Can Your Mindset Really Make You Wealthy? Find Out How They Relate...

Your Mindset And Wealth! What Do They Have To Do With Each Other?

Can you really ‘think yourself rich’? I’m here to tell you that it is not only possible but that it is also actually the best chance you have to make a lot of money. Many of us dream of living in a large luxurious house in the country, we imagine wearing smart suits that exude power and confidence, and we wish that we didn’t have to make so many hard choices because our funds can’t support the lifestyles we want to lead.

If that sounds familiar, then you need to make a change. And as with ALL things, that change starts with you and your mindset. If you want to be wealthy, then what are you doing about it? And is there any chance that you may, in fact, be going about it the wrong way?

Wealth and Your Career

Ask the average person in the street what they would hypothetically need to do to become more abundant, and 99% of them will tell you the same thing: get a better job. Okay, fair enough. They are not wrong, per se. Indeed, getting a better job won’t hurt their income, and that, in turn, will likely mean they get more productive at least a little.

But in fact, this is not the whole story. And what’s more, is that this isn’t even the main part of the story. Wealth and salary are not inextricably linked. Yes, the two are related but only to a small degree. If you wanted to see an equation telling you how to get wealthy, then it would really look like this:

Wealth = Income – Outgoings

So, let’s say that your income is determined solely by the amount of money you are making at work. Even in that scenario, you still have another, equally important factor. That is your outgoings. If you earning a cool million dollars a month, but you also waste a million dollars a month of lavish holidays and on nights out and clothes, then you are ultimately not going to be very well off. Rather, you’re likely to lose money over time.

But if you are earning a more typical $2500 a month but you only spend $500, then suddenly you are saving $2000 per month. In 12 months, you’ll have $24,000 saved away. That’s a decent down payment on a house! So, you now have two options. Two ways to get richer. One is that you seek to get a better job and increase your income, and the other is that you save more money and spend less.

How to Spend Less

When I was at university, my summer job was working at a yacht club. I was a waiter in one of the restaurants owned by the clientele. The club was located in Sandbanks, England – an area that is also sometimes referred to as ‘millionaire’s row’ because it has among the most expensive real estate in the world along the seafront.

The people are yacht owners. They also belong to clubs in the wealthiest parts of the world. Suffice to say that they were not struggling for cash. And of course, what many people would point out to me is that this should likely result in pretty big tips!

Except that’s not what happened. In fact, I received some of the worst tips I have in any job. I had a lady call me over to secretively give me 20p (around 30 cents) for my hard work. She literally told me to buy myself something beautiful. And this is bearing in mind that it is standard practice in England to tip 10%. The meals usually cost close to $150.

I told my Mom this, and

her response was: 

how do you think

they got so rich?

 

It Makes Sense

Look, I’m not here to tell you you should become stingy with tips. But what I am telling you is that the wealthiest people recognize that every little bit adds up and makes a huge difference in the long run. Your aim now is not to fritter. That $3 coffee you have every morning on the way to work is actually $15 a week. $60 over the course of a month and $720 a year.

That's a tiny amount, considering all those other things we all pay for that we don't need. Maybe your Spotify account, Netflix, 100+ TV Channels, gas for the car for all those trips you don’t really need to make. It adds up. Worse are all those larger purchases we make on an impulse.

These are things like clothes that we think will make us look smart, game consoles, PCs, overly advanced phones. How much did your phone cost you? If you’re on a contract, then chances are you’ll be paying $700 or more for it. Now ask yourself how much more that phone really does than something for $300. Do you really need the fastest processor around? Considering that even an old phone can play everything in the app store?

Do you really need a 30-megapixel camera? Or a 4K screen? Can you even see the difference between 4K and 1080p? The real problem here is marketing, the internet, and other people. We have, unfortunately, been conditioned to associate these items with success and to find them highly desirable. We want to get the latest phone, car, computer, etc. because it looks so sexy in those adverts. But the reality is that these things don’t really bring us happiness.

Likewise, we are told that we need to buy a large house, go on lavish holidays. Is this really for us? Or is it so that we can look successful to others? I’m not telling you to cut back on all the things that make you happy here. There is no point in having wealth if you aren’t going to enjoy it and have a better quality of life for you and your family.

