Think like a millionaire

updated: Monday - 05.11.2009

As a man thinketh, so he is —Prov. 23:7

There used to be a comedy programme on TV a while back called Bassey and Company, in which the lead actor was fond of saying ‘To be a millionaire, think like a millionaire!’ In those days, I was rather too young to realise the truth in that statement but times and tide have taught me better. So now, I realise that as a man thinketh, so he is, and you cannot hope to be a wealthy man if you harbour a poverty mentality.

Praize club
And so it was that when I was asked to speak on the ‘Millionaire Mindset’ at a seminar organised by the Praize Club at the Olabisi Onabanjo University sometime ago, I took a cue from Biblical injunction on the subject matter mixed with the experiences life had handed me.

The millionaire mindset
The pertinent question on our minds at the seminar was, ‘What is the major difference between the rich and the poor?’ or in other words, ‘What is responsible for some being rich and some being poor?’ And the answer I proffered was this: ‘The difference lies in how they think and what they do. The difference is in the mindset; millionaires have a wealth mentality, while the poor have a poverty mentality.

Like the iceberg, you need to affect the underlying and more important ‘subconscious’ before your ‘thinking’ and actions can be attuned to that of the millionaire, and then you can hope to become one.

Millionaires and billionaires think and act remarkably differently from the poor. How then do millionaires think and what do they do that makes them so different?

A journey into how millionaires think and act
It was Bishop David Oyedepo that once said, “God gave us a brain so we can give him rest.” I found out that millionaires think and use their brains differently on seven things:

1. Money
Poor people see money as a means to get things; millionaires think of money as a tool to get more money.

2. Investing
Poor people see investing as boring and cumbersome or at best as something that must be endured to have just enough for retirement; millionaires think of investing as an exciting way of getting into an abundance.

3. Jobs
The poor think of jobs and better jobs as a means of getting rich; millionaires see jobs as a launching pad to get seed money to invest. I bet if Dangote lost all his money today, getting a great job wouldn’t be his priority. The poor work for their money, the rich make their money work for them. The Bible reiterates this when it says God gives seed to the sower (2 Cor. 9:10).

4.Risks
The poor don’t take risks because they are afraid they would fail; the rich think if they don’t take risk, they have already failed. God directs our steps, not our sitting. And though the harbour is the safest place for ships, ships were not made for harbours.

5. Wisdom in books, tapes and CDs
While the poor waste precious time on gossip and soap operas, the rich learn afresh and consolidate their knowledge by reading/listening to at least 2 books/CDs in a month on successful achievement and wealth management. While the poor fills his mind with gossip columns of papers and magazines, the rich gets increasingly informed about wealth from business write-ups. The poor think such materials are a last resort to fixing a problem; the rich see them as the start to not having a problem.

6.Time
The poor care very little about how their time is spent – they waste time and let other time wasters steal their time; the rich see their time as their most valuable asset. The rich will rather have his money stolen by thieves than his time stolen by time wasters. The rich have a niche and specialise, thus ‘outsourcing’ their weak areas rather than do every little chore themselves.

7. Problems
The poor get easily discouraged with problems and setbacks, but the rich fall seven times and rise eight times, and that is why they are rich.

Bottomline
If we change our mindsets to one of a wealth mentality rather than poverty mentality, wealth naturally gravitates towards us and our lives become transformed. Then and only then can we have any hope of making money ‘effortlessly.’

According to Williams James, the greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.

God does not change situations; rather He changes people and uses the transformed people to change situations —David Benenoch