There’s a book that’s very important to me, one I’ve been reading, over and over, since I first got it in 1961. It’s Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, one of the real groundbreakers in my field. It’s inspiring, absolutely, and Hill is a great thinker who had a profound effect on my life. But the most important thing about that book? Hill delves into all kinds of topics, stories, examples and exercises—but he doesn’t really talk about money.
This might seem strange for a book about “growing rich.” But here’s another one: You Too Can Be Prosperous, by Robert Russell. Another great author, and again, it hasn’t got much to do with money at all. I hope you’re getting the picture here: One of the keys to creating wealth for yourself is to understand that money is not the goal. Let me repeat that, for emphasis: Money is not the goal.
What these authors have come to understand is that creating wealth has very little to do with focusing on money. Really, what it has to do with is your mind, your attitude, and the way you think.
It sounds so simple, but most people really just don’t grasp it, even though it’s as plain as the nose on your face. Think about it: When you think of living a wealthy life, what comes to mind? Is it a home on a tropical island? Your own airplane? Doing whatever you want, whenever you want? All of these, maybe—and more?
That’s my guess. And I bet I’m right. But did you imagine piles of cash, or 7, 8, 9-digit bank accounts? I would think not. Think of it this way: Webster’s Dictionary defines wealth as “an abundant supply.” It doesn’t say an abundant supply of money, does it?
Money only has value because we believe it to. It’s printed on paper that is actually quite worthless. So when someone says to me that they want to make a lot of money, what I hear is that they want the things money can be traded for: the cars, the islands, the planes. But most of all, they’re pursuing the ultimate luxury: the freedom of time to enjoy it.
So when I say that money is not the real goal, this is precisely what I mean. The goal is not simply amassing wealth, but rather, an ongoing journey of growth, both personal and financial. This can be a tough concept for many of us to grasp. After all, we’ve been taught our whole lives that the point of making money is to accumulate as much as we can.
But that’s looking at it backwards. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “money can’t buy you happiness.” Well, that is just about the most absurd statement I’ve ever heard. That’s like saying you can’t ride around town on a refrigerator. The statement is equally as ridiculous. Of course money can’t buy you happiness—but what it can do is make you comfortable enough that you no longer need to think about it.
Money consumes us if we don’t have it. The price of most products and services is continually increasing and I could care less. Why should I worry about something over which I have absolutely no control? But if I didn’t have money, I’d sure be thinking about it.
It consumes our time and our energy. It reduces our infinite mental and creative powers to a worry machine. This is why you need to break out of this cycle and stop making excuses. This is why you need to realize money is not the goal.
When I think about people who have made great successes for themselves, I don’t see people who chase money. I see people who understand the mind. They aren’t thinking about earning money. They’re focused on what they’re doing.
This is where you have to understand that the path to wealth is a mental game you need to play with yourself. “Money can’t buy you happiness?” That’s a defensive statement we learn to make to justify to ourselves why we don’t have it! In a moment of truth, you know you want to change that. This book will help show you how.
Wealthy people already understand that it’s not about the money. They know it’s not a goal unto itself. That’s why you see them using money as a commodity of exchange rather than hording it.
So many of us have a hard time understanding this. But it’s easy to see why. Our whole lives, we’ve been programmed to think money is the end goal. It’s also why, when it doesn’t come easily, we become defensive and make excuses for ourselves.
One of the easiest ways to show how money really works is to think of it as though it were water. A drop by itself is nothing. It’s tiny, powerless. Think of it as a single dollar, if you would like. Not much can be done with it.
However, as the drops gather, they gain mass and momentum. They flow into small streams and then into rivers creating a torrent of abundance. This abundance has moved mountains and carved vast canyons. It has literally shaped our entire planet—but only as long as it’s in motion. If it stops and pools, if there’s no inward and outward flow, it stagnates and abundance begins to evaporate. The same is true of money.
Many people think you need to have a great deal of money to accomplish anything of value. This simply isn’t true. Just like water, even small amounts of money applied in the right way can be deceptively powerful. Only a small amount of water rushing in a mountain stream can knock you off your feet! The secret is not in the amount, but the motion.
Money works in exactly this same way. As small amounts are invested in opportunities that produce cash flow, they come together to form a river, which provides a constant stream of wealth. Those who know this Law of Circulation understand that they are a conduit for money to flow through, not a stopping point.
When the average person looks at the very wealthy—millionaires, or even billionaires—he or she assumes there’s something unique or special about them, that they’re more intelligent and savvy than ‘normal people.’ This assumption is both true and false.
They’re wealthy because they have thoroughly internalized the mindset of wealth, and that can never be taken from them. If they lost everything and went broke, they would get back on their feet and become wealthy again, because they’ve come to understand how money works. That understanding is imprinted on the sub-conscious mind—much like the wrong information is imprinted on the sub-conscious of most everyone else. This is an idea we’ll be getting to soon.
But other than that very fundamental difference, the wealthy are like everyone else. They live and work, laugh and love and have ups and downs just like you do. They have the exact same number of hours in the day as everyone else; but they do quite astonishing things with their time while most of us do very little.
