Can You Handle Abundance?

This question seems like a no-brainer, and most folks believe more money can solve their money problems. To help you answer this question, think back to times in the past you got a windfall, an unexpected bonus from the office, a cash gift or whatever. What did you do with it? Chances are you spent it on an item from your “would like to have list”. Saving and investing was the furthest thing on your mind. You want it and you want it now – instant gratification. Can you handle abundance?

Our current financial reality is the direct outcome of our money management skills. If you cannot handle money, more money will not solve your money problems. A smart lottery winner knows he or she cannot be trusted with the winnings, so they bank the money and seek a good financial adviser before they start spending. What would you do with a million dollars? This may sound like a fairy tale, but if you settle down to itemize your income in the past 20 – 30 years, you may come to the sober realization that a million dollars actually passed through your fingers without a trace.

It is not how much you earn that makes you wealthy, but what you do with it. Your spending will always catch up with your income. It is the law – Murphy’s Law of expenditure – that is if you operate on the level of consumption. If you spend before you save, you will end up with nothing to save and invest. If you cannot drive, increasing the speed of the car will simply compound your problems, not solve it. This is the reason your salary will never seem to be enough (no matter how much it is raised), nor would the ends ever meet. Enough in this scenario is a mirage – the closer you get to it, the farther it moves away. Some call it the rat race. The solution is going back to the basics of financial literacy through financial education. Every skill is learnable. It depends on what we really want.

In 2002, I actually sat down to calculate my income from 1991 – 2001, and compared it with what was left standing. It was a day I would rather forget. Financially, I refer to those years as wasted years. All I had left was a plot of land in Iju Ajuwon (miles away from civilization in Ogun State), my current car, some household items (items soon gone with the wind), and bulging photo albums showcasing my financial stupidity and frittering away of a fortune. I realized I had no financial goals.

I was heading nowhere financially. I was living in the moment, keeping in step with my colleagues as they climbed the affluence ladder. My life revolved around cars, events, fashion, gadgets, household items, living the good life, and then replacing the items as market trends made them out of fashion – replacing the same item over and over again, burning tons of cash but getting nowhere financially. I was busy turning cash to thrash. Since 2002, I began developing a new mindset and gradually my money habits changed. By the last time I did this exercise mid 2012, I could account for 75% of my income in the past 10 years (of course I have developed new income streams from my original income along the line).

Poverty and abundance are mindsets, not the state of your finances. If you have a poverty mindset, you will think poor thoughts, and take actions that lead to poverty, a very good example is spending before saving. If you have an abundance mindset, you will think abundance thoughts, focus on abundance, and sow first before expecting a harvest. You will tend towards saving and investing first before spending, waiting for the return on your investment before consuming (delayed gratification) rather than taking the shortcut and pouncing on your salary the moment it hits your bank account to go on a spending spree. To the rich person, his income is a seed.

o the poor person, his income is the harvest. When a rich person looks at a cow, he sees milk and calves. When a poor person looks at a cow, he sees meat. The rich person sells the milk to buy meat (or waits for one of the calves/heifers to grow up) while the poor person simply kills the cow (and waits for the next cow to show up for killing). In killing the cow, the poor person also kills the potential for unlimited calves and tons of milk down the years. This is called sacrificing the future on the altar of the present. Hence the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It is their mindsets that set the course of events they experience – lack or abundance – not luck or lack thereof.

If you look at the success story of most billionaires and multi-millionaires, they started from where we were, next door to ground zero. However, while they nurtured their cows and grew them into mighty herds, we set up an abattoir and slaughtered ours with ruthless efficiency, making sure no cow is left standing. We consumed everything that crossed our paths. The crux of the issue is that the rich are primary producers while the poor are consumers.

We create our financial future with what we do with our current income. You cannot do the same thing over and over again and expect the same result. You need to try new things. Be ready to fail until the fear of failure is no longer an issue. As we head towards 2013, expecting a new result based on our current thinking and actions is self-delusion. New Year’s resolutions fail because old people set new goals. For you to step up, you need to upgrade your mindset – change the way you think.

One of the best ways to do this is to read books written by those who have achieved the goals you desire and join a new peer group that will force you to step up your game. You cannot rise above the expectations of your peer group. They will pull you back. Join a peer group that will demand more of you in terms of personal growth and development. Raise your standards and demand more from yourself and you will start to rise up to meet those expectations. If you have been waiting for more money to solve your problems, get real and get to work on yourself. When you are ready, the money will show up, guaranteed.