Do you know someone who is always broke? You probably do.

“Broke” in today’s context, especially in Singapore, is no longer about not being able to provide yourself with food and shelter, but seeing yourself financially stagnant.

We all don’t want to end up with financial mediocrity. We want to see our wealth accumulate over the years just like the picture below.

wealth-accumulated-over-time

But in reality, a lot of people’s financial situations are like Singapore’s helix bridge. It spirals but goes nowhere.

helix-bridge

Before we talk about financial freedom, you need to get out of financial mediocrity first.

Financial mediocrity is in our mind

This may sound ridiculous. But whenever you have any spare cash, do you go and look for somewhere to get rid of it? And mostly, you may never realize what is happening.

If I ask you to list down where you have spent the money last month and sum them up, chances are your figure will be much less than what has already been deducted from your bank account. Isn’t it this common phrase that you’ve always heard?

Sigh… I don’t know where I have spent my money

Let’s stop for a while and think about this. when you sleep, do you need to concentrate to keep breathing? When you walk across the road, do you have to concentrate on every step? When you drive, do you think much about how to change the gear, accelerate and brake?

Most of the day, we are doing things subconsciously. Our body takes instructions from what is in our subconscious mind.

We are slave of our mind. – Ivan Guan

This is good human design because it frees our minds from all the tiny decisions in our daily life, but the problem is that if we plant the wrong ideas in our minds, our actions will lead us to the wrong path.

Financially and non-financially, our beliefs are coloured by our experiences, our success and failures, the thoughts we have had about ourselves and other people’s reactions to us.

Imagine your bank account always have a small balance and suddenly it becomes $1 million, what would you feel?

Have you heard that “money is the root of all evil” when you are young? No wonder your inner thought will say,

All this money does not feel right. It doesn’t fit, I’d better do something about this.

That is why despite many people earning much more than several million dollars in their life, few become a millionaire.  They simply have not prepared to accept one million dollars in their bank account.

Break the broken paradigms

The first step towards a vast improvement of our financial mediocrity is to change our thinking. As Bob Proctor famously said,

School gave us valuable knowledge. However school never taught us how to alter our old paradigms. Therefore we frequently do not do, what we already know how to do.

If you want to succeed financially, you have to learn from those who have already succeeded.

stop-seeking-advice-from-broke-people

Rich people think very differently from average people.

  • They believe wealth is a right instead of a privilege.
  • They focus on earning instead of saving
  • They accelerate their wealth in non-linear terms instead of a straight line.

Once we set the right paradigm, building our wealth on our subconscious mind is a lot easier, like investing through hypnosis which I have talked about.

Think about the story of Rapunzel, it is neither the castle nor the witch that has kept her prisoner, but the belief in her own thoughts. Before we talk about how to accumulate wealth, before we blame the weak Singapore economy, it is the financial mediocrity witch inside ourselves which we need to first be aware of.

What do you think? Leave your comment below…

About the Author

Ivan Guan is the author of the popular book "FIRE Your Retirement". He is an independent financial adviser with more than a decade of knowledge and experience in providing financial advisory services to both individuals and businesses. He specializes in investment planning and portfolio management for early retirement. His blog provides practical financial tips, strategies and resources to help people achieve financial freedom. Follow his Telegram Channel to join the FIRE community.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. This does not reflect the official position of any agency, organization, employer or company. Refer to full disclaimers here.

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