020 How the Wealthy Think

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey there. Welcome back to this episode of the affluent entrepreneur show. And in this episode, we're gonna talk. We're gonna answer a question that came in from a listener and they asked, what is it that the wealthy think about that's different than those that maybe aren't so wealthy? It's a great question. We're gonna answer it in this episode. Stay tuned. There's nine things we're gonna talk about.

This is the affluent Entrepreneur show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money, and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom because that's what it really means to be an athlete entrepreneur.

Hey there, and welcome to this episode, the affluent entrepreneur show. This episode is going to be fun because I'm answering a question that came in from one of the community. One of the affluencers out there asked this question. And the way they asked the question was really a great way to ask in the sense of he said, look, I know that wealthy people are doing things differently than other people. There's something that they know there's something that they're doing that's different. What is it? He said, I'd love to understand how they think. And it's that last piece of the question that's really important because I know that there's a lot of people out there that say, hey, just find someone that has accomplished the things that you want to accomplish and do what they do. But you know what? I don't believe that works. Just imitating the actions of someone else isn't as valuable and isn't as powerful as understanding the thinking that goes into those actions. Let me say that again. Just imitating the actions of Someone else isn't as important or as powerful as understanding the thinking that goes into those actions. And so what I want to do is I'm going to answer this question from the perspective of how I've seen. Now, I've worked with millionaires, multimillionaires, even billionaires, where we've had these conversations. I've worked with startup companies, people just starting into business, understanding the thought process, understanding how they view things. And there's a common theme with those that have excelled. Those have created the wealth, the freedom, the affluence that they want in their life. There's this common threat, and there's effectively nine things that I see as common. But there are three categories. We're going to talk about it from the perspective of understanding, understanding three things. One is we're going to look at the internal. What is their internal process? What's inside their head? How do they approach things? So the internal. The other thing is that there are certain things that the truly wealthy actually focus on. So what's their focus? And the third is we're going to look at what's their activity. Okay, what are they doing now? Realizing this. That until we figure out how they think, what they're focusing on, the activity doesn't really matter. And that's why I put it thirds. But I want to talk about three things that are internal to them, the way they think, three things that they focus on their attention, and three things that they're doing in helping you. This, this is what I call the prosperity profile paradigm. It's a matrix. And I'm going to do this on the iPad. Again, those of you that are listening, not to worry. The graphic will be in the show notes and you can access actually the video on the show note page also at some point in time. But you can listen to it here. And I'm going to walk through it in this way. So here's how this thing plays out. And the way I've seen it play out, and all this is really coming from the work that I've done in this space, the things that I've learned, some of it the hard way. All right? But here's the first thing is that on the internal side, one of the first internal thought processes, this is they see themselves as the creator of their wealth, the creator of their circumstance. They don't see themselves. So think about it this way. We can be a victim to our circumstances, or we can see ourselves as the creator of our circumstances. In other words, I look at it and go, the good, the Bad. The ugly that I have in my life is because I brought it into my life. And when we do that, when we do that, we actually empower ourselves to change it. If we don't like it, if we put it outside of ourselves, if they put it outside of themselves, they're immune to changing it. They can't change it because it's not within their control. But as soon as I say, I am the creator of my wealth, I am the creator of my life, I am the creator of the richness, I am the creator of the experiences, I am the creator of my business, I am the creator of my relationships, I'm the creator of my health, I'm the creator of all that. Now, I. Granted there's something bigger than us here, I totally get that. But to the extent that I can control what I have here, then I need to take responsibility. And those that I see that are, that are truly wealthy, that are truly free, that are truly affluent, they take responsibility. They see that they have a hand in the creation of what they have. Okay, they have to take action. So that's the first thing. The second is that they truly are committed to the process of wealth creation. They look at everything through a wealth creation eye. They look at everything to sit back and say, how is this activity, this action, this program, this process going to help me increase my wealth, increase my net worth, increase my investable assets increase, as I talked about in the last show, the increase the cash flow paradigm. And they look at, at it through that, those eyes. So they're thinking about it right from the get go. Is this something that is a producer of wealth or is it an eroder of wealth? And I commit to all those things that are producers. This is not about being interested. There's a lot of people that come to me and say, hey Mel, I'm interested in understanding how to invest. Yet they won't pick up the book to read, they won't go through a program, they won't take a step, they won't even open an account. Well, there's a very big difference between being committed to your wealth generation, to your building of your influence, to building the freedom, to building the legacy for your family, for your future and your financial destiny, that which is your birthright, but you have to claim it, which means that you have to take action on it. There's a difference between doing that and simply being interested. I'm interested in learning a foreign language. I'm not committed to it because I haven't done it. The things that I'm committed to, I've done the things that I'm committed to, I am doing. And so if you're questioning whether you're committed to your wealth generation, to your, to building wealth and affluence and getting this money game right, look at your actions. Either you're doing it or have done it. And that means you're committed to it or you're not, which means you're interested or not committed to it. And I know that's hard for some people to swallow, but the question is that we will, you know, what are you committed to? Because it's what we're committed to that's going to rise to the top. It's not time management, it's a matter of priorities. It's not interest, it's a matter of commitment. Those kinds of things that happen. Now, the third way they think is that they look at things and they have big thinking around them, okay? And what I mean by big thinking is that they come at it with a possibility attitude. They don't look at it and go, ah, that's a problem. I can't do it. They don't slam into the wall and say, I give up. They have a solution orientation, okay? They have a solution orientation. They look at what is put in front of them and say, what if it were possible.

