Episode 16: The Wealth On Any Income Book – Chapter 1: Part 3 – Your Values Exercise – Transcript

Hi Folks, Welcome to the Wealth On Any Income podcast. This is where we talk about money tips, techniques, attitudes, information and provide inspiration. I’m your host, Rennie Gabriel.

Today I’ll complete reading Chapter 1 of my award winning, best-selling book, Wealth On Any Income. It will be about 15 minutes.

In the two previous episodes we covered six attitudes or beliefs you might harbor about money that may be holding you back from creating wealth and discussed poverty versus prosperity thinking and where your beliefs may have originated.

In this podcast episode you’ll get to take a millionaire quiz created from the book, The Millionaire Next Door. You’ll hear some valuable questions from the book Couples and Money, Your answers can allow safe conversations about money with your spouse or mate. And you can use the last exercise of the episode to identify the values by which you operate. When you tap into those values they can keep you on track when your feelings might pull you off track.

As I read, I could stumble over some words. I am not a professional voice over actor so please forgive me if that happens.

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A recent book that was published in 2020 is The Psychology of Money by Robert Housel. In it the author talks about the difference between being rich versus being wealthy. Rich is current income, and can be seen by how someone spends their money like a fancy car or jewelry. Wealth can be hidden. It is the income that is not spent and provides options; like the option to work or not work. With wealth you don’t see the savings, retirement accounts or investment portfolios. You might see the house they bought, but not the house they could have purchased if they chose that. I don’t look rich, but I am wealthy and I do recommend this book.

This leads us to the The Millionaire Quiz

Many people who purchase the Wealth on Any Income book, or take one of my UCLA classes, or enroll in one of my online courses want to get out of economic difficulties and create financial security. Most people believe having a lot of money would provide the economic security they’re looking for. The key is how to create it. Many people think they know what someone looks like who has the economic security they want, like a millionaire. This is someone who has a net worth of $1,000,000 or more. To see if you would recognize the typical millionaire, have fun with the quiz on the next page. (Typical means at least 50% share this trait.) I designed this quiz from a book that was written in 1996, so the numbers might be a little out of date, but the concepts are still valid.

The typical millionaire is:

1. Age:
___ 57 ___ 45 ___ 72 Answer 57

2. Occupation:

___ Professional ___ Executive __X_ Entrepreneur (Answer: Entrepreneur)

3. Home Value:

___ $900,000 ___ $500,000 _X__ $300,000 (Answer: $300,000)

4. Automobile:

___ Rolls Royce ___ Mercedes, or other foreign _X__ American made (Answer:American)

5. Wealth came from:

___Inheritance ___Investments _X__Business/career (Answer: Business/Career)

6. Work week:

___30–38 hours ___39–44 hours __X_45–55 hours (Answer: 45-55)

7. Savings habits:

__X_20% of household income ___10–20% ___5–10% (Answer 20%)

8. Household income:

___ $500,000 – $900,000/year

___ $250,000 – $500,000/year

_X__ $100,000 – $250,000/year (Answer:100-200)

9. Highest price paid for:

Suit:___ $1,400 Shoes: ___ $650 Wristwatch:___ $5,300

___ $ 600 ___ $200 ___ $1,000

_X_ $ 300 _ X_ $100 _X_ $ 200

10. Primary credit card held:

___American Express Green ___American Express Gold

_X_Visa/ MasterCard ___Upscale department store

11. Investment trading:

___daily ___weekly ___monthly _X_annually or less

Source: The Millionaire Next Door, Stanley & Danko, 1996

Answers: 1. Age 57 2. Entrepreneur 3. $300,000 4. American made 5. Business/career 6. 45–55 7. 20% 8. $100-250k 9. suit: $300, shoes: $100, watch: $200 10. Visa/MC 11. annual

Here is a quote from James Allen the author of As A Man Thinketh on WANTS

“Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.”

Let’s do a Money Beliefs Exercise for Couples:

Now that you’ve had a chance to look at your beliefs about what millionaires are supposed to look like and how we may be carrying poverty or posterity thinking, let’s find out where some of these beliefs may have come from. The following questions are from the book Couples and Money by Victoria F. Collins, published by Gabriel Books and reprinted with permission.

Bringing out your hidden money beliefs will help you understand where your attitudes, habits and money peculiarities come from. With these items out in the open, you have the ability to choose to keep them or discard them. You can choose new beliefs to replace old ones. The key here is choice. In knowing your beliefs, you can take responsibility for them and avoid blaming your partner, parent, or anyone else as though they have control over you.

Please answer the following questions by writing down your answers. If you are driving or exercising, then just consider the questions and write down the answers later. If you are married or have a partner, it is important for each of you to write down your answers separately.

What was my mother’s role concerning finances?
How is my role like hers?
What was my father’s role concerning finances?
How is my role like his?
As a child, did I think I was rich, poor, or middle-class?
How do those feelings affect me now?
What were the main messages my parents gave me regarding money?
How closely do I follow them, or rebel against them today?

These are the first eight questions to ponder. There are 18 more questions, and if you send an email to me at rennie@wealthonanyincome.com and request the full list, I will email that to you.

Now let’s Determine Your Values.

We’ll start with some definitions:

Values: The ideals, customs, or institutions of a society toward which the people of the group, or an individual, hold in high regard. These values may be positive, such as cleanliness, freedom, education, or negative such as cruelty, crime or greed.

Value: This is a quality that has an intrinsic excellence, desirability or is useful.

Principles: A personal or specific guiding sense of the right conduct or management. Used as a rule it implies a fundamental truth or a standard or test for guiding conduct, choice or practices.

As we discussed in an earlier episode, to create the level of power needed to change past attitudes and actions for the long term, you must operate from your values. Some people consider these to be the principles they use to guide their actions.

To determine your values, or principles, ask yourself the following questions and write down your answer on a separate sheet of paper. Again, if you’re driving or exercising, you will have to wait to write down your answers. If you can’t come up with an answer easily, you will hear me read a short list of values after the following questions.

Values exercise questions:

What’s most important to you in your life?

What’s most important to you in either your relationships, work, or community?

What are five values you would use to describe who you are?

Example: Would you say you appreciate beauty, you are honest, thoughtful of others, etc.

After listing several values, ask yourself the following questions: “If I could only have one, which would it be?” “If I could only have one more, which would it be?” This will establish the priority of your values. Another way is to look at the list you made and continue to choose among two at a time to establish which is more important. Example: If I listed integrity, helping others, freedom, wisdom and stability as my values, I would use the following method to prioritize them: If I had to choose between freedom and helping others which would I choose? If I had to choose between freedom and wisdom, which would I choose? If I had to choose between helping others and wisdom, which would I choose? Go through each value and be sure you match it against each other value to determine which one you would have first, second, third and so on.

The following is a short list of values to stimulate your thinking from the book, Wealth On Any Income. If you would like the full list, send an email to me at rennie@wealthonanyincome.com and request the full values list and I will email that to you.

ACCOMPLISHMENT: Aspiring for excellent, making a lasting contribution.

APPEARANCE: Physical attractiveness, sex appeal.

COMMUNITY: Participation in a social, business or geographic group.

CREATIVITY: Being innovative, imaginative, solving problems.

ECONOMIC SECURITY: Comfortable life, freedom from economic worry.

EDUCATION: Having a high level of training and culture; being well-informed.

FAMILY: Taking care of loved ones.

FREEDOM: Capacity to exercise free will; control one’s path.

HEALTH: Physical well-being.

HELPING OTHERS: Service and concern for the less fortunate, assuming social responsibility

INTEGRITY: Soundness of moral character.

LOYALTY: Sense of duty to others.