T. Harv Eker was a struggling 20-something entrepreneur whose business attempts failed one after the other. Then he got some advice: Think the way rich people think. He studied the millionaire mentality and then tried a new business. Two and a half years later, he sold half its shares for $1.6 million. This book review delves into Eker’s strategies for redrawing your brain’s “financial blueprint” and lays out some attitudes rich people have that are essential to success.
To become a rich person, learn to think like one.
READ THIS BOOK REVIEWIF YOU:
- Dream of becoming a millionaire
- Work hard but never get any richer
- Fight with your spouse about money
Introduction
Everybody has a different relationship to money and wealth. Some people have the Midas touch, transforming everything they touch into gold. Other people earn lots of money with a good business concept, but then get cocky and throw it all out the window or lose it in bad investments. Others don’t invest a dime and are broke all the time anyway.
Many people think that once they’ve acquired the right knowledge about business strategies and financial management they will automatically be financially successful. However, their income and monetary transactions don’t depend so much on skills or luck and fate as they do on unconscious thought patterns we all have ingrained in us.
Everybody has specific thought structures saved permanently on their internal “hard drives.” Millionaires are programmed for wealth, while others are programmed for a medium or low-income level. Childhood experiences and role models shape these thought patterns and guide our behavior to such an extent that they directly influence our level of wealth later on.
Whether we’re talking thousands, millions or even billions, people’s incomes hardly end up deviating from the levels that were set for them in childhood. Why? Because their subconscious regulates them like a thermostat. If their thermostat is set too low, as soon as they get their hands on some extra cash, they throw their money around. But, if their thermostat is set on high, that is, on wealth, they immediately offset a money shortage by saving and usually make sure their wealth grows.
Most people are programmed to earn a low income, which means that many people have the potential to get rich – but very few people manage to stay rich and accumulate lasting wealth. In contrast, self-made billionaires like Donald Trump may lose unspeakable quantities of money at times, but they always regain their wealth because they think like billionaires. Anybody who wants to follow their example should learn to disregard their old thought patterns and overwrite them with millionaire thinking.
Studies have shown that lottery winners, no matter how much they earn, return in the end to their original financial state. That’s because each of us is conditioned for a certain level of wealth. This conditioning, your “financial blueprint,” was drawn by your parents, teachers, culture and experiences. It underpins your thoughts, feelings, and actions around money.
If you aren’t rich, your blueprint is setting you up to fail. Fortunately, you can re- draw it. To redraw your blueprint for wealth, use these four strategies:
- Awareness: Identify your mindset around money.
- Understanding: Understand how it affects your life.
- Disassociation: Distance yourself from unhelpful attitudes.
- Reconditioning: Replace your unhelpful attitudes with helpful ones.
The reconditioning process involves replacing your current mindset with a millionaire’s mentality.
Your Money Blueprint
We live in a physical world that is the result of three other worlds: mental, emotional, and spiritual. A lack in the outer, physical world — for example, a lack of money — is only a symptom, a result of a lack in the inner worlds. Making a change in the physical world, like getting a new job or even winning the lottery, is like making a correction to a printed page: The next time you print out the document, the typo will still be there.
Like a tree that draws nutrients from its roots to create its fruits, the fruits of your labors are generated by your invisible conditioning, your inner mindset about money. Your inner attitudes and beliefs make up your “financial blueprint.” Many people’s financial blueprints prevent them from ever making much money or ac- cumulating wealth. If you were raised in a family where money was tight, you’ll think of money by the hundreds, and you’ll make money by the hundreds. If you were raised to believe that being rich is bad, you’ll subconsciously sabotage your- self. Take Stephen, who made $800,000 a year but somehow was always broke. He eventually realized that because his mom thought that rich people were pigs, he was subconsciously making sure to get rid of his money as fast as possible.
But there’s nothing wrong with being rich. Stephen was able to redraw his blue- print to support wealth, and once he bought his mom a condo in Hawaii, she changed her mind, too!
You can approach redrawing your blueprint in four stages:
- Awareness: Make a list of the attitudes about money you were surrounded by as a child, the models for spending or saving money, and specific incidents you remember.
- Understanding: How have these attitudes, models, and incidents shaped your own approach to money?
- Disassociation: These attitudes do not have to be your attitudes; these mod- els do not have to dictate your approach; these incidents do not have to scar you for life.
- Reconditioning: Set new intentions and act on them. Declarations are a pow- erful way to shift your inner approach — speak your intentions out loud every day.
An essential part of change is being willing to change, to stop doing things the way you’ve always done them. Be aware that thoughts create feelings, feelings create actions, and actions create results. The four are inextricably linked, and changing one requires changing at least one other.
