Do You Have The Millionaire Mind-Set?
Last night I saw a presentation on DVD given by Jeff Combs. Combs is a big name keynote speaker. Each year he travels to various marketing events around the world and his story of becoming a millionaire is heart achingly inspiring. He didn’t rise from the ashes to become a millionaire in a short time. Instead he failed in several businesses for years on end, but always finding the strength somehow to pick himself up again.
He fell to the depths of despair only to eventually find the right mind-set within himself to change his life for good. Today Jeff earns a minimum of $5,000/day just from his private consultations with clients.
His presentation stirred some pretty strong emotions within me in regards to my own mind-set. One particular sentence really resonated with me. He said:
“People usually trade time for money and doing this will NEVER make them a millionaire”.
He is right! Unless we are thinking like a true entrepreneur and are prepared to take risks we will never make the transition from employee (trading time for money) to wealthy home business owner.
How do I know this? It’s because I’ve already made the switch years ago and these days I’m un-employable. Over time I have come to the realization that I could never fit back into a job. Neither do I want to!
Judging by the countless stories of millionaire entrepreneurs who failed in business many times over only to succeed big time after sticking around, I KNOW that one of these days I will realize my own intentions of earning a six figure income each month.
Why settle for less!
Most of us are conditioned from birth to under-value and under-estimate ourselves. If we analyze the whole schooling system we also quickly realize that we are not trained to become wealthy but rather be slaves to the system – how else would corporate America function?
In reality each of us worker bees are just that. We might demand a decent wage, have some sort of employee benefits, but in the end we still are simple bees, albeit some of us might be better paid bees.
The winner however is always the queen bee. The one at the top of the pyramid.
Wouldn’t you rather take a few calculated financial risks instead and increase your chances of becoming wealthy? Aren’t you sick of trading your time for dollars?
I know I do and this is exactly what I’m doing now. I’m an entrepreneur at heart – I take risks, I take responsibilities for my own actions and failures and I work hard. I do not waste my time with meaningless gossip about people – I rather discuss ideas and brainstorm ways to grow my business with like-minded people.
One day all this hard work will pay off and pay me back in dividends worth more than any money in the world; it will allow me to enjoy freedom of time – it will allow me to enjoy my time with the people and animals I love without worrying about money or a boss. It will allow me to help others have better lives by helping them financially. It will allow me to be me!
I’m a millionaire in training!
Monika
About the Author: I'm a passionate freelance writer and problogger. To further build my business I'm also in the process of building my own niche empire which pays me residual income.
Brett Legree | Apr 10, 2009 | Reply
Monika,
I zeroed in right on this one, as it is a mindset I am trying to change in myself:
“Most of us are conditioned from birth to under-value and under-estimate ourselves. If we analyze the whole schooling system we also quickly realize that we are not trained to become wealthy but rather be slaves to the system – how else would corporate America function?”
Under-value and under-estimate ourselves.
Guilty as charged. Where I work, a gentleman came one day to give us a presentation on winter safety when walking (the famous “slips, trips and falls” presentation we see every year).
Apparently he charged the company several thousand dollars for that.
A one-hour PowerPoint presentation, using information that anyone could have gleaned from a few Google searches.
How did he do this?
I imagine he had a lot of confidence in himself, to be able to position himself as an “expert”, and get himself in to my company.
So… if he can do that, why not me, why not you?
I know that both of us have unique qualities that are worth so much more than that.
We only need to believe in ourselves.
I have an idea to do something just like this, except in a different area. Expert consulting, to save companies thousands if not millions of dollars.
Now, to bolster my self-confidence, network and position myself to get these contracts.
-Brett
scott | Apr 11, 2009 | Reply
I loved this post.
It says what I feel is right for me and my wife. We are both small business people and don’t have the “trade time for money” jobs.
I personally failed at two businesses and succeeded at one. That makes me just a little ahead of the game. Now I’m trying some new things while my wife’s business is taking off.
I think this is all very exciting and it beats the hell out of listening to some knuckle head tell me about something he has never experienced but has only read about somewhere.
I think life is all about the experience. Our happiness depends a great deal on how we measure success and all though money is nice it’s the journey that adds the spice.
Anyway I think your post hit the proverbial nail on the head.
scott
Monika | Apr 11, 2009 | Reply
@ scott: Thank you my friend. Loved your reference to those knuckle heads. LOL. I totally agree that life is about the experience. One of my favorite “saying” is “it’s it not about the destination, but about the journey itself”. I feel like that when I travel and in my day to day runnings of my business. Like you I bless my experience and enjoy the ride because it is one heap of fun. Failing is part of success so having failed a few times over in the past I know that my own odds have increased immensely too because I’m still here for the ride.
People like you who have the same mind set like me are the ones that fuel my system to keep going because I know that one day I will arrive at yet another one of my goals/dreams and then grow even more by setting my sights to another dream. It’s the wheel of life.
Monika | Apr 11, 2009 | Reply
@ Brett: Exactly! It is mostly about the confidence and belief within us to demand these type of rates. And you know what, you will get paid too. Believe in yourself and the rest of the world will follow. Confidence breeds confidence – never forget this!
Jenny | Apr 11, 2009 | Reply
Believing in myself has always been an issue, however lately I’ve had a surge in self esteem and confidence and therefore am becoming more successful at attaining my goals. I shall have to look up some more on Jeff Combs!
