Wealth Is a Mindset, as Is Resistance to Wealth
The first time I heard about resistance to wealth, or a wealth-resistant mindset, was in 2012. I had just managed to score a night job on an orthopedic trauma floor and was going through my own little drama of handling sleep deprivation by doing my best to persuade my mind and body that it was perfectly fine to walk and talk at night and sleep during the morning and early afternoon. I had already been told by my colleagues (well over a hundred times) that nurses were not being paid what they’re worth, while I was convinced that my starting salary as a registered nurse was simply amazing compared to any yearly income I had ever earned as a musician. This is why, when I first heard the statement that the majority of people are resistant to wealth, this idea sounded completely absurd to me. It made so little sense that I almost dismissed it as some kind of a marketing gimmick designed to suck me into a world I had always been conditioned not to accept as real in terms of values or worthiness of pursuing.
At the time, I had barely entered the real world of nursing and begun dealing with very sick and discouraged people, which was a whole new type of existence for me, not to mention I didn’t even have the slightest clue that discouragement had as many faces as there were people on Earth. With my limited perception back then, I strived to focus on the health side of desperation and discouragement, even though I was kind of starting to sense the sinister imposition of the financial side, too. It’s just that money as a controlling factor in every facet of life was too abstract for me to appreciate for its real magnitude because, in those memorable years, I was a profound financial invalid myself.
I found out I was resistant to wealth when I caught myself thinking that a yearly salary of $40,000 was a miracle thing, a $60,000 salary was almost unthinkable, and making strides to earn a six-figure salary — not even worth trying.
I now believe this to be one of the major reasons for people’s tendency to dismiss the importance of financial literacy and financial discipline early in life — how money really works, the financial parlance itself, what it really takes to make money flow from many sources. It simply feels like too much to comprehend and too big of a problem to tackle, let alone resolve with any measurable degree of efficiency. And then, as if this weren’t bad enough, a whole different level of responsibility and accountability comes along with overcoming culturally and self-imposed limits on our ability to grasp the how-to of money and apply this knowledge to our benefit.
What are, then, these wealth-mindset and wealth-resistant-mindset concepts all about? I sometimes prefer to call them the two-in-one, because, at any given time, most of us have to adjust our thinking when the one that does not serve our best interests or intentions begins to prevail, so we can stay mindful of both sub-concepts within the broader financial pillar of life.
One side of being resistant to wealth is the popular notion that wealthy people don’t have to worry about or work for money, as they have always had it. This mindset further implies that, if not born into wealth, those who have acquired it must have gotten lucky in one or more instances in their lives, and then wealth has simply come their way.
Another side of wealth-resistance is feeling guilty for acquiring wealth if our parents weren’t wealthy despite working very hard to raise us and provide the best they could with their limited means. This mindset suggests that we are not deserving of having better lives than those who sacrificed so much for us, and therefore, even the thought of pursuing wealth-creating opportunities causes us to feel guilt. Some of us may perceive that we should continue our parents’ legacies by working just as hard as they did for just as little money or, maybe, marginally more. But when you think about it, what parent wouldn’t want for their child to succeed in creating a life more abundant than he or she had?
Yet another angle of the wealth-resisting mindset stems from the natural tendency in most humans to work as little as they possibly can while secretly or openly resenting those who choose to work as much as they possibly can, including on birthdays and holidays, whether that is at a job, at a side business, or at a full-time business. Many people who pursue a side hustle along with a job willingly skip vacations and other popular venues in order to use every free moment to create better and more efficient ways to expand their wealth. This behavior does not always sit well with those exhibiting wealth-resenting mindsets, primarily because people with such mindsets don’t like being even silently reminded that the other person is much more proactive and hardworking than they are, which is why that person’s results speak for themselves.
But, the one wealth-resentment aspect seemingly standing out the most — just as false and detrimental — is a person’s lacking conviction of being capable of generating wealth, especially if they have to start from scratch. Starting from scratch to become wealthy is what most of us must do if we truly desire financial independence to the point where we don’t have to rely on others to shape our financial future. Oftentimes, there is a predominating popular sense that it is not worth the effort. But is the effort not worth it, or are you not worthy of the achievement, in your opinion? The answer to this question lies in the deepest part of your consciousness and forms your current financial mindset. Of course, your results speak for themselves, too.
How do I know all this messed-up stuff? Well, because I have had to come to terms with it myself. I have faced each and every one of these four angles at different points in my life, but rest assured, there are many more. Humanity’s self-limiting mindsets know no limits, nor do our efforts to control everything and everyone else first, and then (maybe) our own thoughts, beliefs, and actions!
The truth or falsity of such viewpoints depends entirely on your mindset, especially once you have become a responsible adult. True, for most of us, the mindset about money instilled by our parents and other loved ones during our formative years is a strong determining factor. But it doesn’t have to be the ultimate factor, nor does it grant us permission to not be fully responsible for our financial future. If all of the above mental handicaps were ultimate, there wouldn’t be tens of thousands of examples of people growing up in poverty and beating all odds by becoming wealthy.
What about the amazing character trait known as wealth mindset, or abundance mindset? Let’s be clear: it has nothing to do with entitlement. How do we best define it, then, without confusing it with attitudes it does not represent?
Wealth mindset is a form of understanding or clarity, if you wish, about the ability to create and attract wealth in multiple ways, on multiple planes in life, and at all times. It is a viewpoint that makes the world abundant in your eyes and prompts you to seek and find opportunities for prosperity everywhere you look. If you aren’t born with this type of mindset, you can learn it by first unlearning your poverty or wealth-resistance mindset. It does take effort to do, for all of the above-mentioned reasons you’ve identified yourself with a poverty mindset.
Along with the mental effort involved in this unlearning process comes the physical effort to do the actual work that answers each time you knock on the door of opportunity. As you progress with learning and start exploring the many opportunities out there, you will find it is always work who greets you at the doorstep.
Much of the work that needs to be done may seem trivial and unexciting in the grand scheme of things. But, many people miss the point exactly here: the grand scheme consists of small, seemingly trivial steps, some of which are easily viewed as unexciting, while others require learning that implies changes in daily routines and dedicating ‘extra’ time to the process. That’s what most people hate. They must change their ways to get out of the comfort zones they’ve been stuck in forever. Then add the anxiety that comes with learning new things, the possibility of spending more money than they are willing to spend (that would require a shift in priorities, which people hate, too), and, most importantly, the fear to fail and start over.
Those who are most willing to deal with all this initial revulsion to change and temporary discomfort and keep their momentum once they’ve started the whole damn process are the ones who succeed in creating a lasting wealth mindset. The reason they succeed is pretty simple, too: they are more afraid of poverty and being dependent on others to dictate their lives than they are afraid of putting in the sweat, taking the necessary risks, and growing the patience to see the harvest of their efforts. They make the sacrifices required by their vision on their own terms and of their own accord.