The automatic millionaires in many cases will surprise you. You may have a millionaire living next door and not even know it. However, in the grand scheme of things, it is so important to understand where your advice comes from. You can love and respect someone and still have a difference of opinion in life or wealth building theories. My father loved me dearly, however it appeared that he had no signs of what it took become a millionaire. The best advice he could offer me about money was to go to school, and get a good education and then get a good job and try and save as much as possible, or so I thought.
His main motivation was the fact that he dropped out of high school as a senior, and got a “good job”. And when promotions were within his reach he would regretfully have to turn down the opportunity because he feared his employers would find out about his discretion on his job application. Therefore in his mind, if only he had finished school, he would be able to do better for himself. My father made a very decent living, however I am sure his earning potential could have been doubled to a six figure income, if only he had that high school diploma.
My father was a wonderful human being and raised my sister and I along with his mother and sister. He was the best father a girl could have, he was loving, kind, gentle and a great provider. I have yet to meet a better person, however with this one lapse in judgment as a young man attempting to become financially independent, this act of being dishonest caused him so much more later in life and it also shaped his outlook about how to achieve success in life,…or so I thought.
THE ROLE YOUR ENVIRONMENT PLAYS
Even though I grew up in a middle class family, I knew I wanted more and when I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I said, “I wanted to own my own company, and someone in my family suggested that I should be a secretary instead! And for Christmas that year I received a typewriter. And guess what I grew up to become? You guessed it, A Secretary! And guess what else? I realized that the secretary was the major component that really ran the company! I also realized that as long as I was only a ‘secretary’ wealth was not imminent in my future.
I also realized that what my ‘boss’ was teaching his children was a far cry from what I had been taught about building a business. Actually I had been taught absolutely nothing about building wealth. I read the book, “Think and Grow Rich”, by Napoleon Hill, while I was employed at ‘my good job’ and made a decision to quit my job. According to Napoleon Hill, if you have a job its like having a life boat on an open sea. It becomes a safety net and a false sense of security. You are more prone to become comfortable just floating by in life, “just enough to get by, just enough to pay the bills, etc”.
CUTTING THE ROPE
However, I know the only people getting wealthy at my job were the owners, and I knew that as long as I had a job, I would be ‘comfortable’ and able to pay my bills, however I wanted luxury, and lots of it… not just comfort. So the next day I grabbed my personal items and left for good. My plan included not giving a two week’s notice because I knew if I gave notice, I would be in good standing to get my job back or even worse, I probably wouldn’t even leave.
I started my own business and made more money than I had ever had in my life; however, I worked more than I had ever worked also. I began to understand the importance of creating systems. That was over 10 years ago. Today, I am still self employed, however my day to day business is totally different than when I first started as a business owner. And with the era of the Internet, making money online is more probable and much easier and the goal of financial independence could truly be realized in a bigger and even better way. The world wide net truly levels the playing field and allows a lot of automation for building wealth.
There are so many success stories of individuals who set up a blog or some sort of web presence and literally drove traffic their site and have been able to capitalize and reap many financial rewards. Celebrities are also taking full advantage of social media and having a web presence and sponsor are simply throwing money at them, because now they have a way to capitalize ‘again’ off of their fan base.
THE DIFFERENCE OF VIEW BETWEEN WORKING FOR MONEY AND MONEY WORKING FOR YOU
It doesn’t’ really matter how you grow up or where you come from, but was does matter is what you give your attention to and what you believe. Your mindset along with your determination and drive will dictate what direction you will take in life and as it has been said many times, if you think you can or you think you can’t, either way you are right.
There is a distinct difference in the way that rich people view their lives and even make their money versus poor people And its more about the mindset and the systems that are put in place to protect their life style than it is the dollar amount in one’s bank account. Rich minded people tend to be more optimistic and action orientated,and set up systems that put their money making avenues on auto pilot. whereas on the other hand, poor people make decisions based more around fear and the ‘what if it doesn’t work, factor” and they tend to ‘work’ for their money..
T. Have Edgar, author of the book, The Millionaire Mind has wealth principles sprinkled throughout his book and Wealth File #5 reads, “Rich people focus on opportunities. Poor people focus on obstacles. My father didn’t have a millionaires mindset (or so I thought), however he was a saver and had a portion of his income deducted automatically and he was building a pretty impressive portfolio. Unfortunately he passed before we would know the outcome of his financial destiny, however, he did teach me about building automatic wealth. Something he never talked about out loud but through a turn of events and during his untimely death, ironically I did learn that lesson of how to build wealth automatically from him.
Our environment does play a factor in our beliefs and our actions, my father got his views from his parents and my grandmother and my aunt are both millionaires next doors as they have also set up avenues to create wealth streams automatically. However the bigger questions is what systems are you setting up to become one of the automatic millionaires?