The core theme is that mastering the psychology of money, specifically by identifying and overcoming six limiting beliefs, is the most crucial skill for building wealth, rather than intelligence or luck.
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The single greatest skill that separates
broke people from wealthy people is not
intelligence or luck. Okay? It is
mastering the psychology of money. I
went from being 100 pounds overweight,
broke, arrested six times to building
companies worth hundreds of billions of
dollars. And it is not because I'm
special. I am no different from you. Is
because [music] I stopped letting my
broke mindset run my actual life. So if
you want to build real wealth, you need
to break free from these six limiting
beliefs that are keeping you broke. The
first limiting belief or system of
beliefs that is keeping you poor is what
I call the money script. Every financial
decision that you make, what job you
take, how much you charge, how guilty
you feel spending a certain amount of
money, is all controlled by this
subconscious script that you probably
didn't even write yourself. And this is
actual science. There's research by
financial psychologists that talk about
the four types of money scripts that
predict financial behavior. And these
scripts are actually formed in childhood
before you're even conscious enough to
understand what money is. As I go
through each of these, I want you to
think about which one you unconsciously
follow yourself. I will tell you what I
am at the end or at least how I grew up.
Okay, the first one is a money avoider.
These people believe that [music] money
is bad and that they don't deserve it.
Okay, they will sabotage their own
success. They often work in helping
professions that have very low pay and
they feel guilty about wanting to have
money. So if you grew up hearing people
say rich people are greedy, money is the
root of all evil, that's probably the
script that you have in your head. Now
on the other hand, we also have money
worshippers. Okay? So if you're a money
worshipper, you believe that money will
solve all your problems and [music]
bring you happiness. Okay? So a money
worshipper, they chase money
obsessively, but they never feel like
they have enough. They hoard. They
prioritize [music] work over
relationships, always believing that a
certain amount of more money is going to
bring them happiness. Oh, I just haven't
made enough yet. I need to make a
million dollars. Now it's 10 million.
Now it's a hundred million in order to
be happy. Now there's the money status
script. People who suffer from the money
status script tie their self-worth to
their net worth. They overspend because
they want to keep up appearances, hide
their finances even from like spouses if
it's not what they think it should be,
and they feel anxious when other people
are wealthier than them. So it's like
the typical keeping up the Joneses. It's
like you're looking in the the yard of
your neighbor and you're like, "Dude, I
need to have a better yard than him."
Research shows that this script is
actually linked to lower well-being and
increased unhappiness. Now, [music] why
is that? Because you're constantly
comparing yourself. Right? The last one
is money vigilant people. Okay, these
are people who are chronic savers who
live below their means, but they
experience constant anxiety about their
financial future. They're usually
secretive about money. They never feel
secure even when they have plenty. So, I
want you to think about of those four,
you might be a mix of a couple of them,
but think about the one that you
identify with the most. Think about how
it affected you growing up. So, when I
went through these, I was like, I
definitely identify the most with money
vigilant, [music] which probably sounds
weird cuz you're looking at me and
you're like, I see jewelry and I see
makeup and hair and all. I'm going to be
really honest with you guys. I spend
nothing compared to how much money I
have. to the degree that when I had $100
million net worth, I didn't even want to
spend over a couple million dollars on
the house. In fact, I rented for three
years at that point in my life and
didn't even own a home. And that is
because it's the constant anxiety of
like never feeling secure even when you
have plenty. So, Alex actually knows
this about me, which is a terrible
habit. But when I feel like I'm not
making as much money or less profit for
a couple months, even though it affects
nothing about my personal life, cuz I
don't even take money from my business,
I just start to spend less money. I
don't look at things. I don't buy stuff.
I tell people, I'm like, "Don't buy
that. What are we doing?" I tell my
whole assistant team, I'm like, "Ah, we
don't [music] need that. No, let's cut
here. Let's go through our our finances
and cut stuff that we don't need." I
realized it was a pattern that I had in
my past that I was bringing into my
current day life that wasn't serving me.
