20 Ways Rich People Think Differently | The Growth Booth #46

Welcome to episode number 46 of The Growth Booth. Great to have you with me here today. In today's episode, I want to talk about 20 ways that rich people think differently from the average Joe or the middle class. I think the first thing that I've said here is that when I'm referring to rich people, it's really synonymous with wealthy, or even more descriptive than that would be people that are super successful, so keep that in mind. And also, I want you to keep in mind that a lot of the ideas I'm sharing with you here today have come from Steve Siebold who is the author of a book called How Rich People Think and also from Napoleon Hill who is a famous author of Think and Grow Rich.

Now, I'm a big believer in the fact that success leaves clues, and that's why this topic really interests me. I think that if you can learn from other people that have come before you and if you can take on some of the characteristics, some of the traits of other people who are very successful, then you can go a long way to improving yourself in the world of success. I think that there is a big difference also between someone who has made their own wealth versus someone who's had their wealth served up to them on a silver platter. It's not always the case, but oftentimes I think the mindset is just completely different.

That's based on my being friends with over 50 self-made millionaires and also knowing a lot of people who are not self-made millionaires. A couple of other things before we really dive into the good content here. If you haven't checked out The Growth Booth episodes number 21, 22, and 23, I did a trilogy of episodes on wealth building, and I think a lot of the ideas from those will build upon some of the mindset traits that we are talking about today. I would also recommend that you check out The Mind Game. This is a course that I put together which is broken up into 66 different lessons, and you can find that by going to thegrowthbooth.com/Mindgame and actually get that at 50% off. If you want to go ahead and do that, I think it's worth looking at and dives into much, much more detail in other areas from what we're going to be talking about here today. But we do have 20 different things, 20 different ways that people who are very successful think about things versus the average Joe. I'm going to dive into them right now.

Number one is that average people tend to think that money is the root of all evil, whereas wealthy people or rich people believe that poverty is where the problems come from. This is how Steve Siebold puts it. I think another way of looking at it is that some people think that money causes problems and others think that money can solve problems, and I definitely believe that money can solve problems. I know a lot of families don't like to talk about money around the dinner table and I think that probably comes back to people having this negative relationship with money.

I like to think of money as being a tool that doesn't have emotions. The emotions that people have around money are all human-made, whereas if you look at money as a tool and look at money as a resource that you can use to improve your life and to improve other people's lives then I think it becomes pretty easy to jump to a point where you can see money as a positive thing. So that's the first difference I've got there for you.

The second one is that average people think that selfishness is a vice whereas rich people think it's a virtue. What I mean by this is I think rich people, wealthy people, successful people, they care about taking care of themselves and as a byproduct of taking care of themselves or their own interests oftentimes a lot of other people benefit. I think the biggest thing here is an appreciation of time and really wanting to protect time. Recently I was asked to go and speak at a very big marketing conference and I said no. It's not that I wouldn't have enjoyed it, but I prioritize my time and I choose where I want to spend my time.

So, even if I think that it could have been valuable to other people, there are other ways that I provide value and there are other things that I would prefer [to be] doing. Saying no more often is definitely a trait and sometimes that can be perceived as selfishness where in reality I think it's just more of a virtue and understanding what's important to you and having some kind of respect for your own time and through that, being able to help so many more people. If I had always said yes to everything that came my way I wouldn't have a team of about 150 people now, 150 families that I'm able to support essentially through my businesses, and it's a win-win scenario for everyone. So again, going off track a little bit here but I really believe that you can help a lot of people as a byproduct when you put your own needs as a priority, to begin with.

The third point that I've got here is that average people tend to have a lottery mindset or a lottery mentality and the most wealthy, most successful people I see have an action mentality and the clock is always ticking. And I think most people tend to be pulled along by the current in life. They wait for life to serve up whatever life is going to serve up. One way or another something is going to happen. They wait for that thing to happen. Whereas rich people, the most successful people that I know really go out of their way to get what they want. They don't just wait for it to turn up. They actively go out there, take action to achieve something, and surprise, surprise, they get the results, as a result of that.

Average people think that the road to riches is paved with formal education, and rich people believe that it's more about acquiring specific knowledge. Now, I'm an absolute advocate for education. I think that education is vitally important, and I think that in general, the world and society lack education. People need more education. But if we're talking purely from a financial standpoint, I feel that based on my own experience, I didn't make millions of dollars because of the education that I got – at least not because of the general education that I got. I was able to make a lot of money because of specific things that I learned, and specific types of information that I was able to acquire. I do invest a lot of money in education. In fact, this year I've spent over $25,000 upskilling myself in different ways that include three different courses that I've taken at Harvard University, two of those have been about negotiation. That's something I use all the time in different parts of my business, and one of them was about wealth management.

And so they are specific skills, specific courses that will help me do better with my investments and my business and get a bottom line. However, generally speaking, the very sort of broad level of education is not really designed to make people wealthier. In fact, if you look at the schooling system, a lot of it was designed in the industrial age. People were being taught to become cogs in a machine, if you like, almost literally at one point. And we're far past that now. I do think formal education is great, but I don't think it's the thing that results in millionaires being made. I think it's more about your attitude and your mindset and your outlook and many of the different things that I'm talking about here today. I do, however, think that if you've got the right mindset and the right outlook, then formal education will probably only help you. But it's more like the icing on the cake rather than the cake itself.

Point number five is that average people long for the good old days, whereas rich people, wealthy people, and successful people dream of what's coming in the future. The self-made millionaires that I know get rich by bidding on themselves and bidding on their future. And people who tend to think that their best days are behind them are normally right and normally have to live through more struggle because of that. But I think a lot of this comes down to your outlook and having that optimistic outlook, having that belief that you can succeed at what you're doing is really important. And I think seeing the glass being half full there and thinking that you've got a good future ahead of you is really, really important.

Point number six I've got is that average people see money through the eyes of emotion, and rich people see money, from a logical standpoint, as a tool. I've touched on this a couple of times already, but it's incredibly amazing to me how smart, well-educated individuals can completely crumble or transform when money is at stake. And this is normally down to emotion, and this is something that I see all the time now. Wealthy people tend to see money for what it is. It's a tool, it's a means to an end, and it's something that can be leveraged when an opportunity presents itself, but it's not something that should allow you to completely derail the way that you think. But this is the effect that money has on a lot of people who have got this emotional relationship with money. So, I think that's another big difference.

Number seven that I've got here is that average people earn money doing things that they don't love, whereas the richest, the most successful people that I know, earn money by following their passion. And I've seen this so often. In fact, we've had a good number of stories from people on this podcast who have built multimillion-dollar businesses, made huge amounts of money, and they're doing things that they love every single day. Average people sometimes think that rich people are working all the time, but in many cases, it's just that these wealthy people, these rich people actually love what they're doing and they're getting paid for it. I think the middle class tends to work either physically or mentally in order to make money and it becomes a job. In essence, it's a job and it becomes something that they don't enjoy, whereas the wealthiest people that I know are people that have built businesses that they've learned to love or have loved from the outset. That's why they're quite happy spending a lot of time working on their businesses if they want to do that.

Number eight that I've got here is that average people set low expectations because they don't want to be disappointed, whereas rich people are up for the challenge. I think wealthy people are not afraid of failure. Any entrepreneur that I know who has gone from zero to building a successful business is going to have met failure quite a few times along the way. It's part of the course, it's part of the journey. However, going back to what I said about the school systems previously, they really taught us to avoid failure at all costs. And I think this is one of the reasons why people don't dream big because they've been trained not to fail and they don't want to fail. They don't want to fall short of their dreams. So, they decided, “Well, I just won't dream big in the first place.” And I'm sure that most of this is subconscious, yet it's still something that I see happening.

Number nine is that average people believe that you have to ‘do’ something to get rich, whereas rich people believe you have to ‘be’ something to be rich. I see that the middle class often fixated on doing and fixated on the immediate results of actions, whereas the most successful people that I know really focus on learning and focus on growing and being the person that ultimately becomes successful. This is an idea that we speak a lot more about in the Mind Game, which you can find out more about by going to thegrowthbooth.com/mindgame and you can actually get 50% off by going through that link. And we talk about the logic between what you think about, what you actually do, and what you ultimately get. And it's a progression in that order: you don't do something and then think about it and then get it. You think about something and you become what it is that you're thinking about and you do the thing and then, and only then, do you actually get the results. I think that's another big difference between the average person and the person who has become very successful.

The 10th point that I've got here for you is that average people believe that you need money to make money, whereas rich people use other people's money. And this one is not just about leveraging other people's money. This one is about thinking outside the square and actually not just thinking outside the square, but being aware that there are options for you outside the square. Most people just don't realize that there are cost-effective ways to fund businesses and to fund investments using money that's not theirs. And this isn't irresponsible. In fact, it's the exact opposite. It's about leveraging the resource of money to your benefit and doing it in a responsible way.

The 11th point I've got here is that average people believe that the markets are driven by logic and strategy, whereas truly wealthy people realize that the markets are driven by emotion and greed. And there's certainly some logic to investing, obviously. But most of the time that logic is on the side of the investor that's got the rich or the wealthy mindset, not the average Joe. How else can you explain people selling off their stock portfolios at absolute rock bottom prices when the fundamentals of the investment are just as good as they were the moment they bought them? It doesn't make any sense at all. But this is greed, emotion and fear that are dictating how people behave. And it's something that we see all the time and it's something that the wealthy people take massive advantage of, not in a negative way, but are aware of the fact that so many people are selling off their assets because they are afraid. And the wealthy understand that the fundamentals of the investment are still good and they're able to leverage them for their benefit.

Average people tend to live beyond their means and rich people live below theirs. These are the twelve points, and I think the secret to living an amazing life is living below your means. But that doesn't mean squirreling away money. It means having plenty of money to cover your lifestyle. But getting that money by thinking about how you can generate more money. That's a real theme that I've seen is people who want to get wealthy, they don't think about squirreling money away. They think about “What can I do to have more money?”

It's like if you made a decision that from now on you are only going to travel business class for your work or for your personal life, then the way to go ahead and achieve that wouldn't be by thinking, “Okay, well, I'm going to need $10,000 a year for my travel now, instead of $2,000, I better start saving some more money.” No, the way to approach that would be to think, “Okay, I need $10,000 per year now to cover my business class travel. What can I do to make an extra $10,000 per year?” And when you start approaching it from that mindset, you find there are lots of different things that you could do. You could open up a new traffic source, you could get a new side gig going. You could grow your business by improving your conversions or any number of dozens and dozens of different things. But it all starts with that mindset.

Point number 13, and this is another one from Steve Siebold's book, is that average people teach their children how to survive, and rich people teach their kids how to get rich. And I think a lot of this comes down to kids learning through osmosis and just being around a role model who has the thought patterns of someone who is very successful. Now, I grew up in a middle-class household where my mom was a teacher, my dad was a farmer, and my parents were very careful with money, so I saw and learned that approach growing up and I respect it. But it's a survival approach. It's not an approach that is growth orientated.

And I don't think it's a case where you can only have one or the other. I think you can still be aware of it. Now, I grew up in a middle-class household where my parents were very careful with money. So I saw and learned from that approach and I respect it. But it's definitely a survival approach. It's not an approach that is focused on growth and growth, the abundance approach is without doubt the approach that I'm trying to teach now to my kids. And my hope is that a lot of that will just come through osmosis because kids are so good at picking up and copying what their role models do. This is a big one for me. It's just being aware of your own actions and then trying to be able to pass them on to other people.

Point number 14 is that average people tend to let money stress them out whereas rich people find peace of mind and wealth. I believe that money can solve problems. And if you've got a problem that can be solved with money and you’ve got the money then you don't really have a problem. But the middle-class mindset sees money as a never-ending source of problems. Money, however, can be a great liberator. And this is how the wealthy people that I know tend to look at money, looking at it as a solution rather than a problem. And in my case right now, that’s my kids.

Another big difference that we see time and time again between the average mindset and the wealthy mindset is that the average mindset is one that would rather be entertained and the wealthy mindset would rather be educated. And I don't think this is a zero-sum game. I think you can get entertainment and education at the same time. However, I think it's amazing how many people fall into this middle-class mindset of chasing entertainment, chasing the tabloid, chasing the TV show that is just garbage, and spending hours and hours and hours watching something like the Kardashians. Now these production companies know how to keep you glued to the screen, but it's not in your best interest and I can promise you that there are probably better ways that you can entertain yourself in your downtime.

The trick for me though is to find a way to get an education in a way that is entertaining and look for that overlap. And education happens in lots of different ways as well. I mean I'm someone that loves books but it's not just about books. Education can take lots of different forms. It can even just be hanging out with people and diving into different topics that you're interested in. I think the key though is thinking about how you spend your downtime. Is it all around this sort of tabloid mentality or are you doing things that can improve yourself and really embracing the compounding effects of improvement over time?

Point number 16 is that average people often think rich people are snobs, and it's not always the case, but certainly seems to be the case sometimes. And what I found is rich people just want to surround themselves with like-minded people. So for me, I always try to avoid being around people who are going to pull me down in any way, shape, or form and make a deliberate effort to surround myself with people that really do have a positive impact on my life.

Point number 17 is that average people tend to play it safe with money and rich people know when to take risks. And leverage is really the watchword for the rich. Every investor loses money on occasion, but the world-class knows that no matter what happens, they will always be able to earn more. And one of the best ways in my opinion, of risking money, if you like, is investing in yourself or investing in your own projects. That to me has always been money pretty well spent because I'm building my own knowledge, I'm building my own experience, and then when the project does take off, I'm able to really reap the rewards, the compounded rewards of the money that I have invested.

Difference number 18 is that average people love to be comfortable, whereas rich people are quite comfortable in uncertainty. I think physical, psychological, and emotional comfort are the primary goal of the middle-class mindset, whereas the wealthiest people are quite comfortable operating in states of uncertainty. And this is something that you can work on over time. I don't think it's something that necessarily comes naturally to people but I do think it's something that you can work on and I think it's also down to awareness and awareness that there are things that you control and there are some things that you can't control, and taking comfort in that.

Point number 19 is that average people never make the connection between money and health, whereas rich people know that money can save your life and money can't always buy you health. But it can help, it can shorten the queues to get treatment. And a few years ago my dad needed a double knee replacement and I was able to help out with that and get him to the front of the line, just by paying for private health care. I think money can also allow you to have preventative health care. And one of the simplest examples of this is the time to look after yourself with fitness so that you can avoid a medical event later in life. Now if you're working the grind 60 hours a week, then you probably don't have any time at all to be able to do anything like preventive healthcare through the likes of fitness. But if you do have money and if you do have some financial freedom, then you can absolutely make that a priority.

And point number 20, and I think this is probably the silliest misconception or difference of all, is that a lot of average people think they've got to choose between either having a great family or being rich. And rich people know that you can have it both ways. Now as a dad of two, the idea that you can't have a great family life and be wealthy, to me, is like the silliest thing ever. In fact, I think that if you've got money and you've got lifestyle freedom, then you can have an even better family life for all the obvious reasons that come with that: having more time available, just more freedom in general.

And some people do get addicted to their businesses and neglect their families. But I've also seen that in the rat race. I've seen that in the corporate race where people get addicted to their jobs and they get addicted to that corporate ladder and end up being a slave to the machine. I've seen far more of this impact on family life than entrepreneurs who get addicted to their own businesses. I think the intention is respectable. So, to really wrap this point up, I think that this is not a zero-sum game, it's not one or the other. You really can have the best of both worlds, have a very wealthy life, a successful business, and also a very happy family. And I think suggesting otherwise is completely silly at this point.

Some final thoughts here. I think the mindset is really at the root of all of this and I think the mindset is that seed that ultimately turns into what your life becomes and who you become. And that you do have the ability to control a lot of your mindset, something that you can work on regularly over time, consistently. And I would encourage you to check out The Mind Game, the course that I put together which dives into this in so much more detail. It's a course that's broken down into 66 different lessons and you can find out all about this by going to thegrowthbooth.com/mindgame. And you'll see you can get access to this for 50% off.

And I think if you even just took a couple of the lessons and really sort of internalize them- remember there are 66 lessons in that course - you'd go a long way to making some pretty tremendous gains in your life. And look, we're going to wrap this episode up here. Make sure you tune into the next episode and as always, you can get show notes, links and so much more by heading over to thegrowthbooth.com. Remember to subscribe, and it doesn't matter where you are listening or watching this episode, if it's on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel. If it's on Apple podcasts, make sure you follow along there, give us a rating, and do the same wherever you are listening to this. We really appreciate your support and I look forward to seeing you again in episode number 47 of The Growth Booth, which will be out next week. We'll talk then.