Wealth File #17

 Wealth File #17

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

At the beginning of my live seminars, I introduce people to what I call “the three most dangerous words in the English language.” Those words are “I know that.” So how do you know if you know something? Simple. If you live it, you know it. Otherwise, you heard about it, you read about it, or you talk about it, but you don’t know it. Put bluntly, if you’re not really rich and really happy, there’s a good chance you still have some things to learn about money, success, and life. As I explained at the beginning of this book, during my “broke” days, I was fortunate to get some advice from a multimillionaire friend who had some compassion for my plight. Remember what he said to me: “Harv, if you’re not as successful as you’d like to be, there’s something you don’t know.”

Fortunately, I took his suggestion to heart and went from being a “know-it-all” to a “learn-it-all.” From that moment on, everything changed. Poor people are often trying to prove that they’re right. They put on a mask as if they’ve got it all figured out, and it’s just some stroke of bad luck or a temporary glitch in the universe that has them broke or struggling. One of my more famous lines is “You can be right or you can be rich, but you can’t be both.” Being “right” means having to hold on to your old ways of thinking and being. Un-fortunately, these are the ways that got you exactly where you are now. This philosophy also pertains to happiness, in that “you can be right or you can be happy.”

 WEALTH PRINCIPLE: 

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

There’s a saying that author and speaker Jim Rohn uses that makes perfect sense here: “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got.” You already know “your” way, what you need is to know some new ways. That’s why I wrote this book. My goal is to give you some new mental files to add to the ones you already have. New files mean new ways of thinking, new actions, and therefore new results. That’s why it’s imperative you continue to learn and grow. Physicists agree that nothing in this world is static. Every-thing alive is constantly changing. Take any plant. If a plant isn’t growing, it is dying. It’s the same with people as well as all other living organisms: if you are not growing, you are dying. One of my favorite sayings is by author and philosopher Eric Hoffer, who said, “The learners shall inherit the earth while the learned will be beautifully equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” Another way of saying that is, if you’re not continuously learning, you will be left behind. Poor people claim they can’t afford to get educated due to lack of time or money. On the other hand, rich people relate to Benjamin Franklin’s quote: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” I’m sure you’ve heard this before, “knowledge is power,” and power is the ability to act. Whenever I offer the Millionaire Mind Intensive program, I find it interesting that it’s usually the people who are the most broke who say, “I don’t need the course,” “I don’t have the time,” or “I don’t have the money.” Meanwhile, the millionaires and multimillionaires all register and say, “If I can learn just one new thing or make one improvement, it’s worth it.” By the way, if you don’t have the time to do the things you want to do or need to do, you’re most probably a modern slave. And if you don’t have the money to learn how to be successful, you probably need it more than anyone. I’m sorry, but saying “I don’t have the money” just doesn’t cut it. When will you have the money? What is going to be different a year or two years or five years from now? Here’s the easy answer: nothing! And you’ll be saying the exact same words again at that time. The only way I know for you to have the money you want is to learn how to play the money game inside and out. 

You need to learn the skills and strategies to accelerate your income, to manage money, and to invest it effectively. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Look, if what you’ve been doing were working, you’d already be rich and happy. Anything else your mind conjures up as a response is nothing more than an excuse or justification. I hate to be so in your face about it, but the way I see it, that’s my job. I believe a good coach will always ask more of you than you will ask of yourself. Otherwise, why the heck do you need one? As a coach, my goal is to train you, inspire you, encourage you, coax you, and have you observe, in full living color, what is holding you back. In short, to do whatever it takes to move you to the next level in your life. If I have to, I’ll rip you apart and then piece you back together in a way that works. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you ten times happier and a hundred times as rich. If you’re looking for Pollyanna, I’m not your guy. If you want to move quickly and permanently, let’s continue. Success is a learnable skill. You can learn to succeed at anything. If you want to be a great golfer, you can learn how todo it. If you want to be a great piano player, you can learn how to do it. If you want to be truly happy, you can learn how todo it. If you want to be rich, you can learn how to do it. It doesn’t matter where you are right now. It doesn’t matter where you are starting from. What matters is that you are willing to learn. One of my better-known quotes is “Every master was on cea disaster.” Here’s an example. A while ago, I had an Olympic skier in my seminar. When I made that statement, he stood up and asked to share. He was adamant, and for some reason I thought he was going to vehemently disagree. To the contrary, he told everyone the story of how when he was a kid, he was the worst skier of all his buddies. How they sometimes wouldn’t call him to go skiing with them because he was so slow. To fit in, he went to the mountain early each weekend and took lessons. Pretty soon he not only kept up with his buddies, he surpassed them. He then got involved in the racing club and learned from a top-ranked coach. His exact words were “I might be a master skier now, but I definitely started out as a disaster. Harv’s absolutely right. You can learn to succeed at anything. I learned how to succeed at skiing, and my next goal is to learn how to succeed with money!” 

