As a Winner, you deserve to be rich. One of your primary goals should be financial satisfaction and independence. Financial satisfaction enables you to enjoy what money you already have, even as you strive for financial independence.
Being financially independent means doing what you want to do, when you want to do it. I am so totally committed to this idea that I recently wrote an entire book around it.
In case you have not read Doing What You Love-Loving What You do, its essence is simply this: The only way in which you will ever be financially satisfied and independent is to undertake some activity you love to do, and to incorporate it into your life’s work.
The richest people in the world are those who thoroughly enjoy their career choices. “If I weren’t being paid to do this,” they insist, “I would still do it as a hobby.” Can you say this about your present job or career? If not, then financial success will elude you until you find something you love to do and incorporate it into your life’s work.
Another trait I have found that Winners share is that they focus on ideas that have a potential for profit. For some people, profit is a dirty word. However, before you can become rich, you must resign yourself to the fact that without a profit, there is no possibility of financial success.
Consider profit as a reward or financial benefit for serving others. The more you serve others, the more profit you can expect. And, you can only expect what you feel you deserve!
LACK CREATES LACK – MORE CREATES MORE
Whatever you focus your attention upon, you will tend to attract more of. If you focus on how little you have, that belief will soon become reinforced. A state of never-ending poverty is generally the result of intellectually and emotionally reinforcing poverty beliefs.
Do you feel you are afflicted with poverty beliefs? It is easy enough to find out. Simply ask yourself the three following questions:
- Do I WANT to be rich?
- Do I DESERVE to be rich?
- Do I BELIEVE I can be rich?
The first question is one that most people would eagerly answer in the affirmative. Do they WANT to be rich? Yes! Yes! Yes! Beyond that point, however, it is common for negative thoughts to start creeping in.
A rather surprising fact of life is that so many people do not really feel that they DESERVE to be rich. They may not even KNOW this if they tend to feel undeserving on a purely subconscious level. As you might expect, this is generally the case. The reason for this is that many such feelings are often deep-rooted, and extremely difficult to dislodge.
Consider the outlook of a person who follows blindly in the footsteps of his father. “I’m just a coal miner,” he may say. “My daddy was a coal
miner before me, and his daddy before him. That’s what we are – coal miners.”
Although coal miners certainly play a vital role in this country’s industrial progress, it is the wrong profession for anyone who adopts it for the wrong reason. What your father or grandfather did for a living does not necessarily have anything to do with you.
People who do not believe they deserve to be rich are generally plagued with such hang-ups. If you have somehow managed to avoid the trap of doing whatever it is your father does, let me ask you this. Are you inclined to place certain negative connotations on money?
Do you feel it has a corruptive influence, that it destroy happiness, or increases your chances of coming to some “sorry end’? If you believe this, you are not alone. Many people feel the same. Such thoughts are a very real part of their Poverty Life-script, which they are determined to play out. In other words, they are determined to lose.
Losing can be accomplished on a very subtle level – by involving oneself in bad investments, or by making loans to unreliable people who are not inclined to honor their debts. The possibilities are endless.
As concerns the last question – “Do I BELIEVE I can be rich? – If asked to be totally honest, most people would be inclined to say, “NO.”
Our belief that we cannot become rich has its roots in the Judeo- Christian Work Ethic, which most of us have been exposed to since childhood. The Judeo-Christian Work Ethic implies that unless we work hard to earn our money, we violating some kind of unwritten religious law. Of course, no such law even exists!
Having adopted the role of “hard-working” we quickly become resigned to it, and afterward, console ourselves in odd ways. How often have you heard people make the following statements:
“Rich people are usually unhappy.”
“If I ever came into a fortune, I’d immediately lose all my friends.” “Once you have a lot of money, you start to have a lot of problems.” “The people who have the big bucks usually made them dishonestly.”
People who say such things may not really believe what they are saying, but it helps them to justify their poverty life-script.
FIND THE MAGIC COMBINATION
Every contrivance know in man, every tool, instrument, article of furniture, every article designed for a specific use, originally evolved from some very simple beginning – and in its earliest stages, included some form of experimentation. We tend to experiment whenever we want to create something new, or improve anything that already exists.
