The Psychology of Money
I have often wondered why so many authors, gurus and "influencers" always talk about "mindset" and "affirmations" and other mental exercises to create wealth. I believed this focus on the mind to be a massive waste of time, and to what end? I wanted hard facts. I wanted a plan.
I was always hoping that they would give me a paint by numbers plan to follow that would generate wealth for me and my family. I wanted them to tell me:
Invest in 'X' and hold for 'X' years
Buy real estate in 'X' market and get the money from <this guy>
I wanted a formula, not some "pie in the sky" about mastering your emotions or the law of attraction.
I was even so convinced that the proper information to distribute to the people was a "get rich textbook", I wrote one. In fact, I wrote several.
My books are actually step by step plans to create wealth. They spell out, in plain language, a formula for becoming rich, using the money you already have, even if it is very little at the moment. I was convinced that this was the right course of action and anyone could follow my plan and become wealthy. I even have a video course that boils it down to the essentials.
As popular as my plan has been ( thank you, dear readers..), I realized that the vast majority of people I have spoken to who have read my books or taken my course never implemented it. They thought is was a "cool idea" and then moved on with their life. I suppose I could just be happy that I made a buck, but I am trying to solve a problem - POVERTY- and my methods were NOT getting it done.
I realized that in order for people to change their life, they, themselves, have to change. This is old news. I think it's not even news from this century; but I finally clued into the underlying issue. Change is hard. Doing new things, habitually, is hard. Becoming a better version of yourself is hard. People don't like hard.
My 'get rich' plan is easy. Being a person who executes that plan, is hard.
So I read a zillion books about this very subject - here are a few of my favorites:
The Psychology of Money - This book blew my mind. It explains why we think the way we do about money and what is potentially holding us back from creating real wealth. A must-read for anyone who wants to figure it out.
Scarcity - This book scientifically explains the behaviour of the poor vs. the behaviour of the rich. If you like cold, hard facts and need convincing that wealth begins in the mind, take a bite out of this tome.
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind - This is an older book but it does a great job of explaining that it is OK to be rich. It debunks some of the poverty biases that you may have been taught from your parents.
Rich Dad, Poor Dad - this is a classic, and rightly so. It explains how rich people do things differently from poor people, and it has very little to do with investing strategy. It has everything to do with understanding what an asset is, how debt works, and what a rich person would do vs. You average poor person. Spoiler - most of us are poor people...
The New Plan
Once I understood that we need to change our minds first, then our habits, our strategies will then become relevant. There are a million strategies out there to build wealth, but they all require you to posses a certain subset of personal skills and disciplines that take work and repetition to master.
In light of this new information, I have decided to continue my quest to create the ultimate "playbook" for wealth creation and am writing a new book that spells out a plan to master the habits necessary to become rich. This is not investing. This is daily money management on steroids that will get you into the groove of managing your money like a superhero, in preparation for taking on a more advanced strategy, like my BYOB: BE Your Own Bank method.
I hope to have the first draft completed by end of summer and a possible release in fall of 2022. I am excited to share my ideas with you, and see if we can pump you up to elite status in the world of personal wealth creation and money matters.
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