The Wealth Files
When you need to make a decision about money, you access the files in your mind labeled money, which contain all your attitudes, models, and experiences related to money. You decide on the “right” choice based on the contents of those files. And you can’t make successful decisions about money if there’s nothing in your money files that supports those decisions! This section explores some of the essential aspects of the millionaire mind. You’ll learn to copy those “wealth files” into your own brain and use them to take specific actions for success.
Redrawing your financial blueprint involves changing both what you do and what you don’t do, both of which are based on largely subconscious habits.
Rich people believe, ‘I create my life’
In order to create success for yourself, you must believe that you are in charge of your life. You can’t let your chance at wealth depend on a lottery draw, or the economy, or something else outside your control. Poor people have a victim mentality: They blame their situation on other people or on their circumstances. But you can’t find success unless you take responsibility for your own life. Poor people also justify their situation by downplaying the importance of money. But just like anything else, if you don’t think it’s important, you won’t have it. You also can’t find success by complaining. That keeps your focus on the negative situation rather than on the ideal situation, on the obstacles rather than the opportunities.
Action: Challenge yourself to go seven days without complaining, and see how much brighter the world looks afterward.
Rich people think big
You have a gift to give, a skill or product that will add value to the lives of others. Why limit yourself and your contribution to the world by thinking small? By opening one store, you can bring a valuable product to a few hundred or a few thousand people. By opening 100 stores, you multiply your value accordingly, both in terms of contribution to the world and in terms of wealth.
Action: Write down what you’re good at, and how you can take advantage of that in your work. Then brainstorm at least three ways you could help 10 times as many people with your skills.
Rich people associate with positive, successful people
Rich people model themselves off of other rich people, drawing positive energy and inspiration from others’ success. Negativity is like a sickness: If you spend time with someone infected with it, it will likely spread to you. Connections with positive, successful people will help pave the way for your own success.
Action: Read the biography of a millionaire or billionaire. Spend time at a fancy club or in the café at a luxury hotel. Avoid pessimists and bad news.
Rich people are bigger than their problems
Problems come on a scale from small to large. But that scale is all relative. Rather than focus on the fact that you have a problem, or try to avoid the problem, focus on finding a solution to the problem. The more you practice finding solutions, the smaller your problems will seem. You’ll always have problems. The trick is not to let them derail you.
Action: Write down a problem you’re facing and brainstorm 10 actions you can take to resolve the problem.
Rich people choose to get paid based on results
A salary is a steady income, but steady doesn’t mean good. If you choose to get paid for your time, you will only ever have as much money as you have time. Choosing to get paid for your results comes with a higher risk, but also the chance of larger success. Getting paid for results is the test of your real value. Many people are scared to test their real value, and they will never be rich. Most rich people are business owners: they run the risks, they get the profits. That’s how it works.
Action: Consider becoming a contractor for your current employer and providing the same service for additional clients. Create a work situation in which you are compensated for your results.
Rich people focus on their net worth
You’ll never hear a rich person say “so-and-so got a raise.” Rich people talk about worth: “so-and-so is worth $3 million.” Net worth is the sum value of everything you own. Income is just one of the four pillars of wealth. The other three are savings, investments, and simplification. In our society, the more money you make, the more money you are likely to spend — on a nicer house, a second car, a fancier vacation. So income alone does not guarantee wealth. But once you have savings, you can invest your money, and have a second stream of “passive” income — in- come you aren’t directly working for. Simplification is the most often overlooked aspect of the equation. If you can minimize your expenses, your wealth will accumulate more quickly. For example, Sue bought a house for $300,000 and sold it seven years later for twice as much. Rather than buying a new house, she moved in with her sister and invested the money. With the income from her investments, she is able to spend half the year in Fiji and only work when she wants to.
Action: Focus not just on increasing income but also on increasing savings, in- creasing investments, and decreasing expenditures. Create a net worth statement by totaling the worth of everything you own and subtracting from it everything you owe. Update this statement four times a year.
Rich people manage their money well
The fundamental difference between being rich and being poor lies in money management. Your ability to manage money (or not) is the result of habits you have developed based on your financial blueprint. Many people think that money management is for people who have a lot of money, but that’s not true. If you don’t start practicing good money-management habits now, with your small amount of money, you will never have a lot of money. Even if it’s just $1 a month to start, manage that $1. When you start to focus on choosing what to save and what to spend, you’ll find that the intention creates success and acts as a magnet for more success. Confidence in money managing creates confidence in other aspects of life.
