The Science of Getting Rich

[moonrambler]

I read this book through one time, and found some ideas in it that really grabbed my attention. However, I found myself disagreeing with the author right and left, and it's highlighting some of my money issues. I would appreciate some discussion/advice on these difficulties.

Today I started again with the plan to read it more slowly, studying, chapter by chapter, and here's what's happening.

The first sentence in the first chapter: Whatever may be said in praise of poverty, the fact remains that it is not possible to live a really complete or successful life unless one is rich.

The author is indeed talking about monetary wealth. "Rich." Not just making ends meet or even middle-class. He is definitely talking about "rich." And immediately I thought, "That's not true."

I read the next couple pages but I kept hearing myself saying, "That's not true."

I thought of these people:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_and_Scott_Nearing

That isn't the life I want for myself to that extreme, but I embraced a lot of those principles, Mother Earth News type of lifestyle, way back in high school, and it is a distinctive clash with the idea of making lots of money.

I am fed up with the constant monetary struggle. But I find myself ensnared by continuous disagreements within myself.

[RT Wolf]

4-Hour Workweek? The E-Myth is also supposed to have some information on limiting beliefs related to money?

Why do you disagree?

I always thought that a book that just contains lists of common/possible limiting beliefs would be fantastic.

I'm trying to deal with my limiting beliefs around money, too. I'm having trouble figuring out why I would want a surplus. Having more than I need, although need is so uselessly defined. I don't need new clothes, I could just go to a used clothing store. Our basic NEEDs are very few. UNless I start to think of higher-level needs like Abraham Maslow suggests. Yes, that feels right.

The other thing is that my conscience won't allow me to provide service to people other than trying to feed the hungry or so forth. That's entirely admirable, of course, but I feel that I should always be working to improve the lives of those that are simply hungry than deal with higher-level needs like improving productivity or happiness in people's lives. It simply seems nobler.

I've been trying to figure out how we deal with abundance. We have an abundance of air and water, for example, and time to an extent.

Maybe I do feel that money is osmething that needs to be exchanged (even though air isn't) and that creating value that can be exchanged for money is hard.

I like to ask, why don't I have this goal already? And that can raise some interesting beliefs which may be limiting or not. For example, Why don't I already make 1000 dollars a month passively:

- I don't have any good ideas for niche products that would do that
- I haven't taken any action to this goal
- It's hard to do that
- 1000 dollars sounds great, but beyond that I really wouldn't know what to do with the money. Honestly, I could improve my liestyle but I feel I'd probably end up giving that money away or it would just sit around. I don't think I can really spend that much money like that.
- Ok, say I do maek that much money, what if my sources dry up while I'm off enjoying life or whatever. The way around this is to remember that I can just take up a joba nd that over time I'd build more passive streams.
- What if I run out of customers?
- What if my product isn't good enoug?
- If I was making money easily, people would ask me for it and I'd feel compelled to give it to them cause its easier for me to make it than for others.

I think it'd be easier if I personally knew some people who did this sorta thing. Why the hell do we have such a complicated relationship with money? I don't feel bad if I have more air or whatever. Is money really so weird that it needs twenty thousand conditions?

I guess that's the nature of abundance,t hat you don't worry about not having enough, but you knw its there if/when you wnat mre of it. If I want to take a longer shower, for example, I just take it.

Sorry about the rambling nature oft he post and possible thread hijacking, but if anyone's got insight on this I'd love to hear it.

[torilink]

We hold many interesting beliefs about money, don't we?

I hear you saying that you believe that less is more - or that poverty or being in a state of lack of monetary wealth makes a person "Better" or somehow "Superior" to those who are rich.

You have told yourself, and adopted as a belief that you don't need to be rich and have all you desire to be complete & successful. On the surface this sounds like a great thought structure because you are telling yourself that happiness isn't about money, isn't about things, isn't about houses, cars, or any other illusory thing - and that is so, but if you exchange the words "Free of lack" for "Rich" then that changes the tone of the message.

Lack isn't just about money & things - it is a mindset that projects itself in every life situation and even the self concept.

To be RICH is to be free of lack - or to be abundant - or in other words to be in your true state of being which is complete & whole.

so I think his statement is 100% accurate - If you are complete & whole, free from all belief in lack -then your manifest world will be a witness to that.

[moonrambler]

It is rather awful.

What I keep hearing as an answer to myself when I think of living a homesteading life while having a million dollars in the bank, is that "it's fake."

I mentioned this feeling of "it's fake" when I first started posting here, in regard to acting as if I was wealthy. And somebody suggested I take a look at that feeling, but I don't know where to go with it.

