1.2.1 UNLEASH YOUR WEALTH - Keys to a Millionaire Mindset

You can’t have a million dollar income with a $5 mindset

At 55 years of age, Andrew Jackson ‘Jack’ Whittaker, Jr. was living a successful, comfortable American life in West Virginia, USA. By most standards, he had a well-rounded family and a great job. On December 25, 2002, Whittaker stopped at a supermarket to fuel his Lincoln Navigator. He also purchased a deli breakfast sandwich and a Powerball ticket. That small piece of paper changed his life almost in an instant. He won the jackpot of US$315 million! His was the highest ever lottery win in the United States at that time. Right now you’re probably thinking, Man, I wish that was me! I could do a lot with those millions! But the tragedy of this story is that within four years, Whittaker lost it all! Today, Whittaker claims that he’s struggling to pay his many debts. He says that no amount of money loaned to friends and family was ever enough and that his lottery win destroyed his life. In fact, he says that if he could do it all over again, he would have just filled up his tank, bought a sandwich and gone on his merry way.

How many times have you read stories like that about people who have won a fortune in the lottery and a few years later they are back on poverty street with nothing left of their winnings? In his recent book Win In Business, Gloria Jean’s Coffees Co-founder, Peter Irvine, said, “For far too many people a sudden increase in wealth ruins their attitude, their relationships and their business. The reason is that they never learned how to earn the wealth and they never learned how to manage it.”

World champion boxer Mike Tyson squandered ring earnings of more than $300 million and today he is bankrupt and has a long list of creditors to pay. How do you lose that much money? I’ll tell you how: the same way many of us waste away $1,000 or even $10,000. You see, it’s not really about the money. It has a lot to do with your mindset and your attitude to money. You cannot move to another level of prosperity and success with the same mindset you have right now. That’s why so many of us waste away large sums of money that suddenly end up in our hands. Our mindsets haven’t risen to the level of our new wealth. That’s why you need to change your mindset—so that you can go up another level of wealth and prosperity… and flourish there.

I’m on a mission to help make people rich. And to do that, I mess with people’s minds. That’s why I’ve written this book. You may wonder what a book about mindsets has to do with you! Well it’s very simple: We all need to have the right kind of mindset to achieve wealth and prosperity. You see, prosperity isn’t about money, it’s about mindsets. Change your mindset, and you can change your world.

Here’s the key to moving to another level: change your mindset! You need to shift your thinking if your life is going to change. Let me ask you a question: If you want your life to prosper, will the same level of thinking that you currently have be good enough to get you to another level? The answer is: No! Is it possible to change your thinking? Yes!

A few years ago, I was in New York City and I’d been asked to speak as part of a street program run by one of the local communities. We had a few counselors and a salsa band there and, as the program got underway, I wondered what I should speak about. The streets were dark and there were a few crack houses close by. There was evidence of violence everywhere, but no evidence of a visible audience. When it came time for me to speak, I stood up and spoke on the topic ‘When Love Comes to Town’. I spoke about the power of love and I shared my story. I talked about where I had come from and what I understood to be love: Love is gentle, love is kind, love is patient, love doesn’t rejoice in doing wrong, love doesn’t hold grudges...

My friend Danny, who was running the program, said to me, “Pat, we want to help these people, so invite them to come forward off the street if they want help and if they want food.”

I turned and said to him, “But Danny, there’s no one here!”

Danny, who is Puerto Rican, said to me, “This is my town! I know my people! Just do it!”

“Okay!” I replied. (I’ve learned not to mess with Puerto Ricans!)

So I invited people to come forward if they needed help or food. All of a sudden, people started coming out of the crack houses, pushing their trollies. It looked like a scene from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video! As I was standing there, a guy came up to me and he smelled of booze and vomit (which is kind of like Old Spice aftershave!). This man’s hair was all matted together. As he came closer I could see lesions through his beard. They were all over his face—the result of HIV infection. He stunk unbelievably. He whispered to me in a husky voice, “Hey! You talk about love... Do you love me?”

I took two steps back and said, “Yeah, I love you.”

He said to me, “If you love me, you hug me!”

A little voice inside me that I’ve come to know said to me, “Hug him!”

You hug him! I replied, quietly.

“I would,” said the inner voice, “but I need someone to hug through, and you happen to be the closest thing that I know.”

“What’s your name?” I asked the man.

“Hector,” he said.

I reached out and said, “Hector, come here!”

He stepped forward and fell into my arms. He began to sob, and then I began to sob. I then realized that I couldn’t smell him anymore, but now I could feel his pain.

Through tears he began to tell me what had happened to him that morning. “I was going through the trash this morning and I found an old cup of coffee,” he said. “Something came over me and I prayed, ‘God, if you’re there, get someone to hug me today. I’ve never been hugged.’”

I said, “Hector, do you realize your body is riddled with HIV?”

“What is that?” he asked.

Love came to town!

Well, we welcomed Hector into that community and, sure enough, love came to town! We cleaned him up and found him some work.

Two years later I went back to that community in New York and I said to my friend Danny, “Hey, Danny! Where’s Hector?”

“Hector is dead, man!” he said.

I was devastated. I had been so looking forward to seeing Hector again. Danny saw the look on my face and whacked me. (Puerto Ricans have no compassion!)

“Hey, Mr Motivation!” he said. “What’s your problem?”

“The man’s dead!” I said, tears welling in my eyes.

“Ah!” he said. “So you got a philosophical problem, man? Sometimes there is something far greater than just breathing air. Come with me!”

He took me to a back room of the community facility where he worked. In that room I saw about 150 people—old people, young people, black people and white people. Some of them had headsets on their heads and they were peering at television screens, computer screens and laptop screens... all these people were working!

“Hey, everybody look at me!” Danny shouted.

Everyone turned around to look at Danny.

He pointed at one of them and said, “You! Get up! Tell Pat your story!”

This man stood up and said, “My name is Eduardo. I was a gang member, man. I would pop people for $20. Then Hector came into my life!”

Danny pointed to a woman. She stood up and said, “My name is Cindy. I was a street worker. I used to waste my life. I was a mainline junkie. Look, man! Hector came into my life!”

Danny pointed to someone else who also stood up. “My name is Ricardo. I also used to do drugs, until Hector came into my life!” Another man stood up. “My name is Shaque. (Black guys always have the cool names!) I used to pop guys. I used to deal drugs. That was my $100,000 corner, man. Then Hector came into my life!”

One after the other, people stood up and told me how Hector came into their life. Danny turned to me and said, “Sometimes the wealthiest man on the planet is the one who leaves behind a legacy for others.” You see, Hector had spent the last days of his life giving to others what had been given to him: love and a second chance at building a better life.

We have healthy bodies, but we’ve got viruses in our minds

I suddenly realized something. The only reason why Hector was able to impact all these lives was because no one had told him he couldn’t. He had a virus in his body, but he didn’t have one in his mind. The problem with a lot of us is that we have healthy bodies, but we’ve got viruses in our minds. My friend, I want to help you change that!

At one level, Mike Tyson was an incredible achiever. He had a dream, he had goals, and he pursued them with great determination and with great success. You might have a dream and hit every goal you set for yourself too, but a dream in and of itself is not enough. Unless you are able to change your mindset to think how wealthy people think—to think with a millionaire mindset—you won’t achieve sustainable prosperity. Like lottery winners, you may gain a large sum of money next week, but without a millionaire mindset, it may soon disappear. The bottom line is that your income won’t keep you where your mindset can’t hold you.

Adolf Hitler once said, “What luck for rulers that men do not think.” Unfortunately, his legacy proves his point. My friend, if you learn to think differently, you will start to see better results in your personal and professional life.

A story is told of a Texan who walked into a church office one day and said to the secretary, “Honey, I’d like to speak to the chief hog in the trough.”

“I beg your pardon!” she responded. “Are you referring to our Senior Minister?”

“That’s right, honey,” he said. “I want to speak to the chief hog in the trough.”

She looked him in the eye and said, “He’s a man of integrity, he’s a man of character, he’s a man of the Scriptures, and he’s a man above reproach. How dare you speak about him in such a fashion!”

“Oh, honey,” he said. “I’m sorry. I have a check here for a million dollars that I wanted to give him for the church building fund.”

She immediately turned around and said, “Hang on a minute. I think I see the big fat pig coming right now.”

You see, this church secretary had an instant change in mindset.

My friend, motivational speaker Brian Willersdorf, tells the story of a Baptist minister whose friend strode up to him one day and said, “Look, my dog’s sick. Could you pray for my dog?”

The minister responded, “Buddy, we’re Baptists. We pray for people, we don’t do dogs. But I do know a good Catholic priest who could help you.”

The man looked at the minister and said, “Well, what’s his name?”

“His name is Father McKenzie,” said the minister.

“Well, would you please give Father McKenzie this check for $20,000 and thank him for praying for my dog when he does?”

Quick as a flash the Baptist minister replied, “Oh, you didn’t tell me it was a Baptist dog!”

It’s amazing how quickly we can change our mindsets when under pressure.

If you learn to think for a change, you will start to see better results

How many times in your life have you dreamed about what it would be like to be wealthy? Many people spend their whole lives wishing they had more money, but they never do anything about it. (By the way, buying a weekly lotto ticket doesn’t count!) The truth is, you can live a more prosperous life if you are prepared to make some changes in your life.

The first place in which change needs to happen is in your mind. Before you can become a millionaire, you need to develop the mindset of a millionaire. This book is all about helping you to shift your thinking from a poverty mindset to a millionaire mindset. It isn’t just about financial prosperity, it’s also about mental and emotional wealth; it’s about abundance and success in every area of your life. Prosperity definitely includes financial wealth, but it should never be limited to this. Prosperity is something that affects your whole life.

As we journey through the pages of this book, I want to be your coach. People have coaches for a lot of reasons, but often we neglect some of the most important reasons. Prosperity is an important part of life. My goal is to lead you into a new way of thinking, to help you to think logically, not just emotionally; to help you understand the difference between millionaire thinking and poverty thinking. I want you to become a ‘top shelf’ donut kind of person!

You have to decide that you’re going to be a wealthy person?

Generally speaking, genuine prosperity does not happen by accident. It takes a decision on your part to become prosperous. You have to be committed to prosperity. If you’re not fully committed to becoming prosperous, then you can’t blame anybody or anything else for your lack of prosperity. Your upbringing, your job, your organization, your education are not responsible for your prosperity. If you want to prosper, then there’s only one person that matters—you! You have to decide that you are going to be a wealthy person.

As we work our way through this book, my aim is to help you begin to think differently. First, you have to think differently about yourself. You need to start seeing yourself as a person who can prosper. You may need to change some ingrained thinking patterns, or perhaps you’ll need to overcome negative mindsets that have developed as a result of past experiences. You might also need to change how you think about wealth and money.

Second, you have to change your thinking about your future. Your future is not predetermined. Rather, you create your future by the decisions and choices you make today. What you need is a dream, a clear vision of the future you want to create for yourself.

Finally, you may need to change the way you think about other people. Instead of seeing others as being in competition with us, or as obstacles around which we need to negotiate on our way to personal success, we need to see other people as part of the key to our own success. Other people need to become the ultimate purpose for our prosperity. What do I mean by this? Simply this: Our primary reason for pursuing prosperity has to be so that we can do something to make life better, not just for ourselves, but for others as well.

Are you ready for a mind shift? Are you willing to get rid of thought patterns, ideas about yourself and your world, and mindsets about money and wealth that have kept you contained? Are you willing to kick out those thought patterns, ideas and mindsets that have prevented you from stepping into the truly prosperous life that you were born for and that is waiting to be discovered? Do you want to have a millionaire mindset? Then let’s get started!