How to Think like a Millionaire
In this post you will learn:
- A system to become rich, used over centuries
- Step by step guides to helo you think like a Millionaire
- The easiest possible way to get wealthy
Bevomign rich is never fully easy, but it is still doable even today:
We all see the world through our own glasses.
Each of us has a different set of filters through which we experience the world around us.
In most cases, those filters are deeply rooted into our mindset and are based on the things we have seen, witnessed or heard throughout our whole lifetime until today.
For example, if you grew up with a dog as a pet to play around with and also to be your first loyal friend, then you will see a dog from a totally different perspective than someone who grew up without animals in their home, and thus no relationships to dogs or any other animals.
The same principle of course applies to all kinds of other things in life.
If you grew up in a rich family with all material luxury you can think of and never had to work for anything materialistic in life, then you will see money very differently than a person who grew up in poverty in a bad neighborhood with a high crime rate where money was constantly lacking.
Your environment, past experiences and journey of life will dramatically shape your view of the world, including your inner thoughts and deeply rooted beliefs.
And they all will affect the decisions you make, the way you act, talk and think. And there is a certain set of beliefs, a special view on the world if you would like to put it like that, which will increase your financial wealth in the long run on autopilot.
And how exactly to develop this type of mindset, is what you will learn in this article.
Therefore if two people are put into the exact same situation in life, one can achieve great success while the other person only gets into trouble.
The only real difference deciding the end result in these cases is what's going in in their minds.
Thus for some it is easy to get rich, and for other not.
Your thought patterns are not just your private business no one will ever hear about them - they can become very serious and make or break you in life.
Thoughts are directly related to your opinions, expressions and actions, and even if you would keep them only in your head, thoughts are electrical signals that have an yet not scientifically proven effect on the world around you - so better treat them with respect and be careful!
The most important thing to understand about these personal points of views, thoughts and deeply held beliefs is that even if you have had them for let's say the last 30 years, or even for as long as you can think back and always saw things your way, you can decide today to change your believe and start living a different life from now on.
There is nothing that we cannot change, especially not if it is inside our heads. You are not a victory of your own thoughts, you create them.
You are the master, and this is your turf.
If you think it will be easy to get rich, it will be.
Think it will not be easy and it won't be.
Here in this post I want to talk about one single mental filter or mindset, that will give you a totally different financial life in a few years from now if you only manage to activate it for yourself and see the world through it.
You may have bad habits, be lazy sometimes, eat unhealthy, but as long as you achieve to only activate this one thought pattern for yourself, you cannot help but to prosper financially after a certain time. Sounds good, right?
It will guide your decision making in all kind of financial situations and will always ensure that you pick the right one. With it, your decisions will not only be financially smart, they will absolutely guarantee your success in the future without any doubt.
You will be in total control of your finances, and you will know for sure that your net worth will increase and compound over time to a sum you probably can't even imagine for yourself right now. With this system, even an average worker with earnings of 40k per year can make millions until his retirement.
Yes, you read that right, this mindset will make you millions over time even as an average worker with a 9 to 5 job!
It really makes getting rich easy, or a lot easier at least.
Sounds too good to be true? Read on and find out.
Why It Works For Everyone
Hold on, there has to be a catch with such a high promise! Getting rich has never been easy! If it were that easy, everybody would be a millionaire, right?
Not necessarily.
The described mindset has to do with your personal spending habits. It focuses on using all the money that would leave you as a small investment, to put it short. The interesting thing is that even with modest amounts of money, if you can make them rise in value and compound you can make it big even with small amounts. Not convinced? Look at these numbers, because numbers never lies:
Lets say at the beginning of the 19th century you invested just 1$ in the Dow Jones Industrial, the standard index at that time. What do you think how much money would you (or your grandchildren) have 100 years later at the beginning of the 20th century?
What does 1 dollar become over a time of 100 years?
Is it 10 dollars?
Maybe even 20 dollars?
How about 40 dollars, that would be a lot!