I've been immersed for so long in the world of environmental Greenpeace types, old hippies, back-to-the-landers, somehow that seems 'real' while doing it with a million bucks behind us feels 'fake.'

Like Al Gore seems fake, with his carbon offsets.

It's fake because if you have all that money, you don't have to homestead. You don't have to live that way. You can live abundantly. And then the thought I get is "wasteful."

Steve addressed this really well in one of his blogs. I do have issues with it though. To me a $10,000 hotel room is extremely wasteful, because I see absolutely no benefit to it. It doesn't matter if I have 300 trillion dollars, a $10,000 hotel room is still wasteful. You could get a $500 hotel room and give $9,500 to the homeless shelter.

A girlfriend and I once spent a weekend in a city because we were participating in some environmental protest or another. And there was some giant convention there and so the only hotel room we could get was in a penthouse which had an open free bar and gigantic appetizer buffet for about five hours in the evening. You had to have a key to use the elevator to get to this floor.

We spent the days at the environmental protest with a bunch of people who were driving cars that barely ran and were probably living in apartments with lawn furniture. And so we felt wasteful going back to our hotel at night.

There's also a thought of, "Oh sure, it's easy for you. You have all that money."

Like if I have a million dollars in the bank and I set up a homestead with giant gardens and got immersed in canning/preserving, off-grid energy, and so on . . . "Oh sure, it's easy for you, you have all that money."

Man, I don't know how to get around this. People speak of limiting beliefs as being programmed by others when they were young, but I programmed myself and that seems to make it even harder to break free of it.

[Joely]

I was brought up with very much these beliefs: successful people are cheats and selfish, the rich are all obsessed with money and only got it by stealing and cheating, all the same ideas. And yet a huge section of my family is very well off indeed.

Torilink is absolutely right - being rich is about more than money or things. I'm starting to consider myself to be "rich" because I have wealth in other terms. It's taken me a long time to shed the idea of "just having enough to get by" because I'm starting to realise that actually, that is holding me back. Not from having the next pair of Jimmy Choos or an Austin Martin Vanquish, but because I can't sign up for charities. I can't buy presents for the children I sponsor in Africa and Brazil, and I can't afford to sponsor more children and help maintain their communities.

I'm teaching myself to see money as a kind of energy. When you have access to a lot of that energy, you can do a massive amount with it, not just for yourself but for the world.

There was a time when I couldn't even read books on wealth and finance. Now I'm running my own business!

[moonrambler]

Being rich is indeed about more than money or things, but this book is about money and things, and it's one of the reasons I've decided to delve into to it further -- because money and things is my problem.

I know the book is actually about more than money or things, but right now, I want a breakthrough in regard to money.

When I read about Scott and Helen Nearing, it makes me feel emotional, like I can't authentically live like that if I have a million dollars in the bank.

Having lots of money feels like it isn't authentic. There is this giant brick wall in front of me that separates me from money, and the wall says "It's fake."

What is that??

When I was out of college for a couple years, I was involved with a guy who was making good money, and we used to get all dressed up and go out for dinner at really great restaurants, and although I loved doing that, I continued feeling uncomfortable that he was making so much money, and I kept feeling nostalgic about the days back in college when we were all so poor, and very happy. I kept thinking about 99-cent night at the Alibi, where you could hand over 99 cents and they'd give you a cup and you could drink beer out of it all night long. I had a wonderful college boyfriend and we were so broke and happy, and one night we managed to scrape together 99 cents between us and share a cup all night at the Alibi.

Why in the world does that feel real, and happy, while wearing expensive clothes and eating great food at wonderful restaurants feels fake?

[RT Wolf]

Moonrambler, the same feeling that you are talking about I have. The logical answer I've got is something like, there is great abundance in the world for everyone, not just you. So because everyone can have as much as they want themselves, you are not obligated to give it to them or to withhold it from yourself.

The other annoying thing is what seems wasteful changes easily. Peeling an apple and throwing away the peel is wasteful to some people, for example. Buying the organic apples that are a bit moe money are also wasteful tos ome people.

Grrr. How annoying. Among the best advice I've actually gotten on this subject is to just do it. Get the money and worry about the rest later. I know from LoA we feel like we're just living in our heads, but this advice has actually been pretty useful to me lately.

While rationally these answers make sense, I don't feel it. There is some other issue that needs to square this stuff with my conscience.

[RT Wolf]

One of thing I"m realizing is that I'm afraid of the judgement of other people. Being authentic is important to me, but I"m also afraid of people calling me inauthentic. I call these people hecklers now.

Maybe you used to denounce rich people and now you're afraid of the same denouncement?

