Lately I have really enjoyed learning more about Roberts perspective on what holds back people from doing the big things. More specifically, what holds back people that are financially literate, meaning they could possess all the knowledge required to succeed, but lack the right characteristics. It amazes me how aware and conscious he is towards the deeper level things in life, and naturally I process all his concepts with my christian lense because we are no longer talking about numbers. There are 5 reasons he jumps into, and I think I will spend some time really thinking about these, so bare with me as we start a series on barriers:
Fear
The first barrier is fear, and one way we can start exploring this is by quickly checking out the official definition of fear:
“An unpleasant emotion caused by (someone or something) as likely to be dangerous, painful, or harmful.”
An interesting element I can see here is that fear can occur before events even happen, purely because we think there is a chance that we could get hurt.
How does this play out in money? Now, money affects a lot of things in life and those impacts may be exactly what we fear. For example, not being able to attend social events, not providing for your family, not being able to keep up with life in general. The common element is that there is a fear based on not having enough money. You may not have come across any of these unpleasant experiences, but fear can still get you by making the mind focus on the possibility of these bad things happening. This will impact the way we manage money in so many ways! One for example will be our perspective on investing. Everyone would like to make money but the ‘scary’ part will be the idea of losing money. After all, there is always a possibility of your stocks going down, or house prices dropping, etc., and so you end up taking it easy on investments. Or maybe it’s the idea of starting your own side hustle. It will take time and can easily cost a lot, but the returns aren’t guaranteed. There is a chance that it can fail and you waste all that time, effort, and money only to look like you’ve failed at something. Letting that fearful mindset get in the way can entirely stop the journey before it’s even started!
I like how Robert points out the fact that rich people have lost money, whereas poor people have not lost money. This is an ironic line on purpose, pointing out that rich people have faced the fears of losing money, and responded to those emotions with determination – even when their fears come true and they lose. On the other hand, there are the poor minded people who simply do not even attempt anything risky as a response to the fear, and therefore they ‘never lose money’. This reminds me of a funny line from the movie robots – ‘Never try, never fail’.
Now, Robert says fear isn’t the problem, rather how you handle it, but I have a slightly different mindset. For me, I tell myself that I don’t have fear because of my belief in 2 Timothy 1:7 (it’s a bible reference in case you weren’t aware) which pretty much says that I’m not naturally created with fear in me. So when the typical thoughts of fear come knocking on my mental door, because they will definitely come, I disregard them as not a part of me. This way, I am immune to the inevitable attack of fear and continue on with life not carrying those fearful weights. This also helps me disown fear as there is nothing scary about losing something you don’t own, right? In the end, this mindset and Roberts mindset probably result in a similar outcome, which is that you do not allow fear to influence the way you manage your money. As Robert says, you don’t want to become someone who loses because they were so afraid of losing.
This doesn’t mean that if you face your fears that it’s impossible for them to happen. So if we look at that saying of “you can lose because you were afraid of losing”, we can’t twist this saying to, “Don’t be afraid of losing and then you won’t lose”. More realistically it should be, “Don’t be afraid of those times when you do lose”, because as I said the mistakes and fearful thoughts will come knocking at your door, I guarantee it! So shifting to this new mindset does not make you bulletproof, but it does help you shift your focus and have a stronger mindset in responding to life when it happens.
Okay, so how do we apply this in our lives? My best answer to this will be my personal experience in applying the lesson to myself.
My first step was to remind myself that my foundation doesn’t sit within money or success and that if I fail and fall it isn’t the end of me. For me, this is my identity in my rock, God, and He has helped me hold together in countless tough scenarios so I know that that won’t change in the realm of money either.
Next, I am allowing myself to take steps even if they are risky and could have harmful results. Simply stepping out and writing about my experiences feels risky because I could just fail in the long run and waste all of this energy. BUT, here I am writing away because those fearful thoughts don’t belong to me. I will probably end up buying a bunch of investments soon for the purpose of learning, and I can already hear the thoughts of “what if you lose all that money”, but with this lesson, I will ensure that those thoughts do not hold me back. I really hope I continue to venture out, taking big steps regardless of how scary they may seem. Playing with things outside of my day job and enjoying the thrill of constantly opening up new opportunities rather than hiding in the safe 9 to 5, and I hope it inspires you too!
Key Points:
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- Don’t become someone who lost because they were so afraid of losing.
- Find a foundation that fear cannot shake you off!