So what’s the difference? Not very much. And yet, it’s everything—how you think, feel and what you believe about money.
We all know the cliché ‘seeing is believing.’ I’m telling you right now that that is a very skeptical and negative view of the abundant and limitless opportunities life has to offer you. It tells you you can only trust what’s in front of your nose, and pays short shrift to the significant—even limitless—powers of your imagination, your intuition and creative self.
And yet, we hear it our whole lives over and over. It becomes a part of our thought process and we don’t even know it. Wealthy people understand that this cliché is exactly backward—before you see what you want, you have to internalize it. You must believe in what you can achieve—only then will you see it happen. In other words, wealthy people follow the credo that ‘believing is seeing.’ The only thing that makes you different from a billionaire right now is a wealthy mindset. And the cornerstone of that mindset is belief.
It’s said that wealthy people attract wealth. We know this to be true. How do they do it? They expect it. In their mind, no doubts cloud their goal, nothing causes them to pause or hesitate. They don’t worry about failure because, in their mind’s eye, all they can see is success.
Earlier on, I mentioned Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I still carry a copy with me everywhere, and I read at least a small bit each day. Hill interviewed hundreds of successful, wealthy people and discovered that while each of them had become successful in a different way, they all had a certain mindset in common. Because they expected success, they attracted opportunities that others did not. They were able to see solutions that others could not.
Does this mean that the wealthy were born with some special skill or a sixth sense? Not at all. It simply means that they are more aware. Gaining this awareness, as a friend of mine once said, is simple—it’s just not easy. There’s a fundamental reason why.
It has to do with your mind. Most of us grow up in fundamentally the same way: we go to school, we learn a skill, we get a job and we live our lives. That accounts for 90 percent of the population. I would suggest that that same percentage has no idea how to earn money.
Ask a person on the street if they know how to earn money, and you’ll get the same answer 99 times out of 100. “Of course I know how to earn money. I go to work every day.” But that’s not earning money. That’s getting a job and grinding out a living. There’s a big difference.
There’s such a small percentage of our population that knows how to earn money. There’s a reason for that. School doesn’t teach it. We learn how to count money. We make balance sheets, graphs and charts. We account for every last penny. You can have a doctorate degree in economics and still be broke because you never learn how to earn money.
School prepares us to get a job. It programs our mind that this is how the world works. It tells us this is the safe path. It tells us this is how we’ll be secure. Your parents told you that. Your schoolteachers told you that. I had a teacher who told me to go to tech school and earn a trade. That way, she said, I’d be secure.
I didn’t listen. For one thing, I hate trade work. For another, I’m no good at it. I almost cut my finger off with a band saw once and it still hurts! And finally, the truth is, working is one of the worst ways to earn money and one of the least secure.
Work hard. Be loyal. You’ll be rewarded. That’s what we were told from the very beginning. Well, the reward for too many of us is to show up one day to find that the locks have been changed and all you’ve got is a small severance after 18 years of loyal service. There isn’t any security in a job. Security comes from within. And that’s where you need to find it. If you believe there’s security in a job and you lose your job, you’re going to be totally demoralized because you’ve lost everything.
It comes back to being aware of who we are and changing the programming. Most people get stuck in what they’re doing. It’s almost like we don’t want to admit that we don’t know how to earn money. It’s easy enough to sweep under the carpet. After all, we’re getting paid, aren’t we?
And that’s why these ridiculous stories arise: ‘Money can’t buy happiness.’ That’s what we tell ourselves when we don’t want to take responsibility for not earning as much as we would like.
What we need to do is abandon the excuses and open our mind. This comes from being aware of ourselves. Your results are an expression of your level of awareness. Imagine how your life would change if your awareness expanded: People don’t earn $50,000 a year because they want to earn $50,000 a year. They earn $50,000 a year because they’re not aware of how to earn $50,000 a month.
But, we can expand our level of awareness. The more we do that, the more we’re going to win. The wealthy already have this awareness. It’s hard-wired in them. In order to gain this same awareness, you need to understand why the wealthy have it and why it is so key to their success.
The first of these characteristics is a willingness to listen to their own inner wisdom. If listening to the masses made you rich, then the masses would be rich! But, we all know this is not the case.
As human beings who are sensitive and spiritual in nature, it is the most natural impulse in the world to seek counsel from those close to us—our loved ones, our close friends and colleagues.
We also need to look at the results they’ve had in their own lives before we follow their advice. We follow their advice because of the emotional trust we have in them, rather than on what they’ve achieved. If someone hasn’t become wealthy, can they really show you how to become wealthy? Of course not.
You need to believe what is already the truth. Within you is the ability to create a unique path to fabulous wealth. You have to trust yourself and seek out only those who have traveled such a path to help guide your journey.
You also have to be willing to let the comments of critics and naysayers slide off your back. There will be many who will tell you your dreams are unrealistic and your goals too far-fetched. And ‘seeing is believing’ leads you directly to a life only based on perception—and for many of us it can be a life we hate. Make a promise now. Listen to yourself first. Reality is what you make it.
