“Too many people spend money they havent earned, to buy things they dont want, to impress people that they dont like.” ? Will Rogers
Back to the fancy cars and big houses. Thats where much of the middle class spend their money. Drive through a middle class neighborhood and you will usually see brand new cars, expensive landscaping and high-dollar homes. The rich understand that to become wealthy, you have to want money more than you want things. If you keep buying things, your money will keep going with them. Its funny how that works. For example, Warren Buffett still lives in the same home he bought in 1958. And he only paid $31,500 for it.
Stop buying things and start focusing on keeping, saving and investing the money you earn. If you are a shopaholic, start shopping for assets. Become interested in investing, then look for bargains on stocks and businesses instead of shoes and electronics. That being said, its not all about saving your money.
Saving is important. Investing may be more important, but earning is the foundation of both. You understand that you need to save and invest, but to really achieve extravagant goals with them, you need to earn more. The rich understand this and work on creating more avenues to earn and earning more with the avenues they have. If you really want to become rich, work on your earning ability, not your saving ability.
8. The middle class are emotional with money, the rich are logical
Steve Siebold interviewed over 1,200 of the worlds wealthiest people over the past 30 years for his book “How Rich People Think”, and according to him there are more than 100 differences in how rich people look at money compared to the middle class. One of the key differences he found was that the middle class see money through the eyes of emotion, but the rich see money through the eyes of logic. Making emotional financial decisions will ruin your finances. Warren Buffett explains that investing has much more to do with controlling your emotions, than it has to do with money. Emotions are what cause people to buy high and sell low. Emotions create dangerous business deals. Leave emotions out of this and turn to logic.
9. The middle class underestimate their potential, the rich set huge goals
The middle class set goals. Sometimes. Its the capacity of the goals that differ from the middle class to the rich. The middle class set safe goals that are easily obtainable. The rich set goals that seem impossible, difficult or crazy. But they know they are achievable. It all comes back to having the proper mindset.
When youre setting your goals, ask yourself if they could be bigger. Ask yourself if thats really all you can do or if you can do more. I think you can do more.
10. The middle class believe in hard work, the rich believe in leverage
“It is much easier to put existing resources to better use than to develop resources where they do not exist.” -George Soros
Hard work is a necessity. For all of us. If you want to reach the top (whatever that may be for you), youve got to put in the work. The problem is that hard work alone will rarely make you rich. You cant become rich by doing it all yourself. You have to use leverage to truly become rich and stay that way. Leverage works in many ways, from outsourcing to investing. The more leverage you can incorporate, the more time you will free up to work on the things that really matter in your business and your life.