How about you? Admittedly, you already exist, but if that is all you are doing, you may feel the need to do something bigger and better with your life. It so, good for you!
Ideas are the seeds of riches. And since there is no shortage of ideas, there can be no shortage of riches. If you are presently experiencing financial difficulties, it is because you have not yet committed yourself to an idea that will reward you financially.
Whatever the problem, you may be sure the solution already exists in one form or another. It may exist partly in what you are presently doing,
or in some skill you have not yet taken the time to fully develop or refine.
Finding the right combination means taking a little of what you are doing, adding a little of something else, modifying it with things that others may have told you, subtracting whatever is counterproductive, and then arriving at a new combination – a winning combination that will enable you to unlock the door to success.
It is unfortunate that so many people disregard as unreal anything that is purely ideal and mental in nature, since that is where everything begins.
Spinoza once said, “A thing has only so much reality as it possesses power.”
Yes, ideas have power that will help to bring you all that you desire.
MONEY IS AN IDEA IN ACTION
Even as you read these words, you have within you valuable ideas to improve your job, your business and community. Such ideas are deserving of your attention. They should be nurtured and encouraged to grow.
Ask yourself: Where can I get help in actualizing my idea? Start researching, then take it step-by-step. This is how all great fortunes are made.
As much as society struggles for economic equality, it will never be achieved. All social schemes intended to equalize the rich and the poor are doomed to failure. Since the beginning of recorded history, the rich
have demonstrated a talent for becoming richer, while the poor have a tendency to stay poor. While this may not seem fair, the fact remains that the human mind is a creator as well as a destroyer. Whatever ideas we hold to be true must inevitably become our reality.
The majority of the poor, in the course of continually programming their minds with poverty messages, insure that poverty will always be part of their lives. The only way they will ever escape poverty is to rewrite their Poverty Life-Script, replacing it with new ideas and beliefs that nourish their creative potential.
LIVING A CLICHÉ
Are you presently living your life in accordance with some familiar idea you have been listening to since childhood? If so, you are living a cliché.
“Money doesn’t grow on trees.” “Save your money for a rainy day.” “A penny saved is a penny earned.”
“If you’ve ever been really poor, you can never be rich.”
(NOTE: This particular cliché is a favorite of those who survived the Great Depression. The only problem is, they have not yet survived it – they are still experiencing it.)
Most of these counterproductive one-liners were passed down to us by our parents, who learned them from their parents, who learned them for their parents, who learned them – well, you get the idea. It is important to remember that a wrong concept can never become right simply through repetition. It can, however, gain a certain amount of credibility, which is extremely unfortunate for those who are easily influenced.
- When you were a child, were you urged to think about the future in terms of achieving some measure of security?
- “You’re not getting any younger, you know. You’ve go to save for your old age.”
- “What if your health fails?”
- “What are you doing to counter inflation?”
What indeed! Although you can continue to badger yourself with a lot of anxious questions, it would be far better to face the truth about financial security. The truth is – there is no such thing! The only security you and I have is the ability to actualize, to make things happen through our own ideas and thoughts.
If you manage to become proficient at this, you will always be in a position to replace what is lost. Bear in mind that no matter how much money you have, you could lose it at any moment.
Millionaires have been known to go broke overnight. The ones who are able to recoup their losses are those who have learned the difference between being poor and being broke. They will be the first to tell you that being broke is a temporary situation, but being poor is a permanent state of mind.
REWARD IN PROPORTION TO RISK
At the outset, it would be better to forget whatever you have ever been told about risk. We are not speaking of “plunging blindly” now, but rather of carefully calculating the odds and determining the real chances for success.
Do you think if you devoted yourself thoroughly to researching a particular subject, that you would eventually become an expert in that field? Would you say that the odds are in your favor? Of course they are!
Unfortunately, most people would rather remain poor and ignore their true potential than to take a chance at excelling. They worry about failure, and loss.
“What if I LOSE everything?” they ask.
If you have ever asked yourself this question, bear in mind that you once had nothing and somehow managed to get where you now are. As concerns risk, if money is lost, you still retain the knowledge of how to earn it. No one can ever take THAT away from you!
