Attitude #6 of the Wealthy - Opportunities & Challenges

In this blog post I will cover the final two attitudes the wealthy operate by:

11.    The wealthy look for opportunities, not excuses and

22.    The wealthy have challenges, not problems

I think the first one is self explanatory. We’ve all heard, and made, excuses at one time or another. We were late because of “the traffic.” We didn’t finish some project because of “an unexpected emergency.”

When it comes to creating wealth, excuses don’t cut it. Opportunities are all around us if that’s what we are looking for. If you decide to go into business for yourself, all of a sudden business opportunities will show up everywhere. For the first time you’ll notice the sign on your local Subway sandwich shop looking for franchisees, or out of the blue a friend tells you they want to start a ski school. It’s like when you buy a new car all of a sudden you see so many more of the same car on the road than you did before.

Semantics are important. If you have a “problem,” it feels like something ugly you have to face. And it’s not a pleasure to face it. If you have a “challenge” it’s not as ugly, and many people like to be challenged. And they like the feeling of overcoming the challenge. 

I have a close friend, Ralph White, who is a business coach to some extremely successful business owners. His coaching clients are the CEOs of companies that do up to 100s of millions of dollar in sales. He says, “As your intentions grow in scope, so do your challenges. There will always be some challenge that you’re working to overcome or problem to solve on the way to success. Often times I find people are working on too small of a challenge or problem. So, when they solve it, they still don’t have what they’ve been striving for—instead they end up with maybe just enough money to pay the bills. I use intentions to steer clients into larger arenas with bigger problems and more opportunity for sensational results.”

The point is, you want to look for big problems or big challenges. Those produce the big results and the big money.

In one of the next blog posts I will talk about the six conditions needed to accomplish any goal, from creating wealth or losing weight to getting a promotion and even kicking an addiction. You might even be aware of some, but not realize the tremendous power when you use all six together.

It is NOT a do-it-yourself project, and will power is NOT one of the conditions.

For a free copy of my best selling, award winning book, Wealth On Any Income, log onto www.WealthOnAnyIncome.com , enter your name and email address and press the button that says “Click here for your free book.”

Attitude #5 - The Wealth Hang Around Each Other

The following quote from Warren Buffet reminds me of another attitude the wealthy have:

“Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.”

Wealthy people hang around each other.

One of the powerful ways the wealthy create opportunities and maintain their wealth is by hanging around each other. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet became friends. Retreats and conferences bring successful people together.

As an example; Jack Welch of General Electric and Bob Wright, who was the head of NBC, had a conversation at a retreat for business executives in Colorado in 1986. That conversation led to the sale of NBC to General Electric.

After I went through my horrible financial mess I realized the people for me to hang around needed to be financially where I wanted to be, not where I was. My friends were folks that taught swimming, taught school, or were in door to door sales. I was in sales too, but not very successful at it; I was just scraping by.

One of my friends from high school became a successful attorney and began to buy small strip centers. You know the kind you see where there used to be a gas station, but now it has a dry cleaner, a 7/11 or Circle K, a nail salon, and maybe a restaurant. These turned out to be very profitable for him. This is someone I began to spend more time with. I met other people through him who were as successful, or more successful, than he was and it opened my eyes to other possibilities.

           

It was around this time that my brother died and I inherited a small four-plex. Not knowing how to effectively manage it, I took a class at UCLA by Mel Flack. He was a school teacher by day, and purchased apartment buildings after school. I learned so much in that class, and one thing always stuck with me. He said, “If the economy gets bad and people have to close their office, they still need a place to live and will work out of their home, whether it’s a house or an apartment.” While my attorney friend had some struggles renting his retail spaces when the economy was tough, I never had a problem renting apartments.

Look around and see who you associate with. Are they were you want to be, or where you are?

If you know of some people who are where you want to be, spend more time with them and the people that they know.

And here is another quote from Warren Buffet:

“It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.”

For a free copy of my best selling, award winning book, Wealth On Any Income, log onto www.WealthOnAnyIncome.com , enter your name and email address and press the button that says “Click here for your free book.”

Attitude #4 The Wealthy Think BIG not small

Warren Buffett is quoted as saying: “I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.”

Here’s the next attitude of the wealthy: Think BIG, not small

The following has been misattributed to Nelson Mandela as being in his inaugural speech of May 10, 1994, but this is not the case. Rather, it’s from author Marianne Williamson.

“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

You are here to live out your mission in life. You need to live your life and be true to your purpose and contribute your value to the rest of the world. And the more people you serve, the more money you will earn. For too many of us it’s “all about me.” When you add value to the lives of other people the money will follow. The “all about me” road leads to a sad and miserable life. Providing value and service to others brings wealth, meaning and fulfillment.

