“Money is the root of all evil.”
“People who are wealthy must have stolen it.”
“You have to be lucky to be wealthy.”
“If I was wealthy, I’d be happy.”
These are just a few common myths people have about money. Some of the above statements may be partial truths in certain instances but not whole truths.
The fact is that most people don’t wake up in the morning wanting to be less of themselves. In fact, most people strive to have a better life, do that much better, and be a little wealthier daily. However, most people seek a magic bullet––the get-rich-quick scheme. It’s seeking instant gratification.
This was exemplified by The Marshmallow Test of 1972. A psychologist at Stanford University, Walter Mischel, devised an experiment in which little children were placed in a room with a marshmallow in front of them. The children were told that if they delayed eating the marshmallow until the researcher returned, they would get a second marshmallow. The study found that those who resisted or delayed gratification were more successful when followed over 40 years. They had better relationships, better educational advancements and were wealthier..
Seeking instant gratification often leads to more month at the end of your money than money at the end of your month. This also occurs because of a lack of a sustained strategy for wealth creation.
Wealth means wellbeing. Financial mastery is being free and liberated, and having the ability to do what you love and love what you do. In other words you have financial freedom.
Money is a means of exchange. It has no moral value, right or wrong, simply the exchange of values. So fair exchange is a caring relationship; you received something in exchange for what you have given.
The means of exchange comes in different forms. In ancient times heavy coins of gold and silver were used as money, and even today they are still used. In many cultures bartering was the means of exchange. In fact, the word capital comes from the Latin Caput (Kaput) meaning head––head of cattle.
As humanity evolved, paper money came into being and today we are going away from that. Some stores––post Covid––no longer accept cash in any form. The most recent form historically is the transferrance of money at the speed of light with the use of online banking and digital payment systems in every business.
Most people are unaware of the psychological transformation needed on how they perceive wealth. We all have both a spiritual desire and secondly a material desire to make us whole; wealth building is part of that. Yet, we create illusions about money that sabotage our ability to acquire wealth.
A financial slave is one who is spending their life working for money, and a financial master is spending having their money work for them. So a financial master is one who's allowing themselves to pass up a immediate gratification for long-term vision and accumulate enough money where the money's now working for them and paying them instead working for money.
There are several important principles to wealth building.
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