how to be wealthy

Normal people are obsessed with money and ways and means of getting their greedy little hands on it. The vast majority of self-help websites focus on making money, trebling your income, achieving financial freedom, becoming "wildly wealthy - fast". They simply feed the normal frenzy for more money and, very often, the more you have the more you want. Why do self-help, self-awareness, personal development, personal growth "gurus" share their secret tips with you on how to become wealthy fast? Could it have anything to do with the fact that they make even more money selling their secrets to normal people who are so obsessed with having loads of money that they will never, ever have enough?

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Having lots of money does not equate to happiness. Being wealthy has nothing to do with self-help or personal growth. Being wealthy makes crazy normal people even crazier. People play with others' lives for money - I think the greedy bankers and hedge-fund managers who profited at the expense of ordinary hardworking folk and pensioners offer us an outstanding case in point (by the way, not all bankers are greedy!). People jostle for position at work - something that they are not being paid to do - for more money. In the process what they're supposed to be doing doesn't get done - so people end up, yet again, getting hurt. Politicians play the system - whether it is the manner in which some get into bed with large business or simply fiddling their expenses - undoubtedly in the sure and certain knowledge, somewhere deep down, that there is no such thing as a victimless crime.

People at a stage in their life when it should have dawned on them that money isn't everything, end up breaking up their family over money - as exemplified by the recent US case where a brother sued a sister claiming that he had a half-share in a winning lottery ticket. She was in her late-80s - he in his late-70's! People kill for money - the body of Abraham Shakespeare, the US Lottery winner who said "I'd have been better of broke", found under the patio of a so-called friend says it all. So why, why, why, when so many people think about self improvement or self help do they think about being wealthy and think that that will make them happy?

Success and happiness comes in all shapes and sizes and the wealth of research into people in "flow", as coined my Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, suggests that money is the least of their concerns, not because they're rolling in it, but because they have sufficient to live the fulfilled lives that research shows they are living. You need enough money and you need to stop focusing your efforts, hopes, dreams or desires on money and start putting your energy into savouring the here and now - the only place and time you have. For the bizarre thing is that if you put the quality of your experience of the here and now first, everything else will fall into place - including money. Without emphasizing the spiritual, the Gospel of Matthew says it in black and white - put the "kingdom of god" first and everything else will be given to you as well.

I know this for a fact - my clients know it for a fact. You will never want for sufficient money to live a successful and happy life if you put the "successful and happy" first and leave the money to look after itself. Over-focusing on money, not having enough of it or wanting more of it is the same as a smoker telling himself that he has given up cigarettes - the only thing he can think of is having another cigarette, because he's pouring his energy into thinking about cigarettes.

Understand? Pour your energy into thinking that you don't have enough money now and you'll never have enough money.

On the other hand, pour your energy into experiencing the here and now and everything will fall into place. Experiencing now is a world away from thinking. Thinking stops doing, thinking drags us down. Doing what you're doing in the present moment is what leads to happiness, success and wealth because, in investing your energy in the present moment, the energy of the universe responds - so says quantum physics (and it has proven it too). By being more present, your presence rises you above all the normal people who are scrambling for more money, blind to the fact that money comes effortlessly to those who are focused on what they're doing.

Placing your primary focus on money is asking for trouble - either you'll never have "enough" or you'll have so much that people will kill you for it! Placing your primary focus on the here and now is asking the universe to give you what you need for an abundant life - abundantly happy, abundantly successful, with the means to be able to live that dream. Put the quality of your life before all else and all else will fall into place - that is how to become truly wealthy.

How to be wealthy