Action: Create a financial freedom account, and put 10% of your income into it every month. Create a “play” account to spend every month, and put 10% of your income into that. Keep a financial freedom jar at home, too, and every day put something into it, even if just a penny, to keep your focus on your intention to be free from financial limitations.
Rich people have their money work hard for them
Though it’s often said that you have to work hard to earn money, you rarely hear the opposite: that your money should also work hard for you. Rich people learned this. Most people focus on earning “active” income: going to work and bringing home a paycheck. But if that’s all you do, you’ll have to work all your life. However, if you invest your money, or launch a business that eventually runs without needing your work time, you’ll be on your way to financial freedom.
Action: Learn about investments. Switch your focus from developing active in- come sources to developing passive income sources.
Rich people constantly learn and grow
Thinking that you already know everything you need to know is an attitude guar- anteed to keep you from growing yourself or your wealth. Even if you’re successful now, the world changes, and what you know today is not necessarily what you’ll need to know tomorrow. Invest in your own education and growth. If your response is “I can’t afford it,” you’ll always be broke.
Action: Do something every month to increase your skills and knowledge and enable personal development. Hire a life coach to push you to achieve your potential.
Our thought patterns are shaped by what our parents taught us about money.
Our minds are like computers, where the most important programs were installed in childhood: the patterns anchored within us are based on our earliest impressions. The things we heard our parents saying repeatedly about money as children are permanently saved in our minds, forming our ideas that end up determining the way we think about money later in life.
Sayings like “Money is the root of all evil,” “Money doesn’t grow on trees” and “You can’t buy happiness” ingrain themselves in our minds as our money blueprint and influence our opinion on money. Since our parents influence our behavior most when we’re young, there are only two possible ways to deal with their ideas about money and fortune. We can identify with and accept them, or we can rebel and reject them.
Either we think about money and wealth on the same scale as our parents or we want to do things radically differently. However, resistance alone isn’t enough to break the pattern of your financial blueprint.
This is because people who rebel are often driven by the wrong motivation for achieving wealth. They don’t actually want to get rich – they just want to rebel against their penniless parents or feel superior to them. The behavior they learned from their parents is still so dominant that, even if they put in a lot of effort and earn some money, they will probably lose it quickly if they haven’t worked thoroughly on themselves and ruptured the internalized money blueprint.
But those who learn that “anything is possible with money” at a young age will have a much easier time making money because the motivation to be free and independent through wealth can also be satisfied with money.
We unconsciously reproduce the income strategies of our parents.
Our internalized attitude towards money and fortune is not only based on what we hear our parents say about money, but also on one specifically conditioned behavioral pattern: the way our parents earn their money and the way they handle it.
“That’s the way my mother always did it” is a valid response to the question of why you handle money issues the way you do – not unlike the question of why you make macaroni the way you do. So when you were a kid and asked your mother for money, and she told you to ask your father, the idea that the man is in charge of the finances and the woman can’t manage money makes an impression in our minds.
Or if our parents lived through, for example, World War II or an economic crisis, their experiences of scarcity will influence our own behavioral patterns and we’ll always think that whatever money we have can never be enough.
The experiences we have as young people are essential for our own first steps in dealing with money because we’ve studied our parents’ behavior precisely and saved them in our subconscious. And when we start earning money as young adults, we imitate the income patterns of our parents without realizing it.
Eker offers his own story as a prime example: As a builder, Eker’s father would repeatedly make a fortune in buying and selling houses, but then invest the entire profit into new projects and always end up broke. And Eker himself had steadily emulated this constant roller coaster ride in his own early business endeavors – without understanding the root of his failure.
Man is a creature of habit, and when we’ve learned something, it’s not easy to unlearn it. We can only break away from our parental thought structures later, by making ourselves aware of them and consciously flipping the switch.
Before changing your way of thinking, perform a thorough inventory.
If you don’t achieve the level of affluence you desire, it usually has less to do with external factors than with an unconscious inner setting. But it’s never too late to change it.
The first step to becoming more financially successful is recognizing that you’ve fallen into such a thought pattern and that’s why you’re not getting rich. Once you’ve broken the pattern, the next thing you need to do is recognize where it comes from: Which habits and behavioral patterns did we learn from our parents and what effect did they have? Which thought patterns do you yourself follow? How much wealth are you programmed to achieve? Which unconscious strategies do we use to keep our account balances high?
Give yourself an overview of your own programming by writing down how your role models handled money matters and which of your parents’ sayings are rooted in your mind and have influenced your behavior. Did hearing “we can’t afford that” all the time cause you to believe that you could never afford anything?
