Читать книгу It's Rising Time! - Ким Кийосаки - Страница 12
ОглавлениеTo rise beyond what’s visible to you takes…
You have your left brain—the logical, analytical, practical side of your world. And you have your right brain—the creative, innovative, intuitive part of your world. And then you have the physical, the spiritual, and everything in between. Rising to meet your financial dreams takes all of it. It takes all of you.
Body
We obviously need our body to get anything done in this physical world we live in. It doesn’t have to operate perfectly, but it’s an important tool for our financial journey.
Your body will give you signals. Have you ever had a moment when you had a physical sensation in your heart that something was wrong? Or you suddenly felt queasy in your stomach when you were around someone you didn’t trust? This is your body giving you clues. Trust those signals. Your body is the physical conduit of your thoughts, emotions, and spirit.
Mind
The brain, a critical part of the body, collects, stores, organizes, and recalls the facts, figures, stories, and information that we need to make sound decisions. Your physical brain is a mass encased in your skull, but have you ever seen a mind or a thought? Your thoughts are part of your invisible world, but they are ever so powerful. They are a driving force in determining the results you have in your life. The tricky part is that some of our thoughts are conscious thoughts, while other thoughts are subconscious and lie hidden under the surface. These hidden thoughts have as much, if not more, power than the thoughts we are aware of.
For example, when you hear the word “investing,” what immediate thoughts come to mind? Are they positive thoughts? Negative thoughts? Does the idea of investing excite you, or put you to sleep?
When you hear the words “financially independent,” what thoughts do you have? Do you say to yourself, “Yes! I can do this! This journey will be fun!”? Or are you saying, “I’d rather be happy than rich. This sounds too hard. I don’t want to lose money.”? It’s the “I-can’t-do-it” or “I-don’t-know-how” thoughts in your mind that will prevent you from having the financial success you want.
Janet, a friend of mine, and I were talking about what kind of car she should buy. She is young, bright, single, and attractive. I asked her, “Have you ever test-driven a Porsche?”
She immediately got flustered and irritated. She snapped at me, “I don’t want a Porsche!” I was taken back by her instant emotion around this.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I’m not that kind of woman!” she said quickly.
I had to do my best to keep my cool because—I had a Porsche! I kept calm and curiously asked, “What kind of woman?”
She looked at me like I should know the answer, “The kind that is flashy, loose, flaunts her sex, has no brains, and wants to be seen.”
“Wow!” I thought to myself. “How in the world does she associate Porsche with all that?” That thought made no logical sense at all to me, but somewhere in Janet’s subconscious, the idea that a female Porsche driver equaled a stupid sex bimbo made perfect sense to her. I decided to skip the psychoanalysis and stop talking cars with her altogether.
The Power of Your Thoughts
One of my favorite books of all time is As a Man Thinketh by James Allen, written in 1902. He explains that the purpose of the book is “to stimulate men and women to the discovery and perception of the truth that—They themselves are makers of themselves.” He goes on to say, “A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.” He puts this concept into a poem:
Mind is the Master-power that moulds and makes.
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The Tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills;—
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking-glass.
We Hear What We Want to Hear
According to Allen, your thoughts create your world. Your thoughts also determine how you process the information you take in.
Let’s talk about this in relation to money. Imagine that the glass in the diagram represents your thoughts, beliefs, opinions, and judgments—in other words, the foundation or context of your viewpoint on money.
The water being poured into the glass represents information and data you are learning on the subject of money. Let’s say we are talking about “financial independence.” If your secretly embedded thought is that “I will never become financially independent,” then it’s quite simple. You will not. If your thought is, “I don’t have the time,” then you will not have the time.
No matter what information is poured into your glass, it has to pass through your context, or your filter, around money and financial independence. Like brewing coffee, the flow of information is filtered first through your thoughts, opinions, and beliefs before it lands in your glass. The information that does not match up with your core thoughts and beliefs around money will either be rejected or filtered out so that the information can be made to fit your context.
Your context, how you think about money and investing, is often more important than the actual content of investing information. All the data in the world will be of little value to you if your filters, your invisible thoughts, are at odds with your stated goals. When you change your context or thoughts to be supportive and aligned with your goals, then the invisible becomes visible.
How Do You Make the Invisible Visible?
It’s not difficult. The first thing is to begin to watch your thoughts. Listen to that little voice in your head. In 1985, a friend challenged me to “spend the next hour catching glimpses of your thoughts.” I did, and it changed my life. I had no idea how many self-defeating thoughts were floating around in that head of mine. I challenge you to do the same.
