"According to the National Endowment for Financial Education, about 70 % of people who win a lottery or receive a large windfall go bankrupt within a few years."
Why do these lottery winners often have a tragic end?
Does this prove that money is the root of all evil?
Not quite.
Let me tell you two stories, and you tell me what you think.
Jack Whittaker won $314 million in 2002
Whittaker was already a wealthy businessman in West Virginia when he won the jackpot. After he won, his car was broken into while he was at a strip club and $545,000 in cash was stolen. His granddaughter's boyfriend was found dead from an overdose in Whittaker's home and his granddaughter was found dead of an overdose at a friend's house after she was reported missing. Whittaker was charged with DUI. He was sued by Caesars Atlantic City casino for bouncing $1.5 million worth of checks to cover gambling losses. He was also sued by a woman who had previously sued him for not paying her money. Also, Whittaker's daughter was found dead. By 2006, Whittaker said he was broke.
Callie Rogers won $3 million in 2003
Rogers was only 16 when she won the U.K. lottery, and was reported to have used the money on vacations, gifts, cars and two breast implant surgeries. She twice attempted suicide before spending most of the money. She has since restarted her life with a new man and her children and is training as a nurse and says she is happier without the millions.
Why can't money bring happiness for Callie and Jack? What caused all these miseries?
In my humble opinion, Wealth Tolerance. The ability handle money.
"You can only be as wealthy as you allow it."
Most of us don't even know what wealth tolerance really means. why do we need to be able to handle money? why can't we handle money?
Let's dig deeper into this...
When we talk about money, what comes to your mind?
Money is... the root of all evil.
Money is... going to rot your soul.
Money is... going to change you.
Money is... __________________
When a red Lamborghini zoom by on the street, loud and fast, you can feel winds blowing towards your face, what's your first impression?
A**hole...
Greedy bastard...
Probably had a rich dad...
He probably made those money illegally...
Gold digger...
____________________ fill in your biases...
Why do we have so much negative feeling with money?
Because we're raised that way.
When was the last time your parents talk about money in a positive way?
Did you ever heard a good thing they say about money?
When did you hear the media say positive things about the rich, or money, or wealth?
Our society despise money, as well as the rich. We always think of rich people as evil, greedy, and he probably done some evil things to get to where he/she is.
We see wanting more wealth as a negative thing. Everyone around us also feels that money is relative to suffering, and hated it subconsciously. so, deep inside, we don't want money.
Like lottery winners, when we're given a massive amount of wealth, we cannot handle the complicated conflict within us.
On one hand, we enjoy the pleasure that massive wealth brings. Luxury, the sense of security, go on a spending frenzy.
"On the other hand, we secretly hated money. We don't want our friends and family to see us differently, and we don't want them to think of us as greedy, evil, selfish. So what do we do? We self-sabotage."
We intentionally lose all these money, without us even realizing it.
Our subconscious mind directed our behavior to spend all the money, so we can be like everyone else around us. We wanted to be loved, and we don't want to be different. We needed to fit-in.
How can we keep our money and remain wealthy?
This is when "Wealth Tolerance" comes in...
When it comes to WT... most people think of it as the ability to handle money. Yes, but not really.
Earning power is the ability to earn money, and wealth tolerance helps you keep it.
The amount of money you can tolerate depends on the amount of money you can make. Vice versa.
This is deep...
I know, let me elaborate...
You can only earn as much money as you can tolerate, and you can only keep as much money as you can tolerate.
For example: Let say you make $100,000(a lot), you can only tolerate $100,000.
Let me tell you another story, this might help you understand our topic better.(I love telling stories)
John Smith, 30 years old, a frugal accountant working for a well established company. He makes a humble $60,000 a year, brings his own lunch, rarely spent money on luxuries. Classic family man, with a beautiful wife and a 6 years old daughter.
John and his wife have been saving money since his daughter was born, with much frugality, he managed to save $40,000.
He have been studying ways to make more money, because obviously his $60,000 job wasn't going to be enough for an expanding family.
He runs into stock investing, and started researching about it. He read books about stock investing, read articles on it, and watch plenty of video to learn more about it.
After months of research, he is ready for the real thing. He invested all $40,000 in diversified portfolio, and in good companies with great potentials.
Just weeks after his investment, the bull market came and stocks shoot up 50%. He made $20,000 in weeks. He sold his stocks and confirmed his profit.
He was so happy. John tell all his best friends about his fortunate investment, and everyone was happy for him.
He started to think he know all about stocks, and during work, he always jumps in when there is conversation about stocks, he thought he can teach these people a thing or two about stocks.
Another month goes by, he made more money on the stock market. This time, with leverage and stock options, he made another $40,000...
He was so excited about his result, and now he is considering becoming a full time "day trader." For John, making money was so easy.
His boss wasn't happy with his performance... mostly because he come to work late now, work quality was low because he was watching the stock market all day. Brag about how much money he made on the stock market and he might just walks out and never come back one day.
Today, John is not in a good mood. His boss just had a "Talk" with him about his performance, and he needs to improve.
Feeling annoyed, John decided he needs to quit his job soon, and move to Hawaii with his family. Sunshine and beaches is all he thought about when he made his $60,000 in just 3 months.
Eager to make another win, he invested all his savings in highly leveraged stock options and margined trades.
I think we all know how this story would end...
John Smith, now 35 years old, still working for the accounting firm, not because he wanted to, but have to. He still brings his own lunch, being frugal; but instead of saving money, now he has $50,000 of debt to pay off.
We may be laughing at John's stupidity, but at one point or another, we're guilty of making the same mistakes John has made.
Yes, we can't handle money, but how do we improve? There must be a way right?
In order to increase your tolerance, increase your earning power. However, in order to increase your earning power, you must first expand you mind.
Without a well expanded mind, there is no room to store your wealth.
So, If you want to be truly wealthy, first you must build a bank in your mind big enough to fit all the wealth you desired.
For your reference...