Many believe that the first step to acquiring great wealth is finding a need and filling it or finding a way to accumulate many highly leveraged accelerating assets, sit on them a few years and then selling them for ridiculously high profits and then doing it again. While both methods are excellent ways to get rich, neither are the first step in the process. The idea of saving a few bucks for seed money is also not the first step. What then is the first step in acquiring great wealth?

In order to answer that question, let us start with a question or two and see if you can figure out the answer before we just tell you. After all, if you are going to get rich, it is going to be necessary for you to use your brain, which is the true first step but that's not the one we're alluding to. Here are your questions:

1. How do you intend to accumulate your seed money? Are you going to borrow it? You know, of course, that in order to borrow money, you need two things. The first is very little need of the money you want to borrow. The bank doesn't like to lend money to those who need it. They like to lend money to those who just want to use someone else's money but have plenty of their own. The second thing is some type of integrity.

2. If you are not going to borrow it, you'll either have to steal it, save it or inherit it, right? If you steal it, chances are you're going to get caught and spend some valuable time in jail?that's a big chance to take. If you're going to save it, you'll need to have a job that pays you more than what you're spending. Do you like to party, travel or have nice things? If you don't make significantly more than you spend on these things, again, you're barking up the wrong tree. What are the chances of your inheriting enough money to make you richer? For most people, the answer is that the chance of inheriting that kind of money is realistically very poor. So'if none of these things are really feasible, what's the answer?

The serious answer is found in #1 above. You're probably going to have to borrow the money or save it? At least save enough money so that you'll have a significant down payment to present some "integrity."

Great wealth NEVER starts from zero, my friend. Those stories you read and hear about, the ones about the poor guy who works his way up into becoming a multi-millionaire: that's usually what they are, stories and nothing more. They give hope to a lot of people but let me tell you something. If you are going to get rich in this country or anywhere, you're going to have to take the one giant first step, which is:

Having a clean credit record. That's right. You're not going to make a fortune out of thin air. The first thing you're going to have to do is repair any credit problems that you have.