Read an Excerpt
Beliefs And Behavior: Yes, You Can!They can conquer who believe they can. -- Virgil
Money may seem complex, confusing, boring, or impossible to understand when you read Barron's, Forbes, or Worth magazines. Turn off CNBC, CNN-FN, Wall Street Week, and Bloomberg's Business Channel and give yourself a break from the mind-scrambling stream of symbols at the bottom of the screen. Don't subscribe to the Wall Street journal or Investors' Business Daily yet--one day you will, but not yet. Start with yourself. Get in touch with your outlook, your dreams, your wishes. You still have them somewhere inside you, so find them! Take a look at your pay stubs, your check-book, your tax return. Make a list of your questions and concepts about how money works and examine the ideas you have about building wealth. Reawaken that vision of how you want your finan-cial life to be and start making it happen. You can do this! Not overnight--not after a two-hour seminar, a crash course over a long weekend, or an afternoon reading a personal finance magazine. Like any educational process, absorbing new concepts take time. Three steps forward, two back. If you were going to run a marathon, you would give yourself at least a year of training and work at it every day. Each morning you would begin by stretching your muscles, warming up your body and getting out on the track to build your strength and stamina for the long-haul run. You would prepare yourself for that moment when you have to test your ability and push yourself the extra distance to make the goal. It's the same with money. Building wealth beginsin your head. You are going to dedi-cate a year to learning new concepts, testing your attitudes, explor-ing new ideas, and engaging in a change in your beliefs and behavior about the various aspects of money. Sit and let the new ideas work their way into your consciousness. You also have to get honest with yourself about the mistakes you've made with credit cards and irra-tional spending, but don't spend all your time focusing on the finan-cial mess you may have created. Give yourself time to learn how to turn it around and start over. You can't rewrite the past, so accept it and move on. Think about each new idea for a few minutes a day, and little by little, step by step, with the right attitude you will dis-cover that money isn't a foreign or frightening substance or an obstacle to achieving the balance and completeness you yearn for. Money is a tool that can be used in whatever way you desire and plan for. You have taken the first step toward financial empowerment by picking up this book. Congratulate yourself on being open to a new perspective and the possibility of making it work for you. Turn the page and read on to a wealthier life!
Day 1Money Is . . . What?
Money Is Something! -- Victor Bloc
You're going to spend an awful lot of your lifetime involved in get-ting, managing, using, or worrying about money, so it would be a great idea to define what it represents to you. Do you go by Webster's traditional definition of money as "a medium of exchange for goods, services, and the necessities of life?" Does it represent the power to impress, embarrass, or get even with your enemies? Would endless money mean that you could shop till you drop and never worry about bills at the end of the month? Do you see money as the measure of your daily energy output in the workplace? However you may define money, it is a fact of life that is dangerous to deny or ignore. Money must be reckoned with.
Before you go any further you must create your own definition of money and how you want it to work in your life--whether it's for spiritual, economic, material, or social uses. To your mother, it may mean a mortgage-free home. To your father, it may mean a comfort-able retirement and the chance to go fishing every day without hav-ing to take on a part-time job. Your best friend may think of money as a means to start a business or enjoy unlimited travel. Your spouse may want to live on a houseboat in the Caribbean. How do you see money? Is it an enemy to be attacked and conquered or to be feared and avoided? A personal definition of money also means you understand its power and have begun to take the mystery out of how it operates in your life. Defining money is also the first step toward financial empowerment where you set the terms and conditions for having money in your life. Perhaps you see money as the path to a life of prosperity and unlimited luxury. Or you can use money to strengthen the social and financial well-being of your family; educat-ing your children or helping a relative start a business. It may give you the political clout to make a difference in your community or do meaningful volunteer work, comfort an elderly person whom you love, or help a sick child. The meaning and purpose of money in your life must come from inside you.
Affirmation:
I have the courage to find the answers inside myself.
Action Step:
Make some notes on how you define money for yourself. This can be your working definition of money as you begin to examine your financial concepts.