All I’m telling you is to make sure you are certain of what it is that does make you happy. And that often means deciding what you don’t need and what you should be prioritizing. Have you always dreamed of a beautiful big house? Then why not stop going on those big holidays for a while? Why not stop buying widescreen TVs? And how about considering getting that big beautiful house in a less expensive area?

Heck, if you move to Spain, then there are places where you can live in a five-bedroom home with a swimming pool and roof pool, and it will only cost you $200,000. You could almost buy that in cash and think about how much money you would start making then once there was no mortgage!

Conversely, if all you want is to travel the world, then you can change your accommodation to something less glamorous. How about moving to a quiet neighborhood and living in a spare bedroom for a while?  Your outgoings will be less, so you can enjoy going on more holidays and still save up that wealth. Know what you want to achieve with that money. Know what wealth means to you, and then you can focus on being more efficient with your payments.

Financial Modelling

This will also help you to set up a budget and/or a plan. If you know how much you have coming in and how much you’d like to be making per month, saving per month, and spending on things that make you feel wealthy per month, then you can create a budget that will help you to reach that point within a specific timeframe. This then is where you can look at those small things you can cut out to save money.

If you have a spreadsheet that contains all your income and all your outgoings per month, then you can look at what kind of impact cutting coffee from your routine would actually make. You’ll be left with a total profit at the end of each month, and you can decide how much of that you want to put into savings and how much you intend to spend on other things.

You can even set up standing orders in your accounts so that money saved automatically gets transferred to a savings account. With such a spreadsheet, you can then multiply the savings you are making by any given number of months and see projections of what your finances are likely to be at specific points in the future. Need more money for an upcoming expense?

Then look at something else you can do to cut your expenditure. This is called ‘financial modeling’ and it’s a powerful tool for building your wealth rather than just letting it ‘happen’ without your direction or input.

A Couple More Ways to Save Money

And what if you have run out of things you can cut to save money? What if you are living on as little as possible? A few other options include changing your providers for bills, selling off old items, or even moving money between accounts to receive bonuses. A friend of mine does this religiously and will also take out credit cards with 0% APR, just so that he can put all of that money into an ISA and then make a profit on it.

If he gets a cash incentive to signing up for anything, then he will sign up! And he never buys a new piece of tech or even clothing without taking one of the older items to sell and thereby offset the cost. Something else to note is that if you have a dream of a prosperous future, then you might need to ‘be okay’ with living a little more naturally for a while to get there.

You need to put the work in now to reap the rewards in the future. And this is hard because it often once again means forgetting the conventional signals of wealth and success. Once again, you have to do this for you and not be worried about what others might think. So, for example, if you want to someday have a beautiful home, one of the very best things you can do is to live with your parents if they will let you.

Sure, it’s not glamorous, and it’s not fun, but if they charge a small amount of rent, you’ll be able to save so much per month that it will help you to get on the property ladder MUCH faster. You could then buy a smaller home in a less attractive area but flip the property to make a big profit. You need to put in the graft and have an eye on the future.

Likewise, you might need to learn to stop trying to demonstrate your wealth and stability to friends. Have you ever met up with a friend and eaten in a restaurant that you can’t really afford because you want to see them and because it is embarrassing to suggest eating somewhere cheaper? As you can imagine, this isn’t exactly conducive to getting wealthy quickly! Again, you need to be willing to tell them that you can’t afford it and to go elsewhere.

How about you suggest they 

meet you at your house?

Setting Up Revenue Streams

Next, come the revenue streams. We’ve seen how you can actually become richer without changing your job, only by spending less. The other strategy is to become wealthier by having more than one income stream. Once again, your salary isn’t determining your wealth! So, what might this mean? A straightforward option is to take on another job, such as a weekend job.

If you are happy to work on a Saturday, then you will have potentially $150 extra to spend each week! That’s $600 per month or $7,200 per year! Save that, and in a couple of years, you can be living in a beautiful house – or you can use it right now to feel that bit wealthier and wear those fancy clothes. This is a big sacrifice though - granted. So, what would be better for most people would be to earn money online, right?

