gates allowed IBM to use the operating system for a modest sum, recognizing that the real money would be in licensing it to producers of application software.

A similar story can be told about the late Sam Walton, a previous occupant of the top spot on the Forbes 400 list. He actively boasted that his best ideas came from competitors. Wal- Mart wasn't the first discount retailer, yet it became the biggest retailer of any kind. One big reason was that Walton tirelessly shopped the other chains, with an eye toward copying whatever was working for them.

Others had the idea of the discount retailing format before Walton did. But he was the one who developed the most successful formula for exploiting it. His approach had several components, including concentrating initially in small towns, giving store managers a big ownership stake in their businesses, and betting boldly on new computer technology.........

.............Clearly, the super-wealthy have followed many different paths to achieve their billionaire status, but there are common themes. Determination and hard work characterize all of their successful quests. But many determined, hard-working people never achieve their clearly defined goal of amassing great wealth. And most will continue to fall short because they don't pursue the key strategy that has worked repeatedly over the years.

There is a theme that consistently runs through the billionaires' stories. I call this theme "the billionaires' strategy" which is to:

Gain control of an asset and increase its value.

Coincidently this is exactly what I read about in chapter ten, Winners Take Control of Why We Want You To Be Rich, a new book by Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki. All billionaires have many things in common, taking control is one of them. Coincident........I doubt, do you?