And so something I tried to start doing
the last few times that's happened where
I've just felt that urge to spend less
money. I go spend more money. It's
probably a worse behavior, but it's
telling my brain like, listen, you're
going to listen to me. This is
irrational. I'm not going to listen to
you. And so I will spend money even when
I have that impulse not to to teach
myself it's okay because the evidence
shows it is. And whatever's happening in
my brain has nothing to do with what's
happening on the outside. So here's what
I want you to do. I want you to think
about the phrases that you heard growing
up. Maybe it's, you know, one, money
doesn't grow on trees, be grateful for
what you have, rich people are greedy.
Okay? Those things are not lessons.
They're other people's thoughts that you
took on. And so once they get written
into your subconscious, then they start
dictating everything about your life.
What jobs you take, how much money you
charge, what you believe you deserve,
how much money you spend, when you
should be anxious versus excited about
spending money. So, here's how we want
to rewire our brains to think about
money differently. Write down your
earliest memory about money. What did
your parents say [music] about it? How
did they behave with it? That's probably
your money script. And once you see it,
you can rewrite it. And so your new
script, for example, could be money is a
tool that lets [music] me create freedom
and help more people. Once you change
that internal script, your external
results will start to update. It takes a
lot of the emotion out of it. And once
you associate positive feelings with
that new narrative, you start to
actually see that your behaviors align
with it more. The next limiting belief
keeping you poor is what we call a
wealth ceiling. Here's the truth about
it. you will sabotage. Say it's a
$200,000 opportunity if you still see
yourself as somebody who only pursues a
$50,000 [music] opportunity. Now, why is
that? The amount of money that you have
is capped by how you see yourself. Just
[music] like the partner yet you have,
just like the job that you have, just
like the house that you live in, the
research on this is very clear. Your
self-concept acts as a [music]
thermostat. If you see yourself as
somebody who earns $100,000, you'll
unconsciously strive to [music] maintain
that level, right? And you will not
pursue a level above it. That's the
really important piece. Now, if you make
$150,000, you'll probably spend an
additional $50,000. [music] If you make
$80,000, you'll stress and work until
you're back at the $100,000. See what
I'm saying? [music] So, for me, for
years, I was I'm scrappy. I'm surviving.
I'm getting by. And I remember because I
got stuck [music] when I was in my first
job making around $85,000 a year. It was
like I created this identity around it.
I knew [music] logically that I could
make more, but one I remember the moment
I started making more, I started to
compete and then all my money started
going to competition fees. The second
piece is that I remember so many times
when I knew I was about to start making
more. It's like I would almost sabotage
myself by getting wound up in it. I was
like, "Oh my god, what if I up? What if
I mess up? What if I don't actually make
more?" And I didn't realize at the time
that that was like me regulating my
internal temperature. And so if your
identity is I'm somebody who struggles
with money, you find ways to keep
struggling. But if it's [music] I'm
someone who creates and manages my
wealth and can make more money if I
choose to, then you're going to find a
way to live that out. So here's how you
[music] change this. Okay? I want you to
write this down. I'm the kind of person
who. And then finish the sentence
honestly. Whatever your current
financial identity is. I overspend. I
underspend. I save [music] too much. I
save nothing. Then I want you to put a a
line down that piece of paper. On the
other side, write, I'm the kind of
person who builds and manages wealth
with ease. You don't need to feel like
[music] that person yet. You don't need
to act like them just yet. I just want
you to actually write it down and not be
repulsed by what you see on the piece of
paper. I'm serious. Every time you now
make a decision for money, I want you to
pull up that piece of paper. That's all
I want you to do right now. [music] And
the thing is is that the moment that
your self-image expands because you're
constantly reading that, reminding
yourself of it, writing a new sentence
to put in your brain, your income is
going to follow that. The next limiting
[music] belief people have is thinking
that they should buy liabilities instead
of assets. Maybe just not even knowing
the difference. [music] You were
programmed to consume, not to build
things. And that's why a lot of people
stay broke. Okay, Robert Kiosaki, he
wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad. One of the
first books I read on money, he put it
very simply. He said, "The rich buy
assets, the middle class buys
liabilities thinking they are assets."