There are people in my circle of family and friends that have hundreds to thousands of rental units. I only have 35 units. And at this time I don’t plan to have any more. It’s my comfort level.

It’s easy for me to manage with one part time assistant and about 2 hours per week of my time. I have all the knowledge and experience to grow to hundreds of units, and I choose not to.

I constantly have to fight the battle of thinking small versus thinking big. I am a very private person and like to hide out. If you see me in a social situation, you’d think I have no tongue.

On the flip side, when I speak to a room with a handful of people I do well. When I speak to a room with hundreds of people I do great. There is an energy and excitement that comes from sharing my knowledge with a large group. This is the area where I don’t have to hide out.

Find the area where you can step out and be big. Isn’t it time?

For a free copy of my best selling, award winning book, Wealth On Any Income, log onto www.WealthOnAnyIncome.com , enter your name and email address and press the button that says “Click here for your free book.”

Attitude #3 - Prosperity versus Poverty Thinking

I hope you enjoy this quote from Warren Buffett:

“Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.”

This leads to the next attitude in our little blog series:

The wealthy have prosperity thinking, not poverty thinking

Many of us think about how nice it would be to be rich; to travel to exotic locations, live in a luxurious home, drive fancy cars and wear expensive jewelry. And many of us have conflicting thoughts about what it would be like to be rich. Maybe you were given messages from your parents when you were young that to be rich you to have to lie and cheat. Rich people take advantage of poor people. These types of messages as a child shape you as an adult unless you examine them for yourself.

In my workshops I have people perform a word association exercise regarding money. From that we create an actual score to see if their attitude leans more toward prosperity or poverty thinking. Imagine this; you have a beautiful yacht with the strongest, lightest weight material ever created for the hull. But your ship has holes in the hull below the water line. This represents the struggle between prosperity thinking (the yacht) and the holes in the hull (poverty thinking). You might say you want wealth or to become rich, but your old messages will fight you.

Here’s an example of poverty thinking: “I’ve heard that to have a big financial ship you have to enter deep water. With my experience, skills and attitude I’d probably have to launch my ship in a bathtub.”

Or, here’s the one I had while married to my first wife: “It doesn’t matter how much money I earn, I still won’t have anything left over to invest.” And this became a self fulfilling prophecy.

Here’s a quote from a very wealthy man to counter any negative messages you may have received from parents: Andrew Carnegie said, “Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.”

At Mr. Carnegie’s death he donated all of this wealth, setting up and libraries, a university, and more. Do you want your wealth to be self-serving or to benefit others? Having no wealth does not help anyone.

For a free copy of my best selling, award winning book, Wealth On Any Income, log onto www.WealthOnAnyIncome.com , enter your name and email address and press the button that says “Click here for your free book.”

Attitude #2 The Wealthy Plan to Succeed

In this blog post we will continue to deal with the distinctions of wealth, broke and poor as in the post of a few days ago. Both wealth and poverty are a state of mind and broke is only a lack of money.

The wealthy plan to succeed

There is a difference between creating an intention or goal with the attitude that you will succeed versus trying to minimize your losses. The wealthy have intention. Many of the rest of us have goals, and some folks don’t even have goals.

A poor person is more concerned about not losing what they have, not in how to bring more into their life. They are looking for security and operating at survival. The wealthy attitude is about abundance and creating more. If your goal is to have enough money to pay your bills, that’s about all you will generate. I was there in my first marriage, and that’s no fun.

A goal is often an extension of the past. Someone might say, “Last year I earned $200,000. This year my goal is $250,000. That would involve working a little smarter, faster, making more calls, or looking for bigger contracts. Again, that’s looking to the past, not the future of what’s possible. Maybe what’s possible is $1,000,000 of income. If that’s the intention, do you think the actions will be different than those for a goal of $250,000?

Although I speak about achieving goals in the Wealth On Any Income book, you will see it’s designed to create actions from the future, not the past or the present. While I didn’t use the word intentions in the book, it is based on creating a future from what’s possible.

When you either write or state your intention out loud, or a goal from the future not the past, you do NOT need to know how to achieve it in order to speak or declare it. The “how to” can only show up after you declare your intention, and it does show up each and every time.

An intention comes from what’s possible. John F. Kennedy spoke about putting a man on the moon. That was an intention. We didn’t have any equipment or technology to do it at the time. But because he had intention, we created the reality. Try it for yourself.

For a free copy of my best selling, award winning book, Wealth On Any Income, log onto www.WealthOnAnyIncome.com , enter your name and email address and press the button that says “Click here for your free book.”