Plenty of experts tell us that we need to act rich in order to get rich. This is great advice; you must know the part before you play the part. But just how does one do this in today’s tanking economy, especially if one is mired in debt?
You do this by playing a mind game with yourself. Release the emotions you experience about your money situation. Say you’re worried and stressed about your current situation. Those emotions (remember that emotion = energy in motion) are radiating out from you and are actually attracting more of the same old problems.
First of all, emotions form chemicals that course through your entire bloodstream and attach themselves to opiate receptors in each cell of your body. These are the same receptors that get affected by addictive drugs. This means that people can literally become addicted to their emotions. Suffer from chronic worry and stress? You may be on your way to addiction to those emotions… or may already be there. Even worse, the chemicals formed by negative emotions are toxic and could literally shorten your life in large enough doses.
Second, people pick up on emotions. Your words are 5% of what you are communicating and your voice tone is another 35% or so. The remaining 60% of your communications are in the form of subtle cues that are as clear as day to any observer. Anyone who has given job interviews will tell you that they can spot the desperate applicants a mile away, no matter how the applicant tries to cover it up. Are you more or less likely to hire the desperate person or the one who is calm and enthusiastic? Apply this same concept to your life: If you’re desperate, worried, stressed, etc. then people will know, no matter how much you try to hide it.
Acting rich has nothing to do with spending money and everything to do with releasing your negative emotions. It’s that simple. Your negative emotions (grief, sadness, frustration, anger, etc.) all come from fear. Boil down any bad feelings about your situation and you will find fear. Why are you afraid? Boil down all of the consequences of your fears coming true and you’ll find that what you’re really scared of is losing control and/or acceptance. Loss of control may equal late payments, bankruptcy, and/or foreclosure. Loss of acceptance could be the stigma associated with your situation and/or a damaged credit report that will haunt you for years. To recap, all negative emotions come down to fear and the only things to fear are loss of control or loss of acceptance.
Stop needing to be in control and choose not to care whether or not other people accept you, and you will be acting rich. It also means accepting responsibility, both for your current situation and for your future. You must also own your full responsibility for both whatever is happening to you today and whatever will happen to you in the future. You did this to yourself; nothing and no one did this for you or to you. If you want to know who is responsible (able to respond) to everything that’s wrong (and right) in your life, the answer is no further than your nearest mirror.
So here you are, fully accepting of responsibility, having let go of the need to control and be accepted. And you’re still in the same situation. What now?
Now you learn to manage what you do have. It’s like learning to fly a plane. Nobody starts off flying big jets. Instead, you learn to fly simple little propeller planes and eventually work yourself up to the big time. It’s the same with money. Learn to manage your finances and create a budget that pays you first, no matter what. Invest the first 10% of every dollar you earn in yourself, such as in a savings or retirement account and don’t touch it. Everyone else can fend for themselves. Don’t have enough left over to pay others after paying yourself first? Tough… for them! It’s your money and you earned it, so you must keep the first 10% for yourself, period. Here’s the interesting part: If you do pay yourself the first 10% in the form of long-term savings or investment, then there will probably be enough left over to take care of everyone else!
Look at it this way: If you’re struggling to pay bills—especially debt—each month then you are literally working for other people and have every incentive to do as little as possible. Start paying yourself first by saving or investing that 10% no matter what… and you will suddenly have strong incentive to earn more money, which will help you pay down your bills that much faster. The best part is that this works both subconsciously and counter intuitively. You may feel like you’re doing wrong but you’re actually on the right track. Work with your creditors to reduce interest rates, payments, etc. The silver lining to this rotten economy is that creditors are extremely keen to work with you for mutual benefit. You may want to talk to a financial planner, read some books, or take some course on money management. Do whatever you need to do to make sure that you are managing your precious resources as efficiently as possible. As soon as you master managing your current amount of money, you’ll be able to manage more… and more… and more. This road ends in one place: with you being rich!
Next, decide what really matters to you in life. Here is the simple truth: You are going to die. Not for a long time, I hope, but your end is inevitable. If there is nothing beyond this life, if it all fades to black, then every second that passes is a second gone forever and you literally have no time to waste. If, however, there is some form of continuity (as I believe there must be, for purely scientific reasons), then my analogy says that the better you do in first grade, the better prepared you’ll be to handle second grade.
This brings up a simple question: In your last few moments of this life as you look back from your deathbed powerless to do a thing… as you draw your last breath… what do you want to have taken, given, seen, learned, been, experienced, etc? What exactly do you need to accomplish so that you can die without regrets? The last thought anyone should die with are “if only!” This question therefore gives you a very simple test that you must always keep in mind: If anything in your life (job, money, friends, etc.) is not contributing to your desired final vision for your life, then let it go and move on. This involves nothing less than finding and living your life’s mission. Everybody has a mission and you are no exception. If you are not living in accordance with that mission, then no wonder your financial situation stinks.
