Rich Thinking To Become Wealthy
Thought is the original source of all wealth, all success, all material gain, all great discoveries and inventions, and of all achievement. —CLAUDE M. BRISTOL
There have never been more opportunities for you to become wealthy, and more different ways to achieve it, than exist today. More people are starting more businesses in more different industries than ever before. More knowledge, information, and technology are creating more products and
services that people want, need, and are willing to pay for. One new idea is all you need to start a fortune.
As Within, So Without
The Law of Correspondence works for everyone at all times under all circumstances. This law says that your outer world will be a reflection of your inner world. Everything moves from within to without. You cannot accomplish something on the outside until you first accomplish it on the
inside. To be wealthy on the outside, you must think like a rich person on the inside. There is no other way.
Poor people think like poor people. They have self-limiting beliefs that hold them back and stop them from even trying. In a study completed a few years ago entitled One Hundred Million Millionaires, the authors demonstrated that if you simply saved Ksh10,000 per month throughout your working lifetime, invested it, and let it grow with compound interest, it would amount to
Ksh100 million by the time you retired. Why doesn’t everyone do this? Poor thinking!
Tony Robbins, in his 2014 book, Money: Master the Game, emphasizes what Einstein said: “Compounding is the most powerful force in the universe.”
After extensive interviews with fifty of the richest people in the world, Robbins concluded that almost anyone can start small, save and invest regularly, use the miracle of compound interest, and eventually become financially independent, if not wealthy. This simple method has worked for
almost everyone at all times throughout history. And it can work for you.
Reprogram Your Thinking
In this article, I am going to share with you a series of simple ideas that you can learn and apply, based on extensive research into the lives and habits of thousands of wealthy people.
By the Law of Cause and Effect, if you think and do the same things that wealthy people do, you will soon get the same results that they do.There are no secrets of success.
There are simply timeless truths and universal principles that have been discovered and rediscovered throughout human history. All you have to do is to learn and practice them to enjoy all the success that you could desire.
REASONS PEOPLE DON’T BECOME WEALTHY
There are seven reasons why people don’t become wealthy. Let us deal with each of them in turn.
1. It Never Occurs To Them
It never occurs to them that they can become wealthy. Because of their upbringing and early conditioning, perhaps coming from a home where no one had ever been wealthy, and associating with poor people, they never thought that they too could become wealthy, just as millions of others have done before them.
2. They Never Decide To Do It
Many people wish, hope, dream, and fantasize about how their lives would be different if they had a lot of money. They admire and envy people around them who are doing better than they are. They worry about money all the time.
But they never make a firm, do-or-die decision to become wealthy. As a result, they never even take the first step. They don’t learn wealth-creation techniques. They don’t upgrade their knowledge and skills so that they become more valuable at their work. They make excuses and rationalize their situations by saying that success is simply a matter of “luck” and they didn’t get any.
3. They Procrastinate
If it does occur to them, and they decide to become wealthy, they never get started. They procrastinate. They move to that wonderful fantasy place called “Someday I’ll.”
“Someday I’ll save my money rather than spending it all.”
“Someday I’ll upgrade my knowledge and skills.”
“Someday I’ll work harder and make myself more valuable.”
“Someday I’ll get out of debt.”
They end up living on “Someday I’ll” for most of their lives.
One of the great secrets of success is for you to “vote yourself off the island!” Stop making excuses and start making progress.
4. They Fear Failure
Because of destructive criticism in early childhood and mistakes they have made as adults, they are paralyzed by the fear of making a mistake, of losing their time or money. Even if they are presented with an opportunity, they go into a form of paralysis.
Their fear of failure causes them to create all kinds of reasons not to take action. They don’t have the time. They can’t make the minimum investment. They don’t have the necessary knowledge and skills. Like a deer caught in the headlights, they are paralyzed by the idea of failure, which causes them to never take any action at all.
As it happens, most fortunes were started by the sale of personal services. The people had no money, but they had the ability to work hard, to upgrade their skills, and to become more and more valuable. As a result, more and more doors of opportunity opened up for them.
5. They Fear Criticism And Disapproval
Many people think that if they set a goal to better themselves financially, the people around them will ridicule them and criticize them. They’re afraid that those people will watch over their shoulders and gleefully point out all the mistakes they make. Because they fear the disapproval of others so much, they often attempt nothing at all.
