If You Want More Income Than Ever Before, You First Need To Evolve
“This is the process by which wealth is accumulated; first in small sums, then in larger ones as a man learns and becomes more capable.” -George Clason
After a year of successful self-employment, I’ve learned something: You need to be a different kind of person to make a lot of money.
You’ll need discipline, consistency, and focus. You’ll need to work more, and harder, than almost everyone else.
Years ago, I was an aspiring (but totally unsuccessful) blogger. I dreamed of making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from my blog, but after 4.5 years, I had $40 total.
Why? My value on my products/services was tiny.
I tried career coaching, but I charged literally $0 because I didn’t think my advice was that good.
I self-published a few eBooks, but I charged them for 99 cents each.
Now, I charge a lot more money for my stuff.
I have several online courses that cost $1000 per person.
My coaching prices are now up to $200 per hour and rising.
My book (coming out in a few months!) will cost about $17 dollars. And so on.
There’s a simple truth here: If you raise your prices, you get more money.
But before you raise your prices, you need to evolve into something more. You need to become someone who can charge those prices with confidence and deliver a product that gives your customers even more value than the price tag.
Want more income than ever before?
Then evolve.
Here’s how.
Why $10 Million Dollars Would Destroy You
People are like containers. Sometimes they are literally too small to absorb true success.
Even if they tried, things would spill over and create a mess.
This is why lottery ticket winners often experience terrible upheaval in their lives, blowing all their money in a few years as they watch their lives disintegrate.
This is why young athletes, music artists, and rock stars find themselves bankrupt and depressed only a few years after signing their $40 million dollar contract.
If you are not ready for the money, it can destroy you.
The weight of success is heavy. This may be surprising, but most people actually don’t have the strength to carry it.
Not winning the lottery is actually a blessing for most people. The money would destroy them.
Most of society does not have the poise, self-control, or brutal self-discipline required to remain the master of money. Most would become slaves to their own wealth — either quickly losing all of it on frivolous expenses or hoarding it all in a dark dungeon of paranoia and Gollum-like greed.
Are you like most people?
Being Incredibly Successful Means Saying No To The Wrong Money
“People are unhappy in large part because they are confused about what is valuable.” -William Irvine
If you want to be truly successful, you need to say no to merely “good” things.
Most people are making the “wrong” kind of money right now. The wrong money is any money earned while doing tasks that are irrelevant to your Big Goals.
Wrong money is abundant. It’s everywhere. Ironically, it becomes especially abundant when you finally start to take a few steps towards that which matters most.
It’s funny — when I was unemployed and not-funny-anymore-broke for six straight months, money was nowhere to be found. I would have done any job for grocery money.
But now that I’m finally making progress in my personal business, wrong money requests come in every day.
I had to freeze my coaching services because I’m getting too many client requests and I want to focus on writing. Magazines, websites, and publishers email me constantly, asking if they can pay me. Gigs, jobs, projects, and opportunities are flooding my inbox.
I’ve said no to all of them, because it was the wrong money.
The wrong money leads you to mediocrity. It will trap you in a good-not-great income level, which is where most people live.
At first, you should be saying yes to everything — to gain experience, trust, and the knowledge you need to succeed.
But after a while, you need to start being more selective with your time. As best-selling author Derek Sivers once said: “If it’s not a ‘Hell yeah!’ it’s a no.”
Treat Yourself Like A Leading Man/Woman
“The only way you become a leading man is to treat yourself like a leading man.” -Arnold Schwarzenegger
In his international best-seller Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki told a story of one of the many times he lost all his money.
He had invested all his income in a custom nylon wallet company, but the business failed, leaving him broke with over $1,000,000 dollars in debt.
Yet he still proclaimed he was a rich man. “I am a rich man!” he declared to his wife with baffling confidence.
He knew he could throw up his hands and give up on ever building wealth again. But he didn’t.
“I am a rich man — and rich men don’t do that!”
Despite the big “zero” in his bank account, his mindset of wealth remained stronger than ever. He has since gone on to amass hundreds of millions of dollars through his Rich Dad Poor Dad curriculum.
Building massive wealth rarely happens unless you have a firm belief that you can do it.
This is the entire premise of books like Think and Grow Rich and The Science of Getting Rich. Building massive wealth starts from the mindset that you can succeed in doing so; if you do not believe you can, you almost certainly won’t.
Of course, simply believing you’ll be rich won’t make it so. But it’s nearly impossible to build massive wealth without believing you can.
Said author James Allen, “As a man thinks, so he is.” Bruce Lee echoed this sentiment: “What you habitually think largely determines what you ultimately become. One will never get any more than he thinks he can get.”
When building wealth, you are likely to receive what you believe you will.
“No one is ready for a thing until he believes he can acquire it. The state of mind must be BELIEF, not mere hope or wish.” -Napoleon Hill
10x Your Income Streams By Being Hyper-Responsible
“The moment you accept total responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you claim the power to change anything in your life.” -Hal Elrod
Taking responsibility for your income and finances is hard. It’s like looking under the dirty rug that you’ve been sweeping things under for years.
Talking about money and our budget was always the hardest thing my wife and I had to do. It was hard because it seemed like every freakin’ time, we were overspending, under-earning, and not saving anything.
But we also learned that ignoring our income problems made it worse. As the great Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius once wrote, “The truth might hurt, but what hurts more is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.”
Sure, the truth of your income might hurt. It’s easier to ignore those problems.
But every month my wife and I ignored our money problems, things got worse. It wasn’t until we took responsibility — for our bad spending, lack of savings, and lack of financial discipline — that we started to see the results we wanted:
More money.
More savings.
Better investments.
Less worry about money.
Taking responsibility is hard. In fact, it’s so hard, most people just don’t do it — that’s why so many people have ridiculous credit card debt, no savings, and no financial plan.
Once you take responsibility for everything in your life, you gain the power to change anything in your life.
Take the difficult road — the one where you have to face your failures and mistakes.
It’s the first step to change your financial trajectory and move towards financial freedom.
“You can’t change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.” -Jim Rohn
Your level of income will almost always match your level of personal growth, because income and success is attracted by the person you become.
How much do you value your personal development?
Do you spend money on books or courses?
Do you spend time in therapy, counseling, or with a coach?
Are you more concerned with looking good, or actually improving?
As Dr. Carol Dweck once wrote, “Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you?”
Want more income? Focus on evolving first. Then money will come to you.
TCID: anthony-moore