Analyzing your current financial situation can be especially enlightening as it gives you a sense of your own programming. The amount of money in your bank account shows you how much money you’re preconfigured to earn at the moment, and whether you should spend more or save. Success or failure of investment businesses reveals whether we are unconsciously geared towards gains or losses.
Once you find out how you’ve been conditioned during your self-examination, all you have to do is realize that you have the option to adopt another way of thinking and change yourself – namely, by flipping the switch in your “inner world,” or your thoughts, and replacing the old thought patterns with new ones geared towards wealth.
Breaking the pattern with new guiding principles and new behavior.
As great as it’d be to get rich just by reading books – by knowing the theory behind wealth creation or hearing about what you need to do differently to rake in millions – unfortunately, it’s not enough. We have to overwrite the old information about money in our systems, not just save new information in addition to it.
The attitudes we’ve adopted towards money were spelled out in front of us on a regular basis when we were young. If we want to change them, we have to find new and better principles about money and fortune, and make a habit of spelling them out to ourselves like a mantra.
Specifically, that means that when you say the approaches of rich people out loud to yourself every evening, these will slowly implant themselves in your way of thinking and you will begin to exchange your conventional way of thinking for the millionaire way of thinking. Examples for catchy declarations are “I have a millionaire mind” or “My money works hard for me and earns more and more.”
Of course, the existing files in your storage cabinet can only be sorted out if you’re making conscious behavioral changes. You can only really learn something new if you do it yourself. We humans are creatures of habit, and anyone who wants to change their relationship to money needs to change their habits. In doing so, T. Harv Eker consciously broke through the behavioral pattern that he had taken on from his father, founded a fitness store and didn’t let up before he’d turned it into a successful chain and earned millions.
We also have to train ourselves to behave in the right way. Say, for example, you’re at a mall and you see a handbag on sale. Usually, you’d be programmed to think: “Get it, it’s a bargain!” But this is precisely the moment in which you have to use your new program: “If you’re in debt, you shouldn’t buy anything else.”
By constantly affirming your thoughts verbally and by taking concrete measures, you can unlearn the wrong thinking patterns bit by bit and learn how to act like a millionaire.
If you want to be rich, you have to learn to take fate into your own hands.
If you want to be financially successful, you have to internalize the idea that you are the one in control over your own (financial) life. Rich people know they’re at the wheel, while financially weaker people are always in the back seat, yielding control over their income to others.
It’s quite striking that people who are already poor will often spend half their salary on lottery tickets, hoping to get lucky and hit the big time. Rich people, by contrast, don’t gamble to get rich or wait for wealth to fall into their laps.
Poor people frequently put themselves in the role of the victim and blame anyone they can – whether the government, their employer or the economic situation. But until you realize that you are the one who decides the scale of your financial success, nothing about your situation is going to change.
If you catch yourself putting the blame for your financial distress on others or complaining about it, you should always remember that you yourself are responsible for your success and search for the reasons for your failure. To break the pattern of thinking like a victim, you should regularly prepare a list with transactions that went badly and analyze how much you had at stake: Am I in the red for the third month in a row because I’ve been going shopping too much? Would it have been wiser to do some more research on the fund the bank talked me into buying, which actually ended up diminishing in value?
Rather than complaining, you should focus on points where you can make changes and do something for your own prosperity. Then you can consciously embark on the path of wealth.
Future millionaires should have a positive attitude towards money.
The idea that virtue and wealth can’t be reconciled is widespread among people without means, not among millionaires.
In order to get rich, you also have to like money. Poor people often harbor too many negative thoughts about wealth. They’re afraid that somebody would only like them because of their money, or even worse, that it could turn them into bad people. In addition, they’re afraid of the work and responsibility associated with wealth, which is a hindrance in many areas.
Anybody who only sees the obstacles blocking the path to wealth and feels plagued by failure is missing a lot of chances to make money. Rich people, by contrast, sense good opportunities and business’s potential profits. They’re prepared to take calculated risks and are always optimistic that they can earn back their money after they’ve lost it.
The advantage of seizing risky opportunities is that big risks equal big returns. Your wealth will grow if you optimistically jump on opportunities and to give potential obstacles the cold shoulder.
It’s also important that you like rich people if you want to get rich. The negative feelings, such as envy and mistrust, that poor people harbor against millionaires deprive them of achieving success. If you despise rich people, you will instinctively never become one of them. And you’ll never want to associate with rich people who could actually give you valuable advice about being financially successful.
And so, adopting a millionaire’s way of thinking means thinking more positively about money. If you value what you’d like to have yourself – in this case, wealth – you’re more likely to achieve it. If you learn to admire rich people and don’t begrudge them their money, you can become one of them.
