Top 10 Real Reasons Why You’re Not Rich

(1) Being Rich Means Nothing to You.

One of the most common reasons why people aren’t rich is because they simply have no interest in being rich.  I know that may seem stupid, but it’s true.  Numerous studies have shown that when employees are asked to rate the top 10 motivating factors at work, most employees rate their wage near the bottom of the list.  Although a lot of people would think that making more money is a big priority for people, it really isn’t.

Being rich is kind of like being a famous actor or actress.  Although many people might think or fantasize from time to time how cool it would be to be a top celebrity, very few people actually have a real desire to live that kind of lifestyle.  You can say the same thing about being a professional sports athlete.  Yeah it looks cool on the surface, but there is a reality to being a professional athlete that most people just aren’t interested in, such as all the workouts, all the practice, broken bones and injuries etc.

So the first reason that you may not be rich, is simply because you simply aren’t really that interested in it.  There are other things you’ve chosen to master in this life besides the financial abundance game, such as being liked by everyone or drinking or being the world’s best parent or leveling your Warcraft character, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  If you haven’t chosen to be rich, and you’re not actively pursuing being rich, being rich probably means nothing to you, so you probably won’t be rich: unless of course you win the lottery or inherit money from your Uncle Bill.

(2) You’re Financially Ignorant.

Ignorant doesn’t mean stupid or unintelligent.  It simply means you’re financially unaware.  Financial matters bore you.  You have no idea what the difference between an asset and a liability is.  You have no clue what your net worth is, or whether it’s going up or down.  You have not taken the time to understand the technical aspects of how money really works. 

Most people have only a very rudimentary understanding of finances, and they really don’t want to bother learning.  They expect their bank or their stock broker to take care of them.  If you truly want to be rich, you can’t be financially ignorant.  You need to understand how money works.

(3) You’re Afraid of Being Rich.

A lot of people are actually afraid of being rich.  They may not even be conscious of it, but they may have a lot of hidden fears of being rich.  For example they may fear that if they become rich, their friends might not treat them the same way anymore, or everyone will want to borrow money from them, or they believe that more money = more problems, or if they have more money someone will try to steal it from them or something. 

There are a lot of movies and TV shows out there that condition people to think that all rich people are evil blood sucking vampires that are selfish and only care about themselves and secretly everyone hates them.  There’s all the rich people in the movie Titanic – they were all miserable filthy rich people right?  The rich guy in Spiderman becomes the Green Goblin, and Peter Parker’s grandparents are “poor and honest”.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a top blockbuster movie or an episode of The Simpsons – rich people are stereotypically portrayed as being filthy evil rich bastards with no friends.

This type of conditioning makes a lot of people secretly afraid of being rich.  Yes, people might want to make an extra $1,000 so they can buy a new flat screen TV and invite their friends over to watch a game, but do they really want to be millionaires?  Sadly, most people are afraid of being rich, even if it’s only subconsciously.

(4) Your Beliefs Suck.

Money flows into your life like electricity flows into your household.  Your beliefs are like the breakers on your power lines.  They limit the amount of power that is allowed to flow through each power line.  Sadly, most people are completely unaware of their limited beliefs and they don’t realize that they will never be able to become rich no matter how hard they work simply because their beliefs are limiting the amount of money energy that flows into their lives.

It’s impossible to allow more money to flow into your life than your beliefs will allow.  You can’t change your beliefs by “making more money”.  You “make more money” by changing your beliefs.  It’s the same thing as having a 10 Amp fuse on a circuit in your house.  You can try to plug in a series of power bars to try to pull more “juice” out of that circuit, but at the end of the day the maximum power you’re going to get out of that circuit is 10 Amps.  If you try to pull more “juice” out of there, the fuse will blow and prevent you from doing that.

Changing your beliefs about money is like upgrading a 10 Amp circuit in your house to a 20 Amp circuit.  It allows more energy to flow through the power line without burning out the wiring or setting off the fuse.

(5) You’re a Pessimist or a Realist.

