Money – the one thing which has now fascinated me for the last few years. Everyone’s relationship, hope, dreams and expectations are very different when it comes to money. Some people detest the rich and the idea of having a lot of money. Some people make it their life’s purpose to become rich and everything they do is with that intent.

However, did you know that a lot of what we think and believe about money in our subconscious impact the actions we take as well as the results we get for it. The keyword here being mindset is extremely important to achieving high wealth. This is a fact that has not been accepted easily by the rational side of my head but now I agree with it. Till the time you associate money with loose morals or demonic acts, you will struggle to make it or keep it with you. It is only once you realise that money is an instrument and the way we behave around it is symptomatic of people and not the medium that they use to do anything.

The reason why I have waxed eloquent about mindset and it’s role in making money is the fact that today’s book – You are at a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero is a money mindset book. In this short read, Sincero takes us through some of the most important mental blocks and various mindset and action shifts that we would need to attract money to us.

Who is Jen Sincero?

Jen Sincero is someone who experienced this shift of mindset and how it changed her life from scarcity to abundance. Ironically, as per this interview, her turning point turned out to be a trip to India. While the trip made her experience deep gratitude, when she went home she realised that she had the power to change her situation of low wage jobs and living in a garage to embracing wealth and money in the head.

Since then, she has now transformed into a motivational guru who has helped many people take control of their lives. She is particularly known for her Badass series which started out with the generic “You are a Badass” followed by the book in question “You are a Badass at making money” concluded by the recent addition of “You are a Badass everyday”.

Seven takeaways from the book

As is my favoured path to talking about any book, I will list down the ten main takeaways that I believe were the best learnings that any one could action in their lives:

It is okay to want to be rich

This is one thing that most of us take some time to accept. It has taken me a few books to come to this conclusion, but yes, it is really fine to want to be rich. Assuming that being rich is mutually exclusive to other good things in life like time with family, good relationships and being a morally upright person is quite unfair. It’s important to separate money from the actions that some people take for it. It’s also important to remember that loose morals percolate all income levels but it is really at higher levels that they are highlighted the most. To make yourself feel better, along with a wealth milestone, you could easily tie in a charity milestone to ensure that being wealthy comes with noble strings attached to it.

Try to understand your beliefs about money

Notice your words which pop out unconsciously when you talk about money or rich people. Very few of us have it in us to say openly and freely that we love money. We have generally been conditioned to believe that money is not important and it’s the things in life that money can’t buy which are important. I still remember that my sister was once preparing for a debate which had something to do with money because one phrase which stuck in my head that time was – “money can buy you a bed but not sleep, a house not home and food, not health”. While having your entire life oriented towards and running after money is not the idea, but completely demonising it is not going to help either. Try and introspect on what you learnt about money growing up and what you feel towards it today.

Know your why

If you have been reading this blog for some time, you will know that I am a fan of this phrase and try to make it a guiding principle of sorts for my life. I believe consistently asking this question of ourselves helps to ensure that we are not living our lives like zombies in autopilot and makes us someone who is far more conscious of their path in life. With getting rich also, know why do you want to be rich? What will you do with that money? What does money mean to you?

Choose Abundance instead of Scarcity

When you think of money, you can choose to increase it in two ways – become an ascetic and try to cut down for an absolutely frugal minimalistic life or you can choose to enhance your income generation skills in a way to bring you happiness. Yes, minimalism has its’ benefits especially when you consider the planet as a whole. But, a scarcity mindset can take you only so far. In the long run, abundance is what will expand our horizons and help us to embrace our true potential.

Take Decisive Action

While I have always been a believer of decisive action, off late seeing some people around me has slammed the message even more strongly in my head. One of my mantras in life is to weigh pros and cons, take decisive action and then be responsible for the outcome. Being indecisive for too long is always going to lead to over thinking and analysing even after making a decision.

Be Tenacious

Some things take fruition after a long struggle. In that time of struggle, it feels easier to give up. However, tenacity is about knowing when to keep going and keep digging for that last layer of resistance which is bound to yield results. Most often just when we are about to give up is the last challenge God or Destiny is putting us through to see what we are made of. Our job then is to keep going at it, till we hit gold.

Consider the people you spend time with

As humans, we feed off on the energy of the people we spend our time with. In the time spent, our company can either enhance that energy or suck it out of us like Dementors. Instead of being zombie like with your time and company, try and see more closely as to the people you spend it with and the impact they have on your mood, mindset and energy. Take a decision on what role the energy suckers really play in your life.

I have already started adopting some of these guiding principles when it comes to my money mindset. Do you believe mindset plays a role with respect to money? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.