WEALTH PRINCIPLE: 

“Every master was once a disaster.” —T. Harv Eker

 No one comes out of the womb a financial genius. Every rich person learned how to succeed at the money game, and so can you. Remember, your motto is, if they can do it, I can do it! Becoming rich isn’t as much about getting rich financially as about whom you have to become, in character and mind, to get rich. I want to share a secret with you that few people know: the fastest way to get rich and stay rich is to work ond eveloping you! The idea is to grow yourself into a “successful” person. Again, your outer world is merely a reflection of your inner world. You are the root; your results are the fruits. There’s a saying I like: “You take yourself with you wherever you go.” 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. You will gain the power of absolute choice. You will gain the inner power and ability to choose any job, business, or investment arena and know you’ll be a success. This is the essence of this book. When you are a level 5 person, you get level 5 results. But if you can grow into a level 10 person, you will get level 10results. Heed this warning, however. If you don’t do the inner work on yourself, and somehow you make a lot of money, it would most likely be a stroke of luck and there’s a good chance you’d lose it. But if you become a successful “person” inside and out, you’ll not only make it, you’ll keep it, grow it, and most important, you’ll be truly happy. Rich people understand the order to success is BE, DO,HAVE. Poor and middle-class people believe the order to success is HAVE, DO, BE.

Poor and most middle-class people believe “If I have a lot of money, then I could do what I want and I’d be a success.” Rich people understand, “If I become a successful person, I will be able to do what I need to do to have what I want, including a lot of money.” Here’s something else only rich people know: the goal of creating wealth is not primarily to have a lot of money, the goal of creating wealth is to help you grow yourself into the best person you can possibly be. In fact, that is the goal of all goals, to grow yourself as a person. World-renowned singer and actress Madonna was asked why she kept changing her persona, her music, and her style every year. She responded that music was her way to express her “self ” and that rein-venting herself each year forces her to grow into the kind of person she wants to be. In short, success is not a “what,” it’s a “who.” The good news is that “who” you are is totally trainable and learnable. I should know. By no means am I perfect or even close to it, but when I look at who I am today as opposed to who I was twenty years ago, I can see a direct correlation between “meand my wealth” (or lack of it) then and “me and my wealth” now. I learned my way to success and so can you. That’s why I’m in the training business. I know from personal experience that virtually any person can be trained to succeed. I was trained to succeed, and now I’ve been able to train tens of thousands of others to succeed. Training works! I’ve found that another key difference between rich people and poor and middle-class people is that rich people are experts in their field. Middle-class people are mediocre in their field, and poor people are poor in their field. How good are you at what you do? How good are you at your job? How good are you at your business? Do you want a totally unbiased way of knowing? 

Look at your paycheck. That will tell you everything. It’s simple: to get paid the best, you must be the best. WEALTH PRINCIPLE: To get paid the best, you must be the best. We recognize this principle in the professional sports world every day. Generally, the best players in every sport earn the most. They also make the most money on endorsements. This same principle also holds true in both the business and financial worlds. Whether you choose to be a business owner, a professional, a network marketing distributor, whether you’re in commissioned sales or a salaried job, whether you’re an investor in real estate, stocks, or anything else, all things being equal: the better you are at it, the more you’ll earn. This is just another reason why being a continuous learner and enhancing your skill in whatever arena you are in is imperative. On the topic of learning, it’s worth noting that rich people not only continue to learn, they make sure they learn from those who have already been where they themselves want to go. One of the things that made the biggest difference for me personally was whom I learned from. I always made it a point to learn from true masters in their respective fields—not those who claimed to be experts, but those who had real-world results to back up their talk. Rich people take advice from people who are richer than they are. Poor people take advice from their friends, who are just as broke as they are. I recently had a meeting with an investment banker who wanted to do business with me. He was suggesting I place several hundred thousand dollars with him to get started. He then asked me to forward him my financial statements so he could make his recommendations. I looked him in the eye and said, “Excuse me, but don’t you have this backward? 

If you want me to hire you to handle my money, wouldn’t it be more appropriate for you to forward me your financial statements? And if you’re not really rich, don’t bother!” The man was in shock. I could tell that no one had ever questioned his own net worth as a stipulation for investing with him. It’s absurd. If you were going to climb Mount Everest, would you hire a guide who’s never been to the summit be-fore, or would it be smarter to find someone who’s made it to the top several times and knows exactly how to do it? So, yes, I am absolutely suggesting you put serious attention and energy into continuously learning and, at the same time, be cautious of whom you are learning and taking advice from. If you learn from those who are broke, even if they’re consultants, coaches, or planners, there’s only one thing they can teach you—how to be broke! By the way, I highly recommend you consider hiring a personal success coach. A good coach will keep you on trackin doing what you’ve said you want to do. Some coaches are “life” coaches, meaning they handle the gamut of everything, while other coaches have specialties that might include personal or professional performance, finances, business, relationships, health, and even spirituality. Again, find out your prospective coach’s background to ensure the coach has demonstrated success in the arenas of importance to you. Just as there are successful paths to climbing Mount Everest, there are proven routes and strategies for creating high income, fast financial freedom, and wealth. You have to be willing to learn them and use them. Again, as part of our Millionaire Mind Money Management method, I strongly suggest that you put 10 percent of your income into an Education Fund. Use this money specifically for courses, books, tapes, CDs, or any other way you choose to educate yourself, whether through the formal education system, private training companies, or personalized, one-on-one coaching. Whatever method you choose, this fund ensures you will always have the wherewithal to learn and grow instead of repeating the poor person’s refrain of “I already know. ”The more you learn, the more you earn . . . and you can take that to the bank! 

DECLARATION:

Place your hand on your heart and say... 

“I am committed to constantly learning and growing.” 

Touch your head and say... 

“I have a millionaire mind!”

Tags : Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

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