The wealthy have the consistent ability to act when opportunities present themselves. Most people think of opportunity as something that arrives with great fanfare—a blaring, obvious event that assaults you with its obviousness. It’s almost as though we expect a giant neon sign flashing the word “opportunity” to appear with a brilliantly-lit arrow to point the way.
It doesn’t work that way. That’s where awareness becomes important. I know from personal experience that opportunity slips past each of us every day. Sometimes it’s a whisper that comes during some of the most trying times of your life.
Successful people often view defeats and failures as opportunities…not obstacles. Their resumes are often messy—they’ve been fired, thrown out of school. They’ve often faced significant personal tragedies that would sink the average person—maybe for good. But these people chose to see these trials as challenges to be met and opportunities to be grasped. As a result, through adversity, they prosper.
The wealthy also understand that wealth is a process. It rarely happens overnight (though it certainly has). However, there’s a danger in sudden wealth. If you become rich before you’ve developed the wealthy mindset, then you stand in danger of losing that wealth forever.
We’ve all heard about lottery winners who end up penniless a few years later. Our culture is filled with celebrities and athletes whose sudden rush to fame and fortune leads them to squanderous lifestyles that leaves them poor with much of their lives left to live.
These people were never taught to think wealthy. Because of that, they have almost no chance of achieving lasting wealth that frees your mind from the preoccupations and distractions of money forever.
Remember, at the beginning, when I said money is not the goal? Hold on to that thought. It will always be your guide. If you have a wealthy mindset, you do what you love—and make money doing it. It’s not the goal—it’s the result.
I often meet people who are searching for a way to be wealthy, as though it was something out in the world that you could hunt down, trap and keep. In truth, wealth exists inside you. There are things you love to do Those are the things you would happily do even if you were being paid nothing to do them. Well, guess what? The people that create a great deal of wealth are doing exactly that. The money that follows is the logical result of them following their dream. Money is not the dream. We’re all hard wired to do something. And we need to find a way to do that “something”.
Wealthy people know that success and responsibility go hand in hand. They don’t make excuses; they take action. How often have you seen two people in the exact same business, in the exact same location, selling the exact same product—but one is wealthy and the other struggles?
The circumstances are the same. What a certain person makes of those circumstances in entirely up to them. There is no such thing as lack of potential. We’re taught exactly the opposite—that some people don’t have a good memory or that some are smarter than others. Nonsense! Everyone has a perfect memory and the wealthy are not superhuman geniuses. Everyone can achieve wealth—it’s a matter of developing the skill. I cannot stress this enough: There is no such thing as lack of potential.
It doesn’t matter how many times I explain it or how many times you read it or listen to it on my CDs. Your life will never change until you truly and honestly believe it. Believing is seeing. That is the basic truth and you need to embrace it before you can go any further.
Without it, changing your mindset simply can’t happen. You may have a mindset right now that is a barrier to achieving the wealth you want. Think about it for just a second. If you’re honest with yourself the simplest questions will reveal your programming to you.
Now, let me ask you—are you comfortable talking about money with others? Or, does it make you edgy, as though it’s something to talk about in whispers as though it was taboo? When you talk about money, do you shrug off questions about how much you earn and what you can afford as though they were unimportant? Do these subjects make you feel awkward and out of place?
You wouldn’t be the only one. Most of us feel that way when we talk about money because so few of us are where we want to be with our personal wealth and pursuit of it. But remember… believing is seeing. Think about how wealthy people talk about money. They’re completely comfortable with it. It is no different than any other subject of interest in their lives that they embrace and chat about with gusto.
They allow their ideas about money to flow freely and exchange them with like-minded people. This exchange often results in ways to create new and diverse income sources, which in turn increases their wealth. They’re not embarrassed to talk about money. They don’t attach emotion to it. They are comfortable with something that makes most of us uneasy.
There’s a really simple reason for this. Remember what we said at the beginning? Money is not the goal. It’s a tool to achieve our real goal of living our lives according to our dreams and starting to grasp our limitless potential. Financial success is not wealth. It’s a consequence of achieving real wealth. That’s what separates the truly wealthy from the rest of us: finances, employment status and time constrains do not control their path to success. Believing is seeing—and they are absolutely focused on these ultimate goals.
Many of us get in our heads that being wealthy will require sacrifices we don’t want to make such as working harder and being away from our families. But sacrificing all our freedom and neglecting those most important to us is the opposite of leading a wealthy life, isn’t it? Remember, wealth isn’t just about generating money. It’s doing what you love in the way you want to do it. The goal of a wealthy life is to create the freedom that puts the power in your hands—the power to choose the life you want.
But how? I hear this question constantly. How can I think wealthy when I’m dirt poor? How can I imagine a wealthy life when I’m stuck in a dead-end job I hate? How can I invest my money in opportunities when every dime I have is needed to keep my family going?
