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Category Archives: Mindset

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Anger

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Of all of the negative emotions we have to deal with, the most debilitating of them is anger. Anger sometimes runs and can often ruin lives.

I was angry at my dad for years. When I was a kid, I had this coin collection that I was really proud of, and I kept the coins in this piggy bank. My dad knew where I kept it as well, and one day it was just gone. My prized collection that—in my mind at least—I worked so hard for, just disappeared. Eventually, the piggy bank reappeared, but when I angrily accused my father of stealing … let’s just say he responded pretty angrily, too.

I thought of it as one of those things that ‘just happens,’ and you move on, yes?

Throughout my adult years I never re-examined that incident. I never considered his side of the story. My perspective was, ‘I’m right and that’s that!’ Fine and swell except for one problem: I unconsciously decided that men weren’t to be trusted with money or anything else. The anger and distrust was holding me back, not him. Think that had an effect on my long-term success and happiness?

Most of us are run by our past circumstances. We play the victim role based on an idea that it’s all our parents’ fault for how they raised us. ‘This is what happened, this is the conclusion, and now this is what I do.’

‘You want me to be a success? I’ll be a failure just to show you what a lousy parent you were!’

The most important thing to the conditioned mind is to be right. And when we’re angry, it’s usually about not getting what we want, and we feel justified in our position for the reason of the moment. So we retaliate by not giving the person that we’re angry with what they want. Meanwhile, we’re often going down the drain with or without them, true or true?

So … five different cities, 12 different businesses, 14 different jobs and 35 years later, I learned my dad was actually showing my prized coins to his poker buddies, and he didn’t want to confuse my coin collection with the poker pot so he just kind of stashed it away and forgot to put it back where I kept it. He was proud and protective, not a thief. Only when I became aware of why I wasn’t settled down—as a form of rebellion, anger and retaliation—I was able to make a new choice and build lasting success in life.

Anger and resentment only hurts you! You feel it, not whoever you’re angry at. It gets stuck in the cells of your body, not theirs. It makes you sick, not them. Even worse, sometimes that anger might actually be totally unwarranted, a simple misunderstanding. It’s not worth hanging on to.

Search your past for an emotional incident that resulted in your getting angry about something that concerned money and/or at least one other person. The idea is to simply re-look at a past or childhood situation from your current and (possibly) more mature point of view, and consider revising it so that it doesn’t haunt you anymore. What’s your story? We want to hear from you!

Give Yourself Some Props

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There’s nothing like a little self-congratulation for the ego, yes?

I’d rather pat myself on the back and maybe look like an egotistical jerk than to maybe get no praise at all. We recently took a look at the power of receiving—including compliments. That doesn’t mean we can’t give ourselves some props, too. In fact, it’s important for success-building.

Why? Because we’re creatures of habit. Success is a habit as is failure; and mediocrity—which is worse than failure. Mediocrity is this lukewarm thing where there’s not enough pain to make you want to move.

The more success, failure, or mediocrity you live in habitually, the more natural that process becomes for you. When your mind is comfortable and used to success, success becomes your path of least resistance. And success therefore becomes normal and automatic.

So how do you utilize this law in your favor? Simple: recognize and acknowledge your successes. Some people say, “Not focusing on my success keeps me striving.” I say it keeps you unrewarded, unhappy, and in a pattern of failure.

We all love to be recognized and rewarded for our good deeds, yes? Feeling significant is a basic human need. Most of us unfortunately have let some of the greatest successes of our entire lives just totally slide into oblivion, without ever really acknowledging or celebrating them in any way, shape, or form. It’s important that we keep our big successes in the forefront of our mind for references and to reinforce our confidence.

Isn’t it true that our mind will almost always pick out what’s “wrong” with us? In what we can’t or shouldn’t do? It hardly ever goes back to the great things that we did. So if you want to go out there and do something new like make a couple of million dollars in a certain amount of time, it’s going to seem scary because your mind isn’t going to go, ‘You’ve handled this before. Not a problem.’