Tim Ferriss describes creating a ‘muse’ in his book The Four Hour Workweek, which is a small online business that generates a passive income. This can be as simple as finding an affiliate product (a product that you sell for commission) and making a simple website recommending it, then sending people there with ads. This is low maintenance but can potentially cause you to make a fair amount of money.

You could try matched betting alternatively (a form of betting that ensures you can’t lose – it uses only the free bonus amounts that you get given for signing up), or you could look for a simple online job. How about selling photography online? Working as a writer or a web designer? Or, like a friend of mine, try commentating on sports for websites?

You can also make money from arts and crafts, of course, and sell some things you make on the side, or you can buy and sell items in bulk on eBay! Then there are the other options that work offline: these include such things as renting out rooms to students, such as mowing the neighbor’s lawn, cutting hair, teaching an instrument, etc.

All these options will help 

you to make an income 

that will be added to your

current income.

Not only does this, of course, give you a better total, but it will also help to make you more ‘resilient’ so that if anything ever happens with your main job, you’ll still have some money coming in. Another tip? The more you make, the more you’ll make. Try to look for investment opportunities, whether that means buying a second house and letting it out to someone else, or whether it means moving to an area that you know is up and coming.

A strange thing to think of here is board games. If you’ve ever played Monopoly or any other type of game where you have to amass a kind of resource, then you might have found that it pays to invest wisely early on. To get the card that will pay out just a little bit every round, or that will prevent you from losing a little bit every round.

These seem like small changes in the short term, but throughout the game, they ultimately put you in a position of high power and help you to win decisively! It's the same in real life. Make a few right choices that will build up over time. Know what you want. Be patient. And avoid the temptation to splurge on the short-term gratification. That is how you get into a wealthy mindset!

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Mindset and Business: How to Achieve Success in Your Ventures

Your Mindset and Your Business & How YOU Can Achieve Success!

When we think of success, one of the images that come to mind is often one of a businessman (or woman) decked out in a suit, standing at the top of a high-rise building and looking out over the streets below.

We associate business with success in this way for several reasons.

Firstly, success in business often brings money and riches. Secondly, success in business suggests a certain level of skill and ability and tends to yield a higher status and importance as a result. For all these reasons, business and success go hand in hand in our minds, and for many, those are the specific heights that we are aiming for.

But is business success really what you want? How can you go about getting it? And what might you unwittingly be doing wrong that could be sabotaging your own success?

In this guide, we’ll take an in-depth look at what it means to be a success in business; and how you should go about getting there.

Be Careful What You Wish For

The first thing to remember is that you should be careful what you wish for. For many, the idea of success in business is a very romantic and idealistic one. It’s something we might spend a lot of time daydreaming about. But as is very often the case, the reality isn’t always what you might have expected. And it might not even really be your dreams that you’re having.

Let me explain.

Many of us associate success with the business. We’ve already explained this, and it seems to make sense on the face of it.
But another reason we hold this association in mind is that we have been trained to think this way. Over many years, we have seen images of successful people almost always wearing suits and wielding power. This is how success is depicted in the movies and in the books.

We think of the film Limitless or maybe Wolf or Wall Street (even though both these movies were really lessons against seeking too much power, too quickly). Perhaps you want to make your parents proud? Maybe you plan to follow in their footsteps?

The image of success that your grandma has is linked to business as well, after all! But this can then lead to your downfall. If it means that you then chase after things that don’t really bring you joy. If it means that you become the head of a big delivery company, or of a corporate legal team. Maybe it means you become a procurement manager.

Whatever the case, you can end up taking a stuffy job and being a ‘suit’ and attempting to get rich that way. You’ll start at the bottom, put in the hard graft and the work, and climb the corporate ladder. But is that really what you want? Not only are you now facing years possibly decades of working hard with minimal reward, but you’re also going to be working toward something that may not be all that gratifying.