These kinds of thoughts poison the wealthy mindset. They infect your ability to believe, and see, where you need to go and what you need to do.
These questions make plain for everyone that the person asking them has a long way to go before their own wealthy mindset can be achieved. They’re locked in a prison they’ve made for themselves, and they’ve thrown away the key. They’ve convinced themselves they can’t achieve their own dreams. Why on earth would anyone do such a horrible thing to themselves?
And yet, so many of us do just that, day in and day out. That prison is a crowded place. I call it the Prison of Perception. Those prison walls aren’t real at all—they only appear to stand in the way.
We build the walls of our own private cell with bricks made up of assumptions and ideas accumulated over a lifetime. I’m sure you’re familiar with many of them:
• I’m not smart enough
• I don’t have enough money
• I don’t have enough time
• I didn’t graduate college
• I’m afraid to fail
• I’m too old
• I’m too young
These negative thoughts make their way into the mind by repetition until your sub-conscious—that wonderful, spiritual place where emotion resides and where anything is possible—is so weighed down with them that they dictate what you actually think. As negative things happen throughout your life, they’re reinforced and their power grows. This is why most of us are convinced we can never live a wealthy life. In our sub-conscious mind, we’re programmed to believe it.
Many of us are captives of our own prisons and it is entirely in our mind. Over time, as we build our own captivity, we convince ourselves that this tiny space is all we can have and all we deserve.
Changing this mindset is difficult. It takes time. Serious work is required to overtake these assumptions. After all, they’re both genetic and environmental. It goes back many generations. That’s why we look like our relatives. And, in our little life, from the moment we were born, we were being conditioned environmentally.
As I said before, the societal norm is to go to school, get a job, and do what we can to get by. Your parents probably encouraged you to do that. Your schoolteachers certainly did. If this is your programming, how can you be to blame for the prison that results?
I came upon these concepts almost by chance. Remember when I said I had a teacher who tried to talk me out of education and to learn a trade instead? Well, I didn’t do either. I never finished high school. It was 1959. I was pumping gas and making $2400 a year. I had three Sundays off a month—that was it. I knew I wanted more, but I hadn’t figured out how to get it. So I did what most people do: I looked for another job.
I managed to talk myself onto the fire department in my local community and things immediately looked up. I was making $4000 a year and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I only worked seven days and seven nights a month. I had all the time in the world to shoot pool and play golf. Fires were very rare so I was content to do almost nothing.
Here I was 26 years old and virtually retired. Then, I got my hands on Napoleon Hill’s book. I read it once. Then I read it again. I kept reading it and reading it, over and over, until I could practically repeat it verbatim. And slowly, I started to realize that, like myself, the people around me were doing nothing—they weren’t thinking. They weren’t thinking about where they wanted to be or what they wanted to do. They were content to do what they were told when they had to, and do nothing the rest of the time.
It was like a light bulb switched on in a dark room. My income went from $4000 a year to $175,000, and then over a million. I never went to school and I had no business experience. I wouldn’t describe myself as the smartest guy in the world, either—that’s why I study other people.
Absolutely everything I had been taught about success and achieving wealth told me I couldn’t possibly win. And yet, I was winning. That’s when I realized that most of the things we’re taught are simply not correct. Rather than think what we want to think and believe what we want to believe, we let outside influences control what’s going on in the inside world—the world of our mind. That causes confusion and produces results that we really don’t want.
If most of us took the time to think for a moment, we’d realize that the concepts controlling our lives are ridiculous! But we don’t, so we just keep going and are blind to the walls of the prison cell we’ve built around ourselves.
This is what we need to change. It’s not easy. In fact, you’ll struggle with it your entire life. This is why you have to practice and internalize that believing is seeing. Commit to it. Truly accept it and it will get easier and easier as you move towards your dreams.
There are things you can do immediately to get started. These are the first steps in what will become a way of life—a wealthy life. I’m telling you these things, here and now, so you can get started right this very minute to change your life. I’ll explain them in greater detail as we move on, but there’s no reason you can’t start to apply these things and get started on your journey right now. No more wasted time doing nothing.
Ready?
First, you need to believe that you deserve wealth. This seems so simple, and yet, so many people can’t grasp it. We give money too much credit The fact is, money is simply a reward for a service rendered. If you’re going to earn a lot of it, you need to provide a lot of service. You can do this. It’s your right to exercise if you choose to, just like anybody else—like those millionaires and billionaires you read about. It’s not enough to say you want wealth—you have to believe you deserve it, too. Otherwise, it’s like driving with one foot on the brake and another on the gas—the engine races but you don’t go anywhere.
For a lot of people, the pursuit of wealth gets tangled up in all sorts of negative emotions—it’s greedy and self-serving or it can destroy a person’s sense of self. But like the notion that money can’t buy you happiness, these kinds of negative emotions around wealth are simply excuses to make you feel better about not having it.