Wealth is actually fairly simple. There
are two categories: assets, liabilities.
An asset puts money in your pocket. A
liability takes money out of your
pocket. And a lot of people spend their
entire lives buying liabilities and
wondering why they can't get ahead. They
ask, "Can I afford this?" Instead of,
"Will this pay me back? What's my return
on this?" Now, how do you know the
difference between an asset and
liability? I'll break it down in the
most common cases that you probably can
relate to. Your car, liability, okay,
loses value immediately. Has insurance,
which is Gas, maintenance,
happens to it all the time. your house
you live in. Liability. I know this is
very controversial, but it's true. You
have a mortgage, property tax,
insurance, repairs. It doesn't generate
income. The next one, a course that
teaches you a skill, asset. Now, how
does that an asset? Because it pays you
back through increased income because
you've invested in your skills. A rental
property. An asset. It generates monthly
income. A designer handbag, sadly, a
liability. Okay. Loses value over time.
Doesn't, you know, generate any income.
I've had that discussion with Alex
before. equipment for your business.
That is an asset if it helps you
generate more revenue. It's a liability
if you don't use it and just sits there.
So, when I started filtering all my
purchases through that, is this an asset
or a liability? My wealth compounded
because I realized I was like, my money,
if I don't put into either of these
things actually is just a liability.
Money sitting in the bank, it's just
deteriorating over time. So, my money
actually can become a liability if I
don't do something with it. And that's
when I really started learning how to
invest in things that create money, in
skills that create money, in learning
that creates money, and in assets for my
business that create money. Here's how
you can start spending on what matters.
Okay? I want you to look at the last 10
purchases that you made. And then next
to each one, simply write asset or
liability and be honest with yourself.
And then all I want you to do is just
commit the next time that you buy
something to just ask yourself, is this
a liability or an asset? Does it put
money in my pocket eventually, or does
it take money out of my pocket? The next
limiting belief is one of the hardest
ones to break. I know this because I
still find myself breaking it on a
continuous basis in the weirdest ways,
but that is the scarcity mindset. Okay,
this sounds crazy, but having a scarcity
mindset actually can make you dumber.
Here's the truth. You either operate
from scarcity or abundance. And I don't
want you to feel bad here because
[music] as humans, we are supposed to
operate from scarcity. Which one you
choose to lean [music] towards and train
yourself into will determine how much
money you make. The scarcity brain
really just says there's never enough. I
need to protect what I have. I need
more. [music] You know, if that person
has more, it means less for me. Think
about what that meant like a thousand
years ago. It meant like somebody else
has all the berries. And you're like, I
need more berries because I need berries
to feed my children and my pack. And
like you're trying to get their berries
because you're like, oh, you can't.
There's only a certain number of berries
and I need to make sure I get them and
not you cuz what if my family dies?
That's how your brain's working, except
it's working and thinking those thoughts
about something that is not finite. It's
something that's infinite. There is
money being made every day. Scarcity
actually changes your brain the more
that you give into it. When you perceive
resources as scarce that are not like
money, your cognitive bandwidth shrinks,
okay? You make worse decisions. You
can't plan longterm and you only focus
on immediate value. So, we need to
reprogram these thoughts. People with a
scarcity mindset, they hoard money. They
don't invest their money, right? Right?