Here’s the solution. When you decide to become wealthy, don’t tell anyone. Keep it a secret. Go to work on your goal privately, and only tell people when they see your life improving and ask you how you did it.
6. They Stop Learning And Growing
To achieve something you’ve never achieved before, you must learn and practice something that you’ve never done before. The rungs on the ladder to financial success are knowledge and skill. To be financially successful starting from nothing, you are going to have to learn, develop, and practice an entire series of new skills that will enable you to become valuable and even indispensable in your work.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “I will study and prepare myself and someday my chance will come.” When you study and prepare yourself, by some universal principle, you always get an opportunity to practice your new skills. But it is up to you to develop them in the first place and to continue to develop them throughout your lifetime.
7. They Lack Persistence
Most people don’t persist long enough to succeed. Successful people will tell you that the major reason for their success was that they refused to quit. They refused to give up when the going gottough. They persisted over and over again, year after year, even in the face of complete bankruptcy and financial ruin. They never stopped.
It is amazing how many people give up and quit working just a few steps away from the key turning point in their lives, after which they would have been a big success. Persistence and determination are the ultimate guarantors that you will achieve all your financial goals.
Learning and Practice
Fortunately, each of these limitations to financial success can be overcome through learning and practice. Each of these obstacles can be turned into a stepping-stone to success when you learn how to think the way rich people think.
The Law of Correspondence is an immutable mental law. It works, for all people, under all situations and circumstances. It is inevitable and almost completely predictable.
With regard to wealth accumulation, this law says that you will behave on the outside consistent with the thoughts, feelings, beliefs, ideas, and values that you have on the inside. You always act on the outside consistent with the way you truly believe on the inside, and if you do, you will soon get the same results and outcomes as other people who believe the same way.
As a Man Thinketh
Psychologists call this your self-concept, and it is considered the single biggest breakthrough in human potential development in the twentieth century. Your self-concept is the way you think, your bundle of beliefs about yourself. You always act on the outside consistent with your self-concept, whatever it is. And you can always tell what people think, feel, and believe about themselves by looking at what they do in their day-to-day lives.
All improvements in external performance and results begin with an improvement in your self-concept. When you start to think of yourself in positive, constructive, and financially successful ways on the inside, you begin to act consistent with those beliefs on the outside until theyeventually become your reality.
Children brought up in affluent homes, especially by parents who started as entrepreneurs and who worked hard and became successful in one generation, are much more likely to become successful and wealthy as adults. Throughout their upbringing, they were surrounded by and inculcated with the beliefs and lifestyles of success and affluence. When they grow up, they expect nothing less for themselves and will accept nothing less until they achieve it.
Develop a Wealthy Mind-Set
The development of a wealthy self-concept usually requires many years of immersion and exposure to the habits and behaviours of wealthy people. But sometimes it can be a single exposure to an influential person—at a seminar, in a book, or on a podcast—that makes such a vivid impression on the individual that forever after she thinks about herself as a financial success just looking for a place to happen.
Many people have become wealthy after listening to just one podcast or attending one seminar. In many cases, the ideas and encouragement contained in a single book have set people off in a different direction that led to their achieving wealth, sometimes in just a few years.
The Historical Source of Wealth
Throughout much of human history, and still today in some countries, people acquired wealth by taking it away from someone else or from some other country. The first thing the Napoleonic armies did when they overran a country or principality was to loot that area of everything that could be carried away, sending it back to Paris. Napoleon was so accomplished at the acquisition of plunder for France that he was eventually made emperor and given unlicensed authority to send his armies out to loot all of Europe.
The first thing the Nazis did under Hitler when they overran a country was to steal everything that could be moved and send it back to Germany by the trainload. When the Russians counterattacked in World War II, they looted and plundered everything in their path. Throughout history, everydictator who comes to power in any country immediately steals everything he can get his hands on. Wealth was not created in these cases; it was transferred from the weaker to the stronger.
Wealth Creation Today
Then, after 1815 in Europe, and eventually in America, a phenomenon occurred that had never been seen in human history. People found that they could create wealth by producing products and services that other people wanted, needed, and were willing to pay for. Legal systems were set up to protect the production and acquisition of wealth in this way, thereby enriching every country that embraced a market system.
