The Millionaire Mind and Science of Getting Rich
Kevin Hogan
I watched Barack Obama last night. The man is a heck of a good speaker. That is for sure. He reminded me of some of the black ministers I listened to on Sabbath morning when I was a kid.
Lady from Alabama wrote last week and was vehement that she couldn't
"get rich." The idea of a "millionaire mind" wasn't something she could wrap her mind around.
I told her she was right......
As a child in the 60's, I spent my summers in Alabama.
My grandfather was the Dean of Students and Professor at a "Black College." 100% no white people for a mile around...except us.
We were the only people who were white that hung out at the College or
in Church on Sabbath morning. I don't remember an exception.
Pretty much no white people would go near a black church or a black school in those days.
In fact, my grandparents thrived on being different. Both were military in WW II, my grandfather was a Colonel, 20 years US Army Retired in 1961. (My grandmother was a nurse.)
That and being a psychologist created for an interesting man...and our conversations from my childhood certainly proved that we were different...(what's new.)
And for whatever reason, we were "treated" like "any other people" that were
Black, except that we were White...and back then when I was a kid, we didn't really think in terms
of black guy/white guy...or different treatment... When summertime came, I was a kid in an all black community, church and college.
Maybe it was because my grandparents were good people who didn't give a rip
if someone was black or white or whatever. And maybe it was that the black people
saw "us" as part of the good guys. (You should know that Alabama was REALLY divided in the 1960's.
White folk didn't "hang" with Black folk in those days. We were very...weird. You would have had to have been there...) In retrospect, it's actually pretty amazing...but it wasn't amazing then...
Maybe it was because my grandfather dressed like a black guy (he was extremely
hip "for" white people and fit in pretty well with blacks in dress.) Unlike my brothers and myself, he never picked up that Southern Black Accent. We did and every summer when we went home, people would look at us like we were from Mars the way we would talk. We were just kids, not even 7 years old.
The people in Huntsville were some of the coolest, nicest people I've ever met.
Race was a HUGE issue at the time, especially in that election year of 1968, but
the deal was, we never felt ill at ease and we were welcome at people's homes for dinner, even though in some places, white people weren't welcome. God knows there were a heck of a lot of places that made it abundantly clear that blacks weren't welcome....and my Grandparents refused to go there.
"All people are the same in the eyes of Jesus...sinned and fallen short."
It was as simple as that from my grandparent's point of view.
I wasn't color blind. Black Culture and White Culture were as different as the colors themselves. I always preferred the Black Culture. I have pictures of how we dressed in those days...it was not exactly "white attire."
And the people in Huntsville and Decatur were about as poor as poor could get. You look up the word "poor" in the dictionary and there probably is a picture of a guy from Huntsville in 1968 there.
I didn't realize at the time how lucky I was to experience this in my life, and to have grandparents (and a Mom) who were so incredibly anti-racist.
I remember Nana, my grandmother, rolling her eyes behind her head when white people would say stupid stuff about blacks. (although most people didn't refer to blacks as "blacks" in those days...)
...and "black" and "white" was a weekly if not daily conversation back then. My grandparents were an enormous influence on me and they wanted me to know that as different as black and white were in some ways, in the ways that ultimately mattered, there was no difference.
An interesting side note. That summer of 68, the TV was on all day long. We watched the Presidential Primaries and all the political coverage. For 7, I was politically astute because it was the topic of EVERYDAY conversation.
Every day, except Sabbath, my Grandmother had the TV tuned in. Politics was incredibly important in Alabama at the time.
It's interesting how history has sort of rewritten what all was really happening in the media. It was about the Presidency. My grandparents admonished us to not "hate" or be unkind to anyone...except Governor George Wallace and President Nixon...two men for whom my grandmother couldn't keep her feelings about from us kids....
And in Alabama, where we were, Wallace was the incarnation of evil. All I remember is he was running for President against Humphrey and Nixon and my grandparents couldn't stand the man...that and the integration/segregation arguments. Race (civil rights) was a monster issue in the summer of '68. And that's what I saw as I watched the election coverage, which was very different in those days from today.