Sure, the pay is useful when you’re standing in that high-rise, but do you really want all that responsibility? And do you feel all that passionately about the product or service your company is providing? The price of success is often that you end up staying late until 8pm or 10pm that you have to deal with people shouting at you down the phone and that you are responsible for millions of dollars.

All so that someone can get their boring parcel delivered on time. Or so that a dubious business can avoid a lawsuit.
Is that really your image of ‘success’? And what do you spend the money on? Expensive clothes? A car? Was it really all worth it? In many senses, this is not really a success. And not only that but if you take this route.

If you climb the corporate ladder, put in the work, and do your time, then you actually won’t be as successful as you possibly could be. Think of any massively successful businessman. Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk.

How many of them started a tedious job and then ‘worked their way up’? No: they started passion projects. They looked for things that no one knew they needed yet. They innovated. Trailblazed. They came up with completely fresh and novel ideas. And because they did that, they were able to have breakthroughs that no one could have imagined: reach genuinely unprecedented heights.

The Strategy

So, here’s the strategy. Learn to separate ‘income’ from ‘wealth.’ If you read the guide on the money mindset, you’ll see that the two absolutely do not go hand in hand. Then learn to separate your status at work from your personal sense of pride and accomplishment. You know what? If you write a brilliant novel in your spare time and not one person reads it, then that should still be just as rewarding.

So, I want you to take some time out. To find your passion and to follow that path. But do it on the side. And view your day job as what it is: a necessary evil to help you get by in the interim. Over time, you can turn that passion into a way to make money. Then maybe you go part-time (perhaps you full time). Then possibly, you quit your day job.

Why Passion is Crucial for Success

When Elon Musk created SpaceX, he was not the massively well-known name that he is today. Musk was a relatively unknown name whose mission it was to encourage the private sector to venture into space. No small task. But you know what? Musk did it. And his explanation or one of his reasons was that he aimed too high to start with. Many of us feel that we need to reign in our dreams and goals.

We have been led to believe that aiming too high will end in disappointment, will make us look foolish. But the reality is that aiming high is actually precisely what you need to do. Because when you aim high, you inspire others. When you have something exciting to say, and when you are clearly excited about it yourself, then people listen.

It’s so much more inspiring to hear someone tell you they want to go to space than it is to hear someone say they’re a hairdresser (though if that’s your passion, there’s nothing wrong with that!). If you’re reading this, then there’s a good chance you’re in the internet marketing industry. Let’s say you are for now. You might have a plan to launch a website, sell an ebook, make some money. There are two ways you go about that.

One is the cynical way. The way where your heart just isn’t in it. The idea that you see time and time again. This approach involves looking for the hottest new ‘niche’ in the market. Whether or not that’s a niche you’re interested in doesn’t really matter. Then you buy some content, maybe hire someone to write some, maybe pump out a little yourself by just regurgitating what you already can find online.

Then, you lace into that content as much SEO as you possibly can. You do everything you can to make the site sell. You cover it in ads. You call it something like ‘The Best Fitness Site Ever.’ And you wait for the cash to roll in. But that will not work. Why? Because there’s no passion. If you have a site about animal welfare and you hire the very best writer in the world to write for it.

If you tell them to write to you the latest, most exciting, newest content, then you still won’t do well. Why? Because they aren’t you. They can’t speak for you. They don’t know your point of view. And they probably don’t see the topic all that well either. So, they’ll do their research. Learn it thoroughly and try to write something great. But it will be safe. Generic, boring content. People will visit the site, and they’ll see that.

The site has no personality. No tone of its own. No ‘mission statement’ or purpose. There is no passion or love behind it, and so no community grows behind it. The site dies. That’s why the thousands of low-quality sites never make it big. Think of the websites that do make it.

Those are sites like the MOZ blog, like Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Blog, like Pat Fynn’s Smart Passive Income. The Verge. The BBC. Forbes.

These are sites that are written by passionate experts. They are sites that have unique, engaging, and brilliant content. And unique, excellent points of view that are unique to the brand. They have high production values, slick design, thriving YouTube channels.

Do you see the difference?

