Let me ask you, What are the chances of you becoming a millionaire?
One in a million?
One in a thousand?
well the answer is 1 in 50.
That’s right, 1 in 50 people living in the world right now are millionaires. This makes it completely feasible and something very achievable for you. Boom.
The key to getting there is master the mindset for wealth and to build a wealth consciousness inside yourself
49 out of 50 people are unsuccessful at doing this, and there’s a good reason for that. See, from an evolutionary point of view, the very idea of ”wealth” is extremely new to us.
As a species, we have had millions of years of evolutionary programming that makes the concept of wealth difficult for us to grasp. Until very recently, every human on the planet made a living as a hunter-gatherer.
For most of human history, we spent our time searching and searching for food. We lived on the brink of starvation and the only thing that abounded was famine. As a result, our natural instinct was (and is) instant gratification – i.e. hunting something of value (such as food) and then consume it immediately.
This instinct remains deep in our programming today, making it very counter-intuitive for us to build wealth naturally.
We still love that instant success, which causes big problems when trying to build valuable assets over time (the foundation for getting rich).
In fact, even the idea of long-term planning or foreseeing the future is not something we are genetically predisposed to. So we have to work on it. I learned this by reading a ton of materials and taking various courses, such as Eben Pagan’s ‘Self Made Wealth’, which I found particularly helpful and need to thank very much. Now to the point.
Build wealth as a project in your life
To start, you need to undertake a new long-term personal project – a project to generate wealth in your life.
We must commit to working on the accumulation of wealth as current focus area.
Commit to becoming personally intrigued and fascinated with wealth. Fall in love with it and study wealth every day to discover how it works and how you can bring it into your reality.
Doing this will teach you the foundational mindset for wealth, as well as many of the guiding principles, some of which are as follows.
get rich slow
You don’t hear many people talk about “getting rich slowly,” do you?
Well, here’s the thing. Get-rich-quick schemes just don’t work.
You need to plan and get rich slowly. Anything that comes before is a bonus. But your underlying strategy for wealth will be get rich over time.
Ask yourself this question: How do I stay on track for 10, 20, 30 years?
I know it’s hard to think like that (remember the hunter-gatherer mentality?), so you’ll have to work at it to handle it. But it will be worth it for sure.
The more you can resist that primal urge for instant gratification, the more you will achieve and the more wealth you will accumulate.
And just because you take this long-term approach doesn’t mean you can’t stay open to wealth-building opportunities as they arise. At any time.
Give yourself permission to receive anything that comes into your reality that can help you on your journey. Here is a great affirmation to practice to help with this:
“I give myself permission to receive in full any gift or contribution that is offered to me. I deserve all gifts and all things that are brought into my life and I receive them in full.”
Assets vs. Liabilities
Poor people have many liabilities and very few assets.
Middle-class people think they have a lot of assets, but actually they have a lot of liabilities.
What is an asset? Assets are everything you own that makes more money than it costs you. Examples of assets might be collectibles, real estate, stocks, or bonds.
What is a liability? Liabilities are any debt or payment you owe to someone else. Examples of liabilities include mortgages, loans, and credit card debt. Liabilities typically cost you money every month and reduce your ability to build assets because they eat up all your cash.
“Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs” -Zig Ziglar
Easy.
money kinda sucks
To keep things really interesting, here’s a good one for you. Money is not the best asset.
Money depreciates in value. In fact, money is not a great asset at all. It stinks a bit.
Money is probably the biggest temptation to buy more liabilities. Therefore, your goal should be Turn any money you can save into a more valuable asset as quickly as possible.
Get the money, use it as a tool, turn it into assets – that’s how you should do it.
Decide to know the different types of assets. Understand them fully and become an expert in one or more.
I’ll be writing a blog post about the different types of assets soon, so stay tuned.
you are an asset
In fact, you are your greatest asset.
You can literally do anything you set your mind to. But just like any other asset, you must invest in yourself to get the best return.