You can only get rich if you give it your all.
Rich people know from the beginning that their goal is affluence and thus develop an unconditional commitment to their prosperity. People who just want to get rich, but put limits on how much they’re willing to do or sacrifice to get rich stay poor.
Only people who are fully committed to wealth and would bet their lives on it will be prosperous. Working hard 16 hours a day for an indefinite period of time and accepting that you’ll have less freedom are part of that commitment.
Challenging yourself and continuing to work on yourself are also important components. Wealth will only grow if you yourself grow. Continuing your studies, attending seminars and reading books about capital investments and investing is certainly necessary if you want to familiarize yourself with wealth strategies. The better you know the world of money, the more money you will be able to earn.
In the end, committing means establishing a business or entering a lucrative industry; because rich people generally tend to own some kind of company. While the factor of luck also plays into the success of a business model, if you haven’t taken the first step – making a business plan that can yield money in the future – your wealth won’t amount to anything.
The best strategy is to begin working in the industry you want to be in with enthusiasm and curiosity – it doesn’t matter in what position. If you have the goal to open up a restaurant chain, you’ll learn the most if you work in the catering business and pick up tricks from your manager.
If you don’t have any original business ideas, you’re welcome to hop onto somebody else’s bandwagon. In this case, you must make an agreement with yourself to become a millionaire (or more) and fully commit yourself to pursuing your business ideas.
Reach for the stars if you want to become a millionaire.
Millionaires set their sights on having lots of money, while everyone else just wishes they could have a secure and sufficient income. The universe will, in turn, fulfill these wishes, because the scale of wealth you think about also plays a role.
The equation is simple: big thinking leads to big actions, which opens up the door to making big money. Small thinking in small dimensions equals a small income.
Most people have problems offering a large-scale service for a large market. Everyone who wants to get rich should ask themselves how many people they can reach with what they’re doing. Is it 20 or 20,000? The number of people you address with your activity also reflects itself in your income, so you should consciously decide whether you want to reach thousands or the entire world.
Personally rendered services are unfavorable in this situation. If you’re a professional masseur, for example, it would be physically impossible for you to serve more than X number of clients in a 24-hour period. At most, you could aspire to achieve a solid income. But future millionaires don’t set limits on their income, because time is a limiting factor. That’s why being paid based on the amount of time you’ve worked is not a good idea. Rich people, and those who want to be rich, aren’t paid based on time, but on the quality of their results, because quality has no limits. They wouldn’t want to become a masseur, but would aim to ultimately become the owner a chain of massage studios and get rich that way.
But what if you haven’t learned to think on a big scale? In this case, it would make sense to surround yourself with people who also reach for the stars. In other words: “If you want to fly with the eagles, don’t swim with the ducks!” Successful people don’t only infect others with ambitious thinking, but show them how to take the steps necessary to be successful.
You can only make money grow when you handle it properly.
Earning massive amounts of money is one thing – not letting it slip through your fingers and making it grow is another. Dealing with money in a disciplined way and managing money cleverly are very important factors for achieving wealth and prosperity.
Many people erroneously think that a high income is all that makes you rich. The proper way to measure people’s wealth is, however, their net worth, that is, the cash value of all their possessions. Savings and investment gains also count. You should strive to have as big a net income as possible and invest your money with an eye on the financial future.
People who keep an overview and come up with a long-term financial plan can strike a good balance between income, expenses and savings. It’s worth getting yourself a reputable financial planner to help you in the process.
Having a passive income – or money that you earn without working, for example, returns from stocks or investment funds – is also very important. If you want to get rich, you should start managing your money rather than hiding it under your mattress. It doesn’t matter if it’s real estate, land or a promising business concept, there are lots of ways to invest your money that can grow it quickly.
Split up your income into different bank accounts! Set aside 50 percent for overhead costs and put 10 percent of every dollar you earn into an account strictly reserved for capital investments or other investments with passive income flows. In addition, 10 percent should be deposited into a pleasure account so you can do something nice for yourself and feel like a millionaire – like going to an exclusive restaurant and ordering the most expensive thing on the menu.
Saving is also part of amassing money. It’s also very important to keep your cost of living down to a minimum. If you repeatedly squander your high income by buying expensive cars and designer clothes, you’re never going to be rich. Only people who think about the long term and are willing to forgo immediate gratification will become millionaires.
You have to think highly of yourself if you want to be successful and rich.
One trait that separates wealthy people from less well-to-do people is that they know their value and are convinced that they deserve to be rich. Less well-to-do people often deem themselves unworthy and don’t believe in themselves. They remain financially unsuccessful because they think that they aren’t worth it and – often unconsciously – back away when it comes to distributing funds.