Thanks Monika!
Brett Legree | Apr 11, 2009 | Reply
@Monika,
It is funny, after talking with you about this, the other night I was watching one of my favourite movies (Gattaca) and for some reason I didn’t remember it being so inspirational.
But watching it again, it is amazing to see how the main character’s belief in himself allowed him to achieve his dreams.
(Sure, it is only a movie, but it made me think, “hmm – this is well within my grasp.”
Monika | Apr 11, 2009 | Reply
@ Jenny: I’m really happy for you because I know you’ve dealt with some self-doubt in the past. It’s good to see you have moved on from those feelings because as you can see, positive thoughts are like a rocket; they fuel you to bigger achievements and give you heaps of confidence.
Monika | Apr 11, 2009 | Reply
@ Brett: It IS! You can achieve anything you ever truly want. Never forget this. If there is a will, there is a way.
Brett Legree | Apr 12, 2009 | Reply
@Monika,
I don’t know if you’ve seen that movie, but it is one of those you can watch a few times as there is more than meets the eye.
The line that got me this time was, “I was never more certain of how far away I was from my goal than when I was standing right beside it.”
I then spent some time on Google Street View looking at places I’d been in NZ, places I will return to again, and it just encouraged me all the more.
Though I’m on the other side of the planet right now, I can retrace my steps at any time and keep the memories and dreams alive.
Venkat | Apr 12, 2009 | Reply
Yes indeed Monika… yes indeed…confidence is all what it takes to achieve your goals.
But today’s confidence depends on yesterday’s success and that success depends on day before’s efforts and how effective that efforts are once again depends on that day’s confidence.
So confidence is the starting point. But the question is how can you have confidence without track record of success behind you. The answer is by simply acting confident.
It may sound silly but it works. It worked for me and believe me it takes very little time for that acting to turn into feeling confident and very soon confidence will become your character trait.
Just do this acting just for one day and see how the day goes buy. The only important thing you have to remember is this acting should happen both externally and internally, that is not only what you speak, how you move, the language you use,what task you complete etc but also what you think. It is very difficult to know and copy the thoughts of a confident person but we know what type of thinking makes us confident.
Keep writing.
Monika | Apr 13, 2009 | Reply
@ Brett: I think I have seen it many years ago. I didn’t like it back then from memory but maybe I didn’t pay attention to the meaning of it. Love that quote though, often we fail to see something even if it is right in front of us.
Monika | Apr 13, 2009 | Reply
@ Venkat: I know what you mean and couldn’t agree more. You are a smart women. In the end we all play our own mind games with ourselves. Most people chose the negative kind and often we can’t help it because of our childhood conditioning. But I prefer to choose positivity whenever possible. It doesn’t always work but once i realize I’m stuck in a negative bubble I use similar thoughts like you to get me out of it.
Venkat | Apr 13, 2009 | Reply
Monika,
Thank you, but one correction….. I am a man and that’s my favorite Indian actress Aishwarya Rai’s foto. I feel lot happier looking at her foto (hope my wife don’t read this) than my own and (I think) so does other people. A thing of beauty is joy forever, is it John Keats who said that.
Monika | Apr 14, 2009 | Reply
@ Venkat: Oops. My apologies. You got me there. Now I know and even so I have no idea how you look in real life, adding the pic of a beautiful lady certainly helps to attract eyeballs. It worked for me, LOL.
HankM | Apr 20, 2009 | Reply
Confidence engenders a kind of informed fearlessness that I think most truly successful people have. Mindset is so important to reaching goals. Thanks for the post and the follow up comments.
Monika | Apr 20, 2009 | Reply
@ HankM: First of all I like to welcome you to my site as a new reader. I’m always excited to see new people stop by and share their views with us.
You are correct in your observation. I see time and time again that the two major attributes all successful people share is a strong mindset and confidence. It is amazing what we can achieve when the mind soars high, nothing is impossible.
Ecommerce Help - Tyrone Shum | May 4, 2009 | Reply
I can’t help but read again and again this part:
“Unless we are thinking like a true entrepreneur and are prepared to take risks we will never make the transition from employee (trading time for money) to wealthy home business owner.
How do I know this? It’s because I’ve already made the switch years ago and these days I’m un-employable. Over time I have come to the realization that I could never fit back into a job. Neither do I want to!
Judging by the countless stories of millionaire entrepreneurs who failed in business many times over only to succeed big time after sticking around, I KNOW that one of these days I will realize my own intentions of earning a six figure income each month.
Why settle for less!
Most of us are conditioned from birth to under-value and under-estimate ourselves. If we analyze the whole schooling system we also quickly realize that we are not trained to become wealthy but rather be slaves to the system – how else would corporate America function?”
True enough, most of us try to undermine our abilities and compare it to others thus shrinking our self confidence by the minute.
Confidence is always necessary in any job you are about to partake, usually it can cover up our flaws and give people the best view of ourselves.
Cath Lawson | May 6, 2009 | Reply
Hi Monika – I haven’t been blogging or reading much lately. Hope you’re well. You’re sounding as inspired and motivated as ever.
“People usually trade time for money and doing this will NEVER make them a millionaire”.
That is so true – unless you have a pretty good wageand you’re very frugal.
I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a part-time job lately, because I do feel lonely at home sometimes. But when I do the maths – it’s so hard to justify trading any of my time for an hourly rate.