When most people think of a Billionaire they think of Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or even Elon Musk. But very few people have heard of Bernard Arnault, Amancio Ortega, or Ma Huateng. These people, not as well known as some of the others, have made their way to the list of top 20 billionaires in recent years.

Bernard Arnault made his money by developing a large company that focuses mostly on luxury items and services. He has a large collection of art and is the richest person in France.

Amancio Ortega built is fortune in fashion. He is the sixth richest person on the globe but likes to keep his personal life private.

Ma Huateng has built his fortune around technology, specifically the internet. He funded Tancent, which is the highest valued company in all of Asia.

Each of these men are relatively unknown by the general U.S. population yet remain powerful, wealthy and esteemed in their area of focus. So the question that comes up is, is it possible to repeat their stories or stories like them?

The answer is yes and no. Each of these people, including the whole Forbes list of billionaires, are remarkably smart, hard working and strategic. Most of them have not only worked hard to get where they are, they have also “sacrificed” basic things that a lot of us feel are regular parts of a typical life like regular free social interaction and time with friends.

For example Elon Must was showering at the YMCA and sleeping in the office at one point.

For for all the self-made billionaires there were times where they were working their butt off. But pretty much everyone has worked their butt off right? True, but these men and women were purposeful about what they worked on, and were smart about being efficient, strategic and passion driven.

So, if it wasn’t necessarily working hard that made these self-made billionaires rich, but a set of internal actions, habits and principles, what does that mean for us? Well first that it’s completely possible, but not likely to reach their level of success in a different area of focus.

Secondly each of these people had some degree of luck, but even with the luck, it’s no surprise that any one of them is where they are today. While each of them had luck they also planted the seeds of success and let the work, perseverance, time and their brains help grow it.

One of the main similarities between all these people is 1) their commitment to improvement, 2) their involvement in business or customer satisfaction, and 3) their intelligent decision making multiplied over many times. If you sprinkle a lot of hard work on the seed you can see how it grew into a large tree. All of these things together equal focus. Being focused on achieving their goals and having a great time doing it seems like a big similarity here too.

So if you’re wondering if there’s a certain industry posed to do the best the answer is probably internet technology or AI or something along those lines. But that’s not the right question to ask. You have to find the one thing that makes you intrigued, and draws you in day after day. If you have a big difficulty even thinking about it each day that’s probably not a good sign.

Bill Gates was into computers. Jeff Bezos was into customer satisfaction and was intrigued and excited for the internet. Elon Must is into science yet balances that intrigue with his drive to make something tangible for the future. It’s not so much the industry you’re in, but the culture you have and surround yourself in of discipline, hard work, passion, improvement, learning, integrity and ultimately intense focus.