How a mindset based on either fear or abundance changes how we behave.
Hello fellow Protagonists,
This week my wife and I have been watching Rich house, poor house. Two families swap houses for the week as well as their disposable income and some of their weekly activities. They pick families from the top 10% of UK income earners and some of the poorest.
TV at its greatest.
What caught my attention was the clear mental attitudes of those with the nice houses. A mindset of abundance. The show had purposely picked people who were not born into money. A good touch.
One lady owned a chain of hair dressing salons and whilst holding a pair of scissors and a comb said "as long as I have these two things I can earn something." Another moment was a millionaire businessman who stated that he would do anything to help pay for his family's needs because there are always lawns to mow.
"There are always lawns to mow" - One Buff person
Now that's the kind of view point that really butters my crumpet.
One of the first concepts I remember reading at the beginning of my personal development and finance adventure was around an abundance mindset. It may have been the first read but was definitely not the first aspect to sink in.
At the time I thought wealth was only a maths problem.
The light bulb didn't go off initially and to begin with I thought that these mental aspects were added into these books to help pad them out (because we want pages for our money not quality), or to even cover the truth that these successful people had stumbled into a bit of luck and trying to justify it with their mindset.
I was wrong Protagonists, so wrong.
An abundance mindset is imperative to building true wealth folks. It is the opposite of a thought process that is driven by fear and other negative emotions.
It is the kind of mindset that if you lose the things you own you can always make them back. Here are some other key aspects of a abundance mindset:
Wealth creation and those who aim for it are not necessarily evil
Does earning trillions make you want to build a secret volcano lair? In fact why make trillions when we can make... Billions.
Just because Dr. Evil wanted to use his wealth to take the world hostage doesn't mean all eccentric millionaires would... Would they?
An abundance mindset recognises that it's people who are good or evil and that having greater levels of wealth does not convert people to evil. What it can do is uncover the truth of that person. If they start acting in an evil manner, that was always in them they now just have the leverage to show it. The same can be said about a good natured person. If you were happy to give £10 to charity when you were poorer, you would be happy to give £1000 when you become rich.
When I become wealthy and you come to my lair I would still offer you a drink, it's just that now I am able to treat you to a drink a little more upper-class, like Um Bongo (I just love the stuff).
Playing to succeed rather than to not lose
If we are run by fear we will hold on to what we do create as we fear it will soon be taken from us anyway. We may save up money but do nothing with it regardless of how much we have, or ironically we spend it all so that it cannot be taken away from us, leading us to an even more vulnerable position.
If we are reluctant to use any wealth we have, or avoid building it in the first place, then we may miss major opportunities that we do finally see.
This is an interesting aspect for me personally as one of my idols Warren Buffett once stated "Rule No.1: Don't lose money, Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1". I think he is making reference to calculated risk here which is definitely better than throwing our wealth at things we do not properly understand.
To save or invest does not have to be black and white. We can obtain a balance of the two. Everything beyond your emergency fund is fair game.
Imagine if we brought that play not to lose intensity to a game of Dota 2. I'm not playing to not lose, I am playing to humiliate your ancestors son!
Dream of the future
Do we dream or worry about the future. Are we destined for a permanent struggle? It can be a bitter pill to swallow but we are right to think that for most of us nobody is coming to save us from our situations. What this means is that we can focus on becoming self-reliant as well as teamwork to dream about what we can achieve and how this will lead to feelings of freedom and control.
There is an infinite amount of wealth out there
There is more than a serious amount of money in the world, there is an infinite amount. As soon as we dropped the gold standard we can now just magic money out of thin air. A couple of taps on a computer and bosh!
In actual fact, money is about as real as the "how was your weekend?" question on a Monday morning at the office.
Where do you think this money used for the Furlough scheme is coming from? It is either made out of thin air or borrowed from another place who has just made it out of thin air. We will experience the downside to this approach in the future. You can't David Copperfield up money and expect no repercussion.
One way to see how much is out there is to think how sorted you would be if everybody in the UK gave us just a single £1 coin today. Say hello to £66M and a pile weighing roughly 577 tonnes! That's about 4 1/2 Blue Whales using the imperial system. You might need to hire a digger.
And that is just the UK.
As there is an infinite amount of wealth out there this would also mean that building wealth is not a zero sum game, that the more you have does not mean the less others have. There is a huge gap between those in the top 10% and bottom 10%, and the gap is only increasing, though this is not as simply put as the richer have taken the money away from the poorer. There is still an infinite amount up for grabs.
I am glad I got a reminder of these principles watching some TV this week. The mindset we bring to the table will not automatically lead us to wealth but it is about what an abundance mindset opens us up to, or potentially how a fear driven mindset prevent us from being able to even try.
Has anyone else watched Rich house poor house? What kind of mindset do you have today?
GLHF
Warrick