Once a wealth coach, always a wealth coach it seems – I never lose my fascination for finding out what makes the difference between how the wealthy think and the rest of the population. Ditto business success and success thinking too, but today, I want to tell you about a wealth creation book I’ve been reading recently. I got a lot of books for Christmas – my kids think I’m barking for having business books on my Amazon Wishlist – but I love to read, real books specifically, too.
This wealth creation book is called How Rich People Think by Steve Siebold. Basically, it’s a number of statements about how the rich think differently to the middle or working class and then Steve expands on those thoughts and he gives you a “rich thinking” resource, a website, or most often another book, which is on the topic of what he’s just been talking about. Then there’s a critical thinking question and an action step.
It’s really quite a nice and easy book to read – you could even just dip in and out of it, I suppose. Some of the thoughts are quite thought-provoking which is exactly what a book like this should do really. There were some that really grabbed me.
Steve talks about middle classes and the rich, who he calls “the world class” and he’s identified some of the ways that the rich think differently, apparently by interviewing them in the same way that Napoleon Hill did, in “Think & Grow Rich”. Here’s a small selection of some of my favourites from the book.
“The middle classes believe it’s wrong for a small group of people to possess most of the money and world class people welcome the masses to join them.”
That’s really interesting because every so often on Facebook some people of my acquaintance – particularly the poorer musicians I’ve noticed – start ranting about how it’s obscene for some people to be super rich and how these companies don’t pay any tax in a lot of business. They just get into all these rants against the rich. These rants get a lot of likes, takes and comments against the business in question but are a bit naive when you think those businesses are providing lots of jobs, while legally using tax mitigation methods that are used by all companies with a decent accountant!
Here’s another take on that one…….. ”Well, stop complaining about those with money, get off your arses and make some money and come and join us then!”.
“The middle class believes starting a business is risky. The world class believes starting a business is the fastest road to wealth.” I really like that one because obviously we know that making and starting a business is one of the four lanes of the wealth highway, although it’s bloody hard work and can take longer than you wish it would in the beginning. That’s for sure.
“Middle class believes having a job gives them security. World class knows there’s no such thing.” Now, that’s a really good one because there isn’t any such thing as security in life generally. Lots of people take a job with a big corporation and believe that that gives them job security whereas actually a big corporation doesn’t give a flying eff about you. They’ll make you redundant quicker than lightning and they don’t care when they do it, often just before Christmas. Why do they do that?
“The middle class believes that they must choose between a great family life and being rich. The world class knows you can have it all.” This is an interesting one.
My Mum always used to say things like “money can’t buy you love” and “money can’t buy you happiness.” She used to really put negative beliefs like that in my mind, as a child. It’s a way of justifying the fact that if someone isn’t rich, they haven’t done as well as they’ve liked to have done and it makes it easier to live with perceived failure I suppose. Notice I said perceived failure, because I think you only fail if you give up.
As a result of some of my Mum’s conditioning, I used to actively avoid rich boys – boys with jobs, boys with careers and boys with suits –because I thought they weren’t kind or creative and they will always want to leave you for someone better, thinner, prettier, etc.. They must be nasty, those boys with money, which is really ludicrous when you think about it.
This is a good one. This next one really jumped off the page for me.
“The middle class believes they’re missing something. The world class knows it’s beliefs that make a difference”.
This is really interesting because when things were a bit tough a few years ago, I kept thinking I was missing something. I kept thinking if I just kept looking I would find the missing secret or the missing key, the thing I didn’t know that everybody else – more successful people – knew that they were keeping a secret.
In fact, this kind of thinking really was quite prevalent before I got on the whole personal development road and learned all about success thinking, wealth creation and that stuff.
I really did believe that there was a missing secret whereas, actually Steve’s statement above is simply true.
It IS just your personal beliefs that make a difference. If you believe that you are going to be successful one day then you don’t give up. If you believe that you deserve to be successful, you keep trying and you keep looking and you keep asking and you find your way around the obstacles and you know that you’re never going to give up until that day they put you in a box. It’s a belief that you can do it. It’s a belief that it’s possible. It’s a belief that it’s not just nasty people that make money.
I’ll give you an example of that that really helped me shift that one. I worked in the music industry for a few years. Everyone sort of thought that you have to be real shark to be successful in the music industry. I’ll never forget when they all found out that the manager of Dire Straits have managed the band for 25 years on a hand shake. That was really quite an interesting thing for me to find out there were people in the music industry who didn’t believe you have to be a shark. They actually believe that if you are a decent human being you could be mega successful.
“Middle class base their beliefs about the rich on the minority whereas world class people base their beliefs about the rich on the majority”.
So, when the world class i.e. rich people look around them, the majority of the people they know are rich so they base their beliefs about the rich on the people they see around them. The middle class base their beliefs about the rich on the minority of people that they know who are rich and they are largely people in the media so whether they’re a majority or not, we can’t tell, can we?
“Middle class believes self-made millionaires had an unfair advantage but the world class knows their advantage was just hard work.”
I like that one a lot obviously. We all try to work smarter and not harder. This is a good one.
“Middle class believes that the rich should support the poor whereas the world class believes in self-reliance”.
Nuff said. While I believe in helping people who are down, I also firmly believe in charities like The Big Issue and Kiva.org who empower people to start to build their lives again.
“The middle class dreams of having enough money to retire whereas the world class dreams of having enough money to impact the world.”
That’s an expanding kind of thought which can only be good. One thinks of retirement of one’s world getting smaller, but having an impact is an outward looking way of looking at things. That’s got to be good for you, to be thinking bigger as you get older, not smaller. I’m just going to find a couple more before I finish this blog post.
“The middle class believes you have to DO something to get rich and the world class believes you have to BE something to get rich.”
That’s really good, isn’t it? I like that one a lot.
“Middle class have a lottery mentality while world class has an action mentality.”
One of my favourite mottos is that it’s better to do ANYTHING than to do nothing, while trying to work out what to do. It’s easier to correct course while
My Overall Thoughts
While I had a sneaking feeling throughout that Steve is an MLM’er and that the book was written for the MLM industry, I tried to ignore that little prejudice of mine because it’s a very good book. I really enjoyed it overall.
There are lots of really good thoughts in this book, whether they came from . He expands on some of these statements really well. The resources have given me a whole 20 or 30 other books to read about wealth creation. The critical thinking questions are quite interesting and the action steps are quite interesting.
Network Marketing chap or not, I do thoroughly recommend it. It’s a nice book to read. You could read it straight through and then dip in and out often, like a “rich thought of the day”, a wealth creation thought of the day, if you like.
I’d love to know if any of the above resonate for you, which ones, and how they make you feel about the way you were brought up to think about the rich and the rest. Do use the comments box there to share your thoughts!
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I’m about a quarter of the way through the book right now, and I am also really enjoying it. I was expecting more detail and specific research, but I think now that Siebold’s point is just to provide motivation and get readers thinking. It’s challenged a few of my ideas about wealth creation already. Thanks for the review.