Here’s the truth: having more money won’t change you as a person. It will, however, magnify the person you already are. Money has a remarkable ability to reveal character. If you’re stingy and cruel, money will expose those negative traits completely so they are unmistakeable and obvious. But if you’re a generous spirit, someone who is caring and giving and compassionate to those around you, think of what wealth will allow you to achieve!
Money will never give you certain traits. This is important to remember when you come across wealthy people who are mean or unkind. It’s easy for us to blame the wealth for the person’s shortcomings, when in fact it’s their intractable character—rich or poor—that has simply risen to the surface.
You’ll remember I spoke about the wealthy mindset. Part and parcel in that, in my mind, is to enter into your pursuit of wealth with a generosity of spirit and all the creative curiosity you have. Why? Because the only way to earn money is to provide something—a product, a service, even an idea—that brings unrealized value to other people’s lives. Think about how you can tackle the challenges of everyday life and then make them faster, more efficient or even more fun for people. The bigger the problem you solve, the more money will stream in.
Historically, wealthy people have always had multiple sources of income (MSIs). In other words, they have found multiple ways of providing service. I started a company, some time ago, to assist people in this area. The company is called The Chairman’s Club and it’s attracted like-minded people from all over the world who work together to set up multiple sources of income. The Chairman’s Club has an online global communications center where the various members meet and share new ways to create income. This might be something you would like to investigate. For information go to www.BobProctorMoney.com/CC.
In my mind, you don’t share ideas with other people when you’re self-interested and closed-minded. You do that, as I’ve said, by pursuing what you love. Think about Bill Gates. Here was a young man in the late 70s who was really driven by the massive unrealized potential of the microcomputer chip. I would argue Bill Gates was not driven by money, but the incredible challenge he set for himself, and the amazing possibility that, if he achieved it, he could change the world!
Well, that’s exactly what he did. Some may say he doesn’t deserve all the wealth he now enjoys. But the fact is, Bill Gates started a revolution that improved the quality of life for virtually everyone in the world. Regardless of how much money he may possess, it will never equal his true contribution to humanity, which was forever changed by his spirit of innovation.
He’s an icon now. But 30 years ago, he was a college dropout with a clever idea. He looked around his world and identified a way to make people’s lives better. Then he acted on that dream and made it reality. You can start where you are right now and develop more valuable skills, network with wealthy mentors and focus on serving people. From these actions will come the ideas that will be your specific and unique path to wealth.
As you create a new awareness of wealth and come across new opportunities, start thinking of those opportunities with passive income in mind. It’s a key concept: Passive income is something you do once and get paid for multiple times. Think about it. If all you do is exchange your time for money, your wealth is limited. After all, there are only so many hours in a day.
How do you solve this problem? You create sources of income that don’t demand your constant presence and attention. While those sources of income flow to you, you can use your valuable time hunting out ways to create more.
I’ve already mentioned that belief is the cornerstone of a wealthy mindset. So how do you create this belief of wealth even if it seems very far-fetched right now? First, you have to visualize yourself with wealth. Really sit and actively think about the details of your life that wealth will alter when you reach your goals. Write them down: the type of house you’ll live in, the color of the walls and the style of the furniture, the china you’ll eat off of and the silverware you’ll use to serve it. In your mind, make them real, not abstract. Clip pictures from magazines and use them to build your new home in your new life. Every day spend some time there using those images to transport you to it, as though you already owned it.
Some might call this daydreaming. I’m willing to bet those people aren’t wealthy! The truth is, visualizing lets your mind grab hold of the possible. It trains your mind to the idea that your life is changing and that wealth is within reach. Once you harness the power of your mind, it’s not just within reach—it’s inevitable!
Some people are surprised to learn the wealthy spend much of their time just quietly thinking. Employees might watch their boss or CEO staring off into space. They might think he or she is doing nothing at all. In fact, that person is visualizing the next phase of their wealth and success, the next mountain to climb—and of course, they’re watching themselves reach the top!
They know that innovation and creativity—the next big thing that will take them and their company to the next level—isn’t found in mundane daily operations. That’s why they have employees. The wealthy mindset has taught them that new ideas are the lifeblood of wealth and visualizing them come to fruition is essential. How can you get where you’re going if you haven’t clearly decided what your destination is? When a wealthy person reaches their goal, it is exactly what they expected—precisely because, through visualization, they’ve already been there.
Would you get in the car and start driving when you’re not sure where you’re going? Of course not. You’d look at a map, chart your path and start on your way. But many, many people live their lives without that map and just take whatever comes across their path in life. They work at jobs they hate and never imagine a better way. They accept the familiar simply because they have never taken the time to see past it.
You must remember that visualization is a very positive exercise. It brings your dreams from your unconscious mind into a place where your conscious mind can connect to them.
To do this effectively, you have to banish negative thoughts from your mind. This is easier said than done. Negative thinking is a bad habit practiced by far too many people. They like to complain about the state of their lives or careers or commiserate with friends and colleagues about all of their various dissatisfactions. They become convinced that this kind of negative thinking is good: If expectations are kept low, you can never be disappointed.
