How to Master the Mindset of Wealth
Animated Summary by the Swedish Investor
Key Takeaways
You Are a Badass at Making Money describes the mentality that a person must inherit to be able to shift from hating and repelling money, to loving and having an abundance of it.
1. Money is Awesome
If you don’t have the right attitude towards money, you’re not going anywhere. Except maybe to the 99 Cents Only Stores. Stop insisting that money is the root of all evil! Money is just something that will allow you to afford and experience everything that you wish to experience.
Some people like to point out that spending time with those you love, having deep and meaningful relationships, doing the things you love, watching the sunset, making babies smile, etc is what makes you happy. But why the h**l did this come up during a discussion about making money? It’s not an either-or situation!
In fact, I would argue that you can choose to experience more of the previously-mentioned with money, than you can without. Also, remember that money can help you to help others. Visualize what could happen if you, + the five most helpful and ambitious people you know, had money in abundance. Imagine all the wonderful things you could do!
Another thing that Jen states is this, which I think is an awesome metaphor: “You cannot give what you do not have. So if you want to help others, you have to take care of yourself first.” “This is why they always tell you on airplanes that you have to put your own oxygen mask on first before you help someone else with theirs.”
- Don’t be like this guy: Rich people are gross! Getting excited about money means that you’re a shallow person! Money just causes stress and problems! Money makes monsters out of otherwise great people! Money is the root of all evil. If you plan on becoming rich, it’s a whole lot easier if you approve of who you’re becoming.
- Be like this guy: Bill Gates is a badass when it comes to making money and he has $97.6 B. to show for it. Furthermore, he’s also one of the greatest philanthropists of all time through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is the largest private foundation in the U.S. It enhances healthcare and reduces extreme poverty on a global scale with it’s over 1,500 employees. Now would this be possible to accomplish without the aid of money? No! Money is awesome! Here’s an exercise for you: Write down five positive words to describe money.
2. Watch your Thoughts ... and your Mouth!
Our beliefs are brought to life and anchored in our reality through repetition. What you think and what you say is an important part of this.
- Let’s say that you’re in school and that your teacher tells you that you’re a hopeless case when it comes to mathematics. To most people this would be devastating for their future results in that subject. It would shatter all of our self-confidence and make us accept that we’re a dimwit when it comes to multiplications.
Now, consider this which is much sneakier, but has a similar effect.
- Don’t be like this guy: You sit down at home and you get stucked on an exceptionally difficult exercise. “You dumb s**t, have you forgotten how to integrate again?!” Most people think this without hesitating and without realizing that they are creating their reality this way.
Your external world is a mirror of your internal world. If you think that you’re a loser, everyone else will do that as well. This goes for your words, too. You wouldn’t let anyone else say such things about you. So don’t tell yourself those things either!
- Be like this guy: Jim Carrey. You know, the pet detective? The idiot? The almighty? The one who wishes to forget about his ex? But most of all, the successful actor! He was once a broke stand-up comedian living in Los Angeles. A great change began to take place when he decided to think and act more positively.
He focused on imagining things like: having directors interested in him and having people that he respected coming up to him, telling him that they liked his work. “I do have these things! I just don’t have a hold of them yet, but they are out there!”
Furthermore, he wrote himself a check of $10 million, dated three years in the future. The money was for acting services rendered. He always carried this check with him. And guess what? A few months before it’s due date, he got the co-lead in the movie “Dumb and Dumber” and cashed in the dough.
Exercise: Do a Jim Carrey! Write your future self a check in the discipline you wish to succeed in. Always make sure to keep it with you, or put it somewhere in your home where you can see it daily.
3. You Must Take a Leap of Faith
Inside of all of us, there’s a little prince living. This little prince wants to keep us in a safe and known area, also called the comfort zone. So, if you’ve never tried out investing before, for instance, this little prince will hide inside of his castle and tell you that putting money into stocks is risky, scary and something that we DO NOT DO around here.
If you want to acquire a healthy financial life, though, you must dethrone your little prince and take back your kingdom.
When it comes to changing your life, if you’re not scared, you are doing something wrong! An important part of taking a leap of faith is that you must be willing to spend some to get some. This goes for investing, entrepreneurship, acting, YouTubing, sports, etc, etc, etc.
One area where you shouldn’t act like a cheapskate is when it comes to personal coaching. A coach can help you to take shortcuts on the learning curve so that you can reach a profitable level of expertise in your chosen discipline muuuuuch faster.
