I wanna be Rich!

Sex. & Money.

If folk ain't talking about sex, then let me tell you that they REALLY ain't talking about money!

When was the last time you asked your obviously affluent church member their net worth?  What about your girl friend? You know, the one you met while you were both in college working at Macy's?  Yet she now manages to freely trot the globe while you're having trouble rubbing two nickels together?
Do you know how much she's worth?
Why not? You two talk about everything else under the sun.
Would you share with her honestly about where you are, or ask for her help, suggestions on how to get to the next financial level?

Why is money off the subject?
Whether we have too much or too little, it is clear we as a society are uncomfortable discussing it.  We are hyper private about it, and only maybe talk about it with those in our income bracket. Some of us treat it like a poisonous anaconda and avoid it altogether.

Privacy and couth  are well good and all.  But if you're currently on the low scale of the money chain and trying to have three savings accounts encompassing a well stocked emergency fund, short and long term savings funds, this can not be you.
You've got to get real comfortable talking and being in the company of money.  You've got to understand how it works.  You can't avoid talking about it like it's an incurable contagious disease.  You've got to like it.  It's got to make you smile.  You can't treat it like it's the used condom that suddenly jumps in your family's path during a Sunday stroll in the park. You have to have a good relationship with it.

As a  friend recently asked me, "If money were a person, would it be your friend?  Would it want to spend time with you?"

In a book called The Science of Getting Rich,  Wallace Wattles says, "There is nothing wrong in wanting to get rich. The desire for riches is really the desire for a richer, fuller, and more abundant life; and that desire is praise worthy.  The man who does not desire to live more abundantly is abnormal, and so the man who does not desire to have money enough to buy all he wants is abnormal."

How did reading that make you feel?  If it made you a little uneasy, perhaps a little writing in your journal to honestly examine your ideas about money may be in order.   A really good follow-up to that exercise would be to create a budget if you don't already have one.

It is never too early or too late to get your financial house in order.  Just start!

Make and write down your financial goals. As a well known Coach loves to state: 'If it ain't on paper, it don't make paper.'

Out of financial discipline will come financial freedom.

The Why of this Blog

One of my favorite quotes is: "If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten."

So how does one do or behave differently?  By thinking differently.  And how does one think differently?  By believing differently.  hahaha

Translating that quote then means if I believe differently, I will live differently.

This is very similar to another saying I've always hated because I disagreed intensely with the thought that I was responsible for the current status of my life.  
"You are where you are and what you are because of your established habits and thoughts and deeds."

I was responsible for never having enough money?  For not often going on vacations while my friends did?  For not finishing college, which is why I didn't make the money I otherwise could.  I was responsible that I was always having to tell my kids we couldn't afford this, and on and on.  I  was responsible for that???  

I couldn't wrap my brain around this because there were always reasons, circumstances, other people - like my dad, my ex-husband, cops, my friends,  the Deltas at Clark Atlanta University, the United Negro College Fund, God,  Satan, Dr. Johnetta Cole; other people who were responsible for why I didn't have what I should have, why I wasn't where I should be.  Everybody else was responsible, not me.

Victim, anyone?

I know it's harsh, but unless we accept certain truths, we can not change those truths.  It wasn't until I accepted that, "you know, maybe I drank a little too much for my comfort",  that I was able to change my drinking habit.  
Unless I accepted that I in fact really did drink more than I wanted to; I would have been locked in a never-ending cycle of "yes I do, no I don't" query that would have left the issue dangling and unresolved.

And the bile-tasting truth of the matter is no one else is responsible for my present conditions except me.  Which is great really, hopeful even, because at the end of the day, I can't control or change anything or anyone else.  But I can learn to control me, and my thinking. 

Progress is about transformation.  So enough with the denial.  
Progress is not about placing blame, it's about looking at the problem and coming up with a solution.  What can we do differently to think differently, to believe differently, to receive differently; NOW?

I've come to learn:

Thoughts lead to Feelings.

Feelings lead to Actions.

Actions lead to Results. - T. Harv Eker 

So... If you want to change your results, your reality, you will want to change your thoughts.

This is very much in alignment with the scripture that states, faith is defined as the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.  Taking the unseen, our thoughts, to form or create what is visible, our reality.  

And the end result, or the journey to which we are traveling by changing our belief system, is financial freedom; being rich.  How did you feel when you read that?  Being Rich.  

If you felt a twinge of discomfort of any type, you owe it to yourself to join me on this journey.

I am tired of not having enough money to do the things I desire to do in life.  And I believe that being rich really matters.  Why isn't it plausible for me? If there is an answer to this, I pray it is NOT because I am counting myself out by my belief system!

© 2009 MP Mokeyane.