That has to be a conscious thought that we force in there. Left by itself, something new or scary will make the mind go, ‘Hell, I don’t want to do this!’ So it’s important that we keep whatever successes we’ve had at the forefront of our mind. We want to ingrain them as best we can on a physical or emotional level so that they’re part of who we are.

Can you come up with three of the greatest successes of your life in any area, right now? If you can’t come up with three successes, you are way too hard on yourself. If you have trouble coming up with three successes, you won’t even look at anything good about yourself which means you won’t look at other good things about other people or anything.

They don’t have to be incredible. They just have to be big successes for you in the situation you were in. What have you overcome? It could be business. It could be relationships. It could be money! It could be from childhood. It could be sports. It could be anything. We want to hear from you!

Poor Receivers Don’t Get Rich

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Receiving the Keys

What kind of receiver are you? If you’re reading this, chances are you consider yourself a giver of sorts. You might even beat yourself up a little bit for thinking you don’t give enough. Then again, there are those who think they’re givers but really aren’t.

The point is we tend to focus on giving as “goodness”; of feeling good or intending good. But what kind of receiver are you? Do you take compliments bashfully? Do you say, “Aw, it was really nothing”? Do you tell them to stop teasing you, or that you weren’t fishing for a compliment?

One of the big reasons most people don’t reach their full potential, financially or otherwise, is that they are very, very poor receivers. ‘You’re not worthy’ because of the way you look, or what you do, or how much money you have, or don’t have.

You’re worthy because the Great Spirit, or Universe, or God, or whatever you want to call a higher power, has put you on the earth at this time. There’s nothing else to think about! Since you’re as worthy as the next person, you’re as deserving to receive as anyone else. Anything else that your mind says around that is made up, non-supportive crappola!

And then there’s that phrase that a lot of people heard when they were young, and we still hear it: “It’s better to give than to receive.” Of course it is, isn’t it?

I’m sorry, but let’s just call that what it is: bad math! If both have to be there for the other to exist, how on earth could one be better than the other? How is that possible? Somebody enlighten me please!

By the way, the original buysoma.net intention of that ‘better to give’ statement actually translates more correctly into ‘It’s better to be in a position to give than in a position where you need to receive’.

In other words it’s better to be rich! Some people will read that and get that little twinge of guilt—How can I so selfishly justify wanting to be rich? Fine, I understand, I was there too, so let’s try this from another angle.

How does it feel to give, especially when that person didn’t ask you for anything yet you knew they were in need? Most people say it feels great, yes? It’s especially the grateful receivers that make us feel even better about our giving, yes?

But if you’re not willing to receive, you’re ripping off those people from the other side of the equation who want to give. And we’re proving that both giving and receiving are great. Two birds with one stone. If you’re in a position to give, that’s wealth—whether it’s money, time or kindness.

So here’s your practice. No more returning compliments for a specific time! If someone gives you a compliment, you’re not allowed to give them a compliment at that time because it dishonors them (of course use your better judgment, but you get the point!).  Returning a compliment because you think you have to robs them of the full joy of giving you the compliment. And it robs you of receiving.

The key is to recognize that whether you’re “worthy” or not is a feeling, not a fact. It’s a story that you made up and now you own. Disown that! Receive with the same joy that you give.

Split the Difference

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With so much turmoil going on in the world today, sometimes it can seem too selfish to think about personal riches while so many struggle for basics. This is a feeling I experienced periodically throughout my life—that flip-flop between getting rich as an unqualified goal and wanting to get rid of it all and retreat to a temple or something, or otherwise reject the idea of staying rich.

I’ve made it and lost it. I went from being rich to ‘money is not the most important thing in life’ and ‘why would you put that much focus on it?’ Honestly, I used to think this was a curse. It’s like I had this split personality where one side was about being an entrepreneur and focusing on finances. But I had this other part of me that just wanted to be at the monastery, meditate and eat in silence.

It took me years to figure out that neither extreme was really me. Sometimes it takes success to understand success in itself is not enough. I had to win and lose, tune out and turn on in order to learn that when you reach your first big goal, joyousness, gratitude, and satisfaction don’t just automatically jump on for the ride.