In the end, the choice comes down to this: Would you rather be safe or rich? If you can’t quite decide, I would urge you to think ahead.
WHAT IS THE WORST THAT CAN POSSIBLY HAPPEN?
Once you are able to face this question squarely, and to come to terms with it, you will be free to take risks.
Think about all the bad things that have every happened to you.
- Which experience was the worst?
- What was the blackest day of your life?
- What happened? What happened next?
- What happened after that?
- Did you die? Obviously not.
- Were you financially ruined forever?
- Were you left without hope, with no means of ever recuperating from this devastating experience?
For the most part, people consider the most difficult times to be those when some major changes take place. In retrospect, they will generally admit that something good came out of it, that they are actually wiser and stronger for the experience.
How very fortunate it is that our Higher Self knows what it is we need to learn, since if it were left to us, we would never choose the harder road, the one that challenges us. And yet, that is what we need.
To live in constant comfort is to stop growing. Nothing is required to maintain the status quo. And nothing of any real worth ever comes without challenges.
GETTING RICH QUICK
The appeal of getting rich quick is almost universal. In this Age of Instant Everything, we have become programmed for immediate gratification. Buy it now! Take it home today! No money down! No payments till next year!
People who have come to reject the idea of paying a price for success are frequently taken in by get-rich-quick schemes. They will invest in pyramid plans, in so-called once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, and are hopelessly addicted to winning the lottery.
Lotteries are one of the biggest scams operating today. They were designed to appeal to those who fantasize about becoming rich in a hurry. The lure of millions of dollars, the idea of instant wealth is a mesmerizing concept to those who have never learned how to channel their creative energies.
Their hope is to “fall into” the fortune they have never taken the time to learn how to earn.
Lotteries are non-positive expectancy games of chance. The odds of winning can be as high as 200 million (or more) to one. If you are determined to involve yourself in a game of chance, choose one that contains a positive expectancy factor, one that requires a certain degree of skill, and one that offers a positive return on your investment, providing the odds are in your favor.
As far as getting rich quick is concerned – forget it! It’s a loser’s game.
HOW REALLY TO MAKE A MILLION
Yes, it is possible to make a million. Really! And Realistically.
Consider this. If you were able to sell a thousand items at a net profit of a thousand dollars each, you have one million dollars! When you think of it in that light, one million dollars isn’t quite so mind-boggling, is it?
In the entire world, there must be one thousand people who are willing and able to pay a thousand dollars for a specific product or service. The truth is, people are doing it all the time.
There is an important lesson to be learned from breaking down your goal into “manageable” pieces. In case you hadn’t already guessed, it makes it much easier to achieve.
Early in my professional career, if I had pondered the thought of writing all the books that I presently have on the market, I would probably never have undertaken the task.
The thought of writing even one book is intimidating enough, particularly on those days when it is difficult to find the right words. Rather than thinking about writing a book, I have always thought in terms of writing a certain number of pages per day. By
faithfully adhering to this schedule, I eventually end up with a book. I couldn’t help it!
If you would like to make a million dollars, rest assured that this is not an impossible goal. Others have done it, and so can you! Approach the challenge one stage at a time. It isn’t necessary to acquire the entire amount in a single day. The important thing is to acquire it.
Take the first step. Then the next.
Then the next.
Remember! Victory is not only a matter of achieving your goal. You are victorious for as long as you continue to work toward it!
Consider the alternative – a life of failure and poverty. A life of unrealized potential and limited thinking.
On the positive side, achieving your goal is easier than you think because you have so little competition! By that I mean there are few people who are willing to pay the price for having what they want. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for you, our society has fostered an “entitlement mentality.”
I have noticed this to be particularly true with teenagers and young adults. Many seem to believe that they are “entitled” to the benefits of hard work without paying the price. They have adopted that attitude that their parents or society “owe” them happiness and success just for being born.
I think the best illustration of this nonproductive entitlement mentality that I have ever seen is demonstrated in a satiric letter I came across from
an unknown author who wrote about a comical little character which he or she called Homer Sneed.
