The Breathing Prosperity blog

There once was a woman who had a $30 check and related to me that she was embarassed to take it to the bank. She literally went to the bank, went in, and felt so humiliated by having this ’small deposit’ that she had to walk out and pull herself together. This little act brought out deep feelings of shame and disgust, low self-esteem and the suspicion that everyone in the bank - the people lined up as well as the tellers - would just know she was poor, and would be judging and ridiculing her for her lack of money.

This story is sad to me, and illustrates poignantly how much our emotions can get embroiled with the subject of money, and how deeply our self esteem can be affected, if we let it.

Here’s another story: I know of a man who attended a financial seminar. There, he was told that if he began ‘paying himself first’ by keeping 10% of his salary before he allocated the rest of it to monthly expenses, he would eventually find himself wealthy. We have all heard this advice, and what we know is that very few follow it. Like many, this man thought to himself that although this advice sounded good, it was not practical, as there was NO WAY he could save 10% of his income. He had no luxury expenses to shave off his budget, and was barely getting by. So…instead of giving up and saying ‘well, just forget it then’, he made a pact with himself. He got an old mason jar and put it on his dresser. Every day when he came home, he put whatever change was in his pocket in the jar, and as the days went by, he watched the money grow. To his delight, this was fun, and he found himself more conscious during the day about how he spent his change, as the quarters and dimes somehow didn’t seem ‘insignificant’ anymore. At the end of the month, the man took the change jar to his bank with the intention of opening an account where he could regularly deposit money and watch it grow. To his surprise, the bank would not accept loose change; he either had to roll it, or find a way to turn it into paper money before they would accept it. This could have been embarassing, but what we have here is a mindset; this man had seen a *glimmer* of what it’s like to keep your money and watch it grow, rather than spend it. (We all want more money, but most of us want to spend it!*)

This gentleman actually found a little machine in a local grocery store where he could pour in his change and it would count it, and give him a receipt. The cashier would then reimburse him the money and voila!…he took it to the bank. Each month, he would ‘cash in’ his change, and take it to the bank to deposit it. In the bank line-up, he would be almost giddy with excitement as he thought about his growing money, and the future wealth he was creating.

These stories illustrate the vast differences possible in reactions to the same situation. Notice that it’s all in our minds…none of what was going on in either case was external. It had nothing to do with the bank, the tellers and customers, or the $30. In the second case, the thought did not even occur to the gentleman to be embarassed that he was ‘only’ depositing $30. He looked upon it as a small piece that he was adding to his future fortune - his thought about the money was different.

We have all heard the principle that we have to change what’s going on inside - our thoughts and emotions - before our outside lives can change. In these two scenarios you can clearly see the path along which each person will travel, based on their predominant thought patterns. Unless they change, their trajectories won’t change…in some cases this is beneficial, and in some it is detrimental. It all depends on the thoughts! Choose yours carefully, based on what you want (not what you don’t want). Simple advice - follow it and reap the rewards!

*P.S. The path to wealth is to have your money make more money, and you cannot do that if you spend it. Most people want to be wealthy, but as soon as they get some money, the spend it! This is the opposite of wealth…wealth means accumulating money…not getting rid of it.