Let me solve this riddle for you. At the beginning of the 20th century, you would have incredible 222,46$ in your account from this one single dollar!
Annually, this would be a performance of 5,55% compounding for 100 years. The power of compounding interest is just amazing. Einstein called compound interest one of the most powerful things he has ever seen, and now we have an idea why such an influential man might have said that.
But wait! There's more!
The Dow Jones does not take dividend payments into account. As a shareholder of a company you also receive a part of the annual earnings of this company. In the case of a stock owner, this payout is called the dividend.
That would mean that you would receive (mostly annual) payments from the largest and best corporations of North America for over a century, according to the sum you originally invested in those stocks invested which is 1$ in our case.
Now with dividends in our back in relation to the amount of our one single dollar we invested in those large companies, how much do you think would this dollar be worth after 100 years?
What do you think? One dollar grew to 222,46$ without the dividend, that is already an increase of over 220 times! How much can the dividend add to this, after all we only invested one dollar so how much dividend can one expect out of such a minor investment?
Maybe it will grow to 300$.
Or what if it would become 500$?
Can you guess it?
Please give a real estimate before reading on, it will give you a huge learning process.
Drumroll, please.
If you are not seated right now, you better take a seat because this one will blow you away. One single dollar, invested in the Dow Jones from 1900 until the end of 1998 including dividends has grown to 13.327$!
Yes, you read that right!
This is around 60 times more with the annual dividends reinvested than the already huge amount of investment without dividends! That makes an 10,78% annual performance.
To be fair, this amount does not include tax payments on capital gains. As they will be different in every country, we will not take them into account here.
From the last 10 decades, there was only one with a negative performance and more than 3 decades with a performance of more than 10%.
According to Jason Zweig in his book, the average return on stock after taxes will be around 7% after inflation was already deducted.
And sure, taxes on capital gains will also take their part at the end of the investment cycle. But still, the number is enormous and it did all that growth without any further effort on your part - you only had to stay invested over that time.
What does that mean for you?
Most people say they have no chance of becoming rich because they don't have the time to start a business or not the money to make smart investments. Well, this myth has just been busted.
Everybody will be able to save a few dollars, and everybody can be passively invested in the stock market or other things rising in value. That is what makes this strategy suitable for everyone.
So why aren't more people using it and becoming filthy rich? This is what will become obvious to you once you understand the whole plan in real life.
Because sure, there is also a downside to it.
The Strategy To Get Rich Easily
What you have to do when you want to get rich and are broke at the moment is either have a higher income, or make sure that the money you spend does grow over time as we have just seen it in our example.
The first option will be admittedly difficult for most people. To make a million in a year, you would need a monthly income of more than 73.000$, and that is after taxes!
As taxes in such high incomes often make up 50% in most countries around the world, it means you would have to earn around 150.000$ per month. And that is a fairly high number. Or let's put it simply, it will be close to impossible unless you own the business yourself to earn such an income.
With the highest paying jobs for the best educated workers being around 100.000$ annually, it makes this approach rather difficult to be honest.
Only the directors of large companies receive such paychecks to make themselves millionaires, and to get in such a position requires a lot of strong personal relationships to the exactly right people and luck - not something precise to count on.
The next approach to a rising income would be to start a business yourself. Once the business is profitable and on its feet, you as the owner get to keep the profits if you decide to do so.
And yes, those profits can be huge if you run your business right and things go well.
But even though I highly recommend starting your own business and see this as the best approach to making yourself a lot of money, we have to take into account here that 90% of businesses fail within the first 5 years.
The reasons can be manifold, there are all kinds of things that could threaten a young business or take it down entirely.
A business is always worth considering and starting if this feels right for you, but for a solid financial plan we have no guarantee that you will reach the ultimate high income from it we need.
But what even average Joe can do with his money is to make sure it does grow and compound over time.
Your money should not be spent completely, but it has to be invested instead to have it growing many, many babies over time. All you need to do is to put the money in the right position to do the desired work for you.