Well, I think this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! How on earth did any of us reach the point where we convinced ourselves it was better not to dream? How on earth can you expect too much? Why would you scuttle your dreams and your goals before they even get off the ground?
Negative thinking has become the rule in our society. It is accepted and very widely practiced. So you have to make a serious and conscious effort to push these thoughts out of your mind. Be vigilant. Guard your mind from theses thoughts. They can only slow you down and get in your way. Be ruthless in what kind of thoughts you allow to take hold in your mind. If you focus on the positive—great ideas, spawned by your best, positive creative energies—you’ll get great results.
But be careful. Monitor your internal dialogue closely—especially in terms of what other people tell you regarding money, finance and wealth. Remember to seriously consider dismissing their thoughts if they have not achieved wealth themselves. If you gain wisdom from someone truly wealthy, open your mind to it and make it part of your internal dialogue. Even if you don’t understand it, or don’t agree, keep it with you. After all, they’ve already traveled the road you’ve just started on. You wouldn’t drive off to points unknown without a map; these people are that map. They know the path. Treat their words as bricks in the yellow brick road.
Be aware of your focus. If you say you want wealth but are constantly under attack from worry—about how to pay your bills, or make a mortgage payment, for example—you’re not attracting wealth into your life. You’re engaged in a mindset of lack. Worrying is negative goal-setting. By dwelling on the bad things that could happen, you’re telling your mind what will happen!
It’s visualization in reverse. By worrying about what you don’t have, you’re not focusing on what you want. If you do that, wealth will never be yours. Now, I know worry is a hard thing to combat. We all worry to a degree. So how do we achieve this shift in focus?
Put yourself in this position for a moment: You’re a secretary with a boss who demands that no errors be made—ever. You may work under the threat that, if you make a single mistake, you’ll be fired. Where’s your focus—doing the best job you can, or trying your hardest not to make a mistake? If you’re obsessed with the narrow task of not making a mistake, two things happen. First, the overall quality of your work suffers as the paranoia stifles your creativity and ability to think clearly, and secondly, you will find you are making more mistakes than you otherwise would because your mind is focused on errors.
Now take that same idea and think about how much time and energy you spend worrying about paying your bills. Do you constantly track and add up the expenses? Do you spend time shuffling or rearranging what to pay when?
Does it solve the problem of not having enough money? No, it doesn’t. It zaps your creative energy and leaves no time or room to think about what will correct the problem or help you. It only brings more negative energy and frustration into your life. We’ll discuss exactly how this works in a later chapter, but for right now it is important that you make every effort to shift your focus from what you don’t have to what you want to have. I can’t say this often enough: Focus on the positive!
Visualize your new life, remove negative thoughts and focus on the positive. By using just these three techniques, you’ll start to see your life change right now—today. They will give you a foundation to build on and a quick jumpstart to your new life. Wealth doesn’t discriminate. It is available to everyone who wants it—including you.
For many people, the revelation isn’t in using these techniques—it is in understanding that they have the power and right to change their own lives for the better. We get so used to struggling through life, accepting whatever circumstances come our way, that we never realize that we have the power to choose our life.
There is no reason—and no excuse—to settle for a life that makes you unhappy. If you don’t have enough money, or other elements of your life fall short of your desires, then you have to change your current mindset from one of lack to one of abundance. This means to shift from a victim mentality to one of responsibility and empowerment.
You do have control over your life. You have chosen to be where you are now. This is good news, believe me. You may not like where you are now, but now you know you have the power to change it!
What if you feel relatively happy with where you are now and just want to earn more money? Well, that’s a great place to start. Wanting wealth does not mean that you are ungrateful or unhappy with your life. It’s okay to want to reach higher, even if you’ve already come to a place where your life has many good things in it. As I’ve said, Our potential as humans is limitless, and in a perfect world, we are always trying to improve—to learn more, to know more, to achieve more.
The problem arises when others see you striving for more and read it incorrectly. They’ll tell you striving comes from unhappiness. “Be content with what you have,” they’ll say. This is exactly the kind of backwards logic that unsuccessful people use to feel better about why they are not achieving more.
It implies that if you are not happy in your present circumstances, or desire more from life, that there is something wrong with you. This makes no sense. It is human to strive, seek and pursue. Making excuses to accept failure and encouraging other people to do the same is a self-defense technique that I urge you not to fall prey to. The desire to drag others down with us is the least humane behaviour of all.
The danger in this type of logic is that it convinces people to deny their desires and accept their lives as they are and not pursue those desires and dreams. These wrong-headed excuses let everybody off the hook. They absolve us of responsibility by stating it’s okay to be a failure. Stay down here with me—It’s easier.
But it’s not. Denying your dreams and desires is the hardest path anyone could walk. Yet so many of us do it. I’m telling you to be bold. Accepting responsibility for creating a new future also means that you must accept that you have created your present life. This is very difficult for many people. I warned you up front that bringing about the shift to a wealthy mindset would not be easy. I told you that you would have to accept that you have control over your life and that your choices to this point have created the life you’ve lived so far. If you had any thoughts while reading this paragraph that begins with “Yes, but,” then go back to the beginning of the chapter and read these pages again because you aren’t getting it!
