Learning to befriend wealth is not one of the things we learnt along the way, not even from our prestigious business schools. At best we have been taught how to be “bean counters” for the few rich ones. Wouldn’t you rather own the beans? If you think money is hard to come by, then in time, your prophecy becomes simply self-fulfilling.

On matters concerning your finances, pay attention to your feelings as you spend money; Are you generally scared or joyful? Is your joy tied to the availability or lack of money? These are some of the pointers to your beliefs about wealth. Do you fundamentally believe there’s more than or not enough? Incidentally, even the scriptures support wealth creation because God gave us dominion and the power to create wealth. What you don’t know can really hurt you indeed! A more productive belief concerning wealth I’ve tuned to is:

LIBERATING BELIEF #2: Wealth creation is my birth right; there is enough for everybody.

I believe wealth loves me and I am comfortable with it. I believe that God gave me the power to get wealth and live abundantly. It’s up to me to discover my purpose and step out to make things happen and make a difference. It has taken me time and tons of knowledge to come to this level of conviction. I say this not to trivialize the strength of change required in this process, which I have covered in other publications that are available on our website www.ppld.apoti.net
The foundation of my belief is hinged on a few facts worth sharing: one, that the essence of life is to live more abundantly in a way that glorifies Him; two, that we should strive to be bless as many people as possible; the hungry, the sick, the destitute – which you possibly can’t achieve without significant levels of wealth; and three, that God gave us enormous power to create wealth using our life purpose and the resources to go with it. Indeed, there’s more than enough to go round. When you get to understand and tune into this belief, your perspective is transformed completely.

Now I see the world like a restaurant where all you can ever want is available. You are only required to make your order because if you ask, it shall be given unto you. But you must believe! Even though my life is still work-in-progress, the evidence of the power of this belief is clear to me. The belief about wealth creation gives birth to other secondary beliefs and positive outcomes which I shall dwell on in subsequent newsletters because of the impact of wealth in our individual lives. Notice that wealth and money though commonly interchangeably used are not the same. While money is a means of exchange, wealth is a state of mind. Wealth-consciousness is a lot deeper concept and liberating beliefs are helpful in installing it into our system. With the global economy dishing out so much of gloom and doom, there’s no better time than now to put this mindset change to work.

LIMITING BELIEF #3: If I get…..blank……then I’d be happy

This highly disempowering belief has taken so much joy out of life for most people that if properly understood, is capable of minimizing global/personal conflicts/bitterness arising from disappointments; broken promises, false expectations and so on. Variants of this belief include: “it’s up to him/her to make me do/give it”; “he/she doesn’t make me happy”; “he/she always robs me of my joy”; “the world is a cruel place”; “it’s my luck to always run into sad situation/position”; “life is unfair” and so on. Fractured marriages, broken relationships, family feuds, territorial disconnects and office discontents are mostly rooted in this dangerous belief. I had a close friend, John, who was stuck on the same grade for eight years as a Senior Manager. After five years, he stopped taking his job seriously, completely de-motivated. He was of the firm belief that his boss just didn’t like him – everything that transpired between them subsequently was seen through this filter. All attempts to make him have a hearty chat with his boss on his career issues went unheeded. Ego, which has a way of taking control of events once we surrender our joyful rights to providence/others, took over. Eventually he was relieved of his position after 13 years and one promotion. It took my friend another 5 years to get himself back on track – that’s 18 years of unsatisfactory living. Sometime last year, that episode was revisited, this time with more wisdom and less emotional sensitivity. Surprisingly, my friend actually gave us a lecture on what could have been and how he had learnt quite handsomely from that part of his life history. And so here is an empowering belief for those who wish to begin to think, say, act and experience differently:

LIBERATING BELIEF #3: It’s my right to be joyful – no-one can rob me of my joy.

Here are some of the lessons John learnt: One, that joy is an inside job – hanging your joy on some extraneous factor [like someone hooked onto an oxygen tube] is a recipe for disappointment of different dimensions. You ought to decide on how you want your affairs to turn out. Two, decide on what you want and take responsibility for how things go. John agreed it was his call to meet and talk things over with his boss. He would have got a better view of what the boss was seeing and thinking about him. Three, had he decided to take control of his joy-switch he would have retained his focus and navigated his career path more fruitfully, even if he eventually had to seek his fortune elsewhere on his own terms. Four, the absence of joy has a poisoning effect on virtually every part of our life; it’s therefore cheaper to restore joy quickly [needless to say that John almost lost his marriage as well during that stormy period; he’s still trying to restore things to full normalcy]. Five, without joy you lose the co-operation of folks around you. John became a leper of some sort in his division, once the line was drawn between him and the boss. Nobody wants to risk crossing the enemy line where the boss is concerned. Six, the energy that comes from joy is the power to manifest in every way, including wealth creation. This is one of the little-known secrets of the rich and powerful. So many variables are involved in the manifesting process but without joy, even if you win a lottery, chances are high you’d be broke within two years. This has consistently been proven to be so.

LIMITING BELIEF #4: I’m not lucky when it comes to the game of love.

To love and be loved are fundamental to human emotional balance. There aren’t many people who have got things all wrapped up in the game of love and no matter how much they try, they are blocked by this limiting belief. Narratives of this dangerous belief include: “we are all not destined to find true love”; “there aren’t enough good men/women out there”; “to love is to court painful experiences”; “I’m not lovable”; “true love is hard to find” etc. This limiting belief is very much like a magnetic force or some broadcast signals that’s vibrating all over you, announcing that you are a wrong candidate.

True, you may have had a couple of bad experiences but if you have this belief imprinted in your subconscious as a result, you may actually be working against what you are hoping for. With this belief, you get easily turned off, you are visibly resigned to “whatever comes out of this”, you are scared of being scarred, you are afraid to let go, to the point of being opaque, you fear rejection or disappointment, your expectations are way out of this world or you’ve become completely comfortable with you, yourself and yours. A liberating belief would be:

LIBERATING BELIEF #4: I’m lovable and loving. I’m beautiful in and out

I consider beauty as an embodiment of purity, poise, confidence, as well as physical expression. A pretty face to the exclusion of one or more of these attributes might lead to unsatisfactory results when you are in search of true love. Whatever you have been through, all you need do is be in awareness of what belief is standing against you and simply decide no more of such negative thinking and declarations. Feel loving and lovable; look in the mirror and smile at how marvelous you were made; imagine how lucky that man/woman will be to have you and what a gift to the world you are destined to be. Believe there’s nothing to change other than your perception of you and your thinking and all other appropriate steps will fall into place.

As a man thinketh in his heart…..so is he. If you love yourself, it shows and you will be loved to such an extent. As you can’t give what you don’t have, the starting point is to learn to love yourself. Forgive yourself for whatever mistakes you’ve made in the past and take the lessons with you. Living in anger or guilt sometimes contributes to the feeling of inadequacies or unworthiness and consequently the belief that love is associated with pain. This explains why, unless fundamental changes are effected, it is possible for people to continue attracting the same kind of partners because our beliefs run as patterns in our relationships. Finally, remember that unless you are prepared to be vulnerable [without necessarily being clingy], you might not be able to experience true love.

Read Part 1 Here