You know how easy it is to be like this. Still, don't do it.
You’re likely always on the lookout for that one thing that’ll make you a millionaire.
If there are three things, that sounds like work. If there are 10, then that’s just a listicle of the impossible.
Not too long ago, I wrote about a very fine book that suggested millionaires all have one common characteristic: decisiveness.
I wasn’t so sure about that. So I kept on searching. Today, then, I bring you something that all millionaires apparently don’t do.
Well, when I say “all millionaires,” I can’t exactly be sure it’s every single one. In fact, I can’t exactly be sure how many millionaires don’t display this habit.
Instead, I’m relying on the superior intelligence of a self-made millionaire called T. Harv Eker.
T. Harv Eker is a real millionaire’s name. He doesn’t do things by harvs. He goes all the way. He doesn’t just eker out a living. He lives it to a T.
And so it was that he opened some fitness stores, sold them for a tidy sum, and created something that might be more fun: the Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar.
He insists: “Give me five minutes, and I can predict your financial future for the rest of your life!”
It takes three times as long to save 15 percent on your car insurance.
T. Harv wrote a book called Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth.
In it, he describes the one big difference between the rich and everyone else. There’s one thing that the rich don’t do that the average bathe in: complaining.
Your first instinct might be to mutter: “Well, of course the rich don’t complain. They’re rich. And of course the poor complain, because they’re not rich.”
One quote from the book, though, might move you in a different direction: “Like attracts like. When you are complaining, you are actually attracting ‘crap’ into your life.”
Do whiners adore each other’s company? Are they all poor?
Conversely, when the rich hang out with each other, is their conversation one long champagne-fueled hosanna of gratitude about the fact that life is so good because they’re rich?
T. Harv may, indeed, have a point that “complaining is the absolute worst possible thing you could do for your health or your wealth.”
When we whine, our nastiest, self-destructive aspects gnaw at us like lily-livered leeches. We think the world is against us, when sometimes it’s just us who’s against us.
But if you’ve ever been around a millionaire or two, you might notice that they can be some of the whiniest, most dissatisfied, ungrateful, self-regarding, miserable little beings.
Nothing is ever good enough for them. Nothing. Especially, one suspects, their own selves. How many, in fact, are driven daily by the complaints inside their own heads about how inadequate they are in some way?
We often hear tales of rich people who cannot stop working because they are driven each day by the demons of constant dissatisfaction. These demons tell them to make more, do more, and have more.
Because then they’ll be more.
T. Harv offers: “Negative energy is infectious. Plenty of people, however, love to hang out and listen to complainers. Why? It’s simple: They’re waiting for their turn!”
Really? Or does listening to others complain show compassion and even make some listeners feel a little better about their own lot?
It’s true that being around positive people can have a positive effect.
It’s also true that if you live in the Bay Area, as I do, and have to listen to unearthly positivity born of--at least sometimes--a delightful strain of ganja, you do suspect that some of the knee-jerk positivity hides an inner well of angst and despair.
They act positive because they think they’re supposed to. The question is whether anyone’s buying it.
Also, is it true that there are people who always complain and those who never do?
That’s the lovely thing about business books. They offer these simple solutions when we all know that life’s recipe is a complicated mix of baloney, delight, frustration, horror, sickness, and, most of all, serendipity and random disaster.
There are impossible whiners who are very rich. There are also average or even poor people who never, ever complain and feel very happy with their lot.
Perhaps I should write a book about it.
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