What to you believe?

I just finished teaching my fifth summer with students at Rhode Island College.  One of the many topics we covered was about beliefs.  What we believe about an issue determines how we respond to it. We are born fresh with no specific beliefs about anything.  We are like magnets picking up beliefs from our parents, teachers, friends, the media and the world around us.  Some make us stronger.  Others do not.

There’s a wonderful song written years ago for the play ‘South Pacific’ that talks about how “We Have to Be Carefully Taught” to hate all the people our relatives hate.  We’re not born hating each other or even disliking one group over another.  We have to be taught.  This is true for us personally and also globally.  Those who once were our enemies are now friends.  Will someday this be true of those we believe are our enemies now? Most likely.

But the bottom line with beliefs is that they are neither true nor false.  They’re just thoughts that we carried long enough that they feel like truth.  I think one of the most important things we can do is to question our beliefs, at least those that create a negative feeling when we think about them.  Perhaps we’re garnering that feeling because the truth is different from what we believe.

One example I use in the financial literacy part of my summer program is about rich people.  When I ask students to fill in the blank “Rich people are __________”, most of the answers are negative.  I see words like ‘greedy, selfish, rude, corrupt’.  Where is that coming from?  Movies and television programs showcase the poorer acting examples of the rich – the Housewives of Somewhere, the Kardashians with all their drama.  But without the rich, who would support most of the charities in the world?  It’s certainly not those without money.

Why does what we believe about the rich matter?  As Harv Eker talks about in his Millionaire Mind Seminar, it you want to have financial abundance, you’d better not hate rich people because you’ll never want to be like those you hate.  You’ll find a way to push the money away because you hate rich people.  Probably why big lottery winners go bankrupt so quickly.  Makes sense?

If you have a negative belief about the rich, check out this week’s “60 Minute” interview about the “The Giving Pledge” started by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.  To join, you must be at least a billionaire and you must be willing to give at least half of it away.  The Gates’ are giving away 95% of their wealth, Warren Buffett 99%.  Not much to hate here.  They have at least 100 members already including Sara Blakely (founder of Spanx), Steve Case (founder of AOL), Jeff Zuckerberg (Founder of Facebook), Ted Turner (CNN), Richard Branson (Virgin Airlines).  If you had a negative belief about rich people, I hope this got you thinking that maybe you had it wrong.  Are there some  rude, greedy rich people?  Sure…and some not so rich.  

So what do you believe?

Marianne

PS…if you have some negative money beliefs, join me this weekend in Boston for 3 days that will change those beliefs forever.  I’m on the crew of the Millionaire Mind Intensive weekend.  I was just offered the chance to invite anyone I wanted to not only go for free but to go as a Premium Member so you get preferred seating and gifts.  If you want to go, it’s not too late.  Use this link:   https://mmi.isrefer.com/go/20/mmi20054/ 

and this code for the special seating/gifts: PSSPECIAL