Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

If you want to be rich, a good way to achieve this is by thinking, acting, and behaving like a rich person.

It was from this idea that T. Harv Eker wrote the book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. It is a book that explains seventeen ways of thinking that differentiate rich-minded people from poor-minded people.

These mental models that differentiate rich and poor are called “wealth files”.

To avoid poverty and achieve financial prosperity, we have to model rich-minded people.

Modeling means being inspired and following similar behaviors. We therefore want to adopt the ways of thinking and acting that differentiate the rich from other people. Thus, the chances of achieving our financial independence are greatly increased.

In today’s Arata Academy Summary, we’ll look at each of the seventeen wealth files that make up the Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.

1. Rich people believe the following idea: “I create my own life.” Poor-minded people believe the following idea: “In my life, things happen.”

Being the protagonist of your own life is a recurring theme in the area of ​​personal development. This also holds true for your financial future: you need to be the protagonist. This means that you must be responsible for creating your future.

The honest people who built their fortunes from scratch had to be proactive. This is creating your own life: studying, working, connecting with other people.

The opposite of creating one’s life is taking a reactive attitude. This is equivalent to being a victim who says “in my life things happen”. Without believing in the possibility of changing our lives, we are powerless. We believe our future is already determined by the circumstances. Victimization is not taking responsibility for one’s own outcome and always blaming others and complaining.

Of course, the starting point has a great weight on each person’s financial situation. Pay attention to your case for example. You have the advantage of having access to electricity and internet connection and so you are here. Therefore, you have a privileged situation compared to someone who lives in absolute misery. This advantage will help you build your life with financial prosperity.

Whenever I speak of poor mindset and rich mindset, I am not talking about people in situations of absolute poverty or misery. The conversation is here between us that we have access to the internet. The poor mindset can be in person with the latest model of smartphone and driving a luxury car and at the same time worried about debts to pay.

Keep focus on what you can control. The first wealth file is not about things you can’t control. When you believe in the idea of ​​“I create my own life,” you will immediately stop complaining, justifying yourself, and blaming others or circumstances. And so you can devote your attention to the choices you can make.

2. Rich people play the money game to win. Poor-minded people get into the money game not to lose.

Rich minded people start businesses, launch products, invest in stocks, expose themselves to risk. They risk their own skin and so can reap fruits with high returns. The focus of attention is on the pursuit of high returns. The millionaire mind is playing to win.

Those with a poor mind focus on low risk, a false sense of security. Unfortunately, low risk opportunities often have low returns. The poor mind is playing not to lose. These are people who leave their money in savings because it is supposed to be safe. They stay in the same job for years without asking for a raise for fear of losing everything. And so they are slaves to their own work for the rest of their lives.

3. Rich people make a commitment to be rich. Poor-minded people would like to be rich.

The reason people don’t get what they want is because they don’t know what they want. I ask you: what do you want from your life? Can you describe in every detail what exactly you want? Do you know what steps are needed to achieve what you want? Are you ready to pay the price and really commit?

To be rich, you need to commit to that goal. Commitment means cutting out all other possibilities and doing what needs to be done until the goal is met. No excuses.

This is different from trying to be rich. When someone says “I will try,” that means they will make a try or two and if they can’t, they will give up saying it didn’t work out. The person who says “I’m committed” will keep trying as many times as necessary until the desired result is achieved.

Poor-minded people just say they would like to be rich, but they don’t really use their full potential to commit to meeting that goal.

4. Rich people think big. Poor-minded people think small.

Thinking big means seeing plenty of opportunities and large-scale profits. And to profit on a large scale you must offer huge value on a large scale.

Scale represents large amounts. And quality is just as important: You must devote your enthusiasm to delivering something superior by being innovative. And your focus should be on figuring out what the market needs.

The reason so many people think small is the fear of failure, the fear of loss, and the fear of not being adequate enough. To stop thinking small, you have to understand what product or service you can offer that will contribute to other people’s lives. And if this contribution is really going to help other people, you have an obligation to think big and offer your work to as many people as possible.

If you think small, you will perform few actions and will not do your best. You will be hiding from the world. This will only lead to a path of resentment and scarcity. When you think big, you have a bigger impact and will naturally reap the rewards for a life of abundance.

5. Rich people focus on opportunities. Poor-minded people focus on obstacles.

Improve your interpretation of reality. Focusing on the problem is thinking about why our project will not work. Focusing on the solution is thinking about how to overcome difficulties.

