How to Get a Millionaire’s Mind

By Danny Holtschke

James Altucher interviewed T. Harv Eker in his 100th episode and it blew my mind.

It might be that I am too much into personal development right now but his key lessons resonated so much with me that I shared them here:

The Four Secrets of a Millionaire’s Mind are

1. Embrace the right mindset
2. Don’t think and act short-term
3. Create a model. Systemize it. Duplicate it.
4. Making money is a completely different skill from keeping money.

How to Internalize the Secrets

Most of us are great at reading and getting inspiring, but suck at implementing and suck even more at doing consistently. We don’t embrace long-term stuff.

We have a hard time pursuing life skills for the long, and have an easy time engaging in hacks and tweaks for the short.

Harv Eker recommends to use verbal programming to pro-actively act on these insights.

Four Steps for Change: Verbal Programming

He lives by is a four-stage model. The four stages (p. 25 pdf here) are:

1. Awareness
2. Understanding
3. Disassociation
4. Declaration

The BIGGEST KEY LESSON is whenever we think something negative or bad about ourselves, we should reconcile that we are NOT the voice in our head.

The only thing you have complete control over are your own thoughts. — Harv Eker

At minute 42:10, he shares his insights. We are not our voice in our head. We’re not our arm. We’re not our head, not our leg, not our mind.

We’re much bigger than the voice in our head.

We’re the listener to the voice in your head.

This voice comes from a survival mechanism — helping us to repeat stuff that helps us to survive. The voice wants to keep us safe. To keep us in our comfort zone.

An Example of Getting Empowering Thoughts

Three steps to move to a more empowering thought:

1. “Is this helpful?” “Is this a supportive thought to my own happiness and well-being” Mostly, it’s not. Then tell yourself:
2. “Thank you for sharing” Acknowledge your mind. Be grateful for protecting you.
3. “I choose to think differently that [example]” (ex: “I will be rich and a good person.”)

What if someone is always negative or even fighting with your philosophy?

James asked this question and I love it. Harv advises us not to make people wrong. Whenever someone doesn’t believe our philosophy or way of thinking, don’t proof them wrong.

There is no right or wrong.

We should recognize that everyone is the way they are because of past conditioning and past learning. They are habitual in the way they think, therefore their feelings, therefore their actions, therefore their results.

Someone who is always negative, learned to be always negative. It doesn’t mean that isn’t their fault to not change it. It’s simple the way they learned to be.

Knowing this, Harv argues, allows us to approach the situation more compassionately. We should practice being the observer. Practice being outside whatever is going on here. After observing, the next step is not to condemn them (and this is really hard!) but to have a little compassion.

He advises us to reframe the situation and think:

“Wow, can you imagine what they must have went through in their life to end up thinking and feeling that negatively? To end up with such a nothing works attitude? I feel sorry for them.”

The next important step is to not allow their poison to enter us. We choose to block ourselves by saying:

“Thanks for sharing. I appreciate it.”

And in our head, we cut their thinking-poison off. We must say to ourselves:

“Wow that’s interesting where they come from. Thanks God — that’s not me anymore. Thanks God — I can watch this person without being personally infected.”

Words of Compassion

He admits that it’s damn hard. If it would be easy, everyone would be doing this and becoming a millionaire.

“Is this easy? NO! We are habitual. Our ego doesn’t like when someone says “This will never be working. You’re crazy. You don’t have to listen to anybody. “

He advises us to always check in with our life:

If your life isn’t where you want to it be, you are at a point of change. Take your destiny in your hands and start changing your life situation — step by step.