They're only thinking short-term, got to
survive, right? And they see every
opportunity as a threat. If you can tap
into training yourself to have an
abundant mindset, everything will change
for you. Okay? Abundance [music]
mindsets. They say there's always more
to create. I can afford to invest. I can
afford to give some berries to my
neighbor. [music] I can take calculated
risks because there are opportunities
everywhere. And it is not a finite
resource. It is seeing the world and all
the things it has to offer as an
infinite pie rather than a finite one.
So for me, for example, when I operated
from scarcity, I was terrified to spend
money on things that made my life
better, made me better, [music] made my
business better because I felt like what
if what if I never make money again?
What if it [music] stops coming? What if
something changes? Especially in the
first few years of business, I want to
say the first three, it was really hard
for me to get out of that habit. And
then the shift actually really happened
when I realized money is almost infinite
nowadays, okay, but is renewable.
Skills, relationships, opportunities,
those things compound. And so the more
that I invest into myself and the more
and I invest in my business and the more
and I invest in my life, the more I get
back 10fold. And I realized that I
needed to train myself out of that
habit. So I'll tell you the first thing
I did. I hired a coach that was $40,000
a month when we were literally making
$50,000 a month, right? And my scarcity
brain was like, "Oh my god, you just
started making this money. Like you're
going to go broke. What if it stops
tomorrow?" My abundant brain was like,
"Well, you made 10,000 a month, then
30,000 a month. Now 40. Like next month
you're probably going to make a h
100red." and this skill is going to help
you make even more. And so I said, you
know what? I have to just ignore that
voice. I'm not going to listen to it. I
can have those thoughts. I don't need to
listen to them and follow their
directions. I can go with this one
instead. And the cool thing is that that
coach that I hired that was $40,000 a
month was the reason I was able to scale
one of my companies to the degree I did,
which then I was able to sell the
company for tens of millions of dollars.
I'm sure you're thinking, "Okay, but how
do you build an abundant mindset?" Okay,
here's what I want you to do. One is
just become aware of when you make
decisions from fear versus from
possibility. Okay? When you think I
can't afford this, I want you to reframe
it. How could I afford this? Simplest
thing you can do. The moment you stop
asking yourself, how do I protect what I
have? And you start asking yourself, how
do I create more of what I have? That's
when you start asking, I would say, like
higher level intelligence questions, and
you stop sabotaging your finances. And
that's the thing I realized for myself.
I was like, "Oh, I talk to myself like
I'm poor even when I was had a lot of
money to be honest." And it wasn't until
I realized that that I was like really
able to step into that next realm where
I was like, "I'm giving into like the
survival mechanism that exists in all of
us humans rather than retraining myself
into this abundance mindset. The next
step we have is loss aversion. Okay, I
want to define this for y'all. Loss
aversion is why you keep losing [music]
investments, avoiding risk, and
basically staying stuck where you are."
Because if you want to break this
limiting belief, I want you to listen
closely to what I'm about to explain.
There was a winning research by it was
like Daniel Conman [music] and some guy
named Amos. Okay? And it showed that the
pain of losing $100 [music] is
psychologically twice as powerful as the
pleasure of gaining $100. Losing feels
twice as bad as winning feels. This is
why as humans, we hold losing stocks,
you know, hoping that they're going to
recover instead of just cutting our
losses. We stay in dead-end jobs. We
stay in bad relationships. [music]
We don't negotiate salaries. We avoid
investing because the fear of loss
outweighs the potential gain. So for me,
for example, I stayed in a terrible job
for probably 2 years longer than I
should have because I felt like [music]
if I ended it, I was losing. But the
funny thing is like staying in that job
cost me way more. It was like money,
[music] mental energy, mental health,
who knows how many years off my life
because the fear of loss was bigger than
the logic of leaving. Your brain is
designed to protect what you have, not
to pursue what you could have. And that
is why most people never actually take
risks to build wealth. And then they
say, "Oh, there's something wrong with
me. I feel like what if I lose?" I'm
like, "There's nothing wrong with you.
