What keeps people poor, stuck in the middle class, or in constant fear and worry with money?
More than picking the right investment, or being lucky, it comes down to ONE KEY FACTOR.
This one factor is hard for people to see. But when they do see it, it is obvious and can unlock new levels of wealth and prosperity. But it requires being uncomfortable, raising the stakes, and trusting yourself.
Over time, people develop patterns. They get stuck in ruts, create excuses, and develop limited beliefs that destroy wealth and rob them of their best life. They use these excuses to prevent progress because of their comfort zone.
Part of this is because we are taught to build net worth over our self-worth or network. We are taught to build our balance sheet at the expense of our quality of life or investing in ourselves.
What prevents you from the next level of life, the big leap, or a life you love? What success are you afraid of?
Until you fully value yourself and commit to being the consummate value creator, your life will be filled with limitations. Until this problem is addressed, no amount of luck, saving, discipline, or rate of return will ultimately matter.
Building wealth doesn’t take 30 years to handle, or discipline or budgeting, leading to exhaustion and a lower quality of life.
The key factor to your best life is as vital and invisible as air—suffocating when there isn’t enough.
Getting past the conversations that hold you back, speaking the life you love into existence, means identifying and eliminating your blind spots. Your “trump cards” that you play. Those things you say that have people let you off the hook with excuses or stories that no longer serve you.
I’ve had people tell me they have cancer so they didn’t have to be accountable. Some people have health stories, family stories, spouse stories, kids’ stories, etc. They don’t feel well, they didn’t get sleep, they are fighting with their spouse, they turn on the tears to avoid accountability, they may use their charm—anything that keeps them from getting what they really want.
I don’t blame you for your money stories. I have had to deal with my own.
These stories allow you to feel safe and comfortable and hold onto what you have.
The problem is, these stories push away, even lock away your best life.
The very thing that prevents you from enjoying your life more, feeling and living wealthy, and living a life you love may have been handed down by the people you love: well-intentioned family, friends, preachers, and teachers. Or they may have been created before your brain was fully formed as a child.
And your money stories have worked—at least to a degree, and until now.
How you are taught to build wealth is filled with risk, slow, dogmatic, and problematic. It is at odds with you growing your skillset, investing in yourself, and doing things that don’t immediately build your bank account, but build your value.
Until you remove the excuses (lies, really) of:
“I’ll do it later.”
“I don’t have the time.”
“I don’t have the money.”
“I need to think about it more.” (When used as an excuse rather than an action.)
“Can you send me some more information to look over?” WTF?
Ask better questions. Ask your mentors, your peers, or the person enrolling you into your best life.
What are you afraid of?
Stop lying to yourself. Are you saying something just to be liked, even if you won’t follow through?
“Maybe” is a lie.
“Later” is a lie.
“I don’t have the money” is a limitation and often a lie.
“I don’t have the time” is an admission of mismanagement, usually a lie.
Most people have the money; it is just money they never consider using…tapping into savings, a retirement plan, taking a loan from cash value. There are often options, but due to fear, people remain stuck.
Often, the excuse of “I don’t have the time” is a form of escapism when faced with a new reality, a new possibility.
What would you have to stop doing that no longer serves you to find time to do what matters most?
If you don’t have the time, you are stuck in a faulty model. Doing too much by yourself, not allowing others to serve you, and probably holding onto your money by saving it instead of hiring.
How often are you watching TV, listening to podcasts, doing low-skilled work to save money, being busy but not productive? Checking social media, email, watching and reading about politics, the news, and other things that aren’t aligned with your best life?
“I need to think about it” is what people say who don’t trust themselves. Did you ask the right questions? Is it the right program and mentor for you? Will this help you get beyond the things holding you back?
If you are asking for more information, it means you are holding back with the people trying to help you. Is it because you were oversold in the past? Is it due to a lack of acting in the past? What went wrong, and what can you learn from it?
It is perfectly fine to say no to something that is not a fit. But to use time, money, thinking, a spouse, or saying later are all things that harm and hold you back. It is from faulty thinking and fear. It is a flat-out lie. Stop lying to yourself and others. Otherwise, you will create a certain and almost predictable future. Limited. Destructive.
Ask for what you want. Be clear about what you are looking for and investigate who can help you get where you want. Be resourceful and be responsible for your results.
