“If you want to move to a higher level of life, you have to be willing to let go of some of your old ways of thinking and being and adopt new ones.”
“Your outer world is simply a reflection of your inner world. If things aren’t going well in your outer life, it’s because things aren’t going well in your inner life.”
“No thought lives in your head rent-free. Each thought you have will either be an investment or a cost. It will either move you toward happiness and success or away from it. It will either empower you or disempower you.”
The core principal of T. Harv Eker’s teachings is changing our ‘Financial Blueprint’. This blueprint determines how our financial destiny is going to turn out. If your blueprint is not programmed for success, nothing you know or do will make much of a difference.
Every one of us is conditioned to think and act a certain way since we came to this world.
You’ve probably learnt about money and success from other people and through your own experiences, which set your financial blueprint.
If you’re broke or not as successful as you’d like to be, it’s very likely that you have a mediocre blueprint. And that is why it is imperative to change your blueprint if you want to achieve more.
Now, let’s move on to what I think are the most powerful lessons I’ve drawn from Eker’s teachings that will help reshape your blueprint.
1. Take Responsibility
“Poor people choose to play the role of the victim.”
When things go wrong, poor people choose to blame, complain and/or justify. They’ll blame the economy, their boss, their partners, their competitors, etc. They’ll blame everyone and everything else except themselves for their results in life.
Either that or they’ll complain about how crappy their life is. This will only lead to more crap in their life because the Law of Attraction will bring into their life what they think of all the time.
And if they’re not blaming or complaining, they’ll be consoling themselves by telling themselves money is not important. The simple truth is, whatever is not important in your life will not appear. Even if they do, they won’t stay.
Rich people play exactly the opposite role – the winner role. They don’t dwell on what’s happened to them. They look into what has gone wrong and then fix it so that they’ll get the results they want.
They don’t play finger-pointing game. Instead, they reflect on themselves to see if there’s anything within them which requires a change. If there is, they’ll change.
They understand and they acknowledge that money is important, and they’re not ashamed to pursue to accumulate an abundance of wealth.
They know that wealth will not only bring them true freedom, but they can also help to make the world a better place with their wealth.
2. Play to Win
“Poor people play the money game on defence rather than offence. The goal of truly rich people is to have massive wealth and abundance.”
If you look at the greatest football teams in the world such as Arsenal, Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid and the like (sorry… I’m a football fan), none of them will ever approach a game thinking: “It’s good enough if we could just draw the game today.”
Champions teams approach each and every match with a champions mindset, which is to win the bloody match!
If you want to be champions, you have to aim to be champions! Nobody remembers 1st runners-up.
It’s the same thing in life. If you want to be rich, you have to aim to be rich! Not aim to be just comfortable. And certainly not aim to just make enough to pay your bills.
There’s no substitute. It’s either you’re rich or you’re not. Whether you’re comfortable or you’re mighty comfortable, you’re still not rich.
3. Risk Is Rewarding
“Because they constantly see opportunities, rich people are willing to take a risk.”
When it comes to taking chances, the favourite phrase of poor people is “What if?” Whenever an opportunity comes along, they’ll ask: “What if this doesn’t work out?”, “What if I lose my money?” or, “What if my friends laugh at me?”
Due to a lack of faith and confidence, poor people are always thinking instead of acting. They’re forever getting ready. No, let me correct that. They’re forever getting ready to be ready!
On the other hand, the favourite phrase of rich people is “Yes!” Whenever an opportunity comes along, they’ll say: “Yes! This is going to work!”, “Yes! I’m going to make a lot of money from this!” or, “Yes! My friends gonna be jealous!”
Rich people jump right on the opportunity once it comes long. Sure they do take a while to do some thinking and research as they also understand there’ll be risks involved.
However, they don’t take forever. They think, and then they act. Then they think some more, and then they act some more.
This is called the Ready-Fire-Aim! approach. They get ready in as short a time as possible; take actions; then correct along the way.
4. Forgo a Fixed Salary
“Poor people prefer to be paid a steady salary or hourly wage. Rich people prefer to get paid based on the results they produce, if not totally, then at least partially.”
Let me set the record straight. No multimillionaire achieved his/her millions through a steady paycheque.
A fixed paycheque is meant for people who’re unsure of their own worth or for people who believe they’re worth nothing more than what their employer think they’re worth.
If you’re getting paid a fixed salary, you’re in essence trading your time for money. Only people who don’t believe in themselves trade time for money. Rich people don’t trade time for money. They trade value for money.
If you’re confident of the amount of value you’re capable of creating, then you should strive to work ‘for yourself’.
If setting up your own business is not your thing, then at least make sure you work in a job where you get paid based on performance, not time.
To massively increase your income, learn how you can create tremendous value for your company, then ask for profit sharing; variable compensations or; stock options.
5. High Income Does Not Equate to Financial Success
“The true measure of wealth is net worth, not working income.”
Too many people focus on increasing their income, yet fail to realise that it is their net worth which they should be working on.
Making money is only part of the equation. Apart from working to increase your income, you should also learn to keep your money and invest your money.
A lot of people are excellent when it comes to spending money, but instantly become a moron when it comes to saving money.
And although there are people who are disciplined enough to save a portion of their income every month, they fail to grow their money.
Rich people always invest their money. They either do it themselves or hire an excellent fund manager to do it for them.
Poor people think investing is risky and it’s only meant for people with high-risk appetite. They fail to realise that every skill in this world is learnable, which includes investment skill.
So start working on the three factors of wealth creation and see your net worth grow.
6. Manage Your Money The Rich Way
“The single biggest difference between financial success and financial failure is how well you manage your money.”
Another reason why high income does not equate to financial success is because when you make more money, you simply spend more money. This is poor people’s money habit. They’re experts in mismanaging their money.
In order to secure your own financial freedom, you need to learn how to manage your money the rich way.
I’ve previously written another article on money management. Click here to read it.
7. It’s Not Enough That You Work Hard
“Working hard alone will never make you rich. It was just as important to make your money work hard for you.”
Don’t get the wrong idea. Rich people do work as hard as poor people, maybe even harder.
However, there are two differences between rich people’s hard work and poor people’s hard work:
1. Hard work is temporary for the rich while it’s permanent for the poor.
2. Rich people work hard because they love what they’re doing. Poor people work hard because they need to pay their bills.
To grow your net worth, you need to grow your money. As mentioned earlier, investing is one of the factors to increase your net worth. Investing is how you make your money work hard for you.
I’ve written another article which talks about investment. Click here to read it.
8. Pursue Personal Growth
“If you grow yourself to become a successful person, in strength of character and mind, you will naturally be successful in anything and everything you do.”
I’m sure you’re going to agree with me on this one. Whatever you’re building, you need to lay a strong foundation.
The same goes with building success. You need to lay a strong foundation for your own success.
Then what exactly is the foundation of your own success?
In fact, I’ve mentioned this before on my blog. That foundation is YOU. Your success and wealth can only grow to the size that you grow.
Therefore, continuous education is mandatory. However, don’t constrain yourself to only formal school education.
Books, seminars, audio programmes, online courses are all excellent learning sources. In fact, education can come in all forms and sizes.
An economic crisis, retrenchment, meeting up an old friend, a near death accident, a vacation, etc, all have the potential for serendipitous lessons.
The important thing is to keep an open mind and be ever ready to learn. As the saying goes, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”
Cheers~
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on Feb 20th, 2009 at 2:01 am
Very nice information. Thanks for this.
on Feb 20th, 2009 at 3:27 am
Hi… Thank you for leaving your comment here. And I’m glad you like this post.
Cheers~
Mark