But of course, if you don't even fulfill this part of the equation, then money won't even have a chance to bring in great returns for you.
Our example from the stock markets returns has proven just that. Even with modest amounts of just a few dollars, and the diligence to set them aside over a length of time it can grow into an enormous amount of money and wealth for you.
Compounding interest is the most powerful force you can have when it comes to building your personal fortune, and to receive it you will have to put in a lot of time and an intelligent approach to investing.
Nothing more, but also nothing less.
Thus getting rich can really be easy, if you know what to do.
But if it were so easy and you just need a right investment over a long time, how come not everybody is rich? If it is enough to save a part of your income on a monthly basis, invest the amount into smart low-cost investment vehicles, how come not everybody is doing it and retiring comfortably?
The Catch
Oh sure there has to be a downside to it.
And let me be clear, there also is a downside to it without any doubt.
Ah, you knew it!
But it is not a risky, negative downside.
It has more to do with personal discipline and a clear control of your habits.
First of all, around 99% of people have no idea about the power of compounding interest. This is the primary reason why hardly anybody follows this strategy.
Most probably have never even heard of it. And those who do, dont understand its effect. When I was finishing my MBA, I was surrounded with people in high paying jobs or who are considered to be very “smart” from their educational standpoint, yet no one I had a conversation with understood this concept.
The incredible power it inherits is only understood and known by a very tiny minority, and usually those who do understand it also find ways over time to use it for their advantage. Rothschild himself, one of the initiators of our current financial system, is claimed to have said:
“Those who will understand my system will be silent about it because they will be too busy to use it for their own advantage and push themselves and their families forward.”
Whether he really said that or not is not fully proven, but what we can observe for sure is that those people who know how the financial system works have such investment vehicles for themselves and know how to exploit the system for their advantage instead of being a slave to it.
If compounding interest is new to you too, don't worry because you will not have to understand complex mathematical calculations on it.
Instead you only will have to acknowledge its power and use it to your advantage. And this will be easier than you think.
Second, most people are not bothered about their long-term financial situation.
They want to have their new car right now.
They want to live in a fancy house right now.
They want those designer handbags right now.
They want their luxury watches right now.
They want to go to that expensive party every weekend.
Take a close look at all these “normal” wishes that probably any person on the streets could relate to. What do they all have in common?
Are they for the long term or are they only temporarily satisfying?
Try to adopt a financial view on such expenses, after you have spent the money on it, what is left for you?
Obviously all of those wishes the average person has are focused on instant gratification, they focus on giving us pleasure right now, on making life better today by lifting us up emotionally with short-term serotonin dosis in our brain.
All of them focus on social status, on something to brag with or brag about, on things that most people long for but are actually unnecessary if we would be honest to ourselves. It is all money spent on something that will not only decrease in value, but also often your money will just simply be gone forever, and the good feeling you had too.
Honestly, with speed limits on every road worldwide, what difference does it actually make to drive with a 400 hp Mercedes or to drive with a 150hp Toyota?
You will reach your destination with both cars at the same time, unless you risk getting a ticket.
And come on, how many times have you been in a street race where the expensive car would have won?
But the luxury item makes us feel better, we think we impress people with it, we do it because we like to be perceived as someone better or with a higher standard.
And this is where we risk our financial future.
Because those decisions are a financial nightmare.
And those who can postpone financial gratification will see themselves getting rich a lot easier.
Depending on the model, brand and price tag on the car you drive, in the first two years of ownership of a brand-new car you are estimated to lose up to 50%, especially if you are buying a more expensive car.
That means this beautiful new Audi which you just bought for 100.000$ will be worth around 50.000$ after two years driving around with it. The car might look beautiful, give you a nice feeling when driving it and your friends will like it.
But that sucker is costing you an incredible 50k in just two years. Good luck on trying to save 50.000$ in two years only to compensate for the loss!
Even if you have a high income and can afford it (which most people buying such a car don't), such a car equalls burning your cash.
