That Millionaire next door

Guest post by Samuel G. Njenga

Believe it or not, one of the most important indicators of whether you can become a financially free is how you think. Yes, a large part of financial success begins with your mind.

What are your thoughts about money and wealth? Do you think like the wealthy millionaire next door?

Millionaires are not afraid to take risks

Many of us fear change and would rather settle on the easy path - the path of least resistance. This path will never lead to wealth. Millionaires are millionaires because they do things differently from most people. They are willing to take risks (calculated ones) and responsibility for whatever the outcome.

Millionaires are positive thinkers

This does not mean that they deny that things can go wrong. It just means that by default they expect things to work out. Millionaires are realistic positive thinkers.

When they create a plan, they anticipate what might go wrong and develop a strategy for coping should that plan go south. This way they decrease their level of failure. And their high success level reinforces their assumed expectations that things will work out in the end.

Millionaires cope well with failure

Failure is an inevitable stumbling block on the road to success. Every millionaire has failed at some point, and because they play with high stakes, they've probably had some very big failures. A case in point is one Donald Trump who was 900 million in debt at some point.

However, the difference between millionaires and most people is that they don't dwell on their failures. Instead, they accept them as part of life and make a point of learning from them.

They are creators, not victims

Millionaires don't passively sit around accepting whatever happens to them. If they're not happy with their current financial situation, they take action. For example, when they lose, it's highly doubtful that they spend all their energy dwelling on how much money they lost and how they'd never get it back. Instead, they are most likely thinking, "What do I need to do to right now to create enough money to be a millionaire again?"

Millionaires are leaders

A follower doesn't typically come up with a million dollar business idea. And if they do, chances are they won't act on it. Millionaires think like pioneers. Their minds are always open to the next great opportunity they can turn into a reality. And once they have an idea, they effectively harness the energies to materialize it.

If you want to be a millionaire, you should begin thinking like one. Your mentality colors your entire perspective of the world. And once you begin seeing possibilities where you once saw dead ends, you'll be surprised at how much abundance there really is to go around.

Note: We will get practical in this journey to financial education. For now we are just dealing with basic but very important concepts. For practical lessons, we will also be relating to the Kenyan scenario(s) so as not to sound theoretical. Just to caution readers that the we have a bias to real estate and most of the topics will revolve around it in future. However, other important topics like financial planning, chamas (Investment groups), Life insurance, leveraging on borrowing amongst others will be covered in due course.

In the next post, we look at activating that financial genius in you.