Everyone seems to know it. Everyone seems to have read it, and in fact, everyone seems to like it. It’s called Think and Grow Rich. It was published in 1937, and some people claimed that it has made more people wealthy than any single book in the history of our world. But like most things, only a tiny percentage of people who read think and grow rich ever do anything about the book offer’s priceless knowledge. I happen to be one of the few people who acted on the insight this book offers. I’ll share my story with you in this article as I try to remind you of some of the priceless lessons you might have forgotten in this book.
- Strong Desire Is the foundation of wealth
I know so many people who are poor, and one thing seems to be shared with them, and that is, these people hardy have a strong desire to build wealth. A few of them believe that the poor are closer to heaven than those who are rich, and I’m not making this up. I know a man who lives two states away from his family and goes home only once a month because he couldn’t afford the rent and living expenses for his family in the city where he lives yet, this man told me some months ago that having a lot of money makes people close to hellfire. Really? But this man is already in hellfire, isn’t he?
Now, let’s go back to the issue we’re addressing; desire. No, not just passion but strong desire. So many people have wishes and wants. So many people have plans and hopes. Those are not what make drastic changes happen in one’s finances. Strong desire is the only weapon anyone can use to overcome poverty and if you don’t know what that looks like, here is a picture;
You read everything you can find about money.
I started studying money when I was 17. By the time I was 20 years old, I had become addicted to the drug call book. I would travel miles simply to go and read in a library, I would spend all night at the cyber café to search for and learn from the world’s wealthiest people. I just wanted to know why some people have more than enough money and what they know which my poor parents don’t know. Like any drug, the more I read, the less I seemed to know, so I couldn’t stop. This zeal was driven by a strong desire to be rich. Most people don’t read about money. In fact, I have friends who claim to want to be rich, and they have never sat down and read three books about money. Those are not desires. They are wishes. If you desire to have something, you’ll look for people who already have it and seek to learn how they got it.
Stop complaining and making excuses.
The last time I made excuses was when I was 17. You can see a correlation between when I desire to be rich and when I stop making excuses. When you actively want something, well, you can afford to sit around and complain that it’s someone else who prevents you from having it. The government of my country is one of the most corrupt in the world. Social amenities in my country are probably that of the 1950s in your country. Everything is wrong, and if you really want to make a list, you can list a million reasons why you cannot become rich. Still, if you truly have a strong desire for wealth, everything else vanishes but your desire. You can’t just make yourself complain. You can’t just get yourself to make excuses. All you want is freedom, freedom from poverty, and that’s what you strictly focus on.
You’re willing to do challenging things.
For about eight years, everyone in my family was worried about me. My mother cried. My father was furious, and my brother threatened to disown me. These people love me, and that’s the problem. Because they love me, they just couldn’t understand why I would go off the road. They wanted me to be average, do normal things, and live a peaceful life. For me, there was no reason for peace if I would be broke. I wanted war or even death if I wouldn’t have all of the money I need to live a good life. This sounds desperate, but I’m also a child of God, so I don’t cheat or commit crimes. I simply wanted to sacrifice anything under the law of God to kill poverty in my life. People who genuinely desire money don’t look at their wounds when searching for it, they simply keep on looking.
I can write a whole book about the subject of desire, but you get the point; you must want money as bad as you want oxygen if you must have enough of it.
- Faith in yourself matters.
When I announced to my only brother that I wanted to build a company of my own, the question he asked me was, “How are you going to do that when our parents are poor?” Yes, everyone in my family is poor so no one could even afford to give me two hundred dollars for business. But I told my brother, “I don’t know how, but I will do it.” It’s called faith in yourself. Some people call it self-esteem. It’s how you see yourself, what you think about yourself and how much you believe you are capable of. Like every other faith, faith in yourself doesn’t have anything to do with reality or anything evident.
For example, there was nothing in my background that indicate that I would have what it takes to build a business. I was born a sickly boy, I never had the opportunity to be in the right school. I spent my first 11 years in an obscure village you can’t see on the map and suffered rheumatism for the most part of my first 17 years. It was all wrong for me. It was entirely hopeless. So, when I decided that I could do what nobody ever did in my family, I was only stupid. There was not evidence that I could do it, but I believed I could.
Don’t allow your immediate environment or situations to determine what you are capable of doing. Don’t let the government’s corruption or bad policies in your country make you think that you are doomed because you’re not and don’t claim that you believe in God to make you rich because God also needs you to believe in yourself. There are thousands of people who believed in God in Israel when Goliath challenged the Israelites. Still, everyone was not able to fight him except for a boy who didn’t just believe in God but also himself. David didn’t kill Goliath because he believed in God. He killed him because he also believed in himself.
- Make the Decision to be rich.
There’s a story told in Think and Grow rich. It’s a story of a General who wanted to go into the battle with a more powerful army. Then when this general got his boys to the battlefield, he commanded them to do something really crazy; he asked them to burn the ship, which happened to be the only thing they could escape with. As the ship was burning, the general looked at his boys and announced to them, see, “The ship is gone, so we’ll either win this war or perish here.”
This story changed my life literarily. In fact, it was because of this story that I lefts school without any certificate. I wanted to be unemployable. I didn’t want to be qualified to get a job so that I would either die or figure out how to build a business. It’s called a decision. It’s not wishes or want.
It’s I will do it and nothing else. Most people don’t know how to make decisions. They listen to motivational speakers and say, “I will become an entrepreneur.” Well, that’s not a decision until you can follow through for the next three years.
Real decisions are not made in public. Real decisions are made when you’re alone, and they don’t give any room for the alternatives.
The enemy called Plan B
When I told people that I wanted to build a company, they really didn’t have a problem with being an entrepreneur. They only have a problem about me not having any degree. they wanted me to have a degree and keep it, not only because they would be proud their brother have a degree but because I would have Plan B. since they were almost sure that I would not succeed in business if they could trick me into having a degree, they know I would be on the same page with them soon, maybe after three months or at most a year.
Real entrepreneurs don’t need Plan B because Plan B is for cowards. If you have a real decision to lose weight, that’s it; I will lose weight, no matter what!
If two people in a marital union have decisions to make their marriage work, that’s it; we’ll make our marriage work, no matter what. If you have the determination to eat healthy foods, you won’t keep sugar in your cardboard. The decision means; I’m going for it; period!
Here is the summary of this article;
Desire to be rich and be willing to sacrifice anything under God’s law to destroy poverty in your life
Have faith in yourself that you have the capacity to build wealth because nothing happens until you do
Make a decision to be rich, and how you know you have made a decision is by not giving room to plan B in your plan.
