Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Wealth File #4 Rich People Think Big, Poor People Think Small (Summary)

This is a chapter-by-chapter summary of a book by T. Harv Eker’s Secret of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth (2005) series. One chapter, one article. Read this summary, buy the book. Enjoy!

Wealth File #4:

Rich People Think Big.

Poor* People Think Small.

“The Law of Income: You will be paid in direct proportion to the value you deliver according to the marketplace,” said Harv Eker, “The key word is value. It’s important to know that four factors determine your value in the marketplace: supply, demand, quality, and quantity.” This makes sense. The more you offer, the more you get paid. This is a fair law. You offer a higher value and get paid more than someone who offers a lower value. Who do you think should be paid more, a good lawyer or a bad lawyer? A good footballer or a bad footballer? A good actor or a poor actor? The answers are obvious…

I’m not going to explain the concept of supply and demand here, as it’s not what the book is about. The major struggle people have with offering more value is the quantity. The quantity factor simply means how much of your value do you actually deliver to the marketplace? Most people play small because #1 They are scared of failure, and #2 They feel small and unworthy. “But hear this,” Eker emphasized, “Your life is not just about you. It’s also about contributing to others. It’s about living true to your mission and reason for being here on this earth at this time. It’s about adding your piece of the puzzle to the world. Most people have stuck in their egos that everything revolves around me, me, and more me. But if you want to be rich in the truest sense of the word, it can’t be about you. It has to include adding value to other people’s lives.”

Let’s assume that what you have to offer actually has a high value to other people and helps them. Now, should you offer that value to one person or to ten? Or to a hundred? A thousand? Thousands? Yes! Yes, Yes, Yes! You definitely should offer that value to as many people as possible. Don’t hold it back. It is your DUTY to offer it to as many people as possible. This is what THINK BIG is all about. Many, many people need what you have to offer – offer it to them and get paid proportionally. “The by-product is that the more people you help, the ‘richer’ you become, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and definitely financially.”

It’s time to stop hiding out and start stepping out. Most people think small. And guess what, they will achieve relatively little. On the other hand, if you THINK BIG, you can achieve much more! You can help thousands and thousands of people. That shall be the goal. Eker concluded: “In the end, small thinking and small actions lead to being both broke and unfulfilled. Big thinking and big actions lead to having both money and meaning. The choice is yours!”

[*I need to note that the Harv Eker makes it clear in this book that he does not mean to degrade poor people. He does not think that rich people are better than poor or middle-class people. They’re just richer.]

I Have A Millionaire Mind!

12 Rules for Life #10 Be Precise In Your Speech (Summary)

This is a chapter-by-chapter summary of a book by Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018) series. One chapter, one article. Read this summary, buy the book. Enjoy!

“To be precise in your speech does two things...
it specifies your goal and it reduces uncertainty.”

(Jordan Peterson)

According to Peterson, there is an undivided connection between communication and reality. Language takes what’s unknown from chaos and gives it a name making it into a thing. Once that thing is addressed with a name then you can control it. A simple example would be the feeling of touch. Imagine that you see a pot in front of you for the first time. Without touching it you don’t know what’s wrong with it. Once you touch it you feel it’s too hot to hold it for too long. So, you give it a “name” – a hot pot. Now you can do something about it and use a pair of heatproof gloves to do your job.

On the other hand, the unnameable is terrifying, at least much more than the nameable. As an example, the movie The Ring didn’t describe and name the evil at all. Objectively speaking, in this movie the scary scenes are very few in number in comparison with other horror thrillers. It’s all about the unnameable. If you can’t name something then that makes it more terrifying to you. It also makes you feel weaker against it if you don’t actually know what it is. That’s why, according to Peterson, precise speech is important. I can bring things out of the realm of unspeakable. Words are not to be underestimated as they have a creative power. Don’t create more mark and darkness by imprecise speech!

Be Precise… Exercise, Practice… then Speak

12 Rules for Life #7 Pursue What Is Meaningful, Not What Is Expedient (Summary)

This is a chapter-by-chapter summary of a book by Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018) series. One chapter, one article. Read this summary, buy the book. Enjoy!

“Order is not enough. You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned. Nonetheless, chaos can be too much. You can’t long tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope while you are learning what you still need to know. Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering. Then you have positioned yourself where the terror of existence is under control and you are secure, but where you are also alert and engaged. That is where there is something new to master and some way that you can be improved. That is where meaning is to be found.”

(Jordan Peterson)

Meaning is about the way you protect yourself from “all the suffering that life entails.” All people get emotionally wounded by life so they have to find something to make the pain worthwhile. According to Peterson, meaning is like an instinct or a form of vision that lets you know whether you are in the right place or not. The right place is somewhere in between chaos and order. If you stay safe within order all the time and facing only things you understand, you won’t be able to develop further and won’t grow. On the other hand, if you stay within chaos then you’ll get lost. The best choice is to leave your safe point and try to risk for anything that’s worthwhile, without losing your path to chaos. “We require routine and tradition. That’s order. Order can become excessive, and that’s not good, but chaos can swamp us, so we drown— and that is also not good,” writes Peterson, so, “We need to stay on the straight and narrow path.”