Think about the sites that you read daily. I bet they are either:

A) Large teams of enthusiastic professionals

OR

B) Single, passionate individuals

None of them will be spam designed to quickly make money. None of them will be ‘overly SEOed.’ You can’t create fantastic quality unless you are passionate about the topic. You have to love doing it. You need to put everything into it. You have to want to spend your free time writing articles, answering fan-mail, and tweaking the logo. It mustn’t feel like a job.

If there isn’t a topic for a website you feel that way about, then being an internet marketer isn’t for you. You need to find what you are passionate about. Your calling. That is how you become Elon Musk and not ‘tired, overworked, stressed Dad, who works himself to an early grave.’ Do you see the difference? You can’t fake it. You have to love it.

Presenting the Image

But I know what you’re thinking: it’s all good and well having the dream and the vision, but you also need the skill, and you need that business persona. And it’s true. If you’re going to lead, inspire, and get investments, then you do need to learn to present yourself, and you do need to learn to be taken seriously. And this is a skill that will help you in every other aspect of your life too.

So how do you go about it?

The simple place to start is with the realization that you are a brand. Your name is your own personal brand, and just like any business brand, it is your job to protect that brand professionally. You know how it is so vital for a website to be correctly spelled, to have great design, to pay attention to even the smallest details?
It’s the same thing as you.

You need to present yourself in a way that inspires confidence and trust. You need to make sure that every interaction that other people have with you is a positive one. You need to present the face of a service that people can trust. You need to gain the confidence that you know what you’re talking about. You do this to begin with by professionally conducting yourself.

That means that you put in the effort and hard work into everything you do. Whether it’s that boring 9-5 that you’re just ticking over with, or whether it is a client who is very much ‘small-time’ in your eyes. If you don’t give them 100% of your attention, if you rush things or if you make a silly mistake, then that is a black mark against you. If you say you are going to get a piece of work in by a particular deadline, then you make sure you do that.

You never know where great opportunities might come from. And you never know what one interaction might lead to. If you deal with someone in an unsatisfactory manner, or you do a sub-par job, then the word might spread. If you do an excellent job, you just might get offered something. The same goes for any work that you put out with your name on it. Make sure it is of excellent quality.

Next, you need to make sure that your presentation is perfect. That means learning to communicate. Learning to present yourself professionally, I highly recommend getting classes to help you with public speaking and elocution. This will help you to get your point across in a way that other people understand. It will teach you to sell yourself, to thrive in interviews, and to win clients and backers.

You also need to think about the small details of your appearance. How are your nails? How is your hair? Do you have a nice suit? Are you in good physical shape? All of this has been shown in countless studies to make a difference. People want to bet on the winning horse, and if you look like you can barely keep yourself together, then why would anyone believe that you’re going to be able to run a business?

Sell a product? Provide a superior service? Again, tiny things make the difference here: things like your shoes, how polished they are, how the laces are tied. Be continually improving yourself and investing in you to make a better impression. Meditate. Get enough sleep. Have enough vitamins and minerals. Be ready to take those opportunities when they come.

Springboarding

And learn to see opportunities where you don’t expect them. Because it won’t always be visible. Think of Sylvester Stallone "Rocky," who wanted to become a famous actor. He was turned down from all the acting jobs, so he eventually got there by writing a fantastic script for a movie. That movie was Rocky, and he would only sell the script if he got the leading role.

The rest is history.

Opportunities might present themselves to you that don’t seem directly related to your goal. But adapt, learn to see the alternate routes. Because success in any area can lead to success in another. It builds confidence, it gives you connections and resources. This is called ‘springboarding,’ where you use one ‘win’ to launch you to the next.

If you turn down an opportunity because it doesn’t seem to exactly match your plan, then you can end up missing out on something that could have been huge. Always be looking for that next move. Business is like a massive game of chess. And once again, this is why you still need to put your best foot forward. Making the right impression and protecting the brand opens those opportunities.

Keep your goal in mind, keep winning, and keep taking that next step. Don’t let yourself become comfortable. And use the lessons from our other guides to get over your fear of risk and failure to keep taking those chances.
If you do all this, then you never know where your drive and your effort might take you. THAT is how you become a success in business.