Bad money habits are truly capable of keeping you in debt. Believe me, you have to change that old habit to influence your life in a better way. I'm going to talk about the worst money habits that keep you poor. These are habits that I had and that my wife had. We effectively had zero dollars in savings. My wife was in credit card debt, and we quit these really bad money habits. We became multi-millionaires by the time we turned 30 years old. Just so you know, in reality, that multi-millionaire by 30 probably isn't even that impressive. I mean, with inflation and with the internet, there are many people much more successful than me, but we did a pretty good job. I'm pretty proud of our results, and it really came down to these couple of things. When You Have No Money, Do This and everything will fall into place.
I’m going to break down the worst money habits that I think you and I probably have just inherited from the way that we grew up in our society. In the way that we're taught to think and behave with money, when we quit doing these things, it changed my wife and my life. So the worst money problem that really effectively controls most of our society is the idea that the problem has to do with bad money habits, like the reason that I'm broke has to do with money or the reason that I'm broke has to do with some type of circumstance in my life. Well, I haven't learned about money yet. I didn't go to the right school, and the justification for why I don't have any money is always placed on either the lack of digits or something exterior.
I Am The One That Is Messing Up
It wasn't until I got honest with myself and I said, "I'm the one that's messing up." The problem is me and how I'm viewing and behaving with every dollar that comes into my bank account. Well, I can't save any of this because I don't have any. The day my financial life changed was the day I finally looked in the mirror, and I said I needed to change. The reason that I don't have any money, the reason I'm broke, the reason I'm stressed, the reason I can't do the things that I want to do in my life, the reason that I can't fulfill my god-given potential, the reason that my wife is going to a job that she hates every single day and spending an hour in traffic each way to get there is because of me, and the worst money mistake you can make is think that the reason that you are in the financial position that you are in is because of something or somebody else.
It's my fault. It is actually my fault. It's my fault I didn't save more money. It's my fault I didn't save any money because I used to say, "I'll save once I get more money" and I don't have very much, so how do you expect me to save it? because I don't even have any. It's easy for you to say you have more than me. I would save it, but I don't have any. I'll save it when I get more, in like six more months. It's my fault that six months have passed and I still don't have any savings. It's my fault I'm spending my credit card. It's not the credit card company's fault. Credit card companies are scams.
You're Not Going To Change The Entire Financial System
This entire financial system is a giant ponzi scheme. They're printing money out of thin air. They're giving it to you at a 17% interest rate on a credit card. Then you spend the rest of your life in credit card debt and underpaid at a job. You don't even like paying 20% interest on your credit card? I agree, but you're not going to change the entire financial system, and you're certainly not going to change it by being a willing participant in the zombification of human beings. So it's my fault. It's my fault that I didn't wake up in the morning, read my goals on a piece of paper, and set clearly defined financial goals. It's my fault.
I didn't open a book. It's my fault. I sat and I watched Netflix instead. It's my fault that I procrastinated. It's my fault that I scrolled the internet aimlessly. It's my fault that I was sitting around being jealous. It's my fault. I was feeling sorry for myself. It was my fault that I felt bad about where I was. I spent my time gossiping about somebody else as a self-protective mechanism for me to not deal with my own feelings. It's my fault I didn't read a book on time management and productivity.
Everybody Gets The Same Amount Of Time
It's my fault I didn't spend an hour by myself. It's not that I don't have enough time. It's that I am wasting my time. There's a distinction between the two of them: everybody gets the same amount of time, all the time, that there ever was and that there ever will be. It's already been created, and that's how much time we get. Bad money habits need to be eliminated. It wasn't until I stopped making it everyone else's fault, like there was a time when I thought I wasn't successful because I was young. There was a time that I thought I wasn't successful because this guy, Maxton Kipp, had a blog called The Daily Love, and he wouldn't let me blog on it.
When I was starting my career, he said, and he should have said no. I was just some random kid that wanted to make articles. What value did I provide to him? None. That's why he said "no" to me. But instead of realizing that I didn't have any value to add to him and his business, I got mad. He should let me do it, and because he said no to me, I can't build an audience. People don't know about my books, and then nobody wants to buy my books, and because of that, I can't make any money. So it was his fault and then it was the publishing companies that all said no to me. It was Reid Tracy's fault. He’s the CEO of Hay House Publishing, a very successful self-help publishing company.
None Of It Will Change My Life, Only I Can Change It
He didn't want to publish my books when I was 20, and I dropped that. You know, I don't know who you are. You go sell your book on your own, and if it does well, then maybe we can talk. In books, I would be successful if it weren't for Reid. He doesn't understand, and you see, we built a society like that where now we're actually rewarded for being victims. Bad money habits need to be removed from our system. We literally get financial compensation in our system now for being a victim. If you just accept that you are stuck where you are in your life, you will be rewarded, and at the very least, I realized it became a way for me not to look in the mirror and say it is my fault.
As soon as I say that it is my fault, that the light photons flitting and fleeting in my bank account are my fault, then I can change them. Even though I'm making a thousand dollars a month, I could start saving 50% of it, which is what I did. I eventually decided that I was in control of my financial life. I didn't think I was and I thought you needed to change the system, and who you vote for will help you, and then I realized that's all a bunch of baloney and I take 100% personal responsibility for my life. Donald Trump doesn't control it. Hillary Clinton doesn't control it. Barack Obama doesn't control it. Joe Biden doesn't control it. None of it will change my life; only I can change it.