Because entrepreneurs and business builders did not fear that their wealth would be expropriated by the authorities, contrary to the way it is in some countries today, many of the best and most inventive entrepreneurial minds and talents became focused on wealth creation rather than simply wealth transfer.
In America, for the first time in human history, the expression “make money” became popular and accepted. People moved from all over the world, and still do today, for the opportunity to take part in the greatest entrepreneurial, wealth-creating system in all of human history.
Starting with Nothing
In fact, today, new immigrants to the United States are four times more likely to become millionaires than are native-born Americans who have lost sight of the key to becoming rich: Find a need and fill it.
Steve Siebold, author of the book How Rich People Think, said, “If you want to make a lot of money, find a big problem that a lot of people have, and solve it in a new way.”
This is your key to wealth creation as well. And there is no other way to become truly wealthy except by supplying others with what they want and need and are willing to pay for.
Develop Rich Habits
In the simplest terms, rich people have rich habits, and poor people have poor habits. Mary Kay Ash, an amazing self-made millionaire, used to motivate her distributors by saying, “Don’t get the rabbit habit; think mink.”
Rich people think mink in every area of their lives.
For you to develop rich thinking, to become wealthy, you must first develop the habits of thinking and of action that wealthy people have. Jim Rohn once said, “It is not becoming a millionaire that is important. It is the kind of person that you must become in order to become a millionaire that is even more important. Then, even if you lose all your money, you can earn it all back again because now you are the kind of person who knows how to make this kind of money.”
Mike Todd, the film producer and husband of Elizabeth Taylor, once lost all his money on a big production and went broke. It was in the newspapers, and many of his “friends” laughed at him behind his back.
One of them asked him, “Mike, how does it feel to be poor?”
Mike Todd replied with these classic words. He said, “I’ve never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is a temporary situation.”
He then went back to work on his next project, which was successful, and in a couple of years he was rich again.
Nature Is Neutral
The Law of Cause and Effect, the great law of the universe, says that if you think and act like wealthy people, you soon become one of them. And if you don’t, you won’t.
Nature is neutral. Nature is like the statue of justice, with a blindfold. Nature plays no favourites. As Goethe said, “Nature understands no jesting; she is always true, always serious, always severe; she is always right, and the errors and faults are always those of man. The man incapable of appreciating her she despises; and only to the apt, the pure, and the true, does she resign herself, and reveal her secrets.”
Fortunately, your mind is the one thing in the universe over which you have complete control, and that’s all you need to get started.
Something-for-Something Thinking Versus Something-for-Nothing Thinking
This is a major difference in the thinking styles of rich people versus poor people. Rich people are always looking for ways to create value, to develop and produce products and services that enrich and enhance the lives and work of other people.
They are always willing to put in before they take out. They do not believe in easy money or something for nothing. Rich people believe that you have to justly earn and pay for, in terms of toil and treasure, any rewards and riches that you desire.
Poor people lack this fundamental understanding, the direct relationship between what you put in and what you get out. They are always seeking to get something for nothing or for as little as possible. They want success without achievement, riches without labour, money without effort, and fame without talent.
Poor people gamble, buy lottery tickets, come to work at the last possible moment, waste time while they are there, and then leave work at the first possible minute. They line up by the hundreds and thousands to audition for television programs, thinking that they can become rich and famous without ever having paid the price necessary to develop the level of talent and ability that enables them to rise above their competitors.
One of the great secrets of becoming wealthy is to always do more than you are paid for. If you do, you will always be paid more than you’re getting today. And there is no other way.
Go the extra mile. Be willing to put in far more than you are taking out. There are never any traffic jams on the extra mile.
Developing New Habit
Fully 95 percent of everything you do is determined by your habits, first of thinking and then of action.
Successful people have good habits that lead to happy, productive, and financially successful lives. Poor people have poor habits, or no habits at all, that lead to the opposite. Fortunately, all habits are learnable with practice and repetition. You can learn any habit or skill you need to learn to achieve any goal you can set for yourself.
The only real question is, “How badly do you want it?”
