Summary: What does it mean to be rich? In this post, we discuss what you need to become rich and fulfilled. We also touch on the mindset, habits, and strategies that separate rich physicians from those who are not. We then introduce you to our new podcast, Rich Doc Poor Doc.
When people talk about being rich, they often think about having lots of money.
Many of us know people who have lots of money. But how many of us know people who are rich?
What does that really even mean?
In this post, we consider what it means to be rich. We examine the components that you need to be financially fulfilled. Then, we explore the meanings that you associate with having money and how they affect your daily actions.
We’re starting a podcast!
All these concepts are what Kenji and I will be covering more in-depth in our podcast, Rich Doc Poor Doc.
In our podcast, we dig deep to uncover the mindset, habits, and strategies that separate rich doctors from poor doctors. Specifically, what are some of the crucial decisions and actions that physicians and high-income professionals must take to live a wealthy and fulfilled life?
Our podcast guests will be a mix of physicians, high-income professionals, entrepreneurs, business owners, and experts in their field who have mastered many of the facets of living a rich life.
The goal is that our listeners will walk away from listening to each podcast with pearls of applicable information and strategies that they can actually use.
Since we love real estate investing, a lot of our episodes will cover topics related to building wealth through real estate investing, but the podcast’s focus is far broader than just real estate.
It’s about how to build the right foundation for a rich life.
Because there’s far more to being rich than just having lots of money. Wouldn’t you agree?
What does it mean to be rich?
According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, being rich is about “having abundant possessions and especially material wealth.”
Being rich certainly includes having everything you need plus more as the definition suggests. But there is more. Having choices, having control over how you spend your time, having the right mindset, having faith in your abilities to earn money, having the ability to financially contribute to others: all of these are important components of financial wealth.
- Could you imagine being rich but being scared to lose it all tomorrow?
- Can you imagine hoarding your money in the bank, afraid to spend it?
- Can you imagine working so hard that you never have the time to enjoy your financial spoils?
- Can you imagine having money but feeling guilty about what you do have?
A lot of people live that way. And that is not being truly rich.
How do you become rich?
There are three components to building wealth: your mindset, your habits, and your strategies.
First, let’s look at your mindset. We’ve discussed the abundance vs scarcity mindset in-depth in a previous post, so I won’t go into it in depth. But the main idea is, if you are always living in scarcity, seeing things as missing and believing that there are limited financial resources out there, you will never be rich, no matter how much money you have in the bank.
Habits are the routine behaviors that we frequently do, often subconsciously. They can be good habits that propel you forward, getting you closer to your goals. Or they can be bad habits that make you stall and fail. One common denominator we’ve seen across successful business owners and real estate investors is that they cultivate daily habits that get their mindsets right and set them up for continuous business growth.
The right wealth-building strategies are necessary to build any successful business including a real estate investment portfolio (which is really a conglomeration of small businesses). When you have the right recipe for success, it saves you from making mistakes and helps propel you to go further faster. When you layer a personal culture of constant innovation and improvement on top of it, then you build a long-lasting legacy of financial wealth. You become a rich doc.
Is financial wealth alone enough?
Let’s say you are financially wealthy. You have the right mindset. You’ve developed the daily habits that will continue to ensure your success. You have the strategies down. You’re confident that no matter what happens, including if you lose it all, you have the knowledge, skills, and strategies to earn your financial assets back.
But there is one thing you’re still missing. And that’s fulfillment, which takes continued growth and contribution.
When you achieve financial success, it is not enough to provide you with lasting happiness. Just like when you achieve any goal, there’s a momentary high that maybe lasts a few days or weeks, and then it’s gone.
The same is true of being rich.
You need to continue to grow, to push yourself to be better, to learn new things, and you need to contribute to something greater to be fulfilled. Otherwise, you will become stagnant and complacent. And the joy will disappear. We humans thrive on challenge. Thus, continued growth must be part of true financial wealth.
You also need to contribute to others. As Tony Robbins likes to say, “The secret to living is giving.” When you feel that you are contributing to a greater good, the passion of your mission will literally pull you forward to achieve more. As a result, your wealth will grow exponentially.
What does money really mean to you?
A lot of people have an emotional response to the word “rich.” It carries a negative connotation in their minds. The same holds true with the concept of money.
There is a useful exercise that Kenji and I have done a number of times at Tony Robbins events about money and wealth. It’s a powerful tool that exposes all the deeply-held beliefs you have about money and being rich.
Most of your beliefs about money have been born out of the beliefs that your parents, the people around you, and your culture have about money. They are not ideas that you personally devised.
Although you might think you know what you think about them, through this exercise, you’ll be surprised to find out that you hold a lot of subconscious beliefs about money and having it… and many of them are negative.
The exercise
In this exercise, you pair up with a partner and one person asks the other in rapid fire questions about money and wealth. It might go something like this:
Person 1: What is money?
Person 2: lists as many answers as fast as possible for 30 seconds. Person 1 writes them down.
Person 1: What is money really?
Person 2: Keeps going saying whatever words come to mind as fast as possible. Person 1 keeps writing.
Person 1: Having money is…?
Person 2: Answers the question rapid fire.
Other questions include: Money is…, Having money is…, Having lots of money is…, Being rich is…, Being really rich is…, Being wealthy is…, Luxury is…., People who love money are…
This goes on for about 10 mins. And then you reverse the roles.
What comes out will be surprising.
My experience
The first time I did this exercise about a year ago, I found that I had a lot of negative feelings about money.
Sure, I started out saying things like, “Money is freedom. Money is having fresh flowers in your house every day. Money is sleeping in and waking up in super-soft sheets…” but 30 seconds is a long time to go on about your beliefs.
So eventually the underlying beliefs started to pop up. “Money is unfair. Money separates people,” and “Having lots of money is stressful. Having lots of money is shameful.”
Part of what made my experience so interesting was that the person I was paired with was a successful businessman from South America who had NO negative associations with money. He went on and on and on about all the positives of having money during the exercise.
Since I had gone first, I had seen all the negative connotations I had to money and being rich and was able to contrast those with his. It was eye-opening.
I started to ask myself if part of the reason for his success was that he had no limiting beliefs around accumulating wealth and being rich? I started to wonder if my deeply held beliefs about how shameful it is to try to be rich were actually leading me to make different choices than I would be if I had different beliefs?
The second time I did this exercise was about 6 months after the first, and it was awesome to see how far I had come. Many of my negative feelings about money were either gone or came up far later into the exercise after I had exhausted my huge list of how great it was to have money, the freedom it brought, to have the ability to contribute it to others, etc…
I could actually see how my feeling towards money and being rich had changed.
After you’re done with the exercise
If you do the exercise, I suspect you’ll find the same thing that I did: you have deeply ingrained negative associations about what it means to have money and to be rich.
One question to ask yourself after is what holding negative beliefs about money does to you? Does it hold you back when you’re on the precipice of success? Does it cause you to self-sabotage? Does it cause you to feel guilty about what you’ve already achieved?
On the other hand, if you held more positive associations with money and with wealth, what would that do for you? Do you think you’d be more successful? Do you think that you’d be more likely to pursue other activities?
If having money, if being rich is only a good thing, then what would you do differently?
And then, like me, you may find you want to change what you believe about money and being rich. You may want to create and cultivate your own associations rather than letting your parents’ and culture’s beliefs determine how you think.
What was your experience?
Did you find you have some surprising beliefs around money?
Do you plan to change those beliefs?
Tell us below and remember to subscribe to our new podcast, Rich Doc Poor Doc!