Expediency [synonyms for convenience] is what people do to get themselves out of trouble here and now, but the drawback of this is that “they sacrifice the future for the present.” That means that expediency is only good for temporarily escaping your problems. In order to countermeasure this – aim high. Stop doing whatever will make you avoid your problems temporarily and try to see around. Understand what things you can improve and improve them. You’ll eventually gain knowledge and more experience but be cautious not to fall in the trap of becoming arrogant and remain humble (I have to admit that is as hard as keeping the balance between chaos and order but both are worthy to keep in mind).

Peterson also mentions the importance of being aware of our weaknesses. These may be our secret resentments, cowardice, hatred and other failings. Learn to be lenient when you accuse others because “all people conceal evil impulses.”

Pursue Meaning.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People #2 Begin With the End In Mind

This is a chapter-by-chapter summary of a book by late Stephen R. Covey, writer of the most-effective personal development book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change (first published 1989). One chapter, one article. Read this summary, buy the book. Grow!

There are people that struggle to try to achieve something only to end up realizing that what they were doing so long didn’t really have an important meaning in their life. As Covey states: “To Begin with End in Mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.”

Imagine that you will live your whole remaining life based on the choices and actions you took this far and you attend your own funeral. Would you feel happy or sad about your life? Were your choices, actions or priorities compatible with what you were trying to accomplish in your life? “It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busyness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover that it’s leaning against the wrong wall.”

It is very important to visualize the “End” in your mind to guide you through your life. For example, if your dream is to become a good doctor and be remembered that you saved as many lives as possible, what’s the point in struggling to become the director of the hospital just for bigger salary, preventing you at the same time from performing more surgeries?

This habit is based on imagination –
the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes.

Write Your Own Personal Mission Statement, Envision the End in Your Mind!

The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck: The Important of Saying NO (Chapter 8 Summary)

This is a chapter-by-chapter summary of a book by Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life (2016) series. One chapter, one article. Read this summary, buy the book. Enjoy!

“Ultimately the only way to achieve meaning and a sense of importance in one’s life is through a rejection of alternative, a narrowing of freedom, a choice of commitment to one place, one belief or (gulp) one person”

(Mark Manson)

By attempting to “have it all” you can easily end up having nothing. This is what Manson discovered after years of travelling the world, thinking he was living the high life. He would float from city to city, and from bed to bed, never staying long enough to commit to friends or lovers. But what he thought at first was freedom turned out to mean nothing. Eventually, Manson returned to the United States, settled down in one city and married to one woman. Giving up the idea of freedom he had held while travelling allowed him to develop a family and community that gave his life more meaning than ever before.

This is not to say that travelling is not valuable, or that everyone ought to commit to family life. Rather, it means that at some point you have to choose what is important to you and discard what is not important. Manson realized that family and community was important, and therefore he had to say no to travel around the globe. Rejecting certain choices defined Manson – he created a new identity for himself based on what he discarded.

F#ck! Learn how and when to say – NO.

Change Your Life: Experience Your Work as a Calling

Don't like your job?
1) Find work that is meaningful, or
2) Find something meaningful in your work

“This is the true joy in life –
being used for a purpose, recognized by yourself as a mighty one”

(George Bernard Shaw)

We spend a good part of our working hours at work, and yet many people derive little meaning from what occupies them for several thousand hours each year. If we do not experience a sense of purpose in our work, we can choose to do one of two things (aside from resigning ourselves to being unhappy): find work that is meaningful or find something meaningful in our work.

We don’t all have the luxury of having the perfect job – the one that reflects our values, where we work only with people we like, and whose atmosphere precisely suits our temperament. But even if we do not find ourselves in that ideal setting, we have a great deal of choice as to how we experience our daily work. Whether as a CEO or a salesman, an investment banker or a community organizer, a minister or a manager, a janitor or a cleaner – not complete control, perhaps, but some – over what elements of our work we focus on, and consequently, on how we experience our working life.

We can, for example, remind ourselves how our work is making a difference in other people’s lives; we can focus on the elements that we find exciting and interesting, the meaningful interactions that we have with colleagues and customers; or we can appreciate the opportunity our work gives us to develop or expand our professional skills. If we can find no inherent value in our current occupation, we can tell ourselves that our work is our current occupation, we can tell ourselves that our work provides for us and for those we care about, or that it enables us to engage in meaningful activities after hours.

Researchers have found that those who made the choice, conscious or not, to see their work as merely a job, were less happy, were less satisfied with their life, than were their colleagues who viewed what they did a calling. “Even in the most restricted and routine jobs,” the study concluded, “employees can exert some influence on what is the essence of their work.”

Don’t treat the work you do as a job,

Experience your work as a calling.

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

 References:

1. Choose the Life You Want: 101 Ways to Create You Own Road to Happiness by Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD (New York: The Experiment, 2012) Buy this book!

2. The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling in Life by D. William (New York: Free Press, 2009).