I don’t say this to be harsh or mean. It’s important to hear the truth. You have to listen, understand and ultimately accept this as truth in order to achieve what you want to achieve in this life. I’ll never tell you it’s okay to blame someone else. I can’t tell you it’s not your fault. I will never say you get a free pass because of things in your life that happened in the past. Please understand: there is no “Yes, but… ” to get what you want!
You have the power within to create vast wealth. If you haven’t used it up until now, then you have no-one to blame but yourself. You have built your own Prison of Perception. But you—and you alone—have the power to break free.
How often have you heard this: Money is evil. Wanting money is morally wrong. This is one lie that has prevented more good than could ever be imagined. Money has no emotion and no intent. It is only a medium of exchange. Any evil or moral aspect of money exists solely in the heart of each individual. That would be there with or without money. As I said before, money just pulls back the veil and reveals us all to be who we really are.
But many people harbor so much negativity concerning money that they sub-consciously reject it when opportunities come along. Even before they start on their way to a wealthy and abundant life, they have decided it’s too hard or morally wrong. They do nothing and become spectators as others achieve their dreams.
Money can and should be associated with so many positive outcomes. By focusing on the positive you can rest assured that you will be in a position to reach your dreams—not just watch others reach theirs. One of these positive outcomes includes the ability to help others. This can include your family, friends, society or those in need. There are foundations and organizations that can improve the lives of people all over the world. By creating wealth, you aren’t just helping yourself—you’re creating a means to help these people, not to mention the people closest to you.
Wealth can give you the freedom of time to enjoy your life now. Too many of us spend our lives waiting—waiting for a two week vacation to spend time with family, waiting for those moments when you can do what you really want to do. That time is so short. It seems to fly by and in a flash it’s gone. So we keep waiting. Another month, another year and the next thing you know the years have vanished before your eyes. If you are able to create wealth then you can spend time with your family or travel at any time you choose—not wait all year for those two short weeks of freedom. It’s not really even freedom—it’s just a short break from your year-long prison.
Creating ongoing sources of income gives you a great deal of self confidence. It bestows upon you a positive outlook for your future. It doesn’t matter if family or government aren’t able to help you in old age. You don’t have to worry about that because your wealth means you’ll always be taken care of.
Wealth allows you to be more generous and honest with others. I am sharing my knowledge of wealth with you in this book and I’m completely honest about every last point. Why? Because I’ve used these concepts and achieved these goals, and I know that others can benefit from what I’ve learned. As you create your own wealth, you’ll do the same for others—share the path to wealth!
The human mind is the most powerful wealth creation tool that exists. It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done up ‘til now. It doesn’t really even matter what you currently think you’re capable of. Every time you think of money and wealth, think of all the positives associated with them. Through repetition these positive thoughts will be impressed upon your sub-conscious. You will feel very positive about money. You will attract opportunity like you never did before and wealth will follow easily and quickly into your life.
I mentioned the Chairman’s Club; I started it specifically for that reason—to help people come up with ways to create new sources of income and mix with people who are doing the same ( www.BobProctorMoney.com/CC).
Opportunities are of little use to us if we don’t know how to take advantage of them. So we need to gain the knowledge of how to handle them or create them for ourselves.
This does not mean you need to go back to school. Most of my learning on wealth creation came from my own reading and my seeking knowledge with the focus I described earlier. There are a great many books, many of them wonderfully informative and clear-headed, written by some of the wealthiest people in the world. If you really want to, you can learn about opportunity by reading about those who have already seized theirs.
You can also seek out mentors who can give you sound advice and teach you the most effective strategies. But none of that matters if you don’t have the right mindset. It’s the most important part of success and it makes getting the knowledge you need that much easier. This is why I didn’t mention education earlier. While it makes things a bit easier, it is not the most essential part of gaining wealth.
Just the other night, I was watching a show on TV that featured Donald Trump. He took questions and gave advice to a group of business school students. Now, Trump is very well-educated. But what’s remarkable is that he made it very clear to these students that education is really secondary and the desire to succeed is much more important.
There may be people you know personally that are incredibly smart and hold numerous degrees but still aren’t wealthy. Conversely, there may be some you know—and I myself know many—who have very little formal education and yet have experienced incredible success. So, if we put 2 and 2 together, we see that education does not determine wealth!
But if you have the right mindset and focus on increasing your wealth, then it is to your advantage to become more familiar with businesses that can create that wealth. Earning money is all about satisfying the wants and needs of others. Nothing is bought, sold or traded that does not satisfy a need or fulfill someone’s desire. Finding ways to better serve your customers, business partners, colleagues, friends, family and others will lead you to the wealth you desire.
Keep this in mind and you’ll see it reflected in your daily decisions and actions. Problems are encountered when you change your focus from cooperation with others to focusing strictly on yourself. When your thoughts concentrate on problems rather than solutions, you have slipped back into a negative thought pattern and your business will reflect it. Your problems are of no interest to the vast majority of people in your life; however, you can solve your own problems by simply helping others solve theirs.