In reaction to a government program that pays farmers not to raise already overabundant crops, Homer decides that the best way for him to achieve wealth is to go along with the system and to be paid for NOT doing something. In keeping with this non-productivity philosophy of life. Homer is prepared to make the following proposal to the United States Government:
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Gratuity Division
Washington, D.C. Gentlemen:
My friend over in Terreborne Parish received a $1,000 check from the government this year for not raising hogs, so I am going into the not- raising-hogs business next year.
What I want to know is, in your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to raise hog on and what is the best kind of hog not to raise? I would prefer not to raise Razorbacks but I would just as gladly not raise Berkshires.
The hardest part is going to be keeping an inventory of how many hogs I haven’t raised. If I can get $1,000 for not raising 50 hogs, I will get
$2,000 for not raising 100 hogs.
I plan to operate on a small scale right at first, holding myself down to about 4,000 hogs, which means I will have $80,000 coming from the government.
Another thing: these hogs which I will not be raising will not eat 100,000 bushels of corn. I understand that you also pay farmers for not raising corn. So, will you pay me anything for not raising 100,000 bushels of corn to not feed the hogs I am not raising?
I want to get started as soon as possible as this seems to be a good time of year for not raising hogs.
One thing more – can I raise 10 or 12 hogs on the side while I am in the not-raising-hogs business, just enough to get a few sides of bacon to eat?
Yours respectfully, HOMER J. SNEED
Farmer
While the anecdote of Homer Sneed is certainly an amusing extreme, it also deserves some serious thought. At least this character Homer Sneed realizes that, in order to survive, he must do something – in this case, “raise a few hogs on the side.”
Unfortunately, most people who actually live by the something-for- nothing entitlement mentality are not even as smart as Homer Sneed. They never fully realize that while waiting for their fantasy to come true, they had better “raise a few hogs on the side.”
Instead, they spend most of their lives waiting, wishing and hoping that someone will come along and take care of them and make their dreams come true. In the end, they die broke and disillusioned because life was “unfair.” Society, or the
imaginary people they were waiting for, didn’t provide for them in the manner to which they felt they were entitled. This is a classic profile of a Loser.
Wouldn’t you rather be a Winner? A Winner not only thinks rich but also is willing to do whatever is necessary to make it happen. If you are willing to think rich and pay the price to achieve the benefits of riches, here’s the way to do it.
MASTER FORMULA FOR ACHIEVING SUCCESS
If you desire to be rich, you must think like a Winner. Winners have: –
- Definite Ideas About How Much Money They Want
- Persistent Desire to Be Rich
- Confident Expectation of Financial Reward (Profit)
- Unwavering Determination to Be Rich
- Willingness to Pay the Price to Be Rich
DEFINITE IDEAS ABOUT HOW MUCH MONEY YOU WANT
Before you can achieve anything in life, you must know what you want. This is basic to any creative activity. Wanting “a lot of money” is insufficient information for your subconscious mind to process. Since “a lot” can be relative, your subconscious will not know how to direct you to your final goal. Start out by knowing how much you want. Be realistic.
If ten thousand dollars seems like a lot of money to you, then start out with a lesser goal, something that’s a little above your comfort zone but which you consider within the realm of human possibility. Inother words, more than you are used to, but not something that seems totally impossible. After you have manifested that amount, you can gradually increase your goal.
PERSISTENT DESIRE TO BE RICH
Although you may want to be rich, you may not desire it enough. Many so-called desires are actually wishful thinking. You must have a burning desire. Remember that desire is the seed of opportunity. Whatever you do not desire strongly enough will elude you. Whatever you desire or feel more strongly about will be attracted to you.
CONFIDENT EXPECTATION OF FINANCIAL REWARD (PROFIT)
You must expect to be justly compensated for your ideas and efforts. Keep in mind that there is no reason to feel guilty when you earn a profit from taking risks and actualizing your moneymaking ideas.
UNWAVERING DETERMINATION TO BE RICH
Winners are determined to continue to advance in the face of every obstacle. They are not easily discouraged by occasional roadblocks. They do not allow themselves to be defeated by obstacles. To them, an obstacle is merely an opportunity in disguise. Some of their most successful moneymaking opportunities stared out as obstacles.
