What Do You Really Believe About Money? (It's Why You Might Not Have Any)

During last fall's Prosperity Project, we played a game in which we imagined ourselves spending large sums of money.  We began with $1000, and every day our goal was to imagine spending $1000 more than we spent the previous day.  The first few days were easy, because most of us have a backlog of things that we need and want.  By about Day 4, however, many of us had run out of things to buy.  Most of us who played that game have no real need for $28,000 a day (which works out to over $10 million in one year).  Yet there are some people on this planet who routinely spend that kind of money with no problem. 


What makes the ultra-rich different from us working-class folk, the reason that they can attract that kind of money and feel comfortable spending it, is their core belief about their relationship with money.  Many of them were to the manner born, as they say.  They grew up in an environment loaded with cash.  It feels normal to them.  But many of today's ultra-rich started out just like you and me.  Bill Gates and Steve Jobs weren't born rich; they simply got a really good original idea while they were in college studying computers, and ran with it.  They learned to become very comfortable with crazy sums of money.  I say if they can do it, so can we.  Let's learn how. 

According to the Law of Attraction, money is attracted to us ... or is repelled by us ... according to what we believe to be true on the subconscious level.  For instance, we may consciously tell ourselves that we live in an abundant and generous universe, we may say daily affirmations about being prosperous and attracting money, yet on a gut level we're just not buying it.  We don't really believe what we're saying to ourselves.  What we really believe are all of the things we have been taught by our families, our church, our culture, our experience.  Here are some of the things we really believe, deep down:

• Money doesn't grow on trees.
• We're not made of money, you know!
• We can't afford that.
• I don't have a talent for making money.
• Money isn't really all that important to me.
• I wonder who she had to sleep with to get all that?
• All those big corporations got that way by being crooked.
• It must have been drug money.
• He's just really lucky.  I'm not that lucky.
• You can't take it with you.
• I'd rather be happy than rich. 
• No one can make money in this economy.

You get the idea.  How often do you find yourself saying or thinking these or similar thoughts about money and the people who have money?   I've been guilty of all of these.  I was taught to believe that people who have money must have done something corrupt to get it.  I came by that belief honestly enough.  The only person in my immediate circle who had any significant money was my grandmother, who earned it by running a whorehouse and pool hall.  Of course, I didn't know any of this about my grandmother until much later (go Granny!); what I picked up on as a child were the attitudes and beliefs of my parents and aunts and uncles who were "good" people.  The proof that they were good is that they, unike Madame Granny, were still poor.  No wonder I keep repelling money!   In my gut I've learned to believe that I can be good and pure OR I can be rich, but I can't be both.  Well, that's just crazy!

The secret to being rich is to change these core beliefs so that we can stop repelling money and begin to attract it.  I've heard it said that "Money can't talk, but it can hear; if you call it, it will come."  Your challenge today is to pay attention to how you talk to yourself about money.  When you find yourself making a negative statement about money, make it a practice to notice what you are saying.  You may be surprised at the ridiculous things you tell yourself, and just how often you say it!  For now, every time you find yourself saying or thinking something negative, every time you hear something negative on the news or from the people around you about money and the people who have it, counter it with a positive affirmation about money and its relationship to you.  You could choose something like:

• I live in an abundant and generous universe.
• I attract money frequently and easily.
• I have more than enough of everything I need and want.
• There is plenty for everyone.  
• If they can get rich, so can I!

We will discover more about how to reprogram our subconscious beliefs as this semester progresses.  For now, the first step is simply to be aware of where you are today.   What do you REALLY believe about your relationship with money?  If you seem to never have enough, it might be worth your time to find out.