A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.
-Mahatma Ghandi
My cousin Mark has the millionaire mindset. His life history reads like one of the classic Horatio Alger rags-to- riches story line.
Mark grew up in a poor background and he had a difficult childhood. He came to live with us in his teens. My father took him in like a son, paid for his tuition and upkeep through college and university. When he graduated from University, he applied for many jobs without success. He started a series of business ventures, many woeful failures.
The last venture he started thrived for a few months before it went bankrupt because one of the partners had defrauded the company and vanished.
However, good fortune smiled on mark when he became sales manager for an Italian furniture company.
Using his network of contacts and street savvy, Mark exceeded his one-year sales target by 100 percent, within 6 months. Mark said this was his epiphany moment .
Mark had a flash of inspiration to start his own business. He took action on his idea, creating a multimillionaire dollar business. In addition, Mark now has extensive real estate holdings and, enjoys the lifestyle of his dreams.
How was Mark able to rise from poverty to riches in such a short time? The answer is this: He used on the most powerful secret to become wealthy-that is working on his mind-to think and act the way wealth builders do.
Becoming wealthy is a matter of doing things in a certain way. However, before you can do and have what it takes to be wealthy-you need to understand how to make the mindset shift.
The good news is that you already have the tool you need to make that mindset shift…I am talking about your mind.
Your mind is where you can make all the changes you need to produce the outcomes you want in your life. The iron law of the universe-the law of cause and effect works with your mind.
Your ability to use the power of your mind comes from having an understanding of how it work and how to use your mind effectively-to achieve your goals.
This is what I am about to share with you… are you ready to make the shift?
I am sure you do…Let me now take you through what I have discovered from study and how I think you should apply the understanding of this powerful concept to be a better investor and ultimately a wealth builder.
Do you know your Stick Person?
Several theories exist as to how the mind works. I have always been fascinated about how our mind works, in particular about why some people are rich and others poor. The stick person theory of the mind I found the most interesting of all.
Developed, by Dr Thurman Fleet, founder of Concept Therapy, The theory states that your mind has two parts, conscious and subconscious. Your conscious and subconscious mind is where your personality emerges.
Bob Proctor, motivational, speaker, and bestselling author you were born rich sums up the power of the mind: “you have a power within you that is far superior to any condition or circumstance around you. With your free will, your thoughts direct this power to whatever results you choose in your life time”.
Here are the two parts to your mind, as explained by the diagram of a Stick Person:
Conscious mind – this part of your mind thinks and reasons. This part determines how much money you want to earn. Your conscious mind can accept or reject any idea. The thoughts you choose eventually determine outcomes you get in life.
The stimuli of pain or pleasure originate in our conscious mind. The thoughts you allow from your conscious mind become impressed on the second part…
Your subconscious mind– is the power centre. It functions in every cell of your body. Every thought your conscious mind chooses to accept, this part must accept. It has no ability to reject .The subconscious operates in an orderly fashion. Any thought you consciously choose to impress upon the subconscious continuously, becomes part of your personality. It is at the subconscious level that habits form. Habits will continue to express themselves without any conscious assistance until replaced.
Your subconscious mind is the godlike part of you referred to as your spirit. It knows no limits.
In his book, The Power of the Subconscious Mind, Dr Joseph Murphy says whatever thoughts, beliefs, opinions, theories or dogmas you note engrave or impress on your subconscious mind, you will experience on the outside. Your thoughts become your experience. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Man is what he thinks about all day long”.
What goes on in your mind manifests…
Your body, is most obvious part of you, the material medium, it is merely the instrument of the mind. The thoughts or images that are consciously chosen, impressed upon the subconscious (every cell of the body), must move your body into action. The actions you take will determine your results.
Why is it important to understand your stick person? I believe when you understand this element of your mind, then you can understand why it is crucial to work with your mind to make the change you want in your financial life
Let me explain.
Your mind works in this order:
Thoughts…Feelings…Actions…Results
In order words, your thoughts generate the feelings you have. How you feel determines how you act. Your actions produce your results.
