You want to be rich? You want to be wealthy? Stop being poor then!
I know exactly how this sounds! It sounds daft and obvious, right? Ok, let me tell you; it may sound daft and obvious but it actually is far from it. In August I published a piece (The Opposite of Poor) where ‘poor’, ‘broke’, ‘rich’ and ‘wealthy’ were discussed as including two different aspects – material and mentality. This is how these four ‘situations’ were positioned on a grid between their material and mentality dimensions.
The next question that I have been puzzling over is how does one move from situation to situation? Here is what I have been thinking about moving from ‘poor’ and ‘broke’ – I focused on these two since they are most interesting to me and I suppose to my readers. If there are any secret millionaires reading this blog, be they rich or wealthy, I apologise for ignoring (temporarily) their plight. Continue reading
On ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ mentality
Looking through my posts, I noticed that during the last month or so the notion of mentality, more specifically the distinction between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ mentality, has been popping up repeatedly. In my post The Opposite of Poor , for example, I argued that the main difference between ‘poor’ and ‘broke’ (‘rich’ and ‘wealthy’) is not material but a difference in mentality. So today I’m going to write about positive and negative mentality, and how are these different in my opinion.
The differences between positive and negative mentality can be traced across six distinct areas. These are: beliefs, feelings, language, approach, planning and action. Continue reading
Why I say ‘negative wealth’ and not ‘debt’?
Those amongst my readers who either ‘know me’ from elsewhere in the virtual world or are very perceptive (or both) have already noticed that I hardly ever – in fact, it is fair to say that I never – talk about ‘debt’. Except to strike it and substitute it for ‘negative wealth’. It is time to clarify why I talk about ‘negative wealth’ rather than about ‘debt’. I have come up with four main reasons for that. Here they are. Continue reading
The opposite of ‘poor’…
Making a difference between being ‘poor’ and being ‘broke’ is well established in the personal finance literature. Lately, however, I have been asking myself some interesting questions. What is the difference between ‘poor’ and ‘broke’ beyond the customary ‘poor is forever, broke is temporary’. I have been asking myself questions about the opposite of ‘poor’ and it seemed to me that it is ‘rich’. But, again, how is this different from wealthy? And why do I feel much more comfortable telling the world that I want to be ‘wealthy’ than that I wish to be ‘rich’?
It occurred to me that to answer these questions we could think of the four notions as reflecting two dimensions of our lives: a material dimension and a mentality dimension. The five numbers I insisted everyone should know – income, expenditure , assets, liabilities and net worth - are the measure of the material dimension. The mentality dimension is not only difficult to measure, it is also hard to pinpoint. It is a combination between the beliefs we hold, our morality and our responsibility to ourselves and to humanity at large. Continue reading
