I have a question for you: What would it be like to have a bank balance with 9 zeros? A billion dollars? What does it take to reach that amount? Our guest today, Mitch Cohen, co-wrote a book answering that question. It’s called The Self-Made Billionaire Effect.

There are more billionaires walking the planet today than ever before. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sara Blakely. According to Forbes, 2017 was a record year with the number of billionaires climbing 13% to 2,043. And 56 of them are under the age of 40!

But there are only about 800 or so self-made billionaires, according to Mitch. He shares some of the characteristics of these wealthy individuals including an empathetic imagination and patient urgency (sounds conflicting, right?)

Mitch has spent over 30 years in the financial industry. He is a retired Vice-Chairman at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he served as a partner for over 20 years. It was there that he got the opportunity to meet and analyze the work and mindsets of some of the richest people.

I also want to highlight that Mitch is a fellow Penn State alumni and he and I both serve on the Board of Visitors at the Smeal College of Business there.  

Fun Fact: Mitch was a Human of New York profile…You know, those incredibly candid portraits of New Yorkers doing random things with some of the most captivating and moving captions. He shares that experience as well.

To learn more about Mitch follow him on Twitter @MitchDCohen.