Money Monday: Are You Creating A Wealth Mindset?
by Dr. Charles Alonzo Peters
How do two people with the exact same income end up at financially opposite ends of the spectrum – one wealthy and financially free, the other struggling to keep their head above water?
Why is it that people with seemingly limited means are able to build great wealth? Take Oseola McCarty for instance. Growing up in the segregated South this African-American washerwoman earned a meager salary at best. Yet near the end of her life she had saved enough money to endow a scholarship at the University of Southern Mississippi, providing young people with the opportunity she never had.
What separates the financial superstars from the rest of us? – While we walk around with a consumption mindset, they work off of a wealth mindset – a mindset that views the world from an entirely different perspective.
The wealth mindset, for example, laughs at those who eat out every day and instead saves money to purchase the Subway franchise where everyone is eating. The wealth mindset would rather own Coach stock than the newest Coach bag.
In his book, The 5 Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me, Richard Paul Evans delves deep into how the wealth mindset can set us financially free.
According to Evans:
The most substantial people are the most frugal and make the least show.
How many of us envision the typical millionaire driving the Benz, sporting the Fendi handbag, or flashing the Rolex? The true millionaire is more likely to sport a late model Toyota Camry or live in a modest size home, counting their paper while the rest of us struggle in debt faking the funk. Yes you can either act rich or be rich.
Money makes a good servant but a bad master.
Those that practice the wealth mindset make money their master instead of acting as its slave. They know exactly how much they have and know exactly where it’s going. Ask yourself, how many of us know exactly how much we spent on clothes, food, eating out, gas or entertainment last month? Knowing where your money is going allows you to redirect it in ways that prevent waste and build wealth.
The road to wealth begins when you decide to keep a part of what you make.
Think about all the money you’ve earned in your lifetime. Now ask yourself how much money have you saved. We hand out money to everyone else but we forget to pay the most important person, ourselves. It’s simple but true – pay yourself first. Placing 10%, 5%, even 2% of your salary aside into stocks, bonds, or even a simple savings account will allow compound interest to make your money grow.
Successful wealth builders understand the world is designed to take their money.
No one wants you to save. From the time you get up to the time you go to bed, advertisers pull at your heartstring, tug on your emotions, and convince you that you can’t live without whatever they’re peddling.
The wealth mindset resists. It considers every expenditure carefully. It refuses to equate spending with happiness. Once you realize it’s all a game designed to separate you from your money, you’re headed down the road to wealth.
The wealth mindset believes freedom and power are better than momentary pleasure.
Buy now and pay later – simple words but they often lead us down the path to crushing debt. The wealth mindset resists the urge to buy when we don’t have the money. It understands that debt prevents us from building wealth.
We can act like everyone else building debt with a consumption mindset. Or, we can dare to be different. We can develop a wealth mindset that leads us to financial freedom.
BMWK, Why do you think so few people operate with a wealth mindset?
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