5 Reasons Why You Will Never Be Wealthy

I have been sharing ideas and resources so far and I suddenly stopped to think. Some people will read this and it still won’t register. All the options for businesses on a budget, tips for building businesses and the well thought out material designed to build and grow wealth will just go down the drain. Nothing you do will amount to anything if your mind is in a wrong place. So I put together what most wealthy people, business coaches and experts in the business of creating and building wealth agree are the roadblocks to becoming wealthy. Please do not read if you are easily offended and not very good at telling yourself the truth. If you are okay up to this point, keep going:

1.You really don’t think you can ever be wealthy. To be honest, if you think you can’t, you won’t. A lot of us don’t really picture ourselves as being successful and able to afford anything we want. It’s just not a possibility in our minds. We see it happen to people around us and some of us are actually genuinely happy for them but when we come in contact with opportunities to climb the same ladder, we retreat. It’s a mixture of fear and a lack of ambition in general. You just don’t think it can happen to you, even if we see millionaires popping up on our streets every day. I have heard all sorts of stories,

‘Oh, they must be fraudsters! How is it possible that you just come into money?! Thieves, all of them!’

‘Ah, don’t mind all these people, they will never tell you what they do to make money’

‘Hmm, it is never possible to make that kind of money unless you steal it. Just keep your mind focused on getting a comfortable job and fend for your family’s needs’

‘You cannot be a good person and be rich, the two don’t go together’

I am telling you the honest truth when I say these are real statements I have heard from real people, seriously, people like you and me! This has absolutely nothing to do with education either because these statements come from secondary school leavers to PhD holders. We say we want to be wealthy enough to afford whatever we want but our minds echo all these statements every single day. Whether you like it or not, you cannot fake ambition. That is where a lot of people stumble because they can’t just push their minds a little further to believe that it is possible to live above the level of ‘just enough’.

Image: graur razvan ionut / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In all fairness, this is a function of our environment, our families, friends and colleagues. In our formative years, we have no option but to accept all we are taught. We cannot control what our parents or teachers teach us. So we grow up around parents who weren't rich, aunties and uncles who weren’t rich, friends who didn’t have wealthy families and so on. If you don’t know it’s possible, you honestly won’t know you can reach for it and it’s beyond your mind’s eye that you can get it. People always ask, ‘why do the rich always hang around, fraternise, marry and generally only want to stay around the rich?’ The fact that you asked shows exactly what I mean. There are just some things that come naturally to someone with a millionaire’s mindset. Trying to explain it to someone whose mind is constantly in victim mode is an exercise in futility, and the wealthy know that.

So you were taught to do things one way, that, you cannot change; its history. Now you are above 18, you need to decide what you want. If you are happy with managing your finances with a little on the side to buy one or two things, that’s fine. But don’t complain when you see others doing much better financially. You chose your path. Deal with it.

2.You don’t decide to be wealthy. Of all the great biographies I have read and all the movers in business I consider successful that I have ever spoken to or listened to, every single one of them made a conscious decision to make it big. Some like Donald Trump were privileged to have a good head start with some inheritance from his parents, but others like Oprah literally started out with the shirt on their backs and little or no money in the bank.

People argue that having an inheritance gave 'The Donald' an unfair advantage. That may be true, but there are many people who had much more of an inheritance that he did who have nothing left today. It doesn’t matter if you slept in a gold plated crib as a child or if you slept on a wood board on the floor. Where you come from doesn’t matter, where you are going is much more important. People don’t remember that the Trump Empire started with an inheritance, they remember the Trump Estates, the Trump Tower and his role in The Apprentice. People don’t think about the street Bill Gates grew up on, they remember Microsoft and the war on Malaria. Do you see my point?

Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Get your mind off the suffering you have endured and how your family treated you and your siblings terribly. How you went without food for two days and cried in despair till your glands could no longer produce tears. I know it may mean a lot to you now but I guarantee that people will not remember that when you build an industry that employs thousands. It just won’t be that important in the scheme of things. If anything you would be trying your best to make people understand how difficult it was for you in the beginning. Why do you think successful people write their autobiographies? It’s their way of telling you that where they started may seem irrelevant today but it shaped them in a way they would always be grateful for. It’s their way of saying, ’Hey, I am at this point today but it wasn’t always this easy’. It should even make the journey to wealth sweeter not impossible.

