Click Here for Part 1.
Tagalog Version (Click Here)
6. Rich people got lucky.
Very likely, most of the richest people in the world have achieved their success because they did or created the right things at the right time. They met the right partner and together they founded a great company. They applied at the right job and the right people saw their talents and started promoting them through the ranks. They also invested in the right set of companies, properties, products, or other things and suddenly they became extremely rich from their investments.
Well guess what. Their “luck” would NEVER have happened if they never WORKED on those things to begin with. If they just sat around doing an average job their whole lives without ever risking their time and money in something that could be great, they never would have achieved any of that.
Sure, they did get lucky, but they needed to WORK before any of that happened. A world-class organization or business does not appear from thin air you know. It needs to be dreamed of, planned, and built by people from the ground up first. You can build your own luck too. You just need to find that special thing that’s meant for you.
I am a great believer in Luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have. — Coleman Cox.
7. Working hard won’t make you rich.
There is some truth to this one. You can work hard picking trash and earn little, or you can work hard building a recycling company that cleans entire cities and recycles tons of garbage a month and earn millions. You can spend eight hours a day working hard on a worthless mobile game that simply sucks your time and money, or you can spend eight hours a day programming an application that helps millions of people while earning money FOR you. Working hard is not enough; you need to work hard at the right things to earn wealth.
8. Rich people got rich by cheating others.
Try telling your doctor, the owner of the hospital, the stores that sold you your computer parts and smartphones, the owner of the restaurant who last sold you good food, the owners of the stores that sold you your food and groceries, the owner of the company that built your house or the building where you work, and everyone else who got rich by creating products and services that a lot of people need that they ALL got rich because they are ALL cheaters. I’m pretty sure a lot of them will disagree.
While there are indeed people who get a lot of money by cheating others, they will lose money to competitors who are honest. Think about it. Would you keep buying overpriced products from a known cheater when another honest person sells the exact same thing but at decent prices? You probably won’t. When cheaters are eventually discovered, they are shunned and they lose business. That can also happen to you if YOU decided to try cheating people to make more money. For example, you will eventually stop getting promoted, fired, or laid off if you continue collecting your paycheck but decided to cheat the company by being lazy at your job.
Wealth from get-rich-quick schemes quickly disappears; wealth from hard work grows over time. — Proverbs 13:11 (New Living Translation)
9. You need money to make money.
In addition to people thinking they can’t change their financial situation (see number 5), there are those who think only rich people can get rich(er) because they have money. For those who don’t, they simply can’t. They think that if we’re not lucky enough to have rich friends and family who can give us money that we need for our business or new career, then that means there’s nothing we can do to improve our financial standing.
Fortunately, if you need money to start your own business or new career, you can use Robert Kiyosaki’s solution: “OPM”, also known as other people’s money. You don’t need to use your OWN cash or your family’s cash. You can simply borrow business loans from banks. They’ll be happy to help as long as you’re able to show them that your idea has merit and that you have the potential to make it happen.
10. “Rich people should just give me money.”
I know people who think this way. When they read news about an entrepreneur earning millions of dollars for something they did, they think “they don’t need all that money, they should just give me some!” They also tend to think that since billionaires don’t give away money (to be specific, billionaires aren’t giving THEM money), that means rich people are greedy (see number 2). That way of thinking is wrong. By the way, these are most likely also the people who hang out with their rich friends hoping to get free stuff.
For those people who think the rich should give them money, I’m tempted to ask them “why aren’t you giving half your paycheck to that homeless person on the street? You earn way more than enough, and to them you are ‘rich’”. I can guess they’ll respond that they “earned” their pay so they shouldn’t give any of it, and it’s the “rich guys” who should (as if the rich didn’t earn theirs). These people have the gall to think the rich should give THEM the money that the millionaires rightfully earned and call rich people greedy when they “don’t share” (with them specifically, starting and donating to charities don’t count). Who are the greedy ones again?
You NEED to avoid that kind of thinking. You’re not just weakening yourself by becoming overly dependent on others (“If only some rich guy would give me money…”), you also fill your mind with envy, greed, and hatred for those who have become more successful than you are. Don’t do it. Concentrate on your own ability to succeed instead.
Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is a temporary situation. — Mike Todd
As we’ve said before, your thoughts affect your actions, your actions become your habits, and the habits you’ve developed will become the basis for your destiny. While it is indeed very difficult to get rid of negative beliefs that have been hammered into your head throughout your childhood, remember that you do have the power to change and improve yourself. If you want to become financially successful, you will need to change your negative beliefs about money into something far more positive.