Rich people invest in knowledge. They constantly educate themselves and improve their skills.
what books are you reading? What courses can you take? What programs can you participate in?
Buy vs Invest
What most people don’t realize is that, in general, every time you spend money, you’re actually buying more liabilities.
The things that people tend to buy usually have no long-term value and actually lose most of their value right away.
You can see this on eBay, used car sites, etc., where even items that are sold ‘like new’ are only a fraction of their original cost.
Rich people, on the other hand, invest your money. This means that they exchange their cash for something that has a lot of intrinsic value and actually increases over time. This makes it an asset.
So how do you make the leap into this smart category of people? Well, here are some tips.
Buy what you need vs what you want
If you want to build real wealth, you must first make the mental shift to focus on the things you want and instead of concentrating on the things that need.
You have total control over this, so use your personal power to develop the following mantra: I only invest in what I need.
“Wealth does not consist in having great possessions, but in having few needs” – Epictetus
Remember, the more “stuff” you have, the more administrative problems you will have.
Many of the things that people buy have high maintenance costs and consume a lot of time, energy and money from their ‘owners’.
Looking at some of the most basic things people buy, you’ll see this: a house or a car. Both require a lot of extra money, time, and maintenance.
pause before you buy
A very quick way to start developing the wealth mindset is to simply wait before you buy something.
If you feel that sudden “need” or urge to spend, experience it, but don’t give up.
Recognize that it is only your genetic programming that is leading you toward instant gratification, and then move on.
Impulse purchases are the most damaging things for long-term wealth, so develop a personal system to detect these impulses and overcome them.
Only buy things you have planned ahead of time:
- On minor purchases wait at least 7 – 10 days
- On major purchases wait 30 days
- For really big purchases, wait at least 3-6 months
Most of the things you want to buy you just don’t need.
The more wealth you want to create in the future, the more you must realize that you can survive on much less.
In fact, you can shine and prosper in much less.
kill your debt
Avoid debt like the plague.
Imagine that debt is a real disease (think Ebola or leprosy) and do everything you can to avoid it.
In particular, avoid loans and credit card debt.
ELIMINATE as many recurring monthly costs as you can – they will cripple your progress to getting rich, so always keep your monthly overhead to the absolute minimum.
This is something you can start right now.
Contribute and create value for others
We live in a world of unlimited resources and total abundance. All we have to do to put ourselves on the path to wealth is learn to create value for other people.
This necessitates another big shift in thinking: you must focus on the value creation and not the value extraction. Focus on donation instead of taking.
Forget asking “how can I make money fast”. People who ask this are usually focused on themselves. They are only thinking of taking and getting. Don’t be one of these showers.
“He who has a lot is not rich, but he who gives a lot” -Erich Fromm
As a general rule in life, you usually get what you think about most of the time.
Money is the exception to this rule. When you focus on money you don’t get it. If you want money to materialize in your life, you must focus on creating value for others.
That’s why rich people ask “how can I create value?” They focus on the needs of others, not on getting rich.
To do this, you need to understand people. You must get into their heads and hearts and create value for them from there.
Create value while thinking like the other person. Don’t just think about what you I like it and then try to convince others that they like it too. Make sure you understand what people really want or need.
If you do this and give value to others, then recover value from them. And the rich person then converts this value into assets and wealth.
The formula is simple:
Create value -> Accumulate assets -> Build wealth
This applies across the board, whether you own your own business or are working for one. The logic is sound.
Start thinking of yourself as a ever-evolving value creator.
Align your personal wealth goals with creating a better existence for other people. Align your wealth goals with making the world a better place. The richer you are, the more you can contribute to others.
This is the mindset you need. And the universe will reward you.
final thought
I would like to end this thought. You live in the most abundant time in the history of the world.
More opportunities surround you now than ever before. All you need to do is take action and create massive value. When you do this, value (and money) will begin to flow to you. You must turn this into assets and wealth, not liabilities. But always stay focused on contributing as much as possible to others.