The problem is, this is what's going on beneath the surface - you and other people only see a beautiful car driving up the road, nobody sees the debt or the interest payments and the cash-eating monster this car really is.
And this is where you will have to develop the mental attitude to help you see exactly all these financially negative side effects that come with it. Think of it like unplugging yourself from the Matrix.
You have to train your mind to focus on the financial value of things, not on their outside appearances.
Sure, a Porsche in your driveway looks good, that is what is visible to the outside.
What is beneath the surface are incredibly expensive spare parts, awfully high-priced service and maintenance costs in the dealers garage, high gas consumption and a value depreciation higher than some people's annual salaries.
But hey, you got a really nice ride!
And please dont even get started on financing such a car.
Financing and debts are not necessarily bad if you know you use the money for something appreciating in value, like real estate.
With the rise in value, and other potential factors you could add value or make money, real estate compensates for the interest and fees the bank charges you for it.
But if you use financing for something that depreciates in value, you not only have to pay for all the already high costs in maintaining it and the loss in value, you additionally also have to pay the interest and fees the bank charges you!
You do not have to be a brilliant mathematician to understand that such decisions can totally crash your financial plans, even with a high paying job.
Usually if you buy a car at a dealership, the dealer has a margin calculated in the price, just as the manufacturer has too. These are the costs you will always have to pay. But with financing, apart from all other negative side effects, you also invite a third party to calculate its profits and margin into the price: the bank.
And suddenly the beautiful new car becomes a cash-eating monster, that will also eat up all your financial hopes and dreams for the future as you have to spend so much money in the present three won't be much left for the future.
And today in 10 years will come eventually. You can either be happy looking forward to it, or be afraid of that day.
But cars are not the only commonly used financial sin people have.
Basically everything that supports a show-off lifestyle and that can be used for bragging is in most cases always a bad financial decision. The reason is simple, those things depreciate in value, and they do it fast.
Let's take a look at some of the financial mistakes, almost everybody will be more or less guilty of using:
Partying:
Costs (easily estimated) 100$ per night, value after the same night: 0$
Designer Cloths:
A handbag will cost you 400$ from the cheap brands, expensive ones can cost you 3.000$ or more. Realistic resale value of the cheap ones may be 30$, the expensive ones around 250$ right after the sale, and after using it for a few months this will go closer and closer to zero.
Jewelry:
A piece that costs 1.000$ can be resold for around 100$, if you are lucky.
Eating at a fancy restaurant:
After you and your family have eaten up, several hundred dollars are gone.
And now guess what most people do as soon as they receive a bigger paycheck or a raise. They start to buy more expensive clothes, eat out more often, get a bigger car and just raise their lifestyle.
While this is surely something worthwhile and pleasant, it will shatter your financial future into thousands of pieces.
Simply because this material lifestyle is focused on things that depreciate in value fast or are worthless after consumption. It is a recipe for making you poor, even with a high income. Making 20.000$ a month still can get you broke if you are spending 23.000$ a month.
It is almost impossible to compensate for the loss of extensive spending habits with a higher income.
Many of these expenses lose their value so fast, you would have to be a billionaire to only cover for the losses. Spend your money like that, and getting rich won't be easy anymore - it will become almost impossible.
In his book The Millionaire Next Door, Thomas Stanley did intensive research on people who really have a lot of money in everyday life and what their spending habits are. He discovered that those people who really have millions in the bank actually do not drive fancy cars. Neither do they drink champagne and eat kaviar all day. Nor do they shop in the Gucci or Louis Vuitton boutiques.
Instead most of them live actually very modestly and eat sandwiches, drive a comfortable car mostly bought in a slightly used condition but not an overly expensive one, and wear good clothes they bought on a sale or outlet.
That means they do not live cheaply, but they buy quality stuff when it is sold cheaply, and thus make financially smart decisions. And they park most of their income in smart financial vehicles or assets that keep rising in value and making them richer as time passes by.
If you have not yet read this book, I highly recommend it to you, it will open your eyes in many ways!
Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban also says he was driving around in a Toyota Camry until he finally made millions for himself. Sure, if your business is expanding for years in a row and you start having 6 or 7 digits on your bank balance making it almost look like a phone number - go ahead, buy the car of your dreams, buy that expensive watch, make that luxury vacation.
But if you earned 40k, and your new job pays you now 60k - this is NOT the right time to buy the car of your dreams or go on a shopping spree on 5th avenue!
Instead it is the time to grow your investments and focus on things that will rise in value over time.
If a billionaire stays modest until he really makes it, maybe you should do the same.
Put Money In Assets
And this is where the hard part of the system comes in.
The catch, remember?
This is the time to be disciplined and mentally tough on your decisions.
Because as your income will rise over time, you will not simply raise your expenses like every “normal” person would do.
Remember: normal people are broke!
And we do not want to be broke, we want to live an abundant life and retire comfortably with enough cash in the bank to not worry about money later on in life.
To achieve that we will have to make decisions normal people do not make and adopt a view for finances others do not have.
So the next time your income increases through a raise for example, put a filter on it. You can use around 20-30% of the additional income for fun purposes - buy whatever you want and just have fun doing it. Don't even think about financial rules with that part, just enjoy yourself and have fun.
But the rest of those 80-70% will be set aside for investments that grow in value over time.
You can imagine this as your future-millionaire fund, and if you are persistent this will truly make you millions as you could see from the example with 1$ invested over 100 years.
And the good news is, you will not need 100 years to have enough for you and your family.
As a future millionaire, you will have to look at every dollar you spend.
Is it used for something depreciating in value or appreciating in value?
This is the real secreet to getting rich the easy way.
Think of your money in appreciating things like an army of small workers, all doing their jobs 24/7 to make you rich in the future. All those dollars are out there to bring some of their friends and return to you. The only problem is, that these small workers need a lot of time to show you their results. But when they finally show up, their results will be tremendous.
And what you need to do to make this magic work is to put your money into things that will rise in value. Here are some examples:
Stocks
Clearly, the stock market has dramatically risen in value over the last century. Over the long run and apart from cyclical ups and downs in the market, stocks will have powerful returns over the years in the range of 5% annually or more.
Precious metals
Gold, silver and other precious metals have always enjoyed a constant rise in value over the last decades. But there are many more opportunities to consider, for instance metals that are used in manufacturing and thus will rise in demand as the world population rises (which will certainly be the case during the next decades) like Copper, Aluminum or Carbon Steel. You do not need to physically buy it, it is enough to hold a security paper issued on one of these.
Land
For as little as 10.000-20.000$ you can get started to invest in undeveloped land in the countryside. The less developed the area, the cheaper the prices. As land has physical value it will at least always keep up with inflation and conserve its value. But if the world population rises further and cities and towns continue to grow, guess what they will need sooner or later? And guess who can then sell their land for a nice profit then?
Ideally you want to buy land that is at least in the proximity of a booming city or town that will likely grow over time, even if it might take decades. Think really long-term here. And as a nice benefit, you then have your own land to go for a nice hiking or picnic.
Real Estate
Real estate has provided a huge increase in value, especially over the last decades. And it gives you additional benefits like you can rent it and create extra cash flow, tax benefits, or you can renovate it and even increase the value for further investments
Bonds
As debt securities, bonds will pay you a certain interest for investing your money into a state or company, with usually very predictable returns
All these examples will dramatically increase in value over time and bring you interest annually.
Over the years, this interest will be compounding. And compounding interest will become your best friend over time. If you do not yet understand how this works and why this is so incredibly powerful, you might want to check out this article and this one for explicit understanding of it.
Note:
All of these examples above will have market cycles, meaning that there will be times that they go up and down.
This does not mean that the investment is bad or that the market is down forever, it just means that the cycle moves its value also down sometimes. We want to stay invested over the long run, and thus a recent negative performance simply means we have to stay invested longer and not sell right now.
Hence for us as long-term investors this will not be a problem, because we will stay invested for a longer period anyway.