People are self-involved by nature. But our problems are not as different as you might imagine. Even if you don’t consider yourself a businessperson, satisfying the needs of others should be your primary objective in life. Most of your daily activities bring you in contact with all different types of people. If you focus on their needs, not yours, your success in life will grow exponentially in every area. And in the process, your own needs will be met automatically.
When I talk to anyone about changing their life, a common concern is risk. It’s interesting that risk is seen as a concern. Wealthy individuals do not consider themselves to be taking any risks at all! In fact, what the average person might consider risk would not even be a passing concern to someone with a wealthy mindset. I like to talk about this subject last because risk is all about perception and fear.
Young children are not born with any sort of risk aversion—this behavior is entirely learned. If they were concerned with risk, they would never learn to walk, run or ride a bicycle. Think of the adventures you had as a child. How many involved risk? Almost every little boy (and most girls) that I know have at some point tied a sheet or towel around their neck, imagined they were a superhero and jumped—from the bed, from a tree, or even from the roof! The world of a child is full of adventure and open to infinite possibility. However, over time we are taught that risk is bad and the fear of what “might” happen overshadows the truth of what is.
How many people do you know who are afraid of flying in an airplane? There’s always a few. If you ask them why, most will tell you they’re afraid that the plane will crash. Now, it’s a well-known fact that, statistically, you have a much higher chance of dying behind the wheel of your car than in an airplane crash.
Yet these same people don’t think twice about driving. It is this perception of risk that limits their lives and causes much stress and anxiety—even though their fear is largely unfounded. I encounter the same wrong-headed rationale when I talk to people about becoming wealthy. Fear of the ‘what ifs’ clouds their judgment and shrinks their view of the possible.
One exercise I often use to help people move past this irrational fear is called “Then What?” If they say that they fear giving up their corporate job to start their own business, I ask them: “Well what would happen if you did?”
Either the business succeeds or it fails. Let’s say it fails, then what? Then you close the door and find another job or another source of income. Then what? Are you any worse off than you are right now? No. Will your family starve to death and become homeless? No. What makes you think that the world will come to some sort of halt?
When we face uncertainty, it is easy to allow the fear to grow to irrational levels. The only way to combat this is to seriously think through the ‘what ifs.’ Quickly, you realize they are minor inconveniences at most. You will survive. You will do at least as well as you are right now. And there is every expectation that you will succeed and do even better!
When we struggle or experience difficult and challenging episodes, we need to be reminded that the tough times in our lives are temporary. There will always be a tomorrow. As long as you’re still breathing, you will always have the chance to improve your life. Every day is a new opportunity to do exactly that. The perception that your life will be over, or come to some horrifying end, is only in your mind. It limits you, and serves to keep you locked within what you currently know.
The other idea I’d like to mention before we move on is this concept of “reality.” The reality that you live today is the manifestation of all your past efforts. This is what has produced your present results. However, think of the disclaimer you see on stocks and mutual funds: “Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.” Your future is open to infinite possibility; it is not dependent on the past. How you think today will determine the results you achieve from this point forward—the past has no bearing on it. Each decision you make and every thought you think are creating your future right now. Now is your chance to change that future for the better.
When others talk to you about reality, often they are speaking of the concept they have of you in their own mind—their own reality. They may also be projecting their fears onto you. But those perceptions—and those fears—have nothing to do with your ability to create the life of your dreams. Though their comments and cautions may be well-intended, they only slow you down. They convince you you are powerless. Listen to me: You are not. Whatever your own past, whatever you’ve done, whatever you’ve achieved and whatever opportunities you’ve missed along the way, you can change your life starting right now. The most important thing is your mindset and your desire to achieve the wealthy life of your dreams. The only ‘reality’ that matters is the one you create in your mind—right now, here, today.
For many years now I have operated Bob Proctor Coaching ( www.BobProctorMoney.com/BPC). It’s a 13 month program where people are coached and educated on how to make the necessary changes within themselves to create the lifestyle they dream about. This reminds me of an interesting story from a serious student in our coaching program, Chris Guerriero. A couple of years after Chris completed the 13 month program, he wrote me a letter stating how dramatically his life had changed—and not just his, but the lives of everyone in his family. Chris explained how he had to put the investment on a couple of credit cards to pay for the coaching program and he said it was really worth it. I remember him saying, “I just had my first million dollar month.” You see Chris always had that potential—what he had to do was properly utilize it.
Chapter 1 REVIEW
• Wealth is not about accumulation, it is about circulation.
• The only difference between you and a billionaire is a difference in mindset.
• Believing is Seeing—you must believe before you will see anything happen in your life.
• Money is not bad; it only enhances who you already are.
• Creating wealth is about adding value.
• Visualize your wealthy life on a continual basis.
• Remove negative thoughts from your mind and concentrate on the positive.
• Focus on what you want for your life rather than worrying about your problems.