Throughout my career in the internet marketing industry, I have been fortunate enough to surround myself with other successful people. Many of these people are truly bonafide millionaires. I would not be where I am at today had I not learned from mentors and made sure that the people I associate with were also extremely successful. So tonight I was thinking about some of the lessons I have taken in from these people, and I figured I would share them here.

Although I have learned a ton from people much more successful than me, below are 5 things I have learned from being friends with people who are literally worth millions of dollars (aka certified ballers).

1. It’s better to have small equity in several things than big equity in one thing - This really comes down to diversification. You should never put all your eggs in one basket. The key to building wealth is being able to absorb the losses or failures with the big successes. If you’re diversified, one failure should never hurt your overall business.

2. Never spend your own money when there is venture capital or investors waiting in the wings - All the true millionaires I know have at one point leveraged other peoples money or utilized venture capital at some point to build their wealth. Think about it for a second, it makes sense. And it makes even more sense as an investor or VC when you can simply leverage your money on a great idea to give you a nice return for doing no work.

3. Surround yourself with, or hire other brilliant people who can make money for you - Very few of the multi-millionaires I know have done it as a one man show. Most have hired other successful people and simply pay them a salary or a % to make more money for themselves. If you’re “working for the man”, and generating a ton of revenue, then you may understand what I am talking about unfortunately. Most millionaires also are literally making money while they sleep courtesy of someone else’s work.

4. Leverage your existing money to make you more money - There is a truth to the saying that your first million is the hardest. Once you have millions of dollars you can diversify and spread it out to make you even more money. Hence you become one of the people in #2 making money while doing nothing, and growing your wealth just because you have the money to invest.

5. More Money, More Problems - Having multiple streams of income and businesses really creates a lot of chaos in your life. Although it may sound like fun to have your hands in multiple things, every day is a new day of dealing with “issues”. Although the money is great, living this type of lifestyle will never be a 9-5 job. If you want to be a millionaire you have to be willing to put in the hours and deal with all the daily annoyances that comes along with running multiple businesses.

I realize many people reading this blog are entrepreneurs and have ambitions to make millions someday. So these are just some of the real life observations I have seen from people that do make millions. Emulate it!