Have you ever thought about your relationship with money? Do you like money? Do you want more of it? Do you think people who have money are bad people?
Our attitude towards money is deeply routed in what we were taught when we were young, and it may be what’s holding us back from financial freedom today.
T. Harv Eker, author of “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind,” believes in mastering the inner game of wealth by understanding and revising our money blueprint.
What is a money blueprint?
Everyone has a personal money and success blueprint already embedded in their subconscious mind. This blueprint is a combination of your thoughts, feelings, and actions towards money. This blueprint can significantly impact your financial destiny.
Think of your money blueprint like the blueprint for a home. A blueprint is the plan or design for a particular home and the entire foundation of the home is built from that plan. You can change the paint colours and add some high-end finishings, but that will never change the foundation of the home. Your money blueprint is simply your preset program or way of being in relation to money.
Eker writes that, “Your financial blueprint consists primarily of the information or “programming” you received in the past, and especially as a young child.”
Most people learn about money from their parents, siblings, friends, and authority figures. We aren’t born knowing about money. Instead, we’re taught how to think about and act in relation to money. These teachings become our conditioning, which become automatic responses that run the rest of our life – unless you’re able to revise our mind’s money mindset.
Why is your money blueprint important?
Have you ever heard stories of people who win the lottery and then lose everything within a few years? Or athletes you make ten of millions per year but walk away from the sport with nothing?
Research has shown that regardless of the size of winnings, most lottery winners eventually return to their original financial state. They return to the amount they can comfortably handle. The same is often true for star athletes.
When basketball superstar, Shaquille O'Neal, was 20 years old, he spent $1 million in one day. He’d just signed an endorsement deal with a trading card company and his money was gone - in one day. Shaq had never been taught to manage that much money but instead of staying attached to the amount of money he was comfortable with, he decided to hire a business manager.
When people come into big money and they’re not ready to handle it, chances are their wealth will be short-lived and they’ll lose it. In fact, most people don’t have the internal capacity to create and hold on to large amounts of money and the challenges that come with more money and success. According to Eker, most people don’t reach their full potential. Most people aren’t successful. Research supports his theory, showing that "80% of individuals will never be financially free in the way they’d like to be, and 80% will never claim to be truly happy."
The difference between those who lose large amounts of money and those who make it, self-made millionaires, is how they view money. When self-made millionaires lose their money, they usually make it back within a short period of time. They’re able to do that because although they lose their money, they never lose their millionaire mindset. Their financial blueprint has the capacity to make and hold on to money.
Identifying past conditioning
The first step in changing or revising your financial blueprint is to identify how you’ve been taught to view money. Think about what you heard about money, wealth, and rich people when you were growing up.
Eker says to ask yourself if you ever heard phrases like:
Money is the route of all evil, save your money for a rainy day, rich people are greedy, rich people are criminals, filthy rich, you have to work hard to make money, money doesn’t grow on trees, you can’t be rich and spiritual, money doesn’t buy happiness, money talks, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, that’s not for people like us, not everyone can be rich, there’s never enough, and the infamous we can’t afford it?
All the statements you heard about money when you were young remain in your subconscious mind as part of blueprint that is running your financial life today. Don’t let them hold you back.
Try to understand how these statements you’ve heard about money have impacted your life so far. Then disassociate yourself with them. To improve your financial situation, you have to change the way you think about money.
Learn from the best
To change the way you view money, start learning how rich people think and act differently from lower income classes. How does Warren Buffet think about money?
My past conditioning about money has affected some of the decisions I’ve made. But instead of only relying on what my parents believe about money, I’ve been learning about money from experts. I buy books, watch programs, and read articles about understanding how to build and sustain wealth.
I believe that diversifying my income is important. I’ve watched a parent overwork themselves for years, at a job they don’t like, just because they rely on the steady paycheck. I don’t want to rely on earned income from one company. I also believe that the best way to build wealth overtime is through real estate. If you look at some of the wealthiest people in the world, a decent portion of their portfolio likely includes real estate. I’ve been following the career of Scott McGillivray, the host of HGTV’s Income Property, for years and I’m currently looking at how to start a real estate investing company.
It’s difficult to change how we view money. When I need money advice, I always go to my parents first. I’m not wrong to do that but I have to identify how they view money versus how I should be viewing money. While their advice is right for someone in their financial situation, it may not be right for someone who wants to improve on that financial situation.
Your money blueprint is important. Don’t let your money blueprint hold you back from a future of financial freedom. Identify what you’ve been taught about money and then built on what you know by learning from the experts.
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