[RT Wolf]

Seen this today?

Effortless Wealth and Abundance

[torilink]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

It is rather awful.

What I keep hearing as an answer to myself when I think of living a homesteading life while having a million dollars in the bank, is that "it's fake."

I mentioned this feeling of "it's fake" when I first started posting here, in regard to acting as if I was wealthy. And somebody suggested I take a look at that feeling, but I don't know where to go with it.

I've been immersed for so long in the world of environmental Greenpeace types, old hippies, back-to-the-landers, somehow that seems 'real' while doing it with a million bucks behind us feels 'fake.'

Like Al Gore seems fake, with his carbon offsets.

It's fake because if you have all that money, you don't have to homestead. You don't have to live that way. You can live abundantly. And then the thought I get is "wasteful."

Steve addressed this really well in one of his blogs. I do have issues with it though. To me a $10,000 hotel room is extremely wasteful, because I see absolutely no benefit to it. It doesn't matter if I have 300 trillion dollars, a $10,000 hotel room is still wasteful. You could get a $500 hotel room and give $9,500 to the homeless shelter.

A girlfriend and I once spent a weekend in a city because we were participating in some environmental protest or another. And there was some giant convention there and so the only hotel room we could get was in a penthouse which had an open free bar and gigantic appetizer buffet for about five hours in the evening. You had to have a key to use the elevator to get to this floor.

We spent the days at the environmental protest with a bunch of people who were driving cars that barely ran and were probably living in apartments with lawn furniture. And so we felt wasteful going back to our hotel at night.

There's also a thought of, "Oh sure, it's easy for you. You have all that money."

Like if I have a million dollars in the bank and I set up a homestead with giant gardens and got immersed in canning/preserving, off-grid energy, and so on . . . "Oh sure, it's easy for you, you have all that money."

Man, I don't know how to get around this. People speak of limiting beliefs as being programmed by others when they were young, but I programmed myself and that seems to make it even harder to break free of it.

you feel "Wasteful" because you are using comparisons - or your egoic mind is comparing and you feel guilty for having what you perceive as more or better than what others in your awareness have. You are resisting what is - when you are in a hotel room and comfortable instead of enjoying that experience you are rejecting it and feeling guilty - that is your ego working really hard to keep you in a state of separation & lack.

Likewise if you have a million dollars in the bank and live simply - the voice in your head starts to tell you that you aren't genuine or authentic - you are self judging and again feeling guilty - this keeps you out of the experience and out of the moment - this keeps you in a state of lack regardless of your material wealth.

There is enough for everyone - there is no need to resist & feel guilt for being complete, abundant & whole - accept it - it is everyones true state of being.

[RT Wolf]

I just realized something. I think I don't like the idea of pursuing money for the sake of pursuing money because that really equals greed to me.

However, when you look at your goals (like spend a month in some other city) and break it down it comes back to money, so instead of my goal being spend a month there, it becomes have x money. At least that's the way its been for me. Ferriss has talked about people pursuing money so they can do "wahtever they want to" but they have no idea what they want to, so even if/when they do have the money they squander it. Ie, I was thinking about what I would do if I had passive income like that, and I came back with things like go to the gym and learn to play the guitar. I can incorporate that stuff now!

So, changing my goals: INstead of having 1000 dollars a month, I wnat to cover my expenses using passive streams of income, which works out to be about a thousand dollars but I don't really care about this arbitrary number as long as my expenses are covered. That feels a lot more compelling than making a thousand dollars a month anyway.

I also decided to donate 10% of my blog's earnings and I'm finding myself a lot more motivated to monetize it now.

I guess it comes down to why you want that money and finding a compelling reason. Making money isn't inherently compelling to me.

[torilink]

Originally Posted by RT Wolf

I just realized something. I think I don't like the idea of pursuing money for the sake of pursuing money because that really equals greed to me.

However, when you look at your goals (like spend a month in some other city) and break it down it comes back to money, so instead of my goal being spend a month there, it becomes have x money. At least that's the way its been for me. Ferriss has talked about people pursuing money so they can do "wahtever they want to" but they have no idea what they want to, so even if/when they do have the money they squander it. Ie, I was thinking about what I would do if I had passive income like that, and I came back with things like go to the gym and learn to play the guitar. I can incorporate that stuff now!

So, changing my goals: INstead of having 1000 dollars a month, I wnat to cover my expenses using passive streams of income, which works out to be about a thousand dollars but I don't really care about this arbitrary number as long as my expenses are covered. That feels a lot more compelling than making a thousand dollars a month anyway.

