How Can You Have The Mind Of A Millionaire?

This week’s post is about one of the most informative and insightful books I have read on achieving financial freedom so far: Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth, by T. Harv Eker, which “reveals the missing link between wanting success and achieving it.”

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind has sold over a million copy worldwide and has been a #1 best seller on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today; its main mantra is “think rich to get rich.”

The book is divided into two parts: Part 1 is introducing you to the meaning of your “money blueprint,” how to find out what yours is and how to transform it to one that can make you capable of achieving financial success and growing wealth; part 2 gives you the Wealth Files, the 17 ways of thinking that differentiate the rich from the poor and middle-class people and how to apply them.

I wouldn’t call this an actual book review; it is more of my reflection and my thoughts on some parts of the book. This post certainly does not contain all the material or all the ideas discussed in this book. I’m only briefly sharing here, in 5 points, the highlights of the parts that has affected my own way of thinking and which I applied to my life. (All the quotes mentioned in this post are taken from the book.)

1. What Is Your Money Blueprint?

Eker begins the book by explaining what it means to have a money blueprint, that since the world is made of duality such as hot and cold, up and down, in and out, right and left, for one to exist the other has to exist as well. And, similarly, since there are some outer laws of money, there must also be some inner laws of money; ones that come from within the person and which can dictate their outer results of achieving wealth.

Some of the ways you can figure out your own money blueprint is through looking back at the environment you grew up in: What was your culture or neighbourhood like? What was their stand on money or on rich people? What did you hear or see regarding money? What famous sayings you heard about rich people? And how did your own parents handle money? Was there a lot or was it lacking? Has it ever caused any troubles? –In general, you need to dissect your own experience growing up and see whether it was positively or negatively affected with money, whether its abundance or lack thereof

Recall that thoughts lead to feelings, feelings lead to actions, and actions lead to results. Everything begins with your thoughts—which are produced by your mind.

Knowing your blueprint is important because it leads to understanding your current money situation and helps you answer questions like, why am I not rich? or why do I make a lot of money but still unable to save any? or why do I keep losing money every so often? and so on. He guarantees that any money-related issue that you may have at the moment, you shall find the reason to it, and therefore be able to solve it, when you know your money blueprint.

2. The Four Quadrants of Life

Eker explains that we do not just live in one form of existence but four of them: the physical world, the mental world, the emotional world, and the spiritual world. The work you do on the last three decides the result you will see in your physical world.

So, whenever things in your outer life are not going well, that means things in your inner life are not going well. Focusing on fixing the result will not change it, you need instead to focus on fixing the causes.

And he uses an example to someone who typed a document, printed it, then found a typo, so they take out their eraser and erase the mistake and re-print the paper again to find the same typo.

They try to erase it again with a bigger eraser this time and they even go ahead and study a three-hundred page manual called Effective Erasing. Once they feel ready, they then go ahead and print the paper, but to their amazement, they still get the document with the same typo again, nothing changed.

He explains that this is what most people try to do when dealing with problems in their life, they don’t see where the real cause is; the problem was never the printed copy, but the original document in the computer; not the physical output, but the program itself.

Money is a result, wealth is a result, health is a result, illness is a result, your weight is a result. We live in a world of cause and effect.

3. The Wealth Files

Throughout the second part of the book, Eker shares the 17 things that rich people do differently; the secrets that set apart the rich from the poor.

I will share here a very brief explanation of each one of the points, however, in the book, these are all thoroughly explained and with plenty of examples and methods on how to achieve each of these points yourself.

1. Rich people believe “I create my life.” Poor people believe “Life happens to me.”

Victim clue #1: Blame

Victim clue #2: Justifying

Poor people validate their financial ineptitude by using irrelevant comparisons. They’ll argue, “Well, money isn’t as important as love.” Now is that comparison dumb or what? What’s more important, your arm or your leg? Maybe they’re both important.

Money is extremely important in the areas in which it works, and extremely unimportant in the areas in which it doesn’t.

Not convinced? Try paying your bills with love. Still not sure? Then pop on over to the bank and try depositing some love and see what happens.

Victim clue #3: Complaining

When you are complaining, you become a living, breathing “crap magnet.”

2. Rich people play the money game to win. Poor people play the money game to not lose.

If your goal is to be comfortable, chances are you’ll never get rich. But if your goal is to be rich, chances are you’ll end up mighty comfortable.

3. Rich people are committed to being rich. Poor people want to be rich.

One minute the universe hears that you want to be rich, so it begins sending you opportunities for wealth. But then it hears you say “Rich people are greedy,” so the universe begins to support you in not having much money. But then you think, “Having a lot of money makes life so much more enjoyable,” so the poor universe, dazed and confused, re-starts sending you opportunities for more money. The next day you’re in an uninspired mood so you think, “Money’s not that important.”

The frustrated universe finally screams, “Make up your frickin’ mind! I’ll get you what you want, just tell me what it is!”

4. Rich people think big. Poor people think small.

Your life is not just about you. It’s also about contributing to others. It’s about being true to your mission and reason for being here on this earth at this time…Most people are so stuck in their egos that everything revolves around me, me, and more me. But if you want to be rich in the truest sense of the word, it can’t only be about you. It has to include adding value to other people’s lives.

5. Rich people focus on opportunities. Poor people focus on obstacles.

The difference between the poor, the middle-class, and the rich in looking at a certain situation/opportunity:

The poor, “What if it doesn’t work?” or “It won’t work.”
The middle-class, “I sure hope this works.”
The rich, “It will work because I will make it work.”