Rich people and poor people have been studied, contrasted, and compared for many years to determine what it is about them that makes them different from each other.
The bottom line is that you can start off with every advantage in life—good family, excellent education, ideal contacts and opportunities—but if you lack the mental habits necessary for success, they will do you no good.
On the other hand, you can start with no advantages, like people who escape from a poor country or a dictatorship and arrive with no friends, no contacts, even no language skills, but with excellent habits, and then go on to create great lives for themselves.
The Seven-Step Strategy
Habits are developed with a simple seven-step strategy.
First, strive to develop only one habit at a time. If you get ambitious and decide to develop several good habits immediately, you end up developing none. Be patient. “Make haste slowly.”
Because it takes about twenty to thirty days of repetition to develop a new habit, you can actually develop one new wealth-building habit per month, or twelve new habits in a year. This is enough.
For example, most wealthy people arise before 6:00 a.m., fully three hours before their first appointment. They have rituals that they follow each day. They get up, exercise, dress, plan, and prepare for the day.
They read, learn something, and get organized. They are usually at work long before the average person has had his breakfast. This is a habit you can decide to develop immediately. It may change your life.
Second, input new data: Decide upon a habit that can be helpful for you to develop. Be clear about this new way that you want to think and act. Turn this new habit over in your mind.
For example, rich people think about creating wealth most of the time. They look around continually for opportunities to make more money by offering products and services that peoplewant and need, both today and in the future. They think continually about revenue generation. You can do the same.
Third, affirm to yourself that you already have this habit. Say to yourself, over and over, “I see money-making opportunities everywhere.” The most powerful words are the ones you say to yourself and believe.
Continually read, learn, study, and gather information about making money. Read the interviews and stories of other people who have started with very little and become financially successful. Think about how you could do the same.
Fourth, visualize yourself as you would be practicing this new habit. Remember, “The person you see is the person you will be.”
All improvement in your performance begins with a change in your mental pictures of yourself acting in a particular way. You always perform on the outside the way you see yourself performing on the inside.
Create a mental picture of yourself getting out of bed before 6:00 a.m. and immediately beginning your day. It is amazing how many wealthy people say that they start every morning, sometimes at 4:00 or 5:00, with thirty to sixty minutes of aerobic exercise. If you do this every day for a month, you will soon develop a positive addiction to the feeling of being bright, alert, and full of energy all day long.
Fifth, act as if you already had this new habit. There is a Law of Reversibility that you can use that is responsible for many of the great transformations in people that lead to financial success.
This law says that if you feel in a particular way, or if you believe yourself to be a particular type of person, you will naturally act in a particular way. But what if you start off not feeling or believing that you are a wealthy or successful person?
William James of Harvard pointed out, “If you do not already have a habit that you desire, act as if you already had this habit in every respect, and the action itself will soon create the actual belief.”
Successful people plan every day in advance, usually the night before. They set priorities on their tasks and begin on the most important task first thing, before anything else. You can do the same thing, starting tomorrow.
As you plan and organize your day, think to yourself, “This is what rich people do.” In no time at all, it will be a habit and will be locked in as a permanent part of your daily routine.
Sixth, refuse to allow exceptions. Once you resolve to develop a habit, never let up until the new habit is locked in permanently. Don’t rationalize away unhelpful behaviour. Refuse to justify or make excuses for not remaining true to what you have resolved to do. This is what poor people do.
Seventh, if you “fall off your horse,” get back on immediately. If you lapse back into the old habit, which you will from time to time, immediately catch yourself and begin acting consistent with the new habit that you have decided to develop.
Brush off your temporary lapse and say, “Next time, I’ll do better,” and then begin again. Don’t expect to get it right the first time, or even the first few times. Be patient and persistent.
Form Good Habits
Good habits are hard to form but easy to live with. Bad habits, on the other hand, are easy to form
but hard to live with. The rule is for you to form good habits and make them your masters.
New habits are difficult to practice and learn at first, but soon they become automatic and easy.
Soon it becomes easier to practice your new habit than to fall back into your old ways of doing
things.
Habits of Wealthy People
You can develop several habits that are practiced by virtually all rich people. For example, in the Forbes 2015 survey of self-made billionaires, fully 76 percent attributed their success to “hard work and self-discipline.”
