TES 053 - 9 Ways 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. I'm Mel Abraham, the author of the number one best selling book the Entrepreneur's Solution and the founder of Thoughtpreneur Academy where we teach you how to capture, package and monetize what you know, the ideas in your head for more impact, more time to yourself and more income. So welcome back to this episode of the Entrepreneur's Solution show. And this one, when I answer a question that often comes my way, one being a financial consultant, as a cpa, a business advisor, a strategist, and some of the things they do, and that is what is it about the wealthy and how they think.

That makes them wealthy? And so what we're going to do, right after this brief introduction, we're going to come back and I'm going to introduce you to what I call the Prosperity Paradigm profile. It is the nine elements, the nine ways that I think that the wealthy think. It's, it's what I have observed over the years working with truly successful, uber successful entrepreneurs, business owners and wealthy people as a strategist, as a consultant, as a mentor in that process. And so right after this brief introduction, we will come back to that. And if you're looking to download the Prosperity Paradigm profile, just go to melabraham.com session053 and we'll get you that download right away. So, so you can start working on your profile. And if you're not at your computer, if you happen to be out running around doing things, running errands, doing something, just take your phone out, take it out and just text mylegacy one word to 38470 and I'll make sure that I send you the download link right away and I'll see you back here right after this brief introduction. Cheers.

Welcome to the Entrepreneur's Solution, where highly successful entrepreneur Mel Abraham becomes your entrepreneurial mentor. Here, Mel reveals his business building strategy and even gets a chance to answer your questions. Mel Abraham, a CPA by education, but an entrepreneur by exhilaration. And a true believer in the entrepreneurial way of life. It's through entrepreneurship that we create community, support society and live our dreams.

It's where possibility meets reality again and you can have the life and lifestyle you want. One of freedom and peace of mind. Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur's Solution where it's time for you to be bold, dream big and live life your way.

Alright, welcome back. I'm Mel Abraham. Welcome back to this episode of the Entrepreneur Solution. Show this one. I get a chance to talk a bit about.

The thought process, the thinking that goes into most of the wealthy people that I have dealt with. And I've had the blessing and the opportunity over the years to really work with some uber, uber successful entrepreneurs and business owners to see what it was that, that drove them to ask the questions, to understand what, what really drove them. And here's the thing, is that, that the truly successful entrepreneurs and truly successful wealthy entrepreneurs, they think differently and it's not about necessarily just what do they do, but how do they think. If we can get inside their head, if we can understand how they think, then we can duplicate that thinking in our own lives, in our own ways and bring that into our life. So that's really how I want to bring this about, is I want to talk to you about what I see as the nine different elements of their thinking that is different than most of, well, I think most of the public, most of humanity, they don't necessarily think that way. And we'll take it from there. This is called the prosperity paradigm profile. But one of the key elements before we even get into this is that each one of us, each and every single one of us, have a different definition, wealth. And before you go anywhere, before you start to think about wealth or being wealthy or, and this is because you're going to find out that when I talk about wealth, it isn't just about money. It's true richness. True richness comes from the meaning that you have in your life. It's not from the dollars you have in your bank account. And so when we're talking about this, it's really easy for us to say, oh God, he's all about the money. He's all about the money. This isn't about money, this is about the richness in your life, the meaning in your life. Now granted, we're going to talk about money and all of those elements, but that is not what's driving you. It's driving you is the why. Remember the meaning that we put to it. And so One of the first things we need to do is define for you, and this is different for each and every person. Define for you what does wealth stand for you? And you know, when I work with my high level clients many times, one of the questions I ask is, what does success look like for you? If for you? Because I know for me, you've heard me speak. I think of success, wealth and richness as a holistic view. This isn't about how much we get in the bank account, it's about maybe what we earn. Certainly that's one part of it. But what about our health? What about our relationships? What about our spirituality? What about our emotional well being? What about our energy, our vibrancy, our body and how we show up that electricity? What about the other friendships we have? See, to me, the concept of prosperity and wealth and richness is not about one thing and one thing only, and that is the dollars in a bank account. It's about all the things that are coming into our life that create the richness of us to live. So one of the first things I'm going to ask you to do here is to ask yourself and answer the question and be specific. What does wealth look like for you? What's the definition of wealth? In other words, I want you to define what the destination looks like so you know when you get there and you know which way we go. Because when we talk about the these nine elements of the prosperity paradigm, it's meaningless unless you have that definition that is meaningful to you. And if I told you my definition, which I've kind of done, it may not resonate with you. Maybe for you it's something else. And the level and the magnitude of some people say, you know, I want $10 million in cash and so I can do whatever I want. Or others will, will say, I don't need that much. I just want to travel with my family and do these things. And you know what? That's wealthy to them, that's richness to them. And there's no judgment. And the point is that we define it our way and we live it our way. We be intentional in the process. And I think that you're going to see that as a common thread with those that are truly successful is that they actually designed their life in a specific way. So let's get to the paradigm so you can start to ask yourself these questions and work through this. And there's a couple of different things that we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about the internal game, the mindset that comes into play. We're going to talk about the activities that you undertake, and we're going to talk about the focus that you have. And this is, again, coming from my experience working with successful entrepreneurs, wealthy individuals, and asking the questions and seeing what it is that's driving them. How do they think inside their head, and how does that manifest inside their life? So one of the first things we'll touch on in the internal part of it is this, is that they all believed that they are the creator, that they are the creator of their life, of their richness, of their wealth, of the meaning that it was in their hands. Now, many of them are very spiritual and some very religious. So they believe that there's a higher power. And I'm with you on that. And it's not about that there isn't a higher power, but they also believe that they have the right to choose and they have the right to define, and they have the ability to do things for themselves, to allow the gifts that were given to them be magnified greatly. So what they look at is they realize that one, they believe that they're the creator of their own richness, their own meaning, and their own wealth. And here's what I invite you to do as we go through these nine elements. And if you download the tool with this, the Prosperity Paradigm profile, you'll be able to go along with this and do this, and that is to score yourself on each and every one of these elements. Once you define what your definition of wealth is, what it looks like for you, and there is no right or wrong, like I said, it is right for you, and that's it. And it may change, it may evolve, things may happen in your life that shift and change it slightly. But score yourself as to what your beliefs are, how your thinking is, each one of these elements. And again, I believe that we ought to be in the upper 20%. So if you are not scoring yourself, if you find yourself not scoring in 8 to 10 on any of these items, this is where we maybe we need to do some work. We need to start to.

