Mind Over Money
I’d like to open with an old saying (originally coined in 1863 by a Scottish geologist Sir Charles Lyell): MIND OVER MATTER, which was first used to refer to the increasing status and evolutionary growth of the minds of animals and man throughout Earth history.* This phenomenon in our day and age is often referred to as one’s willpower and/or ability to overcome physical problems. If mind is so powerful, what else can we do with it? Since I always want to relate my topics to the world of business and entrepreneurship, I’d like to talk about MONEY. And my topic of discussion today is MIND OVER MONEY. My hypothesis is that choosing mind over money alone will result in you having an abundance of money. Here is as to why.
I often hear people complaining about never having enough money. It’s as if money is a limited resource, so scarce that only a limited amount of people can have access to it. Well, if that was true – how come there are 10.8 million MILLIONAIRES in the U.S. alone? How come money is almost an unlimited resource to those people? What distinguishes them from the rest of us? What’s the magic formula, the magic ingredient for their success in generating such vast amounts of money? The answer is: their MINDSETS. I guarantee you that those people who make a lot don’t think about money alone. Their initial and ongoing focus is on having the right MINDSET to generate money and everything else that comes with it.
You may ask – what do I mean by MINDSET? It’s the ability to set your mind into a frequency or mode that you so desire and keep it there consistently. Here is an example: Think of the terrestrial radio in your car or at work or at home. The reason you’re able to get the content you want is because you’re TUNED into the right frequency. If your tuner is broken, all you’ll be getting is white noise and interference. Similar to the radio frequencies, your mind is often tuned into: “I will never have enough money”, “I don’t know how to make money”, “I don’t know where to start”, “It’s impossible”, “It’s just too hard”, “I’m not lucky enough”, “The problem is”, “Yes, BUT”, “It’s so difficult”, “I’m afraid I’ll fail”, and so forth and so on. All of these are “white noise” frequencies – they will not get you the desired content/outcome (i.e. money). So you’ve got to tune your mind into: “I deserve”, “I will get”, “I want to”, “I can”, “I know I will win”, “I’m confident”, “I invite opportunity”, “I welcome help”, “I’m open to receiving”, “I’m willing to give”, “I’ll keep on going”, “There are no limits”, “My desire is so strong”. The moment you choose these frequencies as your go-to stations, something profound happens in your brain. You start seeing opportunity where you saw problems. You start believing instead of doubting yourself and your abilities. You start taking actions despite not knowing how it will happen. You stop being so attached to the outcome and take the first step. You start feeling more upbeat, lifted and positive. You no longer appear to be in the center of your life circumstances and excuses that used to stop you in your tracks. Your MINDSET slowly starts to develop into a more powerful and decisive unit that actually works for you and in your favor, not against you. Before you know it, you’ll have your 6 favorite stations (there are of course more) saved as defaults on your MIND RADIO. Over time you will no longer need to tune into them, they will be at your fingertips:
DESIRED CONTENT & CREATION STATIONS
1. I CAN 2. I DESERVE 3. I FIGURE THINGS OUT 4. IT IS POSSIBLE 5. I GET IT 6. I AM OPEN TO
VS.
WHITE NOISE & INTERFERENCE STATIONS
1. I CAN’T 2. I’M AFRAID 3. I DON’T KNOW 4. YES, BUT… 5. I AM NOT WORTHY 6. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE
I am urging you to look inside yourself to see if your default stations have anything in common with the “white noise” ones. If so – know that you have a choice to change them, to fine tune your mind to being more powerful, positive, and forward looking. MONEY comes to those that ASK FOR IT and then go and get it by TAKING ACTIONS. Mindset alone doesn’t miraculously get you rich. It is a prerequisite, the foundation, the must have ingredient. Everything else that follows and gets created from a strong, powerful mindset will lead you to your DESIRED OUTCOME (i.e. money). That also doesn’t mean that you will not fail. Be under no illusion about that. Radio towers, transmitters, and receivers break down too. As such, disruptions in signal should be assumed to happen from time to time. However, having a strong mindset means that you will actually FAIL FORWARD, meaning: you will learn from your mistakes, will not be discouraged and will get up every time you fall only to get stronger, wiser, and more resilient for the next challenge. Quick example: In order to build a stronger muscle, after working out your body replaces and/or repairs the damaged muscle fibers. These repaired fibers increase in thickness and number to create muscle growth. Same idea with your mindset. The more you practice staying tuned and fine tuning when interference or white noise come in, the stronger your mindset will get.
To summarize the ideas discussed in this article: 1) choose to focus on your mind versus money alone. 2) Money is a byproduct of your mindset. It’s caused by you taking actions consistent with your goals, objectives, desires and dreams determined by your mindset. To provide you with a visual example, think of your MINDSET as a DRIVER and MONEY as a GEARBOX in your car. If your ONLY use one gear to drive, you can only get so fast and so far, and you will eventually blow up the gearbox and come to a dead stop. That’s what happens when your mindset is limited, weak, and out of tune. You fail once and you stop for good. However, if you learn how to use the clutch and how to properly shift gears, you can go much faster and get to your destination sooner. Your change in mindset (ability to drive) will all of a sudden unlock the flow of money.
Here is a PITFALL to be on the lookout for. Our society has gotten used to driving cars with automatic transmission, many of us don’t even know what clutch is and therefore we expect money to rain from the sky and fall into our laps. That’s like having a mindset of entitlement and unreasonable expectations – again the “white noise” stations. Therefore, teaching yourself to build a strong mindset (knowing how to operate the clutch and shift gears seamlessly) will make you more resilient to adversity. Speed bump ahead – you downshift and reduce speed. Pothole or water hazard ahead – you break and shift gears again to move slowly. Highway – shift up and floor it to get to your destination. Whatever life throws at you, the right mindset will allow you to deal with it without loosing any power or being discouraged. You’ll see obstacles as objects to get over or maneuver through in order to succeed toward your goal, not as roadblocks. Eventually you’ll get so good at driving, you’ll want to upgrade from manual to automatic, and maybe even jump into a TESLA, where the only gear you have is “GO“. And that’s the mindset worth developing!
Ⓒ 2018, Sergey Kiklevich, CEO of Gambit Solutions Inc.
*Bartlett, John; Kaplan, Justin (2002). Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations: A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature (17th ed.). Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 9780316084604.
