HOW WEALTHY DO YOU WANT TO BE?
If you were in a room of people, and let’s say it was a substantial number, and you asked who would like to be wealthy, pretty much every hand would go up. If so many desire it, why is it that so few have it?
Building wealth is something that takes effort, attention, education and the right mindset. If you have two people, let’s call them Frank and Bob. I know they are both men but if I make one of them a woman, this example may appear like I am implying something, so I am going to stick to two guys, but you will get the point.
Frank reads books on investing, be subscribes to investing magazines, he puts aside a portion of his wages for investing and he has people he has met that are wealthy and are happy to discuss their strategies and methods with him. Frank lives a comfortable life, drives an inexpensive car, socializes with his friends, spends time with his partner and has his annual holiday that he saves up for. He has no credit cards and pays for things when he has the money.
Bob loves spending time with his friends and family going out for meals at nice restaurants, he plays golf on the weekend and has a decent handicap, he drives a fairly new model BMW, he has two holidays a year, one with his wife and kids to a family-themed hotel and once a year with mates where he can blow off some steam. He has three credit cards with a total of $25,000 and makes regular payments but usually maxes them out again fairly soon. He completed a wealth building course but hasn’t gotten around to starting yet as he is very busy with work. He has almost $1,000 in his bank account.
I know that these examples may seem a little extreme but they illustrate a point. Frank has made building his wealth a priority and lives to support that priority. In the book “The millionaire next door” by Thomas J Stanley interviewed a number of millionaires and found that they made saving and investing a priority and they lived simply and frugally. They weren’t lavish, they owned average cars, lived in the average suburban house and avoided the ostentatious lifestyle. They were usually self-employed and for the most part were first generation wealthy, meaning they had created the wealth themselves and not received an inheritance for their wealth.
If you have a mindset that puts learning about investing, saving money and wealth building as a priority, it is very likely that you will become wealthy. If you, however, move the priority of wealth-building down the priority list, then it is unlikely that you will become wealthy.
Changing your mindset to one that is in tune with wealth-building can be challenging, as there is much social programming that you would have been subjected to growing up. If the language you heard about money was negative, if your experiences were one of financial scarcity, if there are specific incidents that caused you to have negative connections to money, you may need to do some work around those challenges before you can start to build wealth, otherwise your unconscious mind will work against you with limiting beliefs and self-sabotage patterns. If you have negative emotions attached to money, you will be pushing the proverbial uphill in your attempts to build wealth.
You can start by writing out all the negative things that you heard about money, any negative experiences that you had or specific incidents. Then write out a corresponding positive thing about money. For example, if you heard growing up that you’ll never be wealthy, you could change that belief to one of you as deserving of wealth as much as anyone. Then write out your negative experiences about money, and then transpose them with the way you would have liked the experiences to be.
Keep working on your money mindset until you feel that your desire for wealth is more in alignment with your subconscious programming for wealth. Once you get congruency between the two, then you can start to work more on changing your behaviors and habits and building real wealth. In the end, you may not be extremely wealthy, but through your efforts, you could be in a position of being very comfortable financially and that is a very cool place to be.
If you want good resources for building your wealth, I went to a talk many years ago that was given by Jim Rohn. He mentioned that his mentor recommended a book to him and that book gave him the path to become a millionaire by the time he was thirty. Considering that this happened many decades ago, that was a lot of money. He had recommended that book during his talks, by his estimation, around a million people. Of all of those people who he had told about this book that put him on the path to wealth, he estimates around 10% bought the book. Now, why would only ten percent of people who are told by a wealthy person to buy a book because it helped him become wealthy, not buy the book? Because their mindset is not one of wealth building or saving and investing. The book is called “The richest man in Babylon” by George S Clason. I recommend it too. It is simple to find, simple to read and simple to implement.
Start building your wealth building library by purchasing books on building wealth, investing, money mindset. Stay away from books that promise quick wealth because most sustainable wealth building is relatively low risk and very much in the long term. Find someone who is wealthy and ask their guidance or mentoring. Find someone who can show you a path to follow that is sensible and doable. Then you can get on the right track to build wealth. Maybe not a path to being massively wealthy, but at least enough that the financial pressure is off you and you can enjoy your life without worrying too much about bills.
Building wealth is all up to you and what sort of priority you put on it. Also, the earlier that you start to build your wealth, the better. As the old saying goes “The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago and today.” Get started and look forward to becoming wealthier.
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