In the event of a problem, we must quickly gather the information necessary to take the first step toward the solution. And as we implement the plan, we are fixing defects and adding improvements, turning obstacles into opportunities.

The opposite is to be paralyzed. Don’t be procrastinating, looking for the perfect solution out of fear of failure. The fear of taking the first step comes at the price of letting the opportunity pass.

Rich-minded people focus more on opportunities. Meanwhile, poorly minded people focus only on obstacles, always reactively placing themselves as victims of circumstances.

6. Rich people admire other rich and successful individuals. Poor-minded people resent those who are rich and successful.

This is perhaps one of the most important secrets of the millionaire mind.

From an early age, we are taught to see rich people as villains. In books, series, movies and comics, the rich are usually greedy people of bad character. They went over the others to earn their fortune.

There is inconsistency if you want to get rich while carrying many negative associations about money and wealth. When someone says that they would rather be happy than be rich, they believe that it is not possible to be rich and also happy. There is a limiting belief and therefore there is no coherence between intention and implementation.

If in our mind being rich is synonymous with being bad, we are unlikely to want to become something we think is bad. No one wants to be the villain of the story.

Remember the importance of shaping our behavior to achieve results. If you have envy, resentment or contempt for rich people, you just won’t be able to reproduce the same kind of behavior.

Therefore, you should admire and be inspired by those who have the result you desire. What are the feelings you have about successful people? Can you realize the merits of these people? What changes can you make? What attitudes should you also take?

There are good and bad rich people, just as there are good and bad poor people. Money only enhances one’s character.

7. Rich people seek the company of positive and successful individuals. Poor-minded people seek the company of negative and failed individuals.

You are the average of the people you live with. We assimilate the habits, behaviors and even the way we talk from the people we spend the most time with. Notice how in your circle of friendship people have more or less similar characteristics.

You create your own life. And to create your life, one of the most important choices is to select which people you will live with. Don’t waste your time trying to change other people. You just control your own behavior. Raise your standards and live with successful, positive people. When you live with rich-minded people, it will also positively affect your thinking and acting.

You may be thinking that you don’t have access to rich people. If so, you can get along with these people indirectly by reading books written by rich people, watching videos of successful people, listening to audios from those people. Any form of contact is better than no contact at all.

8. Rich people enjoy promoting themselves. Poor-minded people do not appreciate sales or self-promotion.

Many poor-minded people believe that self-promotion is inappropriate and even shameful behavior.

Rich-minded people don’t have this bias with sales and self-promotion. They know they will prosper only if they are offering some valuable product or service that improves the lives of others. And because of this they feel the duty to promote so that people know about the products and services being sold.

If you have difficulty promoting your products or services or promoting yourself, understand why. Maybe in the past someone unpleasant has promoted something for you and even today you carry a negative association about promotions. Perhaps you have tried to promote something to someone in the past and it did not work well and it has caused a trauma that persists to this day. Perhaps you have been brought up to think that it is wrong to promote yourself or believe that your work is sophisticated and intellectual and that selling and promoting are lower-level tasks.

9. Rich people are bigger than their problems. Poor-minded people are smaller than their problems.

A problem is only something that gets in the way when you can’t solve the problem. Poor-minded people live in a world of scarcity and so they interpret the situation to believe that they are smaller than the problems.

Meanwhile, rich-minded people study, develop, risk and end up getting bigger than their problems. And so they wind up in financial life much faster.

The size of the problem does not matter. What matters is your size. As you develop and grow, you can overcome problems by focusing on the solution.

10. Rich people are excellent receivers. Poor-minded people are terrible receivers.

If money is a big taboo for most people, collecting and receiving money is an even bigger taboo.

Poor-minded people don’t like to charge for payments and often get shy even to receive money.

While the rich know how to charge and especially like to receive money, those with a poor mind prefer not to talk about it for fear of committing some unkindness.

Even when someone gives a gift or money, poor-minded people soon say they don’t have to worry, it’s okay. Many even return or refuse to receive the offer.

The lesson here is clear. If you do not like to receive money or if you are not open to large sums, you can hardly get rich.

11. Rich people prefer to be paid for results. Poor-minded people prefer to be paid for time.

The problem with getting wages on a job is that you are trading time for money. Trading time for money is an obstacle to wealth. Time is limited and you will never be able to work more than twenty-four hours in a day.