- Don’t be like this guy: Sven Svensson is an ordinary Swedish guy, working at his ordinary Swedish job. Sven doesn’t really enjoy his occupation like he used to, and it’s difficult to see the resemblance between the visions he had about his dream career as a kid, and what he’s now currently doing. Yet, Sven keeps up the 9-5 drill. He does it primarily out of fear. Fear that no other employer wants him. Fear that he wouldn’t stand a chance in the competitive world of entrepreneurship. Fear of being looked at as a loser. Fear of not being loved.
- Be like this guy: Instead of snoring your way through life like Sven, do something like what MJ DeMarco did – the author of “The Millionaire Fastlane”. He finished college with a dual degree at the age of 22, but instead of accepting safe corporate life, he chose to create his own business. After a series of failed attempts, he decided that he needed the proper motivation. So he burned all his bridges and moved to Phoenix with 900 bucks, no job, no friends and no family. This completely changed his drive! It didn’t take long after this leap of faith until he had developed and sold his first web site – for 1.2 million dollars.
Exercise: Figure out something terrifying that you can do that will take you one step closer to your goal of getting rich. Don’t think too much about it. Do it. It will make you feel like the baddest badass on this planet!
4. Surround Yourself With the Right People
Reflect on the story of MJ DeMarco and his relocation to Phoenix. There’s nothing magical about Phoenix in itself. Well … I can only speculate, as I’ve never been there. But DeMarco realized something important: That your environment can be a major obstacle on your road to wealth.
The people you surround yourself with on a daily basis is the most influential part of your environment. If you truly want to grow you must hang out with people you can learn from, who know what they are doing and who have the right attitudes and mindsets.
You can’t just keep being around the people you feel comfortable with. In fact, you might have to cut some people loose, if they have the wrong attitudes.
- Don’t be like this guy: Rich people are gross! Bro, getting excited about money means that you’re a shallow person. Money just causes stress and problems! Money makes monsters out of otherwise great people, you know. *Money is the root of all evil* Obviously, you cannot help if your parents or your BFF have the wrong attitude towards money. But if you want to roll in the cheddar yourself one day you’ll have to minimize the influence that they have on your everyday life.
- Be like this guy: Warren Buffett decided at an early age that he was going to become an awesome value investor. In order to achieve this, he made sure to surround himself with the best people within the discipline – among others – Benjamin Graham, who is referred to as the father of value investing. Not only was Warren a student of Graham’s, but he also insisted of becoming his Padawan and co-worker after the studies.
Exercise: Contact someone – perhaps a friend to a friend – that you know is successful within the discipline where you want to achieve greatness. Show your genuine interest and ask them about how they did it. Try to become friends with them!
5. Chunk your Task Into Bite-Sizes
The mission to build a successful business, to become a great investor, or to become an elite athlete is a Herculean task, indeed. This can cause a feeling of hopelessness. “I will never be able to do that!”
Furthermore, the human mind isn’t constructed to focus on such long-term objectives. We realize that becoming the greatest football player of all time is a quest that might take decades to complete. This doesn’t create the necessary sense of urgency.
If you have all the time in the world to complete something, it will also take all the time in the world. In school, this is referred to as the “student’s syndrome”. Ever pushed studying for the test into the last few days before it? I though so.
A solution to this problem is to chunk your massive task into bite-sizes. Set a deadline for each chunk. The deadlines can be imaginary, that doesn’t really matter. But you must stay true to them no matter what! This causes urgency and increases motivation, because it seems much more reasonable to “get your first client” next month, than to “build a million-dollar business” during the next 5 years.
- Don’t be like this guy: One day, I’m going to become the greatest investor ever! Although, I’ve got plenty of time. I mean, Warren Buffett is 88 years old for crying out loud! So today, I might as well go watch some Netflix!
- Be like this guy: Joe Simpson is a mountaineer who’s probably most famous for his book “Touching the Void”, and the later film adaptation of it. During an extremely difficult climb in Peru, he was separated from the rest of the group when he fell through a crack in a glacier and broke his leg. Somehow, he managed to survive this, by finding a hole in the bottom of the glacier, and then crawling back to basecamp, which took him several days! The main reason why Simpson was able to do this was because of an extreme case of willpower. But he wouldn’t have been able to do it without dividing his task into several smaller ones. Simpson knew perfectly well that basecamp was many days away. But if he would have focused on that, he would have completely flipped out about how impossible it seemed. Instead, he picked a spot in the distance that was marked by something noticeable, and determined that he had to get there in 20 minutes. And then a new spot for the next 20 minutes … and so on. Dividing the task like this was a key factor for his survival and it will be a key factor for you to keep your motivation to reach your goals to!
Exercise: This is for the aspiring investor. Pick an investing classic, such as “The Intelligent Investor”, “One up on Wall Street” or “Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits”. Set a deadline to finish reading it in the next two weeks.