I just finished reading a recent article complaining about the rich. The author was upset at the fact that 1 percent of the people controlled 82 percent of the wealth in the world. In the author's mind, there was something inherently unfair about this. The author, like many who are not in the 1 percent , felt that the wealth the 1 percent created didn't necessarily belong to them and offered government solutions to cap or redistribute the wealth of the rich.

It's true, 1 percent of the people do control 82 percent of the wealth. And the top 1 percent will always control most of the wealth until the other 99 percent figure out how the 1 percent go about cultivating wealth.

So, how do the 1 percent do it? Yes, many of they are lucky and were born into privilege. But, according to my research — for which I interviewed 233 wealthy individuals and 128 poor individuals over three years, from March 2004 to March 2007 — many of them also get or stay rich by practicing certain good habits, like these: