6 Super Rich People Who Live Like Regular Folk, Their Philosophies

It would be a dream come true to any of us if we could work merely for the love of the work we do, and not because we have to pay bills. Although there is a lot to be said for responsibility and having to show up and deliver in whatever your profession is. It keeps us humble and disciplined.

What I noticed when researching these people, I noticed a passion and vision and love for what they do, and a love for customers, a certain humility and focus that drove them to achieve the vision they had.

The first thing I would do if I hit the lottery would be to move and get a house closer to town, a smaller house than the one we currently live in. (We currently live about twenty minutes drive away from town.) I love the country village in which we live, but closer to town there are amazing parks and walks and lakes and coffee shops, and little boutique and antique stores, so that would be my motivation.

It’s not to say we don’t have amazing and wonderful bush walks where we live currently, but I want to downsize from the property we now own, the larger the house the more maintenance required, always remember that.

Not all billionaires live or seek the lifestyles of the rich and famous, some billionaires don’t care for the pomp and glamour. Jeff Bezos is one of these people who when he had made $12billion, swapped his regular car for another regular car, his company was making a lot of money, yet they made all the desks in his Amazon offices from repurposed doors.

Jeff Bezos had a simple philosophy on this, he would rather spend money on things that enhanced the customer experience than spend money on things that were irrelevant to customers.

We know Warren Buffett for his frugality; he still lives in the three-bedroom house where he got married 50 years ago, in mid town Omaha.

He owns one of the biggest private jet companies yet he flies economy class on commercial airliners and he drives his own car everywhere; he has never employed a driver.

He owns 63 successful companies, but he has never owned a cell phone or a computer.

He enjoys the simple life and has no motivation to climb the social ladder and hobnob with the rich and famous.

Chuck Feeney, is an entrepreneur who co-founded duty free shopping, yet he is a philanthropist without equal. Since 1982, he has transferred just about all of his money into a charity he set up.

He funded universities and charities and had a dream of being broke, and he finally was broke at 89 years of age, and he declared that was his dream all along.

He worked hard to make his fortune but his dream was to give it away to those who needed it more than him.

Azim Premji, one of the richest men in India, has donated large portions of wealth to charities, and he drives a small Honda vehicle.

Many people asked him to update his vehicle, so he did, he updated it to a secondhand Mercedes that one of his employees was driving. He likes to travel on public transport and he always orders food from the canteen at work and his favourite food is street food. This man has remained close to his roots despite his magnificent wealth.

He also travels in economy class, and his employees are extremely loyal to him because he never asks them to do anything that he wouldn’t do himself, he leads by example. That is how this Wipro Billionaire rolls.

Ingvar Kamprad, you may not know his name but you will definitely recognise the business he founded, it’s called IKEA. Only one of the most famous furniture brands worldwide.

He flies economy class and drives a 10-year-old Volvo, hey I drive a 15-year-old Ford Focus, where are my billions?… I digress.

Ingvar also leads by example and like his clever furniture, he believes in practical wisdom and simplicity and common sense, so lacking in today’s world.

He runs his company by his principles of being practically clever, and living simply. He sets a tone of humility and efficiency amongst the global leaders of his business.

Tony Hsieh, the late Tony Hsieh, was all about lifelong relationships with his customers, he founded Zappos (online shoe business) and ran it on a different business model. He decentralised management, and that was the model he adopted to run his company.

The golden thread that tied his company policy together was a relationship of respect and mutual benefit between his customers and the company. He would even recommend competitors to customers if he could not fulfil their needs. His golden rule was each customer experience had to be positive.