You may also want to write down your thoughts in a journal. When fear sets in, ask yourself, “What am I afraid of?” and just start writing. Don’t think about what you’re writing. Don’t edit it. Don’t judge it. Just write. Write until you come to an aha, or realization. You’ll be amazed at how much clarity will come through.
Emotion
Your emotions are typically driven by your thoughts. For example, if someone says something very mean and hurtful to you, you will probably get upset because your thought may be that you would never speak so rudely to anyone. What if, on the other hand, you grew up in a society (or family) where really rude remarks were a sign of affection? If that were the case, instead of getting upset, you might actually feel loved. It all depends on your context, which is created by your thoughts.
The primary emotion that comes up for women around money is fear—fear of making a mistake, fear of losing money, fear of what other people might think. One of women’s greatest fears today is running out of money during retirement. It’s a bit of a Catch-22: One fear is the fear of not having the money to support us as we get older. The other fear is the fear of actually doing what we need to do so that we have that money as we get older. The thing we need to learn is that fear, and then breaking through that fear, is a tremendous catalyst for our own personal development.
I do not know of one woman investor who did not have some, or a lot of, fear in the early stages of her investing life. Even today, given how volatile and uncertain the economy is, I get nervous venturing into new areas of business and investing. It’s natural. The problem arises when the fear paralyzes you to the point that you do nothing because you are frozen in your tracks. Or you turn your financial responsibilities over to someone else because you fear making a mistake or losing money. Shelby Kearney of New York City learned that lesson the hard way.
I read Rich Dad Poor Dad and believed every word, but fear had me paralyzed from taking any action. However, a couple of years later, my boyfriend, who was a realtor, encouraged me to buy a duplex and a triplex. I felt he knew a lot about rental properties, and I was less fearful investing with someone I knew. He also offered to manage the properties for me so I turned over all management responsibilities to him and paid no attention to it.
Needless to say, both properties went into foreclosure because of mismanagement. I was able to sell one property, but lost the other. After that devastation, I knew I had to educate myself and not rely on anyone else’s judgment of a good deal or good management.
In the last few years, I have attended several seminars and read many books on real estate. I tried purchasing several four-plex properties in the Atlanta area, but either got out-bid by other buyers or discovered something unappealing during my due diligence. I figured it was a sign from God and turned my focus to Pennsylvania, which is much closer to where I live in New York City.
Earlier this year, I closed on a single-family property and a duplex in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It’s been a long time coming, but I’m on my way and it feels soooo good!
Shelby got her lesson. Her solution to reducing her fear came from getting financially educated, trial and error, and then securing her two current properties. There will be no stopping her now.
Spirit
In times of pressure and emergency, you often see a woman’s spirit rise to the occasion. When there is a crisis in the family, such as a job loss or a home foreclosure, it is frequently the woman who will step up and do what needs to be done. Her natural instinct is to protect herself and her children. It is her spirit, not her mind, that takes over.
Our spirit also shows us that we are capable of achieving more than we would ever believe. It gives us strength, energy, and focus. There will be times throughout your financial journey when you will call upon your spirit to provide the courage and willpower to take that next step.
Here is a compelling poem about the power of spirit.
Will
You will be what you will to be;
Let failure find its false content
In that poor word, “environment,”
But spirit scorns it, and is free.
It masters time, it conquers space;
It cows that boastful trickster, Chance,
And bids the tyrant Circumstance,
Uncrown, and fill a servant’s place.
The human Will, that force unseen,
The offspring of a deathless Soul,
Can hew a way to any goal,
Though walls of granite intervene.
Be not impatient in delay,
But wait as one who understands;
When spirit rises and commands,
The gods are ready to obey.
The river seeking for the sea
Confronts the dam and precipice,
Yet knows it cannot fail or miss;
You will be what you will to be!
— Ella Wheeler Wilcox
“The human Will, that force unseen” is the invisible power within you that emerges when you are tested at critical times.
“Can hew a way to any goal, though walls of granite intervene.” Your spirit can do whatever it takes, even though it may seem impossible. This is the magic that emerges for something of great importance and meaning to you.
It is when your “spirit rises and commands” that the invisible becomes visible. And it is brilliant.
It Takes All of You
Pursuing and attaining your financial vision will take all of you: body, mind, emotions, and spirit. Achieving your financial dreams is a process. It is an incredibly enlightening, frustrating, eye-opening, and honest process of self-discovery and personal development. There is so much to learn. But in the learning come the growth, the confidence, the fun, and that special freedom.
