FINANCIAL MYTHS DEBUNKED

FINANCIAL MYTHS DEBUNKED

I was talking with a few colleagues years ago concerning money.  The debate was about being rich, being paid well and the secrets to becoming rich.  Their arguments to me were the following:

1. People should pay their employees more so that the employees can be well off or financially fit just like the employer
2. Wealthy people are stingy
3. Wealthy people are greedy
4. Wealthy people have secrets that the rest of us don’t know and that’s how they manage to get ahead in life.
5. IF you don’t or didn’t have money, you couldn’t have it.

The other portions of the conversation were criticisms of wealthy people and their excess and how they should give more away and how if they had money, they would give it away to people in need without a second thought. 

I’m not on a Forbes list yet.  I’m not famous or wealthy, although both are relevant terms.  However, I agreed with them on NONE OF THEIR POINTS!  Here’s why:

• Although, I was an employee at the time, I would have found it ignorant for an employer to pay me a ridiculous salary ‘just to help me out’.  Really?!!!!!!!!!!!  YES I SAID IT AND THAT’S DUMB! To think an employer would go to great links, take risk, invest their own funds, build a company, hire people and then pay them over market value of their position, education and experience just to help them out isn’t wisdom at all!  As they discussed why they should be paid, no one could place a dollar amount on their value, which meant they knew it was an ignorant plan and that regardless of the dollar amount, it would never be enough.  Next, what is ‘helping someone out’, what does that mean, what does it look like?   You could pay a person in abundance and never really help them out!  It’s based on their mindset!  How that person views money and how that person values money and what that person intends to do with the money?!  All of those variables that are individually based and have nothing to do with the amount of money one has in his or her possession!
• EVERYTHING that they said and/or thought was based on someone else and not on things that they could control.  I learned the hard way that YOUR DESTINY is never in the hands of others, nor in the possessions of another, but in your hands! 
• No one in that conversation was accountable for their actions or how they used the things that they had to obtain the things that they desired.
• This secret stuff……So wealthy people do have a different mindset than those without money but it’s not a secret.  It’s a matter of wanting to learn or educate oneself about money.  The minute you mentioned educating yourself about money, people become offended and stop listening immediately.  People tend to think it’s stupid and that it is as simple as; “if I had more money, I could spend it better or save more”.   The harsh reality is that you will do the same thing with more money as you do right now with less money.  If you are a spender, when you have more money, you spend more money.  Money doesn’t make one wiser, the wisdom has to come before the money does!  

The real secret rich people have is:

• Invest not spend – Investing is going into debt to buy a house that one can sell or rent  VS Spending is purchasing disposable goods that do not yield any value other than to ‘show off’
• Sacrifice for a season to change a lifestyle – you can’t do everything everyone else is doing when they are doing and be successful in things you are doing!
• Your wealth isn’t designed to show everyone what you have
• Money provides options and use those options wisely
• There is good debt and bad debt
• Be contentious about money leaving your hand
• Manage your money, do not allow it to manage you
• Consistency – WEALTHY PEOPLE WORK A LOT!
• Work-Ethic
• Patience – NO EMPIRE IS BUILT OVERNIGHT
• Letting People Go – a person can begin with you, but that doesn’t mean that they end with you or can go with you from level-to-level.  You must be willing to allow people comfort on their level without sabotaging your next level!
• Money, riches, wealth aren’t subjects that can be discussed without discussing mindset.  One may not understand or even feel that they know what they need to know about money, however, don’t allow that to stop you.  Get in the know so your pockets can grow.

Queen “B” of doing Business Better