#thinklikearichperson
You’ve done OK in life, but you still dream of something better.
So, you play the lottery.
You know the odds are not in your favor, but you can’t win if you don’t play, right?
If you think like a rich person, as author Steve Siebold suggests, you would take the money you spend in lottery tickets and put it into an investment that will multiply over time. In other words, you’ll get rich slowly.
Then, there’s the matter of what you would do with the money if it were suddenly in your possession. If you think like a “middle class” person, as Siebold categorizes it, you would come up with ways to SPEND your newfound fortune. If you thought like a rich person, you would find ways to INVEST your newfound fortune.
The message here is that if you think like a middle-class person, your fortune will disappear relatively quickly. It seems ridiculous, at least to those who think like a rich person, that ANYONE could be given that kind of money and not make it last through his lifetime, and the lifetimes of his descendants or heirs.
You see, thinking like a rich person, you would take your windfall, place it in appropriate investments and spend SOME of the dividends, interest and capital gains. The rest of the gains would be reinvested.
If you think like a middle-class person, your instinct might be to give some of your fortune to your friends, so they can SPEND like they have never spent before. That might make you feel like a really good person.
But, if you think like a rich person, your first instinct might be to give some to reputable charities. You might give some to your family. But the only way you would give money to your friends is if your friends had good investments that you could get in on. You would probably never give money to friends to spend, knowing they would not spend it wisely.
So it’s not only your thoughts about making money that matter. Your thoughts about how you would use money matter just as much.
So where are your thoughts today? If it’s Monday, are you dreading another workweek? Or, are you seeing your job as a means to an end, because you are slowly building a fortune?
If you think that way, you’ll think of Mondays as one more day until your ultimate payday. If you like your job, or at least have found enough things to like about it to make it relatively pleasant to go to work, it will make building your fortune that much easier.
So how does a “middle class” or working person build a fortune? First, you have to have a regular savings plan. Have money taken out of your check – it doesn’t matter how much or little you make – regularly to go into savings. Then, don’t touch it, unless you are buying into a superior investment. Let it grow for as long as you work.
Also, as Siebold suggests, perhaps you can find a vehicle that will allow you to build a fortune without interfering with your job. There are many such vehicles out there. For one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You’ll see lots of former “middle class” folks who learned to revise their thinking, and could tell their employers goodbye quite early in life.
In short, thoughts matter, especially thoughts about money. Give first priority to growing money, second priority to help others grow money and third priority on spending money – wisely. Even if you don’t have much money now, thinking that way will provide you an eventual fortune.
Peter
Tag Archives: ” lottery
HOW TO THINK ABOUT MONEY: PART 1
If you had all the money in the world, how would you feel?
There are all kinds of answers, and there are many books out there that try to teach us how to think about money.
Steve Siebold has written one called, “How Rich People Think.” It teaches, much the way Napoleon Hill teaches in “Think and Grow Rich,” or Robert Kiyosaki in “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” that we have to look at how we think before we can get rich.
Sure, you can inherit a bunch of money from your late great aunt, or you can win a big lottery jackpot. But, chances are, if you have what Siebold calls “middle class thoughts” about money, you probably won’t have your fortune for very long.
Most of us have been taught that hard work, a good education and keeping your nose to the grindstone for, say, 40 years will help you retire comfortably.
But if you think like a rich person, you are not thinking about having enough money to retire, as Siebold writes. You are thinking about having enough money to make an impact on the world.
In other words, to be rich, you have to think of solutions to problems, and invent them.
Most of us were taught that if we had a job, or something else that was paying us, we had to worry about holding onto it. Rich people will try things, fail numerous times, and try something else. They don’t fear failure or loss. In fact, they don’t fear much of anything. Even if they lose their fortunes, they know they will find a way to make them back.
That may be why it’s difficult to really punish white-collar criminals. They used their genius for evil, and most of us would like nothing more than to see them lose everything. Even if they lost everything, they would find a way to make it back – hopefully in an ethical, law-abiding way this time.
Yes, we all would like to have a lot of money. Some of us believe it is not possible for us to get a lot of money. It’s possible for anyone to get a lot of money, just by thinking the right thoughts. You don’t think about who would give it to you. You think about how you can come up with the idea that people will pay you for.
Then, you think about how you can use and grow that money. As Siebold writes, middle-class people think about how to spend money. Rich people think about how to invest money.
Most of us have been taught to get a good education – get through high school, go to college, get a degree in something that will get you a good job. Rich people, Siebold says, don’t think of education in terms of degrees. They think of education as learning anything that will make them money. Some of the richest people in the world have relatively little formal education. They’ve just thought about ways to make money, learned what they needed to pull it off and gotten rich.
Do you think like a rich person? Do you think like a middle-class person? Do you think of making money via a job, or making money via an idea? Once you get money, do you think more of ways to spend it, or more of ways to invest it?
As you ponder these questions, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You will see how some ordinary, middle-class folks got wealthy, and how you could do the same. The only difference between them and you is how they think. It’s difficult to become rich, until you first learn to think like a rich person.
Give it a shot. Think what you would do to make a lot of money, and to not just preserve it, but use it to help others. Don’t be jealous or envious of the rich. If you feel that way, remember the best way you can help the poor is not to be one of them.
Peter