There has to be an intention for these intangibles, and that means knowing what makes you joyous, grateful and satisfied—where money has nothing to do with it. The money only takes it to a whole other level. So discovering these things about yourself certainly does require asking yourself quality questions—or in my world, that and some soul searching.

There’s an eloquent balance between wealth and spirituality that I can now fully embrace, as should we all. For the spiritual-minded in a world of such disparity, consider yourself blessed to have an interest in that and in financial success. Be the fortunate one to put the two together and help other people know that they can be rich and spiritual too. You can be rich and a good person with intentions that consider others.

If spirituality doesn’t ring true for you, throw that out the window anyways. Both riches at any costs and “money doesn’t matter” are two extremes that simply don’t work. They didn’t work for me, and I can’t think of anyone I know who can survive either over the long haul. Intend to split the difference. Balance is beautiful.

Now I look at my duality as a blessing, thanking my stars for the successes and failures, those swings from hermit to world conqueror. You can have your goals, and when you achieve them acknowledge yourself and be thrilled, but there better be something else bringing you joy in your life, or you can end up psyching yourself out of success.

Bank riches without inner riches is a bank account waiting to see itself dwindle, because you’ll look for other ways to use that money to fill a hole that it can never fill—even if that means consciously or unconsciously getting rid of it.

Do you have any stories of having a bunch only to lose it willfully? What was it that finally made you realize the money wasn’t enough, and what did you do to get that sense of real satisfaction? What was the particular lesson you can share with the rest of the Millionaire Mind community? We want to hear from you!

All on the Table

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What are we really doing when we “put all our cards on the table?” What cards? What table?

There was a fad not so long ago … maybe it’s still going on today … but Texas Hold ‘Em Poker was the rage. Who knew the difference between a “River” and a “Flop” before about 2003?

In Poker there’s predictably a point in the game where you’re holding what you think is a killer hand. You might have to “up the ante” because somebody else is thinking the same thing, then those who haven’t folded put their cards on the table and let the chips fall where they may.

The expressions that come from card games serve as reminders on strategy, guessing, “Fake it ‘til you make it,” when not to push your luck and when to say, “What the hell, I’m all in!”  Going after those things that we want means taking risks without really knowing how the game will turn out.

But seriously, there’s nothing worse than playing a game of poker, getting a great hand, then upping the ante only to find out somebody else has an Ace to your King, or a Straight Flush to your Full House. But will a big loss be enough to keep you from throwing your cards on the table again? I mean a real kind of loss, like an investment gone sour or a business that took a big hit in the recession?

Your cards are going to change from game to game, as will the amount of chips you win and lose. But when we’re talking about laying our cards on the table, we gotta think about that table too.

If you’re playing on a three-legged table, well … you may still win from time to time, but ultimately that table isn’t gonna hold up over the long run, yes or yes? Your table’s got to be as strong as the cards you’re holding.

Play your cards if that’s what makes sense, but you have to be playing from a strong foundation to begin with—your table has to be sturdy enough to support a great hand to play when its time to play it. That support comes from the belief you have in yourself as well as your ability to play your cards to maximum effect. Those beliefs end up being the table’s legs, as my good friend Tony Robbins used in a metaphor. The more support you have in your legs, the stronger the table. In other words, start the game with self-supporting beliefs.

We can develop beliefs around anything if we find enough references to support it, yes? If we’re talking about financial success, you have to believe that you can or deserve to be a financial success. You have to visualize being there, like you belong there. The roots of our beliefs go deep.

What do the legs of your table look like right about now? What support can you honestly give yourself that—no matter what cards you happen to be holding at the time—you can lay them out with pride and confidence that you actually stand a chance of winning? Is one of your legs ‘persistence,’ or ‘willing to try new things’; or creativity, leadership, influencing? Whatever these legs are, they need to be true for you, and only you know that. If you don’t, asked trusted loved ones for support—then stand up!

You have to know when to hold ‘em, fold ‘em, go for it and call it a day, but know what legs you’re standing on, too.

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