By Warren Black
As a lawyer, accountant, financial planner and motivational speaker, Warren Black deals with a vast array of clients every day who are wealthy, and keen to build and protect their wealth.
Over time I have observed certain characteristics in people who have wealth, compared to people who struggle financially from day to day and attract problems in their financial affairs. Let´s look at two of these characteristics. One of these characteristics is order and organisation. The more ordered you are in your mindset and your financial affairs, the more wealth comes to you.
This is a basic spiritual law. Take nature, for example. A beautiful well organised garden attracts admirers, and, in some cases, paying customers. By contrast, a messy disorganised garden with weeds not only repels people, but you have to pay people to work the garden back into order! It is easy to see why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. There is a famous Bible verse that says "to he who has, more is given, but to he who does not have, what he has will be taken away" (Matthew 25:29).
I am convinced that a person´s financial position reflects or mirrors their level of order and organisation, and their emotional stability and mindset. When wealthy clients come to my office, upon enquiry I find they are either very organised or for the more disorganised people, they have someone to organise them.
In Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki notes that teachers often succeed in using his strategies to build property portfolios as they are highly organised people. I have also found this from my experience in dealing with teachers.
If you find it difficult to be ordered and organised (eg. you are more motivational or creative in your personality) you can always employ people to organise you (like I do!). Get rich quick mentality. This is the biggest killer to building wealth. It was said by King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived (so they say), "there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Solomon also said that "he who seeks to get rich quick will come to ruin", and their wealth will disappear (Proverbs 13:11). This is so true.
"Get rich quick" schemes have been around for as long as we can remember. We had the South Sea Bubble in the 18th century. We had Poseidon in the 1970s. We had the Tech Boom in the late 1900s. In recent times, we see high-yield overseas investments, or wealth education courses promising returns of 30% per month plus.
Wealth seminars have become especially popular in the 21st century. People attend wealth education seminars, convinced that the newest stock, options, CFD, forex, market trading strategy, or property strategy, internet marketing, ways to list number 1 in Google (guaranteed of course), will propel them to "instant" riches in weeks or months.
Now, don´t misunderstand me. I am a believer in wealth education. I speak at wealth seminars. I see brilliant wealth education companies such as Universal Events, and others who educate people in understanding the property, share, other markets and building businesses (where the rich do make their wealth). I had a significant mindset shift at a wealth seminar in the year 2000, which inspired me to go into business, and I see some clients experience tremendous results.
However, from my experience, most people don´t make money because they don´t have the basics in their wealth building (saving, budgeting), and seek to get rich quick without the basics, and are looking for the secret to instant riches. They are guaranteed to go broke.
Studying the lives of the rich, they are orderly and organised. They have a longterm perspective. They avoid get rich quick schemes and latest fads. They are entrepreneurial and risky, but their mindset is cautious. They invest in things that they understand, where they have minimal risk of losing their capital, and they are realistic in what they expect to make. They stay with proven and tested formulas to build wealth.
In a society where we have a "fast food" mentality, let´s take time to reflect on our mindset. Let´s copy the lives of the rich and successful. Why reinvent the wheel?