Millionaires work about sixty hours per week, usually six days a week, ten or more hours per day. They arise early and get started by 7:00 or 8:00 a.m. and keep going until 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. As David Foster, the music impresario, said, “I don’t know any successful people who work less than six days a week.”
Do What You Love
Here’s the key. Do what you love to do. Do work that you enjoy, that attracts you, energizes you, and makes you happy. Most millionaires say that they never work a day in their lives. They just do something they love to do and get paid very well for it. You should do the same.
In addition to working hard and having self-discipline, millionaires do not waste time. They think continually about revenue generation by serving their customers better, faster, and cheaper than their competitors, no matter what business they are in. They continually ask themselves, “Is this the most valuable use of my time in achieving my goals?”
Set Clear Goals
Most millionaires are intensely goal oriented. They have a major definite purpose, one big goal, sometimes called a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) that they think about and work on all the time. What is yours?
Millionaires set measures, especially financial measures, and deadlines for each of their goals.
Millionaires are frugal, careful with their money. They examine every detail of an investment or an expense before making a decision. They like to earn money, but they hate to lose money.
Millionaires focus on financial accumulation, on earning and keeping more and more of their money. As the Japanese proverb says, “Making money is like digging in the sand with a pin. Losing money is like pouring water on the sand.”
Use Your Time Well
Millionaires are highly productive and use their time well. They plan every day in advance. They set clear priorities on their time. They focus and concentrate on the most valuable use of their time every minute and every hour.
Poor people throw themselves at their work, without detailed planning, and end up wasting an enormous amount of time, becoming tired and discouraged long before they achieve success.
One of the most valuable skills you can learn is to calculate your desired hourly rate, or income. Divide the number 2,000, the average number of hours successful people work in a year, into your desired annual income. If your goal is to earn Ksh10,000,000 per year, divided by 2,000 hours, this equals Ksh5,000 per hour.
From then on, every minute and hour of every day, you ask yourself if what you are doing is paying you your desired hourly rate or more. If it isn’t, you immediately stop doing it. You delegate, outsource, or eliminate that task. You absolutely refuse to do anything that does not pay you the kind of money that you have decided to earn.
Just Say No
As Nancy Reagan said, in advising teenagers about drug use, “Just say no!” Just say no to anything that is not the highest and best use of your time, to anything that does not pay you the kind of money that you want to earn.
When Warren Buffett was recently asked the secret of his success, he replied immediately, “I just say no to everything.”
John Doerr, the multibillionaire venture capitalist from Silicon Valley, has a complete staff whose job is to do everything except for the few things that only he can do that are responsible for generating tens of millions of dollars for the firm. He says no to everything else.
Keep Learning and Growing
Millionaires are always learning new ideas. They read, learn, and listen two to three hours a day. They subscribe to summaries of business books and articles, both written and audio. They know that one key idea, combined with their existing knowledge, can change the future of their business and maybe even earn them a fortune. They are convinced that the right idea exists somewhere, and they are constantly seeking it from every source possible.
Avoid the Television Trap
Rich people watch less than one hour of television per day. Poor people watch five to eight hours of television per day, only going to bed when they are too tired to watch, and then get up and turn the television on to start the day.
Television can be a wonderful slave but a terrible master. Your television can make you rich or make you poor. It will make you rich if you leave it off most of the time. It will make you poor if you sit and watch it hour after hour.
A recent study found that as people became wealthier and wealthier, they began to move their television set farther and farther from the center of family activity. The wealthiest people actually set up a “television room,” a place where they have to get up, go downstairs, and get themselves seated to watch television in the first place. They make it as difficult as possible to watch television, including getting rid of their television sets completely.
Become Insatiably Curious
Another habit of wealthy people is that they ask a lot of questions and then listen closely to the answers. Middle managers and middle-income earners seem to talk a lot and pay little attention when others are speaking. Wealthy people ask a lot of questions, listen a lot, and even take notes, knowing that almost everyone can come up with valuable insights that can be useful in generating wealth and earning more money.
Maintain Your Health and Energy
Rich people take excellent care of their physical health. They keep themselves well-informed about the things they can do to live a longer, healthier, and better life.
