In Rich Dad, Poor Dad Kiyosaki compares his "two fathers": his biological father who was a teacher and his mentor who was a businessman. The teacher was his "poor dad" and the businessman was his "rich dad." His poor dad said, "The love of money is the root of all evil." His rich dad said, "The lack of money is the root of all evil."
The quote below from Rich Dad, Poor Dad is extremely important. It powerfully illustrates what I call "Slavespeak" -- the phenomenon of certain words having hypnotic, stupefying, and debilitating effects on their users. See The Anatomy of Slavespeak.
"Because I had two influential fathers, I learned from both of them. I had to think about each dad's advice, and in doing so, I gained valuable insight into the power and effect of one's thoughts on one's life. For example, one dad had a habit of saying, "I can't afford it." The other dad forbade those words to be used. He insisted I say, "How can I afford it?" One is a statement, and the other is a question. One lets you off the hook, the other forces you to think. My soon-to-be-rich dad would explain that by automatically saying the words "I can't afford it," your brain stops working. By asking the question "How can I afford it?" your brain is put to work. He did not mean buy everything you wanted. He was fanatical about exercising your mind, the most powerful computer in the world. "My brain gets stronger every day because I exercise it. The stronger it gets, the more money I can make." He believed that automatically saying "I can't afford it" was a sign of mental laziness."
According to Suze Orman in The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom, "The road to financial freedom begins not in a bank or even in a financial planner's office like mine, but in your head. It begins with thoughts."
Another book that may assist you in how you think about money is Why Am I Always Broke? How to Be Sane about Money by Albert Ellis & Patricia A. Hunter -- see Albert Ellis Institute.
Many people live their lives at the effect of unconscious "scripts" consisting of all kinds of "do's" and "don't's." About 15 years ago, I read Scripts People Live: Transactional Analysis of Life Scripts by Claude M. Steiner. This helped me considerably to overcome some personal scripts. When I was about 17 years old I told my father (who had much in common with Kiyosaki's "poor dad") that I could go into business. He proclaimed emphatically, "You will never succeed in business." After reading Steiner's Scripts People Live I realized that I had accepted my father's "curse" as a script which had prevented me from being as successful as I could have been.
There are certain common "money myths" that are held as scripts or curses by many -- see Millionaire Report #2. "Economic correctness" basically consists of money myths. The "economic correctness" article includes reference to what I call "label-think." Here's another example from the Perpetual Tourist List: "Nobody had said that one can't make money from running scams. It doesn't change the fact that MLMs, etc. appear to be scams and it may be unwise to fall for them. Perhaps less-than-moral to try to do them, as well." The essence of label-think is that you don't examine something thoroughly. After a superficial glance you categorize it into a "hold-all box" with a label such as "MLM." Your MLM box (label) may include everything you deem after a superficial glance to be "multi-level marketing," "pyramid scheme," "chain letter," "Ponzi scheme," etc. And, just because you've put the label "MLM" on something, therefore it "appears to be a scam" -- irrespective of the real nature of the thing. This is thinking similar to having the label "Jew" which equals "dishonest money grabber." Whenever you see anyone to whom, for whatever reason, you attach the label "Jew," then, irrespective of the real nature of the person, irrespective of his or her actions, he or she is automatically a "dishonest money grabber" -- just because you've labeled the person a "Jew." See also Money Skill #18. Label-think often includes fixed ideas -- the opposite of flexible thought -- Money Skill #34. Robert G. Allen has some interesting things to say about MLM in Money Skill #12A .
Some very important ways of thinking about money can be found in the book Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin -- see The New Road Map Foundation. There's a great deal of value here you'll find nowhere else.