The rich understand this and use other ways to make money. Sources of income should not be limited by a factor such as the amount of hours in the day. The wealth should depend directly on the performance of your staff, your companies, and your investments and commissions.

Thus, those with a rich mindset are always motivated to improve a little to get better results and make even more money.

12. Rich people think, “I can have both.” Poor-minded people think, “I can have one thing or another.”

Poor-minded people think of scarcity and therefore make false choices. They think, for example, that they may “be poor and happy or rich and sad.” This is a false choice because money and happiness have no relationship in which one excludes the other.

You just need to make choices between similar items. You can have a successful career or a mediocre career on average. And you can have a good relationship with your family, or a bad relationship. But there is no relationship between having a successful professional career and having bad relationships. We can choose a good career and good relationships.

13. Rich people focus on their net worth. Poor-minded people focus on their monthly income.

What is financial independence? This goal means forming a net worth so large that you could stop working for the rest of your life. You only work if you want to, because your passive income is enough to pay all the expenses.

This does not mean that you will stop working. It means you will work with whatever you want. This is a fundamental difference, because those who work for obligation can hardly generate results as good as those who work for pleasure.

While the rich are looking to accumulate wealth, poor-minded people look only at salaries and benefits they will earn every month to pay their bills and survive until the following month.

To increase your equity, you need to increase your active and passive income. This means that you will receive more for your daily work as well as more passive income.

This income should be saved as it is no use just earning a lot if you spend a lot. Simplify and cut spending on superfluous items that do not contribute to your quality of life.

You must also spend your time and resources learning more and more about investments and everything needed to keep improving.

14. Rich people manage their money well. Poor-minded people mismanage their money.

To be rich, you need to control your spending, have financial education and manage your money well. No matter how much you earn, if you spend badly, you can hardly get rich.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you first need to have plenty of money before you start learning how to manage money.

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind recommends that you manage your money as follows:

There are two points that I would like to comment on here.

The first is the fun account. The idea of ​​separating ten percent of your income to spend on hobbies, fun and leisure is that it makes no sense to work to make money and live a lifetime of restraint until later, when we are old and less healthy, perhaps, enjoy a little.

The fun account also brings a little bit of money psychology. If we do not give our brain enough rewards, sooner or later we will sabotage ourselves. We want to associate money making with good things.

The second intereresting point is donating ten percent of all we earn. This is a rule that many religions and philosophies of life recommend to strengthen the muscle of compassion.

When we help others, we strengthen our association between money and positive things, and we also detach ourselves from money by taking our eyes off spreadsheets and focusing our attention on the welfare of others in need.

15. Rich people put their money to work hard for them. Poor-minded people work hard for their money.

Rich minded people don’t just work to make money. They also make money work for them.

That means knowing how to invest. Know how to analyze companies to buy the best stocks. Know how to be an entrepreneur. Know how to find good opportunities to buy low and sell high.

Few people can make any money at the end of the month. And among those who can, few people can invest that money. This is a big difference in the thinking of rich and poor.

16. Rich people act despite fear. Poor-minded people are paralyzed by fear.

Everyone feels fear. The rich person is also afraid of investing money and having losses. The difference is that they can act despite fear, while poor-minded people are paralyzed by fear. See episode 131 of the series Hello! Seiiti Arata which is about acting despite fear.

Whether starting a business, making an investment or even asking for a raise, rich-minded people take action even in fear. On the other hand, poor-minded people are thinking, preparing, weighing pros and cons, and never going into action because they were stopped by fear of what might happen.

17. Rich people learn and improve all the time. Poor-minded people believe they already know everything.

When it comes to financial education, entrepreneurship, and investment opportunities, the rich keep a beginner’s mind. They are always interested in learning more, in improving all the time. The goal is always to know how to make money work harder and better.

On the other hand, poor-minded people believe they already know everything they can know. They believe that those who are born poor will die poor and there is nothing to do.

At Arata Academy, our motto is Your Continued Improvement. We understand that your personal and professional development requires that you continually improve, absorb new knowledge and put into practice what works.

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind is a book that opens the eyes of many people to face some taboos that separate rich and poor. Taboos like the idea of who is rich is bad person, that who is born poor will die poor or that you have to choose between being rich or being happy.

The Seventeen Wealth Files are a great starting point for you to start thinking and acting like a rich minded person, increasing your chances of getting rich in the long run.

But there are other financial taboos that were not explored in the book. I recorded a special class from Truly Wealthy where I show what financial taboos these are. You can view this class right now by visiting this link.