Do you want some simple but extremely rare advice? Here it is: If you want to get rich, focus on making, keeping, and investing your money. If you want to be poor, focus on spending your money. You can read a thousand books and take a hundred courses on success, but it all boils down to that. Remember, what you focus on expands.

6. Rich people admire other rich and successful people. Poor people resent rich and successful people.

…”Bless that which you want.” If you see a person with a beautiful home, bless that person and bless that home. If you see a person with a beautiful car, bless that person and bless that car. If you see a person with a beautiful family, bless that person and bless that family. If you see a person with a beautiful body, bless that person and bless that body.

7. Rich people associate with positive, successful people. Poor people associate with negative or unsuccessful people.

If you want to fly with the eagles, don’t swim with the ducks.

8. Rich people are willing to promote themselves and their value. Poor people think negatively about selling and promotion.

Rich people are almost always excellent promoters. They can and are willing to promote their products, their services, and their ideas with passion and enthusiasm. What’s more, they’re skilled at packaging their value in a way that’s extremely attractive.

If you think there’s something wrong with that, then let’s ban makeup for women, and while we are at it, we might as well get rid of suits for men. All that is nothing more than “packaging.”

9. Rich people are bigger than their problems. Poor people are smaller than their problems.

The secret to success is not to try to avoid or get rid of or shrink from your problems; the secret is to grow yourself so that you are bigger than any problem.

10. Rich people are excellent receivers. Poor people are poor receivers.

Can you imagine a squirrel saying, “I’m not going to collect many nuts this year to prepare for winter because I’m unworthy”? Doubtful, because these low-intelligence creatures would never do that to themselves. Only the most evolved creature on the planet, the human being, has the ability to limit itself like this. …If a hundred-foot oak tree had the mind of a human, it would only grow to be ten feet tall!

Giving and receiving are two sides of the same coin. Whoever decided that it is better to give than to receive was simply bad at math. For every giver there must be a receiver, and for every receiver there must be a giver.

11. Rich people choose to get paid based on results. Poor people choose to get paid based on time.

Rich people believe in themselves. They believe in their value and in their ability to deliver it. Poor people don’t. That’s why they need “guarantees.”

12. Rich people think “both.” Poor people think “either/or.”

Poor and most middle-class people come from scarcity. They live by mottos such as “…. you can’t have everything.” And although you may not be able to have “everything,” as in all the things in the world, I do think you can certainly have “everything you really want.”

Rich people believe “You can have your cake and eat it too!”
Middle-class people believe “Cake is too rich, so I’ll only have a little piece.”
Poor people don’t believe they deserve cake, so they order a doughnut, focus on the hole, and wonder why they have “nothing.”

13. Rich people focus on their net worth. Poor people focus on their working income.

The four net worth factors are:

1. Income
2. Savings
3. Investments
4. Simplifications

He explains each one of them and then gives you examples on how to achieve all four to create your own net worth.

14. Rich people manage their money well. Poor people mismanage their money well.

Until you show you can handle what you’ve got, you won’t get any more!

15. Rich people have their money work hard for them. Poor people work hard for their money.

While poor people see a dollar as a dollar to trade for somethings they want right now, rich people see every dollar as a “seed” that can be planted to earn more dollars, which can then be replanted to earn a thousand more dollars.

16. Rich people act in spite of fear. Poor people let fear stop them.

If you are willing to do only what’s easy, life will be hard. But if you are willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy.

17. Rich people constantly learn and grow. Poor people think they already know.

You can be right or you can be rich, but you can’t be both.

4. Declarations

After every lesson in this book, you get some form of conclusion and, throughout the book, by the end of every lesson, he gives you a “declaration, ” and encourages you to declare it, out loud.

This declaration can be the form of change or the decision that you will make to transform your life and your thoughts to become more open to financial success and overcome any previously inherited thoughts or beliefs that may have interfered with you moving forward.

He believes that the declarations you make to yourself are a powerful secret for change. And he explains the difference between an affirmation and a declaration is that: An affirmation is using a positive statement to state that a goal you wish to achieve is already happening, while a declaration is you stating your intentions that you are willing to undertake a certain course of action to achieve a goal.

And he thinks that the former doesn’t usually work because we often know deep down that it is not really true, while the latter is more believable and effective.

Now I have to admit that when I first heard of all this, I said, “No way. This declaration stuff is too hokey for me.” But because I was broke at the time, I decided, “What the heck, it can’t hurt,” and started doing them. Now I’m rich, so it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that I believe that declarations really work.

Either way, I’d rather be really hokey and really rich than really cool and really broke.

5. Millionaire Mind Actions

After you read the declarations at the end of every wealth file, he gives you a list of things that you need to do in order to train yourself to act and think like the rich.

Every one of the 17 wealth files has a list of actions for you to do to be able to apply these lessons to your own life.

I will end this post with another one of my favourite quotes from the book:

Money will only make you more of what you already are. If you’re mean, money will afford you the opportunity to be meaner. If you’re kind, money will afford you the opportunity to be kinder. If you’re a jerk at heart, with more money you can be jerkier. (I know there’s no such word, but if you’re a real jerk, you’ll find a way.) If you’re generous, more money will allow you to be more generous. And anyone who tells you different is broke!

If you found this post anywhere near helpful or inspiring, let me tell you that the book is 100 times more helpful and more inspiring!

This one is probably my longest post so far and I still couldn’t contain even half the thoughts and ideas I got out of the book. I honestly can’t recommend it enough. So, go ahead and read it!

Till next week, happy days!

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