How would we do it? Because if we look around us, everything from the light bulb to self driving cars to voice activated systems, they were answering the question.

What if it were possible.

How would we do that? And I'd love for you to look at the things in your life, the things that you think are obstacles, and you're butting up against those obstacles which could shut you down and that you don't do anything and you don't move forward. You look at those obstacles and then ask yourself, but wait a second, let me step back for a moment. What if it were possible? How would I do it? Not putting limiters, not putting filters out. One of this, one of the exercises that we do when I work with boards or teams or businesses and entrepreneurs is that especially, especially in the, in the way that things have happened over the past year with the pandemic and shutting down. We gotta look at business models and we gotta look at doing differently. The challenge is we have blinders on as the way we did business and we think that's the only way to do business because that's the way it's always been done. Well, I got to tell you, the way it's always been done is the death knell of Your business. It's the reason Blockbuster Video is no longer allowed. They got complacent. That's the way it was always be being done. They didn't think that they could be replaced. They didn't think that streaming would take over. They didn't think that any of that stuff would happen. Complacency is the first step to crisis. So rather than view it in the sense of, of this is always the way it's always been done, ask ourselves, is there a better way to do it? To go back to zero based thinking, as my friend Brian Tracy would say, to baseline ourselves and say let's strip away the boundaries of our prior thinking and let's look at it through new eyes. Let's just put ideas out there without filtering, let's slap them on post its and put them on the wall. And then let's look at each of the ideas and let's prioritize which ones we think are most possible and how would we make those happen. See, entrepreneurs solve problems before they become real entrepreneurs. See opportunities before the world does and they bring those opportunities to life. Wealthy folks will see things as opportunities and possibilities. So from an internal standpoint, they see themselves as responsible for creating their wealth. They commit themselves to a wealth creation process and they see possibility and opportunity in everything they do. Doesn't mean that they don't deal with obstacles. It just means they deal with them differently. So that's the internal pillar. Now we go to what do they focus on? What do they focus on? And the first thing that I know that they focus on is this, is that they focus on managing their self first. Okay, managing their self first. What I mean by this is that they realize that if they don't manage themselves, in other words, their mindset, their attitude, their actions, their behaviors, their development, their growth, then none of the rest of this is going to work. It's important, it's important that we start internally with ourselves. We can't manage others, we can't lead others if we don't manage ourselves. So if we have spending mishabits, if we have bad habits around customer relationships or customer service, if we do things that are not congruent with trying to grow our income, to grow our profitability, to grow our cash flow, then we're not going to have the things that would come at the other end. So we need to manage ourselves. That means that we're looking at how we are growing personally, the courses we're taking, the books we're reading, the things that we're feeding ourselves, how Are we taking care of ourselves? Our health, our vibrancy, our light? How are we taking care of our relationship? Because success to me is holistic. It's not about money. Remember, we say that wealth is a statistic and that richness is an experience. And what we want truly is richness. The affluence blueprint. Okay, we talk about a richer lifestyle, not a wealthier lifestyle, but that richer lifestyle. It comes from, from managing self first. It comes from understanding self first. To know that I'm going to put and dedicate time, effort and energy to developing myself, to taking care of myself, to living vibrantly, to learning more, to having mentors around me and that type of thing. So the wealthy that I've seen, they manage themselves first. Then they start looking, how do I manage money? How do I do that? So they get themselves straight. The second aspect of this is that they are value driven. Now, this is huge. And some people don't understand this. In fact, I just did a recent post about this that dollars follow value. The wealthy understand that we live in a value exchange economy. Too often we get caught up in price and cost and everything. Price and cost actually don't matter because price and cost, the absence of understanding what value they provide has no context. If I tell you something costs a million dollars, it sounds like a lot. But if that million dollars is going to save your child's life, it doesn't sound like a lot. Because I would, I know from my perspective, I would pay whatever it takes to save my child's life. See, the question is, what's the value exchange that's going to go on? And so the wealthy, when they come to their business, when they come to their customers, when they come to a conversation, they say, how can I help create more value in this moment than was there previously? And when you're coming to an interaction, a transaction, with the perspective of what is the value I can give versus the price I can get? Things shift for you. And so when we look at it from that perspective, their focus is on value creation. Their focus is on value attribution. Their focus is on giving value to others because they know that the byproduct of doing that is their wealth building the richness in their life. And so they're value driven in the process. Now, number three, the third focus that they have is that they are net worth focused. Now, it's not just any net worth. We talked about this in the previous episode. It's what I call investable net worth. In other words, they're focused on Building a portfolio of assets. It could be real estate, it could be in stock investment, could be business investment, could be trust deeds, it could be. But a. They're focused on building leveraged income streams from an investment portfolio, what we call a money machine that allows them to live their life without putting a lot of effort in. And I don't believe in any such thing as passive income because I think once we start thinking of things as passive, we start to ignore them because we think we can set it and forget it. Problem is that when you forget your money, your money is a relationship. And we get passive in relationships. My wife and I just crossed 10 years. We would have never made it 10 years if I was passive about the relationship. If she was passive about the relationship, we didn't care. We just said it, forget it. Yet we do that with the relationship with money. And that that's a mistake. But those that actually have created wealth, that have created richness in their life, they understand that and they look at it and they say, no, I'm going to actively be involved. I'm not going to say actively manage, because I don't actively manage all my investments. I have investment managers. I have a wealth strategy guy. We work together. But my fingers are on the pulse. I'm making the decisions. I'm the captain of the ship and I'm looking at it and saying, what's that pool of assets that is going to produce the cash flow to allow me to live the lifestyle that I want? And you heard in the last episode is that's what allowed me to deal with the cancer, to stop working, to do the things that I needed to do for two years without shifting my lifestyle, without draining my income, without draining my ass, without selling stuff, without doing any of that. It didn't decrease. In fact, my net worth went up during that time. So their net worth focused in the sense of not just acquiring a bunch of stuff, but acquiring things that will produce cash flow that can give them the freedom to live a life of their own choosing. So that's the third focus, is that they're focused on that now. That leads us now, we talked about the internal, their thinking, we've talked about their focus, their attention. Let's talk about their doing. Okay? Let's talk about their doing the activities. Okay? The first thing that they. They do is this, is that they approach things and they always play to win. Okay? Too often. And this happens. Actually, I see this also happen with people that are successful. They make money. And the same energy, the same action, the same Activity that allowed them to make the money. They lose that edge and instead of playing to win, they play not to lose. They play a much more defensive game, but they don't keep their attention on the things that they were keeping it on because they're actually running a little bit scared. So what we need to do is look at it and say they play to win. They always look at things and they say, I'm going to do the actions that it takes, the activity, I'm going to do the things that it takes to win the game. In other words, I'm going to approach it.

