How the Rich Think by Steve Siebold Part 2

hard work vs leverage

I was DEFINITELY taught about hard work growing up and even just a few weeks ago when my dad came to visit and we were talking about whether or not to have more kids he made the comment that the more kids you have the more you can teach them to share and work hard, which of course is debatable in and of itself, but that is for another time.

Aside from seeing my parents buying a home using leverage via a mortgage I'm not sure I was witness to leverage on a big scale. I did work for a guy in high school that hired a bunch of people to go and do estimates for his company to do sealcoating thus leveraging more manpower to scale up his business beyond himself.

I'm a newbie when it comes to using leverage to do things like trading stocks on margin or big investment money in flipping a house and using other people's money to do so.

money is the root of all evil vs poverty is the root of all evil

a.            Critical Thinking Question: Are you ashamed of your desire to be rich?  I am when I read MMM knocking people wanting to drive heavy barka loungers.

b.            Action Step: Decide to be proud of your ambition, and ignore people who tell you wanting to be rich is wrong.  I guess I got to ignore him.  

I left the questions in and my answers unedited.

I love how this book turns on its head middle class thinking. People could and probably do get supremely offended when they hear that the rich think poverty is evil and thus people who are in it must be evil. I think he is 100% right in his assessment however. Just think about crime. Does someone who has all the accutrements of life need to go and rob a neighbor, bank, or convenience store or steal a car to get the things they need to survive in life? Of course not.  

If someone has everything they need are they free to devote themselves to their highest and best self it isn't very likely they will opt to do evil even though it does happen on occassion, which reminds me of a point made consistently throughout the book.

Being rich does one thing to someone. It amplifies who they really are. If they are sad or angry or generous and giving they will still be that, but on amplified level. Hence why some rich people still aren't happy even with "ginormous piles of moneeeey".