How Important is Money?

As I consider this topic, “The Importance of Money and Wealth” I realize that money and wealth hold different meanings and different places of importance to everyone who reads this post.  Money is important to anyone who has bills to pay.  It takes money to buy a car and keep it running.  It takes money to put food on the table and clothes on your back.

I think that most rational people would say that money is important. Those who say money is unimportant are in one of two places.

1)  Some people have never been in a position to be without money.  If you came from a household where money was abundant and you never had to do any real work to have money and support yourself, you may take having money for granted. Heck you may even think that you are somehow entitled or privileged above the rest.

2) Others are careless when it comes to saving money in anticipation of future needs.  If you came from a household where money was scarce and your family lived from paycheck to paycheck, you may have developed a low self-worth when it comes to earning money or worse yet a consumer spending mentality that motivates you to constantly seek shiny new objects to fill the void of low self-esteem. While you may say money is important, your actions reflect a careless attitude towards money.

I have asked the question, “How important is money to you?” hundreds of times in coaching sessions. I often hear, “Well, you know money doesn’t buy happiness” or “I’d rather be poor than greedy.” It’s as if there is an either/or situation when it comes to money. Either you can have a lot of money and be miserable or you can be poor and be happy.

Pardon me, but as my millionaire mentor, Keith Cunningham would say, “That sounds like the hay that comes out of the back end of a horse.”

In fact that smacks of a beggarly attitude when it comes to money. That’s what the Occupy Wall Street goons would have you believe.  Follow their logic about spreading the wealth equally to others to a conclusion and you end up with a broken socialist economy instead of the robust economy that is created from the contribution of small business entrepreneurs and online business owners.

I don’t know what kind of dope theses crazies are smoking but people who work hard to create their own economy as I do and millions of successful online business owners do deserve the income they make from their creativity, discipline and diligence.

Now you may be asking, what does this have to do with online business success? I’m glad you asked that question.

What you think about money and the importance you place upon money and wealth determines your success or failure with your online business.  There are three things tied together when it comes to building a wealth with an online business.

• Your Mindset About Money

• Your Actions

• The Results You Experience

With your permission, allow me to do a little coaching here starting with…

What you think becomes what you do.

Your Mindset About Money and Wealth

I lost every thing I had worked seventeen years to acquire a few years ago in a devastating divorce.  At that time, my thinking was lower than spider spit. Try as I may, I could not bring myself to do anything but think about my miserable state.

The business concept that I had been successful with for seventeen years no longer worked.  So I thought it must have something to do with my level of skill. I worked to improve my skills but still I could not bring myself to the level of my past earning history.

Now don’t misunderstand my message.  Learning is vital to success.  But, you could fill your mind with Wikipedia and every website on the internet and still be a financial failure. In fact, cluttering your mind with too much information just may lead to “analysis paralysis.”

If you want to succeed with your own online business, start by feeding your mind rich thoughts from successful millionaires.  Learn to think like highly successful self-made millionaires think.

Even if your ultimate goal is not to become a millionaire, you still need a powerful, positive mindset to succeed at any level. Meditate daily on positive, truthful thoughts and then stand in front of a mirror and boldly declare your own millionaire mind intentions.

Spend some time each day reading and thinking on inspirational material.  Please trust me on this, the more confident you are, the more your self-worth will improve. When you value yourself highly, you will believe that you deserve wealth and wealth will come to you as you take massive daily action toward your income goals.

Your Actions

Action is the catalyst for online business success. But not just any action…the right strategic action.

Spend some time researching successful self-made millionaires as I have done and you will come to the same conclusion…

The major differences between self-made millionaires and the rest of the population is in the importance they give to wealth creation and the actions they take to acquire wealth. Self-made millionaires are those who take the actions to do what most non-millionaires won’t do.

Self-made millionaires take risks.  They invest in themselves.  They hire mentors. They invest in their ideas. They work to improve themselves.  They plan for financial success. They start businesses. They work hard in the early stage of their business development in order to enjoy the reward on the back end.

Don’t believe me?  Research books by Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich or Wallace Wattles The Science of Wealth or Bob Proctor, You Were Born Rich. Check out the teachings of Denis Waitley, Brian Tracy or Tony Robbins.

What I find to be fascinating is all of these mentors came from poverty, built their mind to accept wealth as their destiny and then took the right action to become wealthy.  What that says to me is anyone with desire, discipline and determined action can become wealthy.

Your Results

The results you get in life are based upon the actions you take.  One of my mentors said something to me that was brutal at the time but it helped me get over myself.  He said,

“If you don’t like the results you have in your life, change your mind and change your corresponding actions.”

Well blunt as that is, he was right. You and I are responsible for the results we get in our life.  Maybe you had “bad parents” or unfortunate events occurred in your life. The bottom line is still the bottom line. if you don’t like your results you must change your actions.

Put Money In It’s Proper Place

I think we can all agree that money is important but never let your desire for wealth override your need for freedom.

While many business owners and online business entrepreneurs pursue money for the purpose of becoming wealthy, I have chosen a different route.  I seek to earn money for the purpose of increasing my freedom and bettering my lifestyle.  I’ve been in the place where I wedged myself into a corner and had to bring in money just to pay for a lavish lifestyle.

Believe me, doing that is stressful. I don’t want to do that so I have determined to put money in it’s proper place in my life.

By making that choice, I feel good about turning away opportunities to make money that would disturb my life balance and restrict my personal freedom. For example, I limit my one-on-one coaching times to ten hours per week.  Consequently, my calendar contains very few fixed appointments.  This doesn’t mean I’m idle.  It just means I spend my time doing what I freely choose to do instead of what others would have me do.  I require this level of flexibility to do my best work for my self and my clients.

By choosing how I spend my time earning money rather than obsessing on how much money I earn each day, I am able to keep money in its proper place.  My thinking about keeping money in it’s proper place comes from my value of being guided by my ultimate life purpose and following my passion to help people prosper and be their best possible self.  By staying focused on my purpose I don’t get wrapped up in less important concerns like doing deceptive marketing or meeting an absurd sales quota.

One of the main reasons I chose to build an online business as my method of doing business is so that I could put the products I create and the affiliate partners I choose on autopilot.  By automating my business, I am able to spend more quality time with my family and spending time pursuing other interests.

Automating my business also affords me the time I need to develop the high-quality content readers like you enjoy. Writing high quality content leads to more traffic to my website which helps me make more money.

By realizing that money is indeed important to building my personal wealth and putting it in it’s rightful place, I am no longer stressed by chasing money.  The more I focus on providing better value to my customers, the more money comes to me.  I know to some that seems like a paradox, but in truth it is my reality.

I want to leave you with my Ultimate Success Formula..

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