As a new game. So every time I go into a new business, every time I go into a new campaign, every time I go into a new launch, every time I go into a new presentation, every time I go into anything, I base it at ground zero and I say I'm starting again, I'm a playlist to win. How would I do this to be the best at it? How would I do this to put my whole self in it? How would I do this to make sure that if it wasn't successful, I know that I gave it everything that I had, that I didn't just soft pedal it, that I didn't play it not to lose, but I played it to win, that I gave it my all. And so that's a trait, that's an action that I see them taking. They're always playing to win. They have the strategy, they have the plan, they execute on the plan, they have the metrics that they're measuring. They do all the things on an ongoing basis, repeatedly to win the game. Second, the second thing that they do is they're in a constant state and I'll explain this when they're in a constant state of self promotion and what I mean by self promotion is that they're in a constant state of self growth. They're constantly trying to get bigger, they're constantly trying to learn more, they're constantly trying to grow more, they're constantly trying to have a bigger impact, they're constantly trying to give more, they're constantly trying to do that. So when I say self promotion, they're constantly looking at ourselves saying, how can I do more, how can I give more, how can I be more, how can I learn more, how can I be better in my relationship, I can be better with my health, how can I be better as a leader in my organization, how can I be better as a presenter, how can I be better in the things I do? They focus on how do I make Myself better. And so they take the actions. In other words, they have mentors, they have colleagues, they have coaches, they read. I mean if you look at the average millionaire reads multiples of books more than the average person. They're voracious learners. They're always looking for to grow. They're some of the biggest contributors. They're always looking to make a difference. They have charities. I have a charitable foundation that deals with abuse and violence against women and children. We do these things because we can, but because we want to, because it forces us to grow. It forces to go outside ourselves to do these things. Allison J. Prince, a dear friend and a client, she actually does. Every time she makes a sale, she makes a micro loan to a woman to give her the possibility of independence. And you know what? She's done over 7,000 loans, 7,000 women's lives are changed, okay, because of her. So we're looking at things from a self promotion, but not from a selfish standpoint. It's so we can be more, do more, give more and impact more. And then the third piece of this is that they run in successful circles. You may have heard that whole thing is you're the total, the average of the five people you surround yourself with type of thing. But this is true. This is true. We are in a circle of people. They put themselves in the circle of people that are going to hold them to a higher standard, they're going to push them, they're going to see things in them, they're going to tell them to do more. Listen, the affluence blueprint, quite frankly would not be a program, a process that I taught openly. It was something that I've done with a lot of my high level clients and to help them build their net worth, to help them build their financial freedom, to get financial independence, to find them financial liberty. It's the process that I use for myself. It's the process that my son and his wife are using. It's the process that I've used with some of my larger clients and people that you may know, James Wedmore and Rick Mulready and, and Stacy Touch, all those people that, that have done that. But I never really taught it openly. I didn't create, create a process or program, but I had, I had people in my circles, I said, you gotta teach this out there. And they pushed me and they pushed me and they said and they cajoled me. And then, and finally what ended up happening, I said, you're right. See what ends up happening is that when we surround Ourselves in successful circles, a rising tide lifts all ships. That's what they did for me during the time where I had to shut things down because of the cancer and everything. They stood by my side. What do you need? How can we help? What can we do for you? Do we need to run a campaign? Those things? So my question then is who are you in your circles and are there people you need to add to your circles that are going to up level you, that are going to hold you to a higher standard, they're going to make things better for you, they're going to allow you to see further because you're on the shoulders of them and see more focused in the process. Because that's what I see. The nine traits, if we look at