Remember that wealth has nothing to do with money. Wealth is a state of spirit, not of bank account. If you were born to study obscure native tribes in far-flung lands and that’s what you do in life then you will be rich beyond measure even if your bank account is a little lean. Get the huge bank account and fancy stuff without living your life’s purpose and you’ll be even more miserable than you are right now (or, more accurately, you’ll feel whatever negative emotions you currently feel, only far more strongly).
What this all boils down to is:
- Learn to manage what you do have.
- Pay yourself first
- Find out exactly(!) what matters to you in this life and embrace that with all you have.
- Let go of and forget about all else.
This is what it means to act rich. Act rich and I dare say you’ll find yourself becoming wealthy.
To jump-start your path to being rich, find and learn from rich people. By “rich”, I mean someone who has both a big bank account and a big heart. Someone like that is truly wealthy and also truly believes that a rising tide lifts all boats. I have a college degree and am in grad school… and here I am learning from a high school dropout. Jim Britt (who leads the MOXXOR WORKS Team) had everything going against him and he turned that into a life that has touched over a million people while also making him financially independent. I had a lot more going for me than he did and here I am having never touched a million people’s lives nor been overly generous to my finances.
The simple truth is that what you know about money today just isn’t serving you… because you aren’t rich. So throw it all out! Then go out and learn from people who are where you want to be, both financially and in life overall. The best ones to learn from are (not coincidentally) the ones who will be most interested in teaching/mentoring/guiding you. Jim and I co-founded the MOXXOR WORKS Team along with Louis Volpe and Sid Smith to do just that.
I am practicing what I preach as a co-founder of the MOXXOR WORKS Team, and I can truly say that I have never had the door of opportunity opened wider than I do today. Yes I would love for it to all happen today… but I have to keep reminding myself to let go and let things flow as they will. I am reminded of the words a pastor spoke one Sunday: Every day, the Creator (however you define that concept) is trying to give each of us a blessing. The problem is that we place so many expectations and demands that the blessing arrives either mangled beyond recognition or not at all. This lesson is also clear: Everything that happens, no matter how dire, is a blessing if (and only if) you choose to see it that way. It doesn’t matter how bad any given event seems. Choose to see it as a blessing and be thankful, and you will be blessed every single day.
Surrender!
Get rid of the fear that leads you to seek control and acceptance. Fear really does snuff out your inner light, as you’ll learn when you read The Field by Lynne McTaggart (this book is a must read). We fear losing control because we don’t want to drift aimlessly. We fear loss of acceptance because we are social beings to our cores. Consider moments when you have truly surrendered… when, for example, you stood before someone and said, “I love you” with total openness. In that moment you surrendered control and had no idea if your love would be accepted or not. You bared yourself beyond naked and exposed your innermost self. That took strength! That opened you up to receive a blessing far, far greater than any kind of expectation or fear ever could.
How did those moments of surrender feel? You can learn to observe your feelings every second of every day. For every feeling, ask yourself if it is beneficial (moving you closer to what you want) or harmful (moving you away from what you want). If closer, fine! Experience the feeling and let it flow through you. If not, find a way to channel the energy you have built up (again, emotion is defined as energy in motion) into a more positive place. It takes practice, but you can do it. You can feel however you want to feel any time you want to feel it. So why not reward yourself for doing well and forgive yourself when you stray?
Your needs to control and be accepted (your fear) exist because at one point you faced real or perceived dangers. Since everything is perceived, there really is very little distinction between “real” and “perceived” from an individual point of view. Your fear protected you from danger and thus helped save your life. Therefore, it is critically important to love your fear just as much as you love your “good” feelings. It has done its job of protecting you to perfection and now that job is done. Treat your fear with love just like a delicious meal that eventually ends, leaving you with all of the benefits of a full tummy, happy memories, and resources for the future that you would never dream of feeling bad about. You ate the meal of fear, you’re finished, and you can leave the table fulfilled and ready to move on. Acting rich really is that easy.
Anthony Hernandez
Anthony Hernandez is a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Business Association Coach and author of Guerrilla Marketing Success Secrets with over 20 years of successful self-employment experience. He is proud to be a co-founding member of the MOXXOR WORKS Team. Visit the MOXXOR WORKS Team Web site to learn more about the MOXXOR WORKS Team and our home-based opportunity.