I seem to remember thinking that Wallace was "mean" for having (in my mind) been at least partially at fault for not letting blacks and whites go to the same churches and schools. It was stupid that there were "black colleges" and "black churches." I wondered what was so wrong with white people that there wasn't just one church...
Anyway, Just thinking of Wallace makes me kind of sick, so I'll move on...Thankfully...for me...those days were all about learning and growing up and not being totally poor (even though everyone we hung out with pretty much was...) for a couple of months...mostly good memories for me which were rare as a kid... Fortunately I had good experiences in those hot Alabama summers...cuz we didn't have
air conditioning...
Anyway, we left Chicago each summer to visit my grandparents. We left poor place "A" to go to poor place "B." And to this day I'm glad I got to experience the decency of both black and white people. The goodness of both. Those events shaped my way of thinking today for better or worse.
Aside from the mindless signs "No Negroes Allowed," and inherent "rules" of the time that were set out as a "message" to blacks, my grandparents spent their days teaching at Oakwood and attending Church on Sabbath.
My grandparents were cool in that, there were no stupid rules, "don't talk to black people about being black or white." There was none of that kind of stuff. We were free to talk and ask questions and that was the greatest thing. It brought down any walls that in retrospect, could easily have been there, but weren't.
It is interesting that in retrospect I don't recall my grandparents ever using the term Negro as it wasn't perjorative but I do remember blacks using it in Church quite often. I didn't get to go to the school often, but when I did, I remember I got to sit at the back of the class. (More cute in retrospect than when I was bored listening to my grandfather teach psychology...)
I don't remember actually EXPERIENCING hatred or anything close probabaly because of where I was.
As s kid I was fortunate enough to experience "poor" in two very different cultures.
And the "poor" part I hated. My grandparents were not poor by my life standards or by the standards of the black people in Huntsville. They both had jobs and lived an above average income. The people we spent time with however, that was not usually the case.
I remember thinking both in Chicago and in Huntsville, "I will never live like this when I am adult." I had no clue what I WOULD live like, but it wouldn't be like either the Chicago or Huntsville people lived.
And that is what brings us to the Science of Getting Rich...the lady who wrote that she couldn't build wealth...oh I do understand where you are coming from...
Q.
What's the difference between people who try and get rich and people who
The Science of getting rich is in part answered in the paradoxical question. (What's the difference between people who try and get rich and people who get rich?)
Abstract representational change is necessary. And it's not about just how our culture phrases the question.
People who build wealth don't "get" rich.
"Get" implies something is received and yes, that is true but there is no causal implication. In other words, "make money" reveals a mindset that is different from "get rich."
The sad thing is that if I write, you are going to "make rich," it doesn't ...sound right... does it? Words simply represent our thoughts as they are currently structured in our brain.
Now let's just think about this for a moment. Do I want to "get rich" or "make rich?" The answer of course has to be that you "make rich" or it won't manifest and MAINTAIN. I can't remember a wealthy person saying, "I got rich," or "I want to get richer" or have a general thought process that put the words "get" and "rich" together. I think this semantic distinction has gone unnoticed and I strongly encourage people to avoid thinking or talking to their kids in terms of "get money," "get rich" or "get a job."
"Build wealth" is better because although wealth is hard to picture for a lot of people, at least you have the causal element, "build." Better yet: "Build an empire." Here you have a picture and an action process.
The next semantic problem in the question is wrapped up in "try." I find it very difficult to "try" and do anything. I succeed at a lot. I fail in the short term at plenty. And there is always effort. But "try" almost implies, "I gave it a shot." You never hear anyone say, "I tried to go to the store for groceries but I just wasn't motivated." You can temporarily fail to get to the store, but you can't fail forever! The word "try" has always bugged me.
So, our language, not the grammar, but the abstract verbal representations of what we THINK and FEEL reveals much about how and what we actually do think. It's not that it's "bad," it's just that it can reveal the inability to link cause and effect and THAT will cause ultimate failure.
The Seven Keys? Here they are...