Being a pessimist or a realist is an attitude.  If you weren’t born rich, it’s going to be very difficult for you to become rich if you have a pessimistic attitude in life even if you have a strong desire to be rich.  Pessimism and realism are rooted in fear.  To be rich you need to be able to see something that’s not there yet.  You need to be able to see yourself already being rich in order to be able to attract being rich, and that requires on optimistic attitude.

This is what I’ve seen time and time again when it comes to the different types of attitudes and setting targets and making money.  When embarking on a new venture, such as starting a new business or project here’s what people do:

A pessimist will tell everyone he’s expecting to make $1,000 in the first year of running the business.  The business will do much better than expected, making $10,000 in the first year and the pessimist will feel all happy that he made way more money than he was expecting.  He will then state that it was a great year but things probably won’t go as well the following year so he’ll set his target for the second year at around $2,000.

A realist will tell everyone that he’s expecting to make between $9,700 – $10,300 in the first year of running the business.  The business will make exactly $10,000 in the first year and the realist will brag about how accurate his prediction skills were, and will now set a new “realistic” goal of making $12,000 in the second year (a 20% growth rate).

An optimist will tell everyone that his new business is going to make $250,000 in the first year of running the business.  The business will make $96,000 in the first year, and although somewhat disappointed by not hitting his previous target, the optimist regroups and sets a new goal of making $450,000 in the second year.

The three of them will then go to a party where the pessimist and the realist will make fun of the optimist and laugh at the fact that he was WAY OFF on his targets and that he needs to “get real”.

So, do you want to impress people with your ability to out-perform your pessimistic targets like the pessimist?

Or do you want to impress people with being “right on the money” by predicting to mathematical certainty the amount you’ll make like the realist?

Or do you want to make almost 10 times as much as either of them and leave the bragging to them. 

(6) You’re Brainwashed to be Poor.

This is a variant of being afraid of being rich and having sucky beli
efs.  You may actually be brainwashed that being poor is a good thing.  Some people have been programmed by religion, by the TV set, by their governments or even their parents that there is some redeeming quality in being poor. 

This is kind of like if someone brainwashed you to think that if you turn on more than one electrical device in your house, you would automatically die and go to hell, and if you never turn on more than one device at a time, you’ll automatically go to heaven.  It may sound silly, but a lot of people have been brainwashed to believe that by staying poor they are earning brownie points with some higher power.

This programming/brainwashing may take many forms.  It doesn’t always have to take the form of guilt in the sense that you don’t want to be rich or that you shouldn’t try to be rich.  It could be in the form of your parents or teachers or peers brainwashing you to think you can’t be rich because you’re not smart enough, you’re not the right sex or color, or because you don’t belong to some association or you don’t know enough people, or because you’re not special enough or some other thing.

(7) You’re Self Sabotaging.

Self sabotaging your success is a big one.  A lot of people do it and they’re completely unaware of it.  They do everything right and get their momentum going and really start to build wealth and then BAM, out of nowhere there is a crisis or some kind of tragedy or some freak occurrence that sends them back to being poor. 

Some people do this once and the effects are so devastating that they never get back on the horse and try again.  Others get back on the horse and try again and again and again, each time creating some kind of new reason why they don’t become rich.  They blame everyone and everything around them, without realizing that they are creating their own sabotage.

You may be self sabotaging your success and not even be aware of it.  The only way to get around this is to take full responsibility for your success and don’t play the blame game.

(8) You Don’t Understand Use Value.

A lot of people don’t understand the concept of value exchange and money.  Money is an energy form and a form of value exchange.  A lot of people get frustrated when they create something of tremendous value and are then unable to exchange that thing of value for money.

For example, lets say that you get a brilliant idea and you go out and you purchase the most expensive white yarn you can find and you proceed to knit a wedding dress because you think it would be a really cool idea to knit a wedding dress.  It takes you six months of hard work, but you finally finish the dress and you decide to try to sell it for $20,000.  Nobody wants it so nobody buys it, so you lower the price.  Nobody still wants it, so you keep lowering the price until you end up selling it for $200, which is less than the yarn was worth.

So many people mistake their efforts and how much something cost them to make with the value of the product.  The value of a product or service is based on the value it brings to the CONSUMER (“use value”), not what the product or service cost you in time and resources to make.  If you can produce something that costs you $5 to make, but the value it brings to the consumer is $10,000 then you will successfully sell the item for around $10,000.  Your “cost” is irrelevant to the consumer.