Especially real estate and stocks are a very broad topic, and I strongly suggest you look for intense education before you invest in any of these two. There are great books out there on the topic that take you through the do's and don'ts in this regard, this article is only meant to explain the idea of rising value over time.
To demonstrate how this system can work for you, here are some numbers:
1.000$ invested in the S&P500 on 1st May 2008 was worth 1.923,47$ on 1st May 2018.
Annual performance: 6,67%
1.000$ invested in Apple Stocks in 1st May 2008 was worth 7.407,06$ on 1st May 2018.
Annual performance: 22,17%
1.000$ invested in Netflix Stocks on 1st May 2008 was worth 74.394,38$ on 1st May 2018.
Annual performance: 53,87%
1.000$ invested in Nike Stocks on 1st May 2008 was worth 4.125,34$ on 1st May 2018.
Annual performance: 15,30%
1.000$ invested in Google Stocks on 1st May 2008 was worth 3.626,72$ on 1st May 2018.
Annual performance: 13,75%
And this list could be continued on and on.
Of course, the stock market provides the most spectacular returns from our example. The beauty of this is that this rise in value happens automatically - you just go after your day-to-day activities while the money in your account just keeps rolling in. And with rising value, your interest rises, which makes your interest compound even more over time - a virtuous cycle.
Also if you look at similar investments like land prices or housing prices 30 years ago, the difference will be shocking. And those who took the wise decision to invest in such financial vehicle did reap big rewards. But in the future, make sure that you will be the one reaping the big rewards. An average house in urban areas at the beginning of the 2000s could easily be bought for 100.000$. Today, you are lucky if you will find a house in an urban area for around 400.000$. That makes a 4 times return over 20 years, and in the meantime you could have rented the house to provide even additional cash.
If you watch your money carefully and invest it in such vehicles, your portfolio will grow automatically with every year passing by. Time will be working for you. You know that as the older you get, the richer you will become automatically. Talking about a save retirement!
Get Going!
To put our system into action and make you a millionaire over the years on autopilot, you will have to see every expense from now on with a special mental filter. It goes like this:
Will this rise or decline in value over time?
Every purchasing decision and every dime you spend will at first have to get through this filter. Every. Single. One.
If it is declining in value and not totally necessary for your survival - forget it and safe the money for your investments.
Apart from the necessary thing like cloths, food and shelter, apply this to every single spending decision in your life. If you live in a city you might not need a car at all. If you still have a closet full of shirts, you might not need to go shopping that day. Try to live on the minimal standard that you are comfortable with, and while you might appear to be broke to outsiders, you are secretly building and unstoppable money-generating machine behind the scenes.
I know that sounds a little harsh, and admittedly it is. But hey you want to be rich, right? Nobody said this one will be easy. Your discipline and effort will pay off greatly over time, but you are required to actively participate in this system and really only spend money on what is necessary for you. Save as much as you can - to invest as much as you can later on.
Every dollar you invest in this way will be returning to you with hundreds of his friends!
And you do not need to forget about fun, quit making vacations forever or eat only Ramen noodles from now on. It is okay to spend a certain amount of money on things that you enjoy even if they make no good fit for this strategy.
After all, the process should also make fun and be enjoyable.
But start right now - set aside a portion of your income, at least 30%, to invest in future assets that appreciate in value. And with the next paycheck, this will be the starting point for your future millions. And for every future raise you will get from now on, begin to use only 30% as additional income and use the other 70% as pure money for investments.
With this approach, you will get the best of both worlds and enjoy a higher lifestyle over time, but also save and invest smart for your future millions.
If you follow this plan, you do not need to win the lottery. You do not need to build and run your own business if you don't want to. You do not even need to be the highest paid worker in your department.
All you need is discipline, determination and the financial mindset that everything you spend money on will either depreciate (lose money) or appreciate (make you money).
Now that you know this little secret to long-term wealth, what is stopping you from taking action? Get up from your desk and search for your first investments!
And start to become wealthy with ease.
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