It takes high levels of energy to be successful, to work long hours, to start earlier than others, and to work later. Rich people are continually seeking ways to increase their levels of energy.
One expert said that the most important asset of any business is rested executive thinking time. This is your most important mental asset as well. How can you get more of it?
1. Proper Weight
This is where proper weight is so important. Being overweight is associated with numerous health problems. One of them is that carrying extra weight puts a strain on your body, burning up energy that you could be using for achieving the success you desire.
The five-word rule for weight loss is simply “Eat less and exercise more.” Wealthy people eat nutritious foods and drink a lot of water. As a result, they have more energy, especially mental energy they can focus on getting more and better results and earning more money.
2. Proper Rest
According to Anders Ericsson, a psychologist at Florida State University, elite performers sleep an average of 8.46 hours each night. What he found was that peak performance is hard work. It takes a lot of energy. You simply cannot perform at your best for any period of time if you’re only sleeping five, six, or seven hours per night. You need eight to nine hours of sleep to totally rest your body and recharge your brain for the day ahead.
3. Proper Exercise
Wealthy people exercise an average of two hundred minutes per week, or about thirty minutes per day, or more. They get up and exercise each morning. They walk more often from place to place, take the stairs more often than the elevator, and are always looking for opportunities to move their
bodies.
Someone once told me, “Every joint in the body is meant to be fully articulated every single day.” That piece of advice has guided my personal exercise program for some years now
Calculated Risk Taking
Rich people are willing to take risks to increase their wealth. But they do not gamble or take chances. They practice a special form of “risk avoidance” in the pursuit of higher income. They reduce risk that is inherent in anything new or different by gathering more and more information from every possible source.
Wealthy people are willing to move out of their comfort zones, to stretch themselves and try something new and different if that’s what is necessary to achieve greater financial rewards. Richpeople are continually seeking opportunities where they can apply their intelligence and resources to create wealth in new and different ways.
Rich people reduce investment risk by working with experts and by supervising their investments carefully. Once they have made the money, they are determined to hold on to it.
Network Continually
Rich people network continually. They are always looking for ways to broaden the number of their relationships with people whom they can help and who can help them. But as Baron de Rothschild once said, “Make no useless acquaintances.”
Rich people do not spend their time with people who are going nowhere with their lives. They seek out the most successful people in their community and their industry and look for ways to spend more time with them. They stay away from negative people, those who criticize, condemn, and complain. If they find themselves with someone who is grumbling about life or work, they
politely excuse themselves and go away.
Be a Joiner
Do what rich people do. Join one or two business associations that are important or helpful for your field. Attend the meetings. Identify the most important committees, and volunteer to sit on one of them.
The most important committees in any organization tend to attract the most important people within that industry. When you serve on these committees, you get an opportunity to meet and know these people in a neutral, nonthreatening environment. In a way, you get to “interview” with these people and let them see the kind of person you are by the quality of the contribution you make to your non-profit organization.
The Most Important Quality
Perhaps the most significant quality of wealthy people is that they focus and concentrate on excellent performance, on getting better and better at the most important work they do.
In the final analysis, nothing will help you more in life than to develop a reputation as the “go-to guy or girl,” the individual who is recognized as the very best performer in your particular area.
Just as the best investment that a company can make is in improving the quality of its product or service in terms of what its customers want and need, the very best investment that rich people make is in themselves, getting better and better in their key skill areas.
Your Future Is Unlimited
There have never been more opportunities for more people to earn more money and achieve their financial goals faster than exist today. But as Earl Nightingale said, “Before you can have something more and different, you must become someone more and different.”
By the Law of Indirect Effort, when you focus single-mindedly on developing the thinking styles of wealthy people and engaging in the behaviours that they practice every day, you will soon become a wealthy person yourself, both on the inside and on the outside.
ACTION EXERCISES
1. Resolve today to think and act like wealthy people. Practice the ideas in this article. Read the interviews, stories, and books about people who have become fabulously successful, and do the things they do.
2. Select one habit that you think can help you to develop the mind-set, the self-concept, of wealthy people, and work on that every day until it becomes automatic and easy for you.
3. Select one activity or lifestyle behaviour of successful people and incorporate it into your lifestyle as well. Do it now.