WILLINGNESS TO PAY THE PRICE TO BE RICH
Winners are willing to pay their dues. They don’t expect something for anything. The price that Winners pay to be rich is to follow these five steps.
There you have it! The Master Formula for Achieving Riches. If you find that you are weak in some areas, don’t get down on yourself. Remember, you are growing and learning how to be rich. You have good reason to be proud of past accomplishments, and as a Winner, if you will THINK rich, you can BE rich!
SPECIAL BONUS – HOW YOU CAN BE A WINNER WITH A MILLION
This is a special bonus for my young readers or parents with young children. I want to share an idea with you that will make you a WINNER WITH A MILLION DOLLARS by the time you are age sixty-five. It is so simple and so effective; you will probably wonder why you never considered it before.
The law of mathematics tells us that if we invested a given amount of money at 9 percent, we could double our money in eight years. How can this make us a million dollars? Let’s work this backward.
If you wanted to accumulate a million dollars by age sixty-five you would need to put away the following amounts at 9 percent interest:
| Age 57 | $500,000 |
| Age 49 | $250,000 |
| Age 41 | $125,000 |
| Age 33 | $ 62,500 |
| Age 25 | $ 31,250 |
If you can put together $31,250 by the time you are twenty-five or
$62,500 by the time you are thirty-three, you’ll have enough saved at that time so that you will never have to save another dime for the rest of your life!
To put this in perspective, let’s take the $31,250 figure. This is about a year of income for a college graduate with a few years of work experience. Take it back another eight years and the cost is $15,625 – about the price of a shiny new automobile (Highly Depreciable Asset).
A million dollars may not be what it once was, but it is still a lot of money – far more than most people will accumulate in a working lifetime.
Yet if we looked at it from the other end of a working career, the possibility of a million-dollar retirement is no more than a year of income or, maybe, that new car you could put off purchasing.
Early savings could produce some major lifetime benefits such as:
- Eliminate the need to save more, later, for longer
- Eliminate the worry about Social Security
- Eliminate the worry about corporate pensions
- Provide an above-average retirement income for as long as you live
Still nervous about getting the original sum together? That’s understandable, so let’ extend the deadline another eight years. If you can’t put the money together by the age of twenty-five or thirty-three, you can still retire with a million if you manage to put together $125,000 by the time you are forty-one.
While this figure is less scary than $1 million, it is still far more than most people accumulate. So the question remains: How do you put the original stake together?
One possibility is a gift from a wealthy parent or grandparent. Putting away the necessary sum when you are young can do a great deal more than a much larger inheritance later. However, since most of us do not have wealthy relatives, we must consider a more practical alternative.
There is another way, one that doesn’t require anything but the commitment to save a little every year. Set up an IRA (Independent Retirement Account). Whether the distribution is tax-deductible or not, the annual earnings are tax deferred, and putting away $2,000 a year will accumulate the stake you need.
If for instance you put aside $2,000 a year from age twenty-one to age forty-one and earn a 9 percent compound interest, you will amass just over $120,000. If you save and are committed to your goal, it can be done quite easily. Remember that this is not a lifetime savings project.
Just put aside $167.00 per month for somewhere between twelve and twenty years when you are young and you will have a cool million at sixty-five. That comes out to about $5.50 a day!
Easier said than done, of course. But consider trying to do the same thing from the other end of your working life. If you start saving at fifty (as most people do) you’ll need to put aside about $26,000 per year to accumulate the same million by the time you are sixty-five.
It may be difficult to give up $5.50 a day when you are in your twenties, but it is virtually impossible to save $2,000 a month when you are in your fifties.
Can you see the possibilities here? Ninety-five percent of the population are financial Losers at the age of sixty-five. You don’t have to be one of them. If you are a parent or a grandparent, you can help your offspring to achieve this worthy goal. If you are a young reader, I urge you to consider the above.
It’s easy to accomplish, it’s practical, it will build your sense of self-discipline and self-confidence, and most of all, you will be able to say, “I am a Winner with a Million!” This is how Winners Think Rich and Get Rich!