I also decided to donate 10% of my blog's earnings and I'm finding myself a lot more motivated to monetize it now.

I guess it comes down to why you want that money and finding a compelling reason. Making money isn't inherently compelling to me.

when something is blocking your path there are two choices, remove it or go around it. When we uproot and change our beliefs we clear the blockage and travel freely from then on.

If we instead choose to go around it, we then always will have to go around it, until we eventually decide to remove it.

my point is that you feel that pursuing money equals greed, you can choose to work around it right now - but it will remain a block on your path.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by RT Wolf

One of thing I"m realizing is that I'm afraid of the judgement of other people. Being authentic is important to me, but I"m also afraid of people calling me inauthentic. I call these people hecklers now.

Maybe you used to denounce rich people and now you're afraid of the same denouncement?

What I've denounced since I was in high school is people who make money doing work that they don't like, and so they spend 40 hours or more a week doing something that they don't like, all because they want money. Which is fine on a temporary basis, but there are multitudes of people doing this their entire lives!

I guess it became my mantra that I would rather be poor than do something I don't like doing, and from there somehow it became a mantra that going after money is inherently inauthentic, so anything I like doing would necessarily involve being broke.

Everything got all distorted along the way.

I think this is basically what I saw a lot of after college. I saw people who had great fun in their younger days, having to slog off to work 40 hours a week now, and that is not at all what they would prefer to be doing. I kept wondering what is so great about the way we have things set up, that people get to have happiness and fun up until they are about 21 and then after that, it's drudgery.

They are inauthentic. They do this job they don't like 40 hours a week and then they get all dressed up and go out for dinner at a great restaurant.

Then I suppose there is this: If I start making a big pile of money at my business, which I really enjoy, what about all the people having to do work they don't like? How am I supposed to feel about that?

These attitudes are a huge problem for me when it comes to making a significant income breakthrough.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by torilink

you feel "Wasteful" because you are using comparisons - or your egoic mind is comparing and you feel guilty for having what you perceive as more or better than what others in your awareness have. You are resisting what is - when you are in a hotel room and comfortable instead of enjoying that experience you are rejecting it and feeling guilty - that is your ego working really hard to keep you in a state of separation & lack.

Likewise if you have a million dollars in the bank and live simply - the voice in your head starts to tell you that you aren't genuine or authentic - you are self judging and again feeling guilty - this keeps you out of the experience and out of the moment - this keeps you in a state of lack regardless of your material wealth.

There is enough for everyone - there is no need to resist & feel guilt for being complete, abundant & whole - accept it - it is everyones true state of being.

Here is the thing though -- they don't have it.

If I spend $10,000 on a hotel room, I've spent the $10K. The homeless people still don't have a place to stay.

If I spend $500 on a hotel room and give $9,500 to the homeless shelter, then they can bring in more people who need help.

And yes, as RT Wolf says, what is wasteful is very different from one person to another. I am just here in my comfort zone. Throwing away an apple peel doesn't mean much to me because there are so many apples the world's population could ever eat them all. And I can't get the apple peels to the people who need them anyway.

[torilink]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

What I've denounced since I was in high school is people who make money doing work that they don't like, and so they spend 40 hours or more a week doing something that they don't like, all because they want money. Which is fine on a temporary basis, but there are multitudes of people doing this their entire lives!

I guess it became my mantra that I would rather be poor than do something I don't like doing, and from there somehow it became a mantra that going after money is inherently inauthentic, so anything I like doing would necessarily involve being broke.

Everything got all distorted along the way.

I think this is basically what I saw a lot of after college. I saw people who had great fun in their younger days, having to slog off to work 40 hours a week now, and that is not at all what they would prefer to be doing. I kept wondering what is so great about the way we have things set up, that people get to have happiness and fun up until they are about 21 and then after that, it's drudgery.

They are inauthentic. They do this job they don't like 40 hours a week and then they get all dressed up and go out for dinner at a great restaurant.

Then I suppose there is this: If I start making a big pile of money at my business, which I really enjoy, what about all the people having to do work they don't like? How am I supposed to feel about that?

These attitudes are a huge problem for me when it comes to making a significant income breakthrough.

wow those are some heavy beliefs to work through. I would only throw out this - there are people who enjoy their work. There are people who are happy working. There are people who are both wealthy & authentic. There are people who would continue doing their work/career even if they won multi-millions in the lotto tomorrow.

changing our self taught beliefs is a huge undertaking and requires both becoming aware of them and then dispelling them. Basically they are just thoughts that you've told yourself so often they've become your truth.

Sometimes we must think new thoughts and tell ourselves new truths.