Since rich people are convinced of their value, they also understand how to promote themselves, their business ideas or their company. Leaders are usually rich because they earn more in these positions. But in order to be a leader, you have to find followers, which only works if you sell your ideas well.
Most people who aren’t successful are brought up being told that it’s rude to “toot your own horn.” However, in the world of money and business, the attitude is: “If I don’t toot my own horn, who will?” Refusing to self-promote is a main reason why people who consider themselves worthless can never get rich.
In order to recognize your value and subsequently sell it to others, you should figure out where your talents lie because you can introduce these into a service or product in your business and reach many people. You should look for the right product because it has to be something that you can back one hundred percent.
So what can you do to feel like a millionaire and think more highly of yourself? Breathe in the air of the rich and treat yourself to something you’ve earned – membership at a high-end gym or tennis club or going for a coffee at the most expensive hotel in the city.
Everybody has preferences about how they want to get rich, but only those who believe in themselves will be able to persuade others to believe in them, too.
Conclusion
Remember that thoughts create feelings create actions create results. Reading these principles is a start, but you won’t get very far if you don’t put them into action.
Redraw your financial blueprint according to the values and priorities that sup- port you in reaching your true financial potential. To redraw your blueprint for wealth, remember these four strategies:
- Awareness: Identify your mindset around money.
- Understanding: Understand how it affects your life.
- Disassociation: Distance yourself from unhelpful attitudes.
- Reconditioning: Replace your unhelpful attitudes with helpful ones.
Read and reread the wealth files until they become your own mental files. Declare your intentions out loud every day. And act on those intentions to bring about the success you’re seeking.
The main message in this book is:
Our level of prosperity is preprogrammed by thought and behavioral patterns we learned as children. We can only change it if we consciously recognize it, actively adopt a new attitude and implant “millionaire thinking” into our minds.
This book in book summary answered the following questions:
In this summary of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker, How does our bank account’s balance reflect our way of thinking?
- Specific thought patterns preprogram our wealth.
- Our thought patterns are shaped by what our parents taught us about money.
- We unconsciously reproduce the income strategies of our parents.
How can we influence the thought structures we’ve learned as children?
- Before changing your way of thinking, perform a thorough inventory.
- Breaking the pattern: with new guiding principles and new behavior.
Which attitudes about money and fortune do we have to adopt if we want to become millionaires?
- If you want to be rich, you have to learn to take fate into your own hands.
- Future millionaires should have a positive attitude towards money.
- You can only get rich if you give it your all.
- Reach for the stars if you want to become a millionaire.
- You can only make money grow when you handle it properly.
- You have to think highly of yourself if you want to be successful and rich.
About the author
T. Harv Eker is a multi-millionaire and president of the financial training company Peak Potentials. With courses such as the Millionaire Mind Intensive, Life Directions and the Enlightened Warrior Training, he has helped hundreds of thousands of people reach their financial potential.
Using the principles he teaches, T. Harv Eker went from zero to millionaire in only two and a half years, and went on to build one of the largest success training companies in North America. With his unique brand of “street smarts with heart,” Eker’s humorous, “cut-to-the-chase” style keeps his audience spellbound. People come from all over the world to attend his sold-out seminars, where crowds often exceed 2,000 people for a weekend program. So far, Eker’s teachings have touched the lives of over a million people. Now, for the first time, he shares his proven secrets of success in this revolutionary book. Read it and grow rich!
Genres
Motivational, Finance, Self Help, Money, Personal Development, Personal Finance, Psychology, Entrepreneurship, Business Life, Business Skills, Success, Self-Esteem, Wealth, Self-Improvement, Leadership
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
“Who the Heck Is T. Harv Eker, and Why Should I Read This Book?” 1 (8)
PART ONE Your Money Blueprint 9 (40)
PART TWO The Wealth Files Seventeen Ways Rich People Think and Act Differently from Poor and Middle-Class People 49 (140)
“So What the Heck Do I Do Now?” 189 (4)
Special Bonus Offer 193 (4)
Share the Wealth 197 (2)
Recommended Resources 199 (4)
Index
Overview
#1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestseller! Secrets of the Millionaire Mind reveals the missing link between wanting success and achieving it!
Have you ever wondered why some people seem to get rich easily, while others are destined for a life of financial struggle? Is the difference found in their education, intelligence, skills, timing, work habits, contacts, luck, or their choice of jobs, businesses, or investments?
The shocking answer is: None of the above!