Dial it in, be more aware of it, be more conscious of it, Put some things in place to raise the awareness and raise the attention and focus that we put on that area. So when you look at yourself, say, how much of you believes that you are the creator of your richnesses and the creator of your wealth and the creator of the meaning and your life? Okay, so score that. And now we'll go to the next one. The next one is really about committed, each and every one. And I think this is. All of these are common traits. And then I'm going to say this a lot, but they are absolutely committed to building a rich life, to building wealthy life. And they are clear about it, they've got clarity about it. And they're going to put a process in place of.

I'm going to say wealth creation. But I think that the challenge is that with saying that is that people define it as money, but I'm going to say a richness creation, because to me, richness is more than just money. And they're committed to creating that experience, that life. You know, when I got married and it's going on five years now, that's one of the things that both my wife, my beautiful wife Stephanie and I talked about, is that we are committed to each other. We're also committed to creating wonderful experiences, memories and joy together for each other. And we create that journey for ourselves. So we're truly committed. So what are you committed to? At what level of commitment do you have building that wealth to building that richness in your life? Then we think about the thinking process. Now, this is a challenge for a lot of people. And I know that I still struggle with this from time to time. But the good news is I've got some great colleagues, some great mentors, and some great friends that'll kick me in the behind and say, you're thinking too small. That every single one of them thought big. They had a bigger vision. And the challenge, why I think that this is a challenge is that our society, especially today, in today's world, our society is causing people to shrink down, shrink down their dreams. And I think that's a travesty. That's a horrendous travesty to take people and say, yeah, just shrink down your dreams and be satisfied. And it's not about not being satisfied. It's about dreaming big and living life to its fullest to live with the vibrancy and the excitement that life was meant to be lived. I don't think we're here to simply exist for the years that we're here. And again, it's about living life big. So how big is your thinking? Are you thinking big? Did you take those dreams and shrink them down? Now, I'm not saying that everything is possible, but I do think that in time, everything is possible. If we look back, I look at some of the things that we're doing. Elon Musk just talked about the fact that at some point we'll be able to summon our car and it'll come driving over to us and we've got self parking cars. If you asked that 10 years ago, 20 years ago, it was an impossibility. And that's why I think that when we think and big, then a lot of possibility happens. So how big is your thinking? And I talk about this all the time, this concept of possibility and bringing possibility back into our lives again. And, and so there is a question that most successful people will constantly ask themselves that allows them to do this. Because sometimes people really quickly say, I remember I was sitting in a meeting and they said, absolutely, we can't do that, that is impossible. And I looked at them and I said, totally get is impossible right now, isn't it? Yeah. So let me just ask another question.