This concept of how the mind works explains why two individual-given the same opportunity, will produce different results-poverty or wealth
When I understood that this is how my mind works, I started to do things differently. As a result, I have produced outstanding results many areas of my life- finances, health and personal relationships
How to use your stick person
I believe you have within you, the power to make the change you need to blast through any obstacles; you have right now from achieving financial independence.
It is not enough to understand your mind…you need to take things a step further. You need to start working on your “stick person” to become who you want to be.
I have studied many motivational books on the subject of wealth creation.
The best strategy that makes sense to me and I have tried, I found in a book by Gerry Robert author, motivational speaker The Millionaire mindset.
In his book the millionaire mindset, Gerry talks about a powerful strategy to make the mindset shift you need to create wealthy and live the millionaire lifestyle. He calls this method– the Captain and Crew strategy.
The idea behind this tactic is this: Imagine your conscious mind (intellect) as the Captain and your subconscious mind as the crew of a ship. The captain, your conscious mind, gives a command -when you think something. The crew (your subconscious mind) views your thought as a command. The purpose of the crew is to fulfill the command of the captain.
Your thoughts become the command for the crew- your subconscious mind. Remember your subconscious mind has no ability to reject commands from your conscious mind.
This is why I found the captain and crew method interesting and practicable, because it was very practical to use in making change in the direction of your thought process.
How the Captain and crew method helped me transform my career and wealth…
I had been using this tactic for a long time, even before I read the millionaire mindset. I believe it will work for you if you try it. I know for sure it works.
I believe this is possible because I had a similar experience many years ago…
I was living in Africa, earning $2000 per year at the time. One day, I made the decision to travel abroad to live in the developed world because I wanted to live the life of my dreams…I wanted to travel to the cities I have always dreamt of living in London, Paris, and Orlando.
I noticed shortly after I made this decision to travel abroad, I started to meet people who had similar ideas to travel overseas. I opened up an internet account-a rare thing for people to own at the time because the Internet was in its infancy.
I took lessons in word processing, wrote a research paper, which I presented at a world conference of social scientist from many parts of Africa, Australia and Sweden.
One day something happened that changed my life, making my dream a reality….
I was sitting in my office at the time, when I met this remarkable lady- a patient of mine at the time. She was a frequent traveler to the United Kingdom.She had access to health care on both sides of the world.
She was meeting me for the first time but at the end of the conversation, she said, “Doctor you sound and behave like a GP (family doctor in England), have you ever thought of going abroad to practise medicine?” I was shocked at her question, but not wanting to tell her my ambitions I said I was thinking about it. She prodded me to find out the requirements to practice medicine in England.
This person went a step further to collect the application forms for me, contributed towards the application fees – because I could not afford it (the fees was roughly 50 percent of my annual salary) and the rest is history.
Because of my move to England in that period of over 10 years, my income has increased to over the $100,000 mark that is over 5000 percent of my previous salary!
This is my proof that when you can work on your mind and subconscious mind there is no limit to what you can achieve in terms of income. By the way, you can apply this method to any area of your life.
Here is another home truth….When you become dissatisfied with your present income and start to think thoughts of earning a higher income, your crew- the subconscious mind, has no choice but to obey, to produce a new reality for you.
Gerry Roberts tells in his book of when he started, thinking about earning a million dollars, he became aware of opportunities to super size his income. He noticed that he started coming up with ideas, and made business relationships that helped him earn his dream income.
How Do I take action?
My advice to you is to begin to take the ideas, thoughts you have about what you want in terms of money and write them down.
Next, you should start thinking about them consciously, when you have thoughts that counter your possibility of accomplishing your goals –consciously think your thoughts aloud.
The initial few times you do this may make you feel awkward. Do not let it stop you persist in taking action. Remember your objective is to impress your conscious thoughts in you subconscious so that it becomes a part of your personality.
When you are able to align you wealth-building thoughts in your subconscious mind, you will begin to think act and produce wealth like millionaires.
Think rich and grow rich