Secret Millionaires Club: Warren Buffett's 26 Secrets to Success in the Business of Life

SECRET #16

Be Willing to Change Your Ideas

SECRET #16 Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

Ever thought you might have a few bad habits?

Business owners and managers always strive to be responsible and dependable. They try to think of how their actions today will affect their business in the days ahead and beyond.

For example, if a business borrows a lot of money for the short term but is not being able to pay it back, the results can be disastrous.

In life, another example would be if someone kept behaving in the same way—over and over—so that he or she never changed. This kind of behavior can cause problems if they don't see the advantage of “breaking the chain of habit” and acting differently.

So remember: Do your best to be responsible and dependable—and if you think you are developing any bad habits, try to break them.

Radley, from Secret Millionaires Club, learned this secret when he had to break one of his “chains of habit.”

It all started when Radley planned to enter this year's Science Fair contest. He was excited about telling Jones, Lisa, Elena, and Starty his idea for building a new robot.

Unfortunately, his buddies thought it sounded very, very boring. And when Lisa suggested that Radley could win the Science Fair trophy with a different kind of robot—one with lots of style and flair—he grew very quiet.

Even when Jones and ...