[RT Wolf]

Justice in distributoin or fairness or fair play is what I've found is at the root of those feelings. I've been trying to figure it out by trying to delve into the philosophy to discover it:

Distributive justice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Haven't gotten anywhere yet.

Another notion is finding out that the pihlosophies we have today are inherited from past thinkers. Look at this:

Just price - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Although Aquinas believed all gains made in trade were wrong, he was willing to accept them as a necessary evil, provided the gains were regulated and kept within certain bounds, and provided they were directed toward a public good:

...there is no reason why gain [from trading] may not be directed to some necessary or even honourable end; and so trading will be rendered lawful; as when a man uses moderate gains acquired in trade for the support of his household, or even to help the needy...

Moral economy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Torrilink: That's a fair point. I'm not sure how to define greed then, or does greed not even exist. Greed, intuitively, has two meanings to me: 1. Pursuing something for the sake of having it and 2. Having more than you need. For example, I don't hoard air in case i run out of it, nor sunlight, nor water.

Clearly, then, I don't want more than a thousand dollars a month passive income because that would be more than I needed and thus I would be greedy and/or being accused of being greedy.

I'm loving this thread.

[Joely]

I just had a thought. I'm working on my own sense of abundance and having money too, so this is actually very relevant.

If you had so much money that you could spend $10,000 on a hotel room and not care - you would be being stingy to ONLY give $9,500 away to a shelter and stay in a $500 hotel room. Not stingy to yourself but stingy to the homeless. Because if you can spend $10k on a hotel room, you can probably afford to give away $millions to a shelter, probably in fact run a foundation that provides educational services and support rather than just a place to sleep for the night.

I've read recently in I think it was a Gill Edwards book that the idolisation of poverty, such as "making do with just a little" and going without, or homesteading, is actually very egotistical. It feeds the ego's desire to be special. Going without becomes part of a kind of internal drama, just like the one you've got going on, Moonrambler. Believe me, it's pretty endemic in one side of the family so I've had it there too all my life. Why should I ask for such-and-such a salary when I can live on just a little? Why should I live in a whopping great big two bed duplex that's the envy of all my friends when I could stay in a little box, save money and still have a roof over my head.

What I noticed, after I moved here (using the excessive apartment as an example), after living in a rotten little box for a long time, was that my mood improved. It's a matter of self-worth, allowing myself to have this space. Instead of being unable to have more than one friend visit at a time, I can hold whole parties, people can stay over and sleep in luxury. And I can feel that I have space to move around, to dance if I want to, to do pilates...

What's really going on with our obsession with being poor isn't about giving away to other people, it's about refusing to give to ourselves and thinking that sacrificial going without is somehow making us into better people. I recently had a conversation with a friend where I suddenly made the statement that it's possible to be rich and happy. He got really very upset - so upset in fact he had to excuse himself and go to the bathroom. When he came back he spent the rest of the meal coughing and repeatedly saying he was very annoyed at the idea that the rich could be happy and authentic people.

I've suddenly been making an effort to change these beliefs - Rich Dad, Poor Dad is where I started. It's really turned everything on its head for me!

[torilink]

Originally Posted by RT Wolf

Justice in distributoin or fairness or fair play is what I've found is at the root of those feelings. I've been trying to figure it out by trying to delve into the philosophy to discover it:

Distributive justice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Haven't gotten anywhere yet.

Another notion is finding out that the pihlosophies we have today are inherited from past thinkers. Look at this:

Just price - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Moral economy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Torrilink: That's a fair point. I'm not sure how to define greed then, or does greed not even exist. Greed, intuitively, has two meanings to me: 1. Pursuing something for the sake of having it and 2. Having more than you need. For example, I don't hoard air in case i run out of it, nor sunlight, nor water.

Greed to me is the egoic mind believing in limits, sacrifice & lack - there isn't enough for everyone to have all that they desire so I must go out and conquer and amass all I can before everyone else gets to it first. It is the belief in sacrifice, that in order for me to have all I desire others must go without.

When we have more than we need and are in a conscious state of being we share, I wouldn't say give or donate because that implies others were in a state of lack - but sharing is just extending.

Originally Posted by RT Wolf

Clearly, then, I don't want more than a thousand dollars a month passive income because that would be more than I needed and thus I would be greedy and/or being accused of being greedy.

I'm loving this thread.

well, there are those blasted beliefs in need & lack again. If the universe or God, or whatever way you refer to source energy is complete & whole and abundant then we truly have no need - simply desire to experience.

If your desire is to have all you desire then I'd keep that as my goal rather than set a monthly earning intention - next month or next year you may have new & bigger desires.