For the greatest part of my life I heard myself say, ‘I don’t want to be rich; I just want to be happy. Getting rich sounds like too much hard work. And you have to sell your soul. Most rich people are arseholes, anyway’. So, what happened? I ended up at 28 not having any money. I was renting a bachelor’s with just a futon and a fridge to my name. One night, listening to the soothing sounds of quarrelsome neighbours through a paper thin wall, I decided that maybe a little bit of money wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

A year later, I got a job in the UK, working 7-hour days, earning a good living and saving more money every month than the cheque that I used to take home in SA. But I also had more money to spend. For the first time, I could buy all those books that I used to have to borrow from friends. There was money to travel, to entertain, to fly family over for a visit. I was working shorter hours, feeding my soul and I felt like I had more to give. Money did not only make me richer, it actually enriched my life.

Still the prejudice against really wealthy people ran very deep. ‘Selfish’, ‘ignorant’ and ‘out of touch with reality’ were still my associations with wealth. My money attitude sucked.

Then a few friends with much healthier attitudes introduced me to the ideas of Robert Kiyosaki (author of the well-known ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ series) and Wallace Wattles (relatively unknown author of ‘The Science of Getting Rich’ – available online for free).

If you can look past the awful design of the book covers and the American, almost evangelical tone, Kiyosaki addresses a few important psychological barriers to wealth. His warning about the power of your words (both negative and positive) stuck with me. But it starts even sooner: what are you thinking? Can you SEE yourself living in abundance? Do you think you will still like yourself when you have more money than you could ever use in your own lifetime?

Wallace Wattles echoes the power of visualisation. His style is as old-fashioned as you would expect from a turn-of- the- previous-century writer, but the idea of positive thinking is timeless. Like Kiyosaki, he’s also faced opposition from human money repellents. Wattles believe people, like trees, cannot grow to their full potential and bear fruit if they don’t get enough water and nourishment. People need material, emotional and spiritual resources to realise their potential.

But money can also become addictive. Before you know it, you’re tilting to the other end of the scale and obsessed with making more money. And it never seems to be enough. Some of the best advice I ever got was from someone who told me to decide early in life how much I need. Three-bedroom house? One overseas holiday per year? One car and one boat or plane or bike? Then stick with those goals. Maybe someone taught this to Warren Buffet (the world’s richest man) as well – he’s been living in the same modest family home in Omaha for decades now. At some point you need to sit back, celebrate the personal material goals you’ve achieved and either channel the surplus money into investments or give it away to charity.

At the moment I’m just trying to keep the balance and keep my money goals secondary to my life dreams. I don’t want to find out I was right after all about rich people having to sell their souls.

Tags: Kiyosaki, money attitude, positive thinking, visualisation, Wallace Wattles

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 11:30 pm and is filed under Personal development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.