In his groundbreaking Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv Eker states: “Give me five minutes, and I can predict your financial future for the rest of your life!” Eker does this by identifying your “money and success blueprint.” We all have a personal money blueprint ingrained in our subconscious minds, and it is this blueprint, more than anything, that will determine our financial lives. You can know everything about marketing, sales, negotiations, stocks, real estate, and the world of finance, but if your money blueprint is not set for a high level of success, you will never have a lot of money—and if somehow you do, you will most likely lose it! The good news is that now you can actually reset your money blueprint to create natural and automatic success.
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind is two books in one. Part I explains how your money blueprint works. Through Eker’s rare combination of street smarts, humor, and heart, you will learn how your childhood influences have shaped your financial destiny. You will also learn how to identify your own money blueprint and “revise” it to not only create success but, more important, to keep and continually grow it.
In Part II you will be introduced to seventeen “Wealth Files,” which describe exactly how rich people think and act differently than most poor and middle-class people. Each Wealth File includes action steps for you to practice in the real world in order to dramatically increase your income and accumulate wealth.
If you are not doing as well financially as you would like, you will have to change your money blueprint. Unfortunately your current money blueprint will tend to stay with you for the rest of your life, unless you identify and revise it, and that’s exactly what you will do with the help of this extraordinary book. According to T. Harv Eker, it’s simple. If you think like rich people think and do what rich people do, chances are you’ll get rich too!
Review/Endorsements/Praise/Award
Eker’s claim to fame is that he took a $2,000 credit card loan, opened “one of the first fitness stores in North America,” turned it into a chain of 10 within two and a half years and sold it in 1987 for a cool (but somewhat modest-seeming) $1.6 million. Now the Vancouver-based entrepreneur traverses the continent with his “Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar,” on which this debut motivational business manual is based. What sets it apart is Eker’s focus on the way people think and feel about money and his canny, class-based analyses of broad differences among groups. In rat-a-tat, “Let me explain” seminar-speak, Eker asks readers to think back to their childhoods and pick apart the lessons they passively absorbed from parents and others about money. With such psychological nuggets as “Rich people focus on opportunities/ Poor people focus on obstacles,” Eker puts a positive spin on stereotypes, arguing that poverty begins, or rather, is allowed to continue, in one’s imagination first, with actual material life becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. To that end, Eker counsels for admiration and against resentment, for positivity, self-promotion and thinking big and against wallowing, self-abnegation and small-mindedness. While much of the advice is self-evident, Eker’s contribution is permission to think of one’s financial foibles as a kind of mental illness—one, he says, that has a ready set of cures.
Eker, a multimillionaire, teaches us how to become rich. He believes thoughts lead to feelings, which lead to actions, which lead to results, and hence the key to attaining great wealth begins with thinking–like rich people do. He offers new ways of thinking and acting that will lead to new and different results, and he tells us, “Success is a learnable skill. You can learn to succeed at anything.” The book emphasizes Eker’s 17 principles for amassing wealth, which include: rich people believe that they create their life, while poor people believe “life happens to me.” Rich people focus on opportunities, while poor people focus on obstacles. Rich people act in spite of fear, while poor people let fear stop them. Rich people constantly learn and grow, while poor people think they know enough. This is an obvious infomercial for the author’s training seminars; however, although many may not agree with all of Eker’s ideas, his book offers thought-provoking advice and valuable insight. Mary Whaley
If you want to learn about the root cause of success, read Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.” — Robert G. Allen, author of Multiple Streams of Income and The One Minute Millionaire
“Study this book as if your life depended on it…financially it may!” — Anthony Robbins, the world’s #1 peak performance coach
“Harv Eker is one of the most extraordinary speakers and trainers in the world today!” — Mark Victor Hansen, Coauthor, #1 New York Times bestselling series Chicken Soup for the Soul
“I have admired Eker’s work for years and I highly recommend this book for everyone seeking to increase their wealth.” — Jack Canfield, Coauthor, Chicken Soup for the Soul
“If you want to move to a new level of success quickly, memorize every word in this profound book.” — Linda Forsythe, Founder/CEO, Mentors Magazine
“This is the most powerful, persuasive, and practical book on becoming wealthy that you will ever read.” — Brian Tracy, author of Getting Rich Your Own Way
“T. Harv Eker is a master at making the road to riches simple.” — Marci Shimoff, coauthor, Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul
Study this book as if your life depended on it…financially it may! – Anthony Robbins
I have admired Eker’s work for years and I highly recommend this book for everyone seeking to increase their wealth. – Jack Canfield
If you want to learn about the root cause of success, read Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. – Robert G. Allen
If you want to move to a new level of success quickly, memorize every word in this profound book. – Linda Forsythe
This is the most powerful, persuasive, and practical book on becoming wealthy that you will ever read. – Brian Tracy
T. Harv Eker is a master at making the road to riches simple. – Marci Shimoff
Harv Eker is one of the most extraordinary speakers and trainers in the world today! – Mark Victor Hansen
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Your Money Blueprint
We live in a world of duality: up and down, light and dark, hot and cold, in and out, fast and slow, right and left. These are but a few examples of the thousands of opposite poles. For one pole to exist, the other pole must also exist. Is it possible to have a right side without a left side? Not a chance.