Also, distribution, marketing, packaging, etc. are all a form of value as well which most people miss.  If you make a CD and you make copies of it at your house and try to sell it, and I have to drive all the way over to your house to purchase the CD, then it might not be as valuable to me because it’s inconvenient and costly for me to try to get the CD.  If you make it available as a download on iTunes, you then tap into a distribution engine that can allow millions of people to download your CD from the comfort of their home.  THAT adds “use value” to your product.

A widget that is worth $100 in “use value” to people is worth $100.  If it cost you $1,000 to make, nobody gives a crap, you’ll only be able to sell it for around $100.  If it cost you $5 to make, nobody gives a crap either, you’ll still be able to sell it for around $100.  That’s how profit in business is made. 

Remember that just because it cost YOU $5 to make the widget, doesn’t mean that the consumer can produce the same widget for $5 though.  You may have resources, knowledge, tools or other things that allow you to produce a product or offer a service at a much lower cost than a consumer could do it themselves.

(9) You Don’t Have Enough Income Streams.

Rich people have many income streams.  Poor people typically only have one income stream which is their job.  Income streams for rich people are kind of like all the different power lines and power outlets in the house.  A rich person has many outlets they can plug into to get access to electricity.

Sometimes this is one way that rich people are able to build wealth even if their beliefs are slightly holding them back like the breaker fuses on their power circuits.  Each circuit may only be limited to 10 Amps of power, but if you have enough circuits in the house you can still afford to plug in a lot of different things and have enough energy to power them all.

For example, a rich person might have a limited belief that says that it’s very hard to make more than $10,000/month from doing something, but instead of working on eliminating that belief they simply create multiple income streams.  So they may have a job where they make $7,500/month, they may run a part time business making another $5,000/month, own three rental properties which make them $2,500/month each and in total they have an income of $20,000/month even though there is no more than $10k/m coming from any one source.

Multiple income streams give rich people security because if one business or income stream dries up, there is usually a whole bunch more that can make up the slack.  Your best bet is to get rid of your limiting beliefs (upgrade your circuits) and take advantage of having multiple income streams.

(10) You’re Not Aligned with the Real Source of Money.

Assuming you are not guilty of any of the above, there is still one more reason why you may not be rich.  You’re not aligned with the real source of money.  We live in a universe that is completely, and infinitely abundant, but if you don’t align with that abundance then you will never be rich.

It’s kind of like having all these upgraded circuits in your house to handle more power and getting everything I mentioned above in check, but then being limited by the electrical power company who’s not aware that you’re able to handle the extra load and that you want the extra load so they’re still sending you just enough electricity to power only one circuit.

This is where all the non-physical stuff comes into play that a lot of people dismiss.  Things like Law of Attraction, visualization, affirmations and learning how to create a state of being that attracts more money energy into your life.

A lot of people mistake creating value as the be all and end all of everything.  It’s not true.  It’s not just about creating value.  Let’s say that two musicians create two albums and they put those albums on iTunes.  Both albums are amazing in their own way and they are definitely worth the $10 they cost in “use value”.  You could even say that the albums are so good that for each person that downloads the album, they get $15 or $20 worth of “use value” even though they are only paying $10 for it.  What a great deal.

Let’s
also assume that both artists did the exact same amount of marketing and advertising.  Album A ends up selling $1,000,000 worth while Album B only ends up selling $5,000 worth of copies.  Why?  Most people think that all things being equal, both albums will sell the same amount.  I have experimented with this and tested this over and over and over again and it’s simply not true.

The person who utilizes tools like visualization, Law of Attraction and as I have learned just recently, the ability to really feel good and BE in the right state of being to attract wealth and riches, will align themselves with the real source of all abundance and money, and that alignment is kind of like the power company sending more energy through your power lines when you’re finally ready for it.

If that part is missing, you’ll just be sitting there with upgraded circuits, multiple income streams setup and ready to go, an optimistic attitude and all the other things that I talked about, but STILL nothing will be happening.  You’ll be sitting there wondering why the lights aren’t coming on.