Passion and Money the ideal love relationship!

Date:   6/23/2005 8:56:26 AM ( 19 y ago)

From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Humberto Cruz:
The Savings Game
To be wealthy, first learn what makes you tick
If you want to know the "secret" of financial success, look in the mirror.

I am going way beyond the notion that your financial plan must fit your unique goals and risk tolerance. I'll explain by discussing two books I just read, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth by T. Harv Eker (HarperBusiness 2005) and The Millionaire Code: A Smarter Approach to Making Millions by Paul B. Farrell (Wiley 2005).


I became curious about Eker's book after it zoomed to the top of The Wall Street Journal's business-book best-seller list in March, just a couple of weeks after publication. I later learned that Eker, a motivational speaker, had used 100,000 e-mail addresses collected from attendees at his "Millionaire Mind" and other "success" seminars since 2001 to promote the book -- in itself an example of his advice to "duplicate or leverage yourself" to get top pay for the results you achieve.

Skeptics will find some of this motivational stuff hokey, like touching your head with your index finger and declaring, "I have a millionaire mind!" The frequent plugs for his three-day, $2,590 "Millionaire Mind" seminars (but free for purchasers of the book and a family member) are patently self-serving. But that too is one of Eker's "wealth files": Rich people are willing to promote themselves and their value. Poor people think negatively about selling and promotion.

His central point: Everyone has a "money blueprint," often learned from their parents, that will determine their level of financial success. To become rich, you have to recognize that blueprint and adjust it if necessary.

Admitting he is "generalizing big time," Eker argues the following: Rich people believe, "I create my life." Poor people believe, "Life happens to me." Rich people focus on opportunities. Poor people focus on obstacles. Rich people admire other rich and successful people. Poor people resent rich and successful people.

Rather than "rich people" and "poor people," I would have said "winners" and "losers." But on this I totally agree: How can you become rich if you believe rich people are "bad," or rationalize that "money is not important" or that you cannot have both money and love and do good in your life?

"What a bunch of … that is," Eker said in an interview, using a word I cannot repeat for the notion that money is not important, or that rich people are uncaring.

"Try paying the bills with love," Eker said. "The idea I am trying to espouse is that you can have both love and money, and be rich and generous," and the more money you have, the more you can give to worthy causes. What I consider the best advice from the book for all of us: Stop blaming others or justifying or complaining when things don't go our way, and take responsibility for the results in our life.

To do that, it helps to understand what makes you tick. Farrell's Millionaire Code, a shorter paperback version of a 2003 hardback edition, can show you, and without any self-serving hype.

"All too often these formulas for success [promoted at "success" seminars] fit one type of personality and totally miss the others," said Farrell, who besides being a financial columnist for MarketWatch. com and The Wall Street Journal Sunday has a doctorate in psychology and has done work as a career planner.

Despite its title, The Millionaire Code is not so much about money as it is about understanding yourself. Based on whether you are an extrovert or introvert, rely mostly on facts or intuition, make decisions objectively or based more on feeling, and are the organized type or more of a free spirit, you will fall into one of 16 distinct personality types, each better suited to certain career choices and ways of managing money.

As it turned out, I've had it easy. People with my dominant personality type -- introvert, fact-seeking, objective and organized -- are the "most likely to capitalize on every opportunity to make and save money and retire successfully, thanks in large measure to their positive mental attitude" and their focus on results, Farrell wrote. But everybody can succeed if they are in sync with their personality, said Farrell, whose type (introvert, intuitive, feeling-type free-spirit) can do well in a wide choice of careers, including writers, psychologists and missionaries.

"Of course you want to be both rich in possession and rich in spirit," Farrell said. "But first and foremost you must be rich in spirit, passionate about life and fulfilling your destiny." To me, that's truly rich.



Humberto Cruz can be reached at AskHumberto@aol.com or c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Buffalo, NY 14207. Personal replies are not possible. Look for other columns by Humberto Cruz in Sunday's Health and Family and Monday's Your Business sections.





 

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