3. You don’t take time to study the process of wealth creation. Money goes where it is treated well. If you don’t know how to bring it in and keep it in, it will move to the next master. It’s only a tool and a tool is only useful when it is in the right hands. People pay lip service to making money and it’s all a load of rubbish. I personally find it extremely annoying. Creating wealth like any other venture in life takes time and effort. If you want it, you are going to have to put in the time to get it.  There is no other way. 

You say you want to own the best home business that delivers fresh juice of excellent quality produced in hygienic conditions. You want to be the one stop shop for healthy beverages. That’s fantastic! How many business books that focus on the healthy food industry have you read? How many courses have you attended to hone your skills? How many successful people in your area of interest have you reached out to for advice and mentorship? How many times have you stopped to look at your books to find out how far you have gone and how far you still need to go to reach your goals? Did you even have any goals for your business in the first place? You say one thing because you know that’s what people want to hear but your actions don’t lie. They show what you really think, even without you knowing it. 

Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I actually spoke to someone once who was seeking out any investment opportunities where money would be given out to people without any input from investors and returns would just be paid into an account. I laughed out loud at how ludicrous this was. So in essence you want to be wealthy but you don’t want to lift a finger! Wow! I wish you well. I heard a while back that a lot of money was lost by this same person. I hate to say that I knew it would happen. You just don’t wake up rich. I don’t care how many get-rich-quick books you read or how many schemes you are involved in, if you don’t learn how to be wealthy you will never, ever be wealthy.

4. You don’t put yourself in a position to be wealthy. The reason why wealth eludes most people is that they would much rather sit in a pity party than an empowerment seminar. They would rather sit and complain to a fellow struggling business owner how terrible the search for clients is. They both show each other their foot sores from pounding the streets and each of them pat their backs and say, the world is so unfair. They point to the government, the politicians, and the evil rich and famous people who want all the wealth for themselves. 

They can’t see any opportunities because they have an excuse for everything under the sun. I mean every single thing. The timing is not right, it’s raining, I just had a baby, this week is just a bad week for me, my kids are too young, I don’t have a head for figures, I’m tired and I could go on and on! It doesn’t occur to them that they can improve their skills and position themselves in a way that cash cannot but come their way. If you stay long enough with the disillusioned, you will look at things their way, no matter how much of an optimist you are. 

There is no legitimately wealthy person living or dead that will not willingly tell you what they did and how they got to their current position. Not one! In fact they welcome such enquiries. Really they do! It’s almost like how a Professor is extremely happy when a new student comes to him to ask about his work in an area he/she finds fascinating. You will almost wish you hadn’t asked because there is so much information stored in that learned head that is always waiting for an avenue to be shared. His reaction will obviously be much different if you come to him asking him to write your project for you! It sounds extremely foolish but that is how most of us relate with the wealthy. We don’t want them to teach us how; we want them to make us rich! I can guarantee you that will never, ever happen. You will not only be back to square one but you would have burned that bridge beyond repair. If you continue to do what you have always done, you will continue to get what you have always got. Change your crowd and begin to see the possibilities that are out there!

5. You are too busy to be wealthy. I had to smile to myself at the irony of this statement. It stings but it’s true. For most of us life gets in the way. We are just too busy with our day to day obligations to even take a breath, lift our heads and see the big picture. We just scurry around, day in day out, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year! We are experts at being busy but not at being financially productive. 

Image: jannoon028 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Wealthy people don’t just jump into any deal. They measure the prospect in relation to their time and energy. They think ‘If I make a hat and sell it for 5,000 naira, would that be a good conversion rate for my time, skills, and equipment? Ok so what if I hire a trainee and cut my costs in half and make enough hats to make a good turnover and reach more clients?’ While it's okay to work alone in the beginning, if you constantly think of how many products you can push out alone, you will never be wealthy. We do too many things alone all in a bid to be self made. Self made doesn’t mean stupid and even if you achieve some financial success in the short run, you will run out of steam down the road. The wealthy know the power of leveraging on the skills of others to reach a desired goal. Others just want to do it all themselves. You will not go very far because you only have two hands and one head. Stop trying to be an octopus! The wealthy have mastered the art of effective delegation and they do it without even thinking. When you free up space in your head, you will find time to provide more value. More value – more money!

After all is said and done, you need to be sure what you want. If becoming and staying wealthy is your goal, great! Now let’s begin to work it!

I found this really cool slideshow on 6 Millionaire Traits That You Can Adopt which is a really good place to start! What do you think? Are there any other factors you think can keep people from becoming wealthy? Please share in the comment box below.