You're a human. I don't know how many
times I have to say this. Like, we're
all wired this [music] way. I'm wired
this way. You're wired this way. If I
can do it, you could do it. Promise."
Okay. So, here's how you break that
cycle. You need to reframe every loss as
tuition. If you lost $50,000 on a
business venture, abundance is going to
say, "You paid $50,000 for an education
that will make you millions." When I
changed that frame for myself, the loss
stopped controlling me. In fact,
recently I had a business decision and
there was, you know, about a $3 million
delta between what somebody was saying
something was and somebody else was
saying something was. And I ended up
just going and agreeing with this person
because I said I think this is the right
way forward and I think that I actually
should have defined terms earlier in the
relationship to make it more clear and I
hadn't done that. And so, you know, when
I was telling the story about this, it
was just a week ago. I said, "Yeah, I
paid $3 million to learn this lesson."
And you know what? I would pay $3
million again to learn that lesson. The
last limiting belief might be the most
important one to break. And this is what
we call the time trap. Most people spend
their entire lives trying to save money
and that is what keeps them from making
money. Ironically, they forget that
money multiplies. But time doesn't
multiply. Okay? And that is why you want
to save time instead of saving money. So
here's what I mean. If you make $100 an
hour doing anything worth less than $100
an hour is costing you money. So, if you
spent 2 hours cleaning your house,
instead of hiring someone $50, you
didn't save $50, you lost $150 because
[music] 2 hours at $100 minus the 50 you
didn't pay. Wealthy people understand
this. They buy time. They hire
assistants, meal prep services,
housekeepers, not because they're lazy,
but because their time is worth [music]
more. They put it elsewhere. Guess what?
I didn't just do this now when I had a
lot of money. I did this when I first
had barely any money. The first thing I
hired was an assistant. When I was
barely had enough money to hire six
people for my team, I hired an assistant
because I said, "You know what? This is
what rich people do. They hire people to
get their time back. And if I have to
like take care of this and that in the
house, then like I'm not going to be
making money." And it was the best
decision I ever made. Whereas poor and
middle class, they tend to sell time,
right? They're trading hours for dollars
and do everything themselves to save
money and then wonder why they're not
getting ahead. And so when I started
filtering every decision through, does
this buy me time or cost me time,
everything changed. I stopped doing the
$10 an hour tasks, hired help, automated
things, and I focused really on the work
that was, you know, say $1,000 an hour.
And you can calculate how much money you
make per hour by asking yourself how
much money do I make in a year? And
divide it by how many hours a year there
are. That's it. So like right now, I
know how much I make per hours. So then
I'll ask myself, I even have it on one
of my ASA cards for people. I'll say,
"Is this worth, you know, $50,000 for
Lelaya to do this if it's going to take
an hour?" Now, here's the thing. If
you're able to do this, you will make
more money in less time, which then you
reinvest into more leverage. And then
that leverage creates freedom for you
because things that you have leverage
on, they take less of your time and
create money. They're how you get free,
right? So, how do you get out of that
trap? Calculate your hourly rate.
[music] Your annual income, divide it by
2,000 work hours. Then, audit your time.
Ask yourself, how many things am I doing
that are not worth this? My favorite
thing that somebody will do in one of my
companies is they'll come to me and tell
me that they're doing tasks that are not
worth how much I'm paying them. My
favorite thing in the world. I had
someone do it recently. They said, "Look
how many hours I'm spending on admin
tasks." And they had actually gone
through their calendar for the last 4
weeks and they calculated it and I was
horrified by how much time. And I
immediately hired them assistant and
they started literally 3 days ago.
That's all because anybody who thinks in
terms of getting a good return, I'm
going to hire that person for somebody
else as well. So here's my challenge for
you. I want you to pick just one of the
shifts from this video and I want you to
say, "This is the one where I think I'm
going to get the most gains. I'm going
to start [music] practicing it this
week." And if you like this video, don't
forget to check out my next one and subscribe.
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