it, internal is all about taking responsibility and being responsible for the creation of your wealth. The committed to wealth creation and building that financial machine and having possibility thinking to have that big thinking to look at things as opportunities and not obstacles. To look at things and say what if it were possible? Because over time everything is possible. And then understanding that they had specific focuses, that their primary focus at first is to manage self. First, that they knew that if they didn't self manage they couldn't lead, they couldn't grow, they couldn't do anything there. So their focus was internal first before they went external. Second, it was to then look at value. What value can they create in the process? How can they increase value in the moment? Because we're in a value exchange economy. And then third, third was all about net worth. How do they manage and build and focus on increasing the investable net worth to create the money machine that gives them the freedom, the business gave them the cash flow, the money machine gives them the freedom. And then they took specific activities, actions that they did. They play the game to win, not to lose. They come at it as if it was ground zero and starting all over again. And they play the game to win every single time. They focus on take actions with respect to self promotion, to grow themselves with reading, with mentors, with coaching, with masterminds, with all those things getting into programs and and processes. They self promote themselves, they grow themselves in the process. And lastly they surround themselves with successful people. They surround themselves with people that are going to boost them up, they're going to call them out, they're going to level up their standards and they're going to keep them moving forward. That's the prosperity profile paradigm. This is the nine things that I see in common across all of the wealthy people. The rich People, however you want to call them, the successful people that I've worked with over the years. And like I said, they've been solopreneurs to big organizations, and these traits have served them well. And I think they can serve you well. So. So here's what I'd love for you to do in this, is that you got these nine things. I'd love for you to go through the nine things, and I'd love for you to score yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 on each of them. How are these existing in your life? Is it a one, is it a ten? Is it somewhere in between? 8, 9, 10? And here's the thing, you got nine categories that you get to score yourself on. And if you see any of the categories below, an 8, maybe a 7, that's the place to focus on working, maybe your successful circles, you're sitting back and say, gosh, that's a four for me. Great. Who are the people I need to have in my circle to help boost me and move me to where I want to go? How do I serve them, create value for them so we can then start to create a relationship. Maybe it's a paid relationship in the sense of a coach or a mentor or mastermind. Maybe it's not. Okay. But I want you to look at the nine things here that we've walked through and score yourself honestly. And then from that score, come up with the plan to get all of those scores above 7. Because when you do that, you're bringing the level of thinking to your life, to your business, to your money that is consistent across the lines of all the people that I've worked with, that are wealthy, that are rich, and living a financially liberated, affluent life. And that's what I want for you. So I hope you found this of value, this episode. And I'd love to hear from you. If you have comments, even questions, just let me know. DM me. Post it, whatever you want to do. And if you haven't done so already, subscribe, Hit the subscribe button and leave me a review. As you know, I pick reviews periodically. I pick the reviews, and if your review gets read on the air, you get a one on one laser coaching session with me. All right? We get a chance to get on a zoom call, and we'll talk money, we'll talk wealth, we'll talk business, we'll talk entrepreneurship, we'll talk, you know, launches, whatever it is you want. But the idea is to talk about you, talk about your life and how we can get that to Soar. All right, so until the next episode, remember this to always live a life that outlives you. And I look forward to talking to you, seeing you, and chatting with you on the road to your financial destiny. Cheers. Bye. Thank you for listening to the affluent entrepreneurship with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial independence, liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of building your money machine, where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people, because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright, and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.