A belief system may help or hurt. Many people are held back by strongly-held erroneous beliefs about money which are self-limiting. They prohibit the natural urge to succeed and kill the will and the desire to rise to the next level of accomplishment. They are virulent afflictions. The good news is that since these beliefs were learned, they can be unlearned. Let's go through some of the common ones to unveil the absolute truth.
1). Money is the root of all evil: The original verse is that "the love of money is the root of all evil." Money is a means to an end. Not an end in itself. When you set a goal to accomplish a project, then develop your plans, money comes in, all by itself, to fill the gap. Money here is the means, the vehicle, and the project is the end.
When money is sought after as an end in a way that makes you think about projects after, such wealth, when it comes, is said to be a "premature wealth." Projects first, then money next; not the other way. Premature wealth is money-love; it is the precursor of all social disasters and humiliation.
Money is a good servant but a terrible master. When you run straight at money, it becomes your master. You worship it. Money-love or the love of money is the root of all evil. Calvin Coolidge said: "Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshiped."
2). If I'm successful, people will hate me: This thought has its origin in the "Primitive Conformity Factor." Children habitually conform to certain peer attitudes, actions and behaviors when in a group. There appears to be a primitive urge to blend with others. Little children play together; they think alike, like similar things, talk the same way, mimic each other, laugh generously at the same thing and dress the same way.
When a youngster decides to quit this "Primitive Cooperative Society," his peers quickly see him as rebellious. A demonstration of a visible intention to be unique, especially by telling his friends about the new books he now reads, the goals he has set, and the saving plans he has adopted, makes his peers look foolish. Such action will make him appear eccentric, and when this happens, his friends collectively prepare to attack.
The first weapon they use is a withdrawal of love. This is why it is important that you love yourself. Never hinge your happiness on love from others. One of the greatest exercises in self-love is to decide to be rich. The decision to become rich must always be a personal volition. It is the starting point of financial independence that leads to a self-reliant and responsible adult life.
You cannot bring all your friends into wealth. In other words, you will not get rich as a group; each person will become wealthy when he is ready. As the saying goes, "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Rarely do all friends get prepared at the same time. Keep your plans secret.
3). There is not enough money to go round: This thought immediately reasons itself into absurdity. More and more poor people are getting rich every day by matriculating from the ranks of the poor.
4). Poverty is Godly: God is not poor. A humorous statement credited to Abraham Lincoln reads: "God must have loved the poor very much since he created many of them." This is meant to be a joke. The truth is that God loves everyone equally. He helps those who help themselves. Many people are unwilling to help themselves. It was as saying that: "You do not help the poor by becoming one of them." Only 20% of the people who started this article will finish it, act on the suggested ideas, and get the needed wealth. This is why only very few people succeed. Never glorify poverty. Don't join the poor. Help them.
5). When I am rich, it might deprive others of having enough: There is always enough for everyone. The universe is generous and lavish.
6). When I have plenty of money, too many people will trouble me to beg for it or borrow, and if I don't give, I feel guilty: We now know that regular and planned giving schedules remove feelings of guilt.
7). The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, and since l am poor today, then I can only get poorer: Every rich man was once lacking. The class of the rich always recruits from the society of the poor.
8). Getting money is difficult: Learning how to get money removes the difficulty. Ignorance begets fear. Knowledge brings wisdom, courage, and power.
9). Keeping money is difficult: Applied knowledge banishes this myth.
10). If I become rich and lose money, it will bring great shame: Learn how not to lose money. Learn how not to bother about what people think. Be indifferent to criticism or praise. George Washington once said: "Great people are not affected by each puff of wind that blows ill. Like great ships, they sail serenely on, in a calm sea or a great tempest." Whatever people may think of you, do what you believe to be correct. The classical saying is this: "if men speak ill of you, live so that no one will believe them." Abraham Lincoln said: "It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the Great God who made him."
11). Saving comes with sacrifice and deprivation: Decide to pay the price of success in advance. Such payment seems cheap only when you can understand the worth of your future prosperity and see the value of what you are buying.
12). Saving is greed: Saving is the most altruistic thing you can do, the kindest help you can do to your friends and society. Getting rich makes you able to help others. It saves your friends from the pain of listening to you beg and from the trouble of having to share with you the money they get from wise and rich neighbors. They also stand the chance of having a good role model or mentor in you later in life.
13). You need to be dubious to be rich: Fraudulent wealth never lasts. Sustainable wealth must incorporate honesty, benefit everyone concerned in the transaction, or have the germ of disintegration within it. It is a common saying that "if honesty does not exist, it will have to be invented as the surest way of getting rich."
14). Rich people are not kind: Money breeds kindness. Poverty begets bitterness. Hungry men are angry men; anger is that dangerous poison that destroys its container.
15). Money gets into people's heads and ruins character: True wealth embraces humility and genuine love for others. I agree with Somerset Maugham in his claim that "the common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egoistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary, makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind. Failure makes people cruel and bitter." There may be some elements of truth, though, in the saying that money makes a good man better and a bad man worse.
16). It is good to observe moderation in making money: God owns money. The universe is prosperous and lavish, and you are a part of it. A part must have all the attributes of the whole.
17). Contentment is the secret of happiness; therefore, more money may cause unhappiness: Constructive discontentment is the basis of goal settings, progress, advancement, revolution, and civilization. Such dissatisfaction took men from horses to cars, from cars to airplanes, from swimming to canoes, from canoes to ships and submarines, from sheds to grand houses and mansions and castles, from ignorance to knowledge, and from poverty to opulence.
Frank Tyger said: "Progress is not created by contented people." The great inventor Thomas Edison once asserted that "restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress." Discontentment that breeds unhappiness is the art of counting the other fellow's blessings and the art of measuring your own troubles.
It was also Edison who wrote: "The stomach is the only part of a man that can be fully satisfied. The yearning of man's brain for new knowledge and experience and tor more pleasant and comfortable surroundings never can be completely met. It is an appetite which cannot be completely appeased". He went on to demand that, "show me a thoroughly satisfied man, and I will show you a failure." Charles F Kettering said the same thing differently: "Research is an organized method for keeping you reasonably dissatisfied with what you have."
Today is the beginning of a new day, the dawn of a new era. At no time in history has there been an opportunity for prosperity as we have today. I therefore strongly suggest that you decide to be wealthy. It pays. Nothing relieves and ventilates the mind like a resolution, a good and rewarding resolution. Edgar Robert says: "Every mind is a great slumbering power until awakened by a keen desire and by definite resolution to do."
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