If it were possible.

How could we get it done? Well, that changed the dialogue. And then all of a sudden, within six months, what they said was impossible became a reality. So constantly ask yourself that question. What if it were possible? Because that's how entrepreneurs think. That's how ultra successful people think is they sit back and they think about it and go, hmm, what if it were possible? What if it were possible for you? Because I think everything is. Then we move over from this internal thought of creator committed and big thinking to the activities. And the first thing is I think that they come to life to play to win. There are a lot of people that, that I see out there that are, they've had some wins, they've had some losses. So they've got the bruises, they've got the scars and they've got the challenges. And so what they do is they play not to lose. That's a vastly different game to play than playing to win. Now granted, when you play to win, you might risk, but you need to be strategic with the risks that you take to be methodical with what it is. And there's a whole lot of ways that we can do that. It's a separate, separate episode in and of itself. But the bottom line is how much are you playing to win versus playing to not lose? Completely different. A slight distinction in language, but it is a huge, huge shift in your life. And I invite you to play to win. At what level are you playing to win? The game of wealth and richness and meaning in your life? Then we ask ourselves about promotion, self promotion. The funny thing is that those that are truly successful, they search for opportunities, they find opportunities, and they are not shy about going out and promoting the opportunities to promote themselves, to promote the goodness. The richness that they bring to people's lives and do it that way. But are you sitting timid in a corner?

What are you doing to promote yourself, to promote the gifts that you have that you bring to your relationships, to your life, to your team, to your business, to your customers, to yourself? Because as you promote those riches and you're serving at that level, what happens is you're going to find that you attract more. So self promotion was a huge activity that I saw and not from a, a selfish and.

Oppressive perspective from everyone else. It was promoting for everyone to grow. And so the key is to not be shy about it and get yourself out there. And then last is that.

They hang out in successful circles. So they have friendship circles, they have acquaintance circles, they have colleague circles, they have inner circles that are made up of people that are at the level or above where they want to play because they can learn skills, they can learn the way they think, they can elevate themselves. And they make sure that they associate themselves at some level with those people, at the level that they want to play and above. And so if you look at it and say, what is going on in our lives, in your life, you know, are you involved in some of those circles? Do you have those associates? Do you have the ability to go to someone and say, hey, what's going on? Understanding that at every level, there's a different level of thinking to move you to the next level. In order to learn that new level of thinking, we need to associate with it. We need to learn from people that have traveled that journey. We need to find that way. And the best way to do it is the networking, the association you have with people. So when we get the internal part right and we get the activities right now let's figure out what that focus piece is. And there's three elements to that focus piece, and that is first, when we're talking about wealth, it is net worth focused. Now, I can talk about net worth and give you an idea, but the bottom line is, what is net worth to you? And when we talk about a monetary net worth, it's what do you own less? What do you owe? That's the easiest way. So I own some stuff. And it's going to be. It may be cash, it may be investments and securities and real estate and intellectual property and businesses and all that. But I owe some people some stuff. It may be mortgages, it may be credit card debt, hopefully not. It may be student loan debt, it may be business debt. And you take what you own and you subtract out what you owe. That's the net worth. And what they're focused in on is this constant increase in net worth. Because what happens with the beauty of compounding also is that as you build it, it starts to gain momentum.

And will grow at an exponential rate. If you think about it, there's this rule called The Rule of 72s. And Rule of 72 says that a dollar held today and invested at 7% will double in 10 years. Or there's another way to look at it. A dollar invested at 10% will double in seven years. So let's just think about it. I invest $100,000 and invested in 10%, some 10% investment. In seven years, that 100,000 turns into 200,000. But what happens seven years from there? The 200,000 just went into 400,000. So really, in 14 years, what you've done is you quadrupled your net worth if you did it right. And so what happens is that they focus on net worth and net worth growth. Now, I'm going to invite you to do something also, because when I look at net worth, I look at it in two different ways. One, I look at total net worth. That's everything I own. And then I look at liquid net worth because I could be really have a really high net worth number, but have no cash, no liquidity, no ability to pay bills and be virtually bankrupt because I end up have insolvent, because I end up having to sell things to pay my bills. So I want to make sure that what is also growing is my liquid net worth, my ability to, to create cash from my net worth. Okay, so they're net worth focused. The second part of it is that they focus on value versus price when we negotiate. And I've said it in a number of episodes that we are in a value exchange economy and that what people pay for is the value they get. And yet for some reason, we are so caught up in price and we are so caught up on cost that we get into this discussion of cost. But the question is, what's the value.