Consequently, just as there are “outer” laws of money, there must be “inner” laws. The outer laws include things like business knowledge, money management, and investment strategies. These are essential. But the inner game is just as important. An analogy would be a carpenter and his tools. Having top-of-the-line tools is imperative, but being the top-notch carpenter who masterfully uses those tools is even more critical.
I have a saying: “It’s not enough to be in the right place at the right time. You have to be the right person in the right place at the right time.”
So who are you? How do you think? What are your beliefs? What are your habits and traits? How do you really feel about yourself ? How confident are you in yourself ? How well do you relate to others? How much do you trust others? Do you truly feel that you deserve wealth? What is your ability to act in spite of fear, in spite of worry, in spite of inconvenience, in spite of discomfort? Can you act when you’re not in the mood?
The fact is that your character, your thinking, and your beliefs are a critical part of what determines the level of your success.
One of my favorite authors, Stuart Wilde, puts it this way: “The key to success is to raise your own energy; when you do, people will naturally be attracted to you. And when they show up, bill ’em!”
Wealth Principle: Your income can grow only to the extent you do!
Why Is Your Money Blueprint Important?
Have you heard of people who have “blown up” financially? Have you noticed how some people have a lot of money and then lose it, or have excellent opportunities start well but then go sour on them? Now you know the real cause. On the outside it looks like bad luck, a downturn in the economy, alousy partner, whatever. On the inside, however, it’s another matter. That’s why, if you come into big money when you’re not ready for it on the inside, the chances are your wealth will be short-lived and you will lose it.
The vast majority of people simply do not have the internal capacity to create and hold on to large amounts of money and the increased challenges that go with more money and success. That, my friends, is the primary reason they don’t have much money.
A perfect example is lottery winners. Research has shown again and again that regardless of the size of their winnings, most lottery winners eventually return to their original financial state, the amount they can comfortably handle.
On the other hand, the opposite occurs for self-made millionaires. Notice that when self-made millionaires lose their money, they usually have it back within a relatively short time. Donald Trump is a good example. Trump was worth billions, lost everything, and then a couple of years later, got it all back again and more.
Why does this phenomenon occur? Because even though some self-made millionaires may lose their money, they never lose the most important ingredient to their success: their millionaire mind. Of course in “The Donald”‘s case, it’s his “billionaire” mind. Do you realize Donald Trump couldvnever be just a millionaire? If Donald Trump had a net worth of only 1 million dollars, how do you think he’d feel about his financial success? Most people would agree that he’d probably feel broke, like a financial failure!
That’s because Donald Trump’s financial “thermostat” is set for billions, not millions. Most people’s financial thermostats are set for generating thousands, not millions of dollars; some people’s financial thermostats are set for generating hundreds, not even thousands; and some people’s financialvthermostats are set for below zero. They’re frickin’ freezing and they don’t have a clue as to why!
The reality is that most people do not reach their full potential. Most people are not successful. Research shows that 80 percent of individuals will never be financially free in the way they’d like to be, and 80 percent will never claim to be truly happy.
The reason is simple. Most people are unconscious. They are a little asleep at the wheel. They work and think on a superficial level of life—based only on what they can see. They live strictly in the visible world.
The Roots Create the Fruits
Imagine a tree. Let’s suppose this tree represents the tree of life. On this tree there are fruits. In life, our fruits are called our results. So we look at the fruits (our results) and we don’t like them; there aren’t enough of them, they’re too small, or they don’t taste good.
So what do we tend to do? Most of us put even more attention and focus on the fruits, our results. But what is it that actually creates those particular fruits? It’s the seeds and the roots that create those fruits.
It’s what’s under the ground that creates what’s above the ground. It’s what’s invisible that creates what’s visible. So what does that mean? It means that if you want to change the fruits, you will first have to change the roots. If you want to change the visible, you must first change the invisible.
Wealth Principle: If you want to change the fruits, you will first have to change the roots. If you want to change the visible, you must first change the invisible.
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth. Copyright © by T. Harv Eker. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