I Can Control How Much Of Money I Keep
I started reading books about rich people, and I read that there was some guy named Sir John Templeton who was a billionaire investor, and he used to save 80% of his income. He didn't have any money to start his career as an investor, so he saved almost all of it from this little job that he had. So he had capital to invest in, and he and his wife lived a super meager life because this guy was literally saving. Most people can't save one percent of their income. Bad money habits need to be removed from our lifestyle. This guy was saving 80 percent of it, or 90 percent of it, or some ridiculous sum of money. I said, "Well, you know, I could do that."
I may not make a lot of money, but I can control how much of it I keep. I started to focus on producing more than I consumed and keeping as much capital as possible between the difference between what I produced and what I consumed. I started to build this momentum and when you realize that at first it can be a slap in the face because a lot of us have pretty bad finances, let's be honest, and not just financially in our lives. Most of us are lazy asses. We've wasted so much of our time scrolling the internet, making excuses, wasting our time procrastinating, talking, being dramatic, being comfortable just doing stuff that really doesn't help us that much.
I Start Focusing On Higher Income-Producing Skills
To the degree that I wake up and I take responsibility for what the hell I'm doing with my time and my energy and my thoughts and my behaviors, I seem to make more money, and to the degree that I continue to make more money seems to be to the degree that I change myself, that I get more organized. Sometimes I'm a train wreck, and I have a daughter now, and sometimes life gets more complicated for you. I understand and I hear that, but every time that I have a big financial breakthrough, it always comes back to me, changing me and growing me, being more organized, being more responsible, and waking up early in the morning and hitting the gym. Bad money habits need to be removed from our system so we can live a clean life.
Instead of having two glasses of wine and watching some show the night before, I'd be pretty impressed. I was having those two glasses of wine at 5am, but to the degree that I make those shifts and to the degree that I start focusing on higher income-producing skills and to the degree that I start to build better habits because I started to go recently, I just had the best financial year of my entire life last year, way better than I even thought it was going to be. It was freaking crazy, but then I hit a plateau. I've been saying things to myself because I've got all these different things, and now I have a baby, and then you've got a family dynamic.
Removing Bad Money Habits - The Only Reason I Am Where I Am Is Because Of Me
It’s a different thing than when you're just a solo entrepreneur or a creative person by yourself. It's a different dynamic. The only reason I am where I am is because of me. The only reason you are where you are financially is because of you. It's not because of the school you did or did not go to. It is not because of your childhood. It's not because of your mother, your father, or the things they did or didn't do. It's not due to the credit card companies. It's not due to Donald Trump or Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. It's not due to Jeff Bezos. Trust me, it's not due to the way you look. It's not due to the things people say about you.
None of that really matters. This is just a one-on-one game. You know, like in one-on-one basketball, your financial life is a one-on-one game, and you're the only one that's playing. So imagine playing a game of basketball one-on-one against yourself, but then I ask you how the game went and you're like, "Well, not that good." We would have done better, but they didn't make their layups. They weren't playing good defense. Well, who wasn't making their layups? Who wasn't playing good defense? Bad money habits need to be removed from our system. You were the only one in the game. Imagine doing that during your one-on-one game; that's what we do in our financial life.
Getting Rid Of Bad Money Habits - We're Playing Against Ourselves
You may never be Jeff Bezos rich, but it's really not that complicated to make and have a net worth of six figures or seven figures. It's not that complex. It is hard, but the only reason it's hard is because we're playing against ourselves and all of our own self-protective mechanisms that you would never blame. Why do we do it for our finances? I don't know, maybe because Wall Street's conditioned us. It's more complex because that's just philosophy. Let's focus on reality. Let's focus on the one-on-one game. That is the light photon called your bank account. Bad money habits need to be removed from our life to be able to cope up and attract abundance.
The one-on-one game of light photons that is your bank account, because it's never been easier to make money. It's never been easier to save money. We've got all these apps to help us automatically save. It's never been easier to make and save money. This is a 100% fact, yet we have more excuses than ever before and more distractions than ever before, but it's never been easier. So here's what you do: you go into the mirror, you grab yourself by the shirt, and you say, "Listen here, I know you are capable of more. I forgive you. I love you. I'm not mad at you. I'm not going to sit and be "I wasted so much time and I don't know why I did that and I'm mad at myself."
Need To Get Rid Of Bad Money Habits, You Do Not Need To Be Smart
You just grab yourself and you look at yourself in the mirror and you say, "I love you. I forgive you. I'm sorry. I'm not mad. I know you can do better." You may not be the smartest person in the history of the world, but you really don't need to be Henry Ford. He was illiterate; he couldn't even read. I bet you can read at least a little bit. Technically, you're smarter than Henry Ford. It's never been easier to make six figures. It's never been easier to pull out a pen and a pad and write down the life that you want to live. It's never been easier to save money. It's never been easier to start new businesses or to try new things, and you probably have had many ideas.
You've just been getting in your own way, and then, when we get in our own way long enough, we get the results. We don't want to deal with the feelings of being responsible for it, so we just say "this is the way it is." You know the rich people control it, and you know it's just the way. I've never been that smart. No one in my family's ever done that. You can try hard in life, but life is just unfair. Some people aren't as good as you, and then we justify why we stay the same our whole life. It doesn't have to be that way. It's just a decision. You have to decide that today's the day. This is the moment. It's happening right now, in this very second.
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