That you're providing? What's the value that you're creating because you get compensated at the level of the value you create. That's just the way it is. I mean, whether you like it or not, that's the true economics of everything. People are willing to buy something because they believe that what they're paying for it is less than the value that they get back in return. And that's the only reason a transaction happens. So what we need to do is focus on creating more value. And as we create more value, people will see that value and they'll be willing to pay for that value. Price doesn't become the issue. It's value creation that becomes the issue. How much value do you create? How are you creating value? And how can you elevate the value and the perception of value that you bring to the marketplace? And then lastly, manage yourself first. People that I've talked to, they know that, and they've heard me say this, that wealth isn't about money, it's about discipline. It's easy to become wealthy if you're disciplined in the process because time is on your side. Typically, the earlier start, the easier it is. Yes, but it's about discipline. If we're spending at the ends of our checks or beyond the ends of our checks and running up debt, there's no way you're ever going to be wealthy, let's face it. And so you're spending tomorrow's dollars for today's joys. Whereas if you're disciplined and work through the process and work the process properly, the you're living within your means. And actually, I say live at a level that allows you to continue to build, not just at the edge of the check. I call it the 50% ruler that I'll talk about on another episode. But you're living definitely within your means. So you're not spending tomorrow's dollars for today's joy. You're creating today's joy and allowing for tomorrow to grow. That's the key. So it's about managing yourself first before you manage your money. It's about creating that discipline, that habit of doing that on a regular basis. So, I mean, the reality is that if you want to have a prosperity paradigm, a prosperity mindset of wealth mindset, and you want to really think the way wealthy people think, these are the nine things that I see repeatedly in each and every one of them. And if you do this under the umbrella of the meaning you want out of your life, the purpose that you're here to serve, the richness that you're trying to create, yes, you're going to build monetary wealth, but the richness that comes out of it in your life, the meaning that comes out of it is going to be vastly more fulfilling than any amount of dollars in the bank account. So everything that we do here is going to need to be, I believe, under that umbrella of meaning. And as you move forward. So those are the nine things. Be a creator of your own.

Believe that you're the creator that you have the ability to create your own life, committed to the process of creating a rich life and wealth. Expand your thinking, expand your possibility. Think to think bigger. Play the game to win, not to not lose. Be willing to go out there and promote yourself and build that and find that circle of friends that colleagues and peers that you can bring in to associate along with the people that are already in your life to raise the bar and raise the level of thinking that you have in the game. Then focus on net worth. In fact, today, when you get done listening this, do me a favor, do the math on your net worth. What do you own? What do you owe? Figure out what the difference is. I don't care what the number is. I don't care what the number is. I just want you to start tracking it. Because until you start measuring it, we can't manage it. And until we, we are able to manage it, we can't affect it, we can't grow it. So let's get in the game and let's move forward. Understand value versus price, focus on value creation, value derivation, all of that type of stuff, and then manage yourself first and the process will work for you. So I hope that you found this of value. I hope that you'll take this to heart and that you'll, you'll download the Prosperity Paradigm profile. You can go to melabraham.com session053 to get it and go through and score yourself and then spend some time understanding what do you need to do to shift, to shift the way you think? Because until you think differently, you won't be differently. And that's really the key. I want you to start thinking different so you can be different, so you can show up different, so you can do things different. And at the same time, if you're in a relationship, if you're married, if you have kids, teach them this, bring this to them, allow them to think differently. Give them the tools to think differently so you're all on the same page, you're all going down the same path. So if you haven't done so already, share this with a friend. Share this with someone that maybe needs a little bit of different thinking, a different viewpoint to help them out. And do me a favor, if you haven't done it, make sure you subscribe. Click the subscribe button so we can stay together. Because I got a lot more that I want to bring your way as we move forward. And if this brought up some questions for you or some challenges that you're unsure of and you want to ask, go to askmelnow.com leave me your question. I'll make sure that I get to it on one of the upcoming episodes just like this question was asked of me. And I think that's it for this episode. I'll see you back here on an upcoming episode in the next episode. Until then, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant. Go out there. Think differently. Think big. Let's make it happen. Cheers. See you. Bye.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure you subscribe so you get access to all of Mel's business and success tips. And if you like this episode, share it with a friend. If you have a specific business or success question, you can ask it at www.askmelnow.com. remember, it's all about being bold, dreaming big, and living life your way because the world needs you. Until the next episode, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant.

And that's it for this episode of Building youg 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 Podcast, 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.