If you have made mistakes in the past or are afraid to take a leap of faith in your own life and business, you will create an artificial ceiling. Thinking you will just work harder or save more isn’t the best path. Cultivate the lessons, count it as an expensive tuition and move forward. Otherwise, it will lead to a story that holds you back.
Allowing scarcity to run and ruin your life won’t help.
I know you may ask:
What if it doesn’t work?
What if I can’t do it?
Instead, ask:
What will it take?
How could I afford it?
What will this teach me?
What will this cost me to do on my own, without support?
Is this the right coach, mentor, program, or firm for me? Do we share the values, do I like them and trust them (even if you question yourself)?
What is my time worth?
How much time will this save me?
Where can I collapse time and make more money by investing in myself?
What is the cost if I don’t do this?
Is this worth the money?
How can I implement and make this a great investment of time and money?
Is this the best way for me to get results or what other options exist?
I can tell if someone is poor, stuck, and addicted to excuses within 60 seconds by what they say.
Our words matter.
Our conversations matter.
Our mindset matters.
If wealth is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, and life will require more effort and energy to get by. Reducing expenses is not the key to wealth—the key is creating more value. Increasing the right expenses.
Talk is not cheap, but cheap talk is cheap.
“I’ll get to it later”….cheap.
Saying “yes” when what we mean is “no”…cheap.
“Maybe”…cheap.
“I can’t”….cheap.
“Let me think about it”….cheap.
Ask about it so you can accelerate your thinking.
Be honest.
Ask better questions.
Get past your limitations and leverage expertise.
If you are your greatest asset, what amount do you invest to care for yourself?
What do you do to protect and grow your energy?
To protect and grow your mindset?
To grow and enjoy a high quality of life?
Financial freedom can happen in a moment. Breakthroughs happen when we feel we are worth the investment and increase our quality of life, invest in care to increase our energy (nutritionist, trainer, functional medicine doctor, therapist, etc.), and grow our wealth by expanding our conversation to one of value and vision over survival and fear.
It all starts with a choice. The choice of responsibility. Honesty, integrity with our word, and possibility and expansion with our conversation and action.
When you realize no one can or should care more about your money than you, and that no one is coming to save you if you don’t save yourself, you can finally break through.
You can create financial freedom.
A bigger vision, better conversation, and a transformed life.
A responsible life filled with results, co-creation, and collaboration.
Again, it can happen in a moment.
An instant.
It is a choice.
It is where money is no longer the reason or excuse you do or don’t do something, it is still a consideration, just not THE consideration.
It is where you see yourself as your greatest asset. And you see your balance sheet and bank account as stored value that can be deployed for your highest good, your greatest value.
Freedom doesn’t exist in a bank account or balance sheet because inflation, tax and economic changes can impact that from day-to-day, month-to-month, moment to moment.
Financial freedom lives in your mind, your belief system, your perspective. A thought. An emotion. The feeling of being happy, joyful, and being present. In choice.
Stop allowing risk to ruin and run your life. Don’t relegate your wealth and prosperity to chance. If you are handing your money over and hoping for the best and chasing returns by taking risks or avoiding risk at all costs by cutting back so much you have no enjoyment with your money, you lose.
You unlock yourself by investing in yourself. Your quality of life, your energy, your skills. When you realize value is perspective, and you determine what you value and you are responsible for being a value creator, you can have a breakthrough in wealth. The day you invest in you, you win. You grow. You learn.
When you realize that every material thing you see in the world started as an idea in someone’s mind, it begins with an idea; then when we speak the idea out loud, it becomes a concept. It becomes more concrete. And those that take the idea to concept, then concept to framework (delegating and engaging others), are the ones who own their life, and create their future.
There is a cycle of creation, and the future is yours if you are bold enough to speak it into existence…
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
What are you speaking into existence? Worry, fear, and blame? Or Inspiration, vision, and creation?
You chose. In this moment. Will you:
- Complain or create?
- Be the victim or the victor?
- Succumb to fear, doubt, and worry, or chose innovation, ingenuity, and inspiration?
- Focus on the past and be burdened by regret, or be focused on the present and be filled with hope?
The bottom line is this: When you confront you past and current beliefs, you can create an exponential life. Your faulty money stories are holding you back and hurting you. Your bank account, assets, and cash flow are growing or shrinking based upon the story you tell yourself and others as well.
Is it time to tell a better story?
