In my previous entry we talked about negative money beliefs that many have in their head and thus limits their thinking and therefore their ability to go the next level financially. Negative money beliefs are like the ceilings over our head; we have to break through ceilings to go further; we have to break these money beliefs.

Another common negative belief is “if we don’t have money we cannot make money.” People keep saying that if you have to have money in order to make money. Many believe that money creates money and would readily use this as an excuse if they are not making any headway in terms of financial success.
Some will use the fact that they don’t have money or capital or that they are not born rich as their excuse, their justification and even to blame. Some even go to the extent of blaming their family background (i.e. lack of money) for hindering their own success. They may make comments such as “I don’t have a rich father” or “I was not fortunate to inherit money.” And the perpetual justification; “if only I have money……..”

All these are just our limiting beliefs. Of course, having inherited money does give you an advantage but not having money should not be a factor that is stopping anyone from improving their financial well-being.
It is an challenge to get others to discard this limiting belief. I often say that “ No Money cannot make Money “ is what rich people tell poor people so that they can remain poor. The only way to people to shift his paradigm is to show them how to do it and in the Money Mastery Community, every member go through the experience of having to make money with no money. Once this is achieved they never look back and never doubt the possibility.

So how is this done? The formula for making money out of no money is actually very simple – use OPM. Other People’s Money.

Many of us cannot accept this. Some of us even think that this is unethical. But this isn’t true at all. Making money with other people’s money is actually a common practice in business! It is done every day! It is all about leverage. We all know that know that banks and listed companies are making lots of money out of your money saved with them! They are using O.P.M. ….your money. One other thing that we all need to realize I sa little secret; rich people make money using as little of their money as possible. They leverage; using institution’s money, government’s money, suppliers money and investor’s money

But to make money out of other people’s money, you will probably need one or more of these three ingredients:

1) A great idea. Not just good but a great idea that gets people excited. A great idea is an idea that no one can resist supporting and putting their money on.
2) Personal credibility. Credibility is the combination of trust plus expertise. For people to trust you, you need to have integrity or be trustworthy. In other words, your reputation needs to be impeccably clean. You also need to have expertise. Expertise refers to the sum of knowledge, experience and ability that produces a certain level of achievement in a particular field.
3) Friends. This is the most important. Before you start to learn to make money, you must first learn to make a lot of friends. You need a lot of good friends. Rich people are good at making friends.

Belonging to a community of people who are credible and have great ideas is a good starting point.

As Robert Kiyosaki said, “Your network determines your net worth”, it would be worthwhile to note that who we are and what we will become is often determined by first the friends and the people we mix with. Surrounding yourself with the right kind of people is essential. It would be easier for you to approach the right people to support or finance your idea and most people will be happy to do so if you have an awesome idea and they believe in you because of your personal credibility. That is one of the reasons why I created the Money Mastery Community.

So once you have these three ingredients in place, start strategizing how you can use OPM to finance your ideas and turn them into Money Making Machines. When you start to create wealth, you are also benefiting the people whom you borrowed the money from, because you will be paying them interest for their investments.

If you look closely at these three ingredients, you’d noticed they are what any employer or business partner will ask you. Typically they’d ask for proof of concept, a good track record and a good network of suppliers, customers and partners.

Accepting Total Responsibility

If you plan to be financially successful, then you might want to start taking total responsibility for what you are and who you will become. We need to stop blaming our lack of financial success on the government, on the economy, our parents or our spouse, our lack of education or money or anything else under the sky

Human beings have a natural instinct to defend themselves because they feel the need to be right. People blame, justify and find excuses because they want to say, “Not my fault.” The fear of failure is in every one of us although none of us like to admit it. When we blame, justify or find excuses, we are indirectly saying someone else failed and not us!

This is further reinforced when we leave school and join the working world. The culture in some traditional companies is for employees to accept as few responsibilities as possible, at the same time always looking for someone to point their fingers to when a challenge arises.

The fear of failure is one of the main reasons why most people don’t do anything, even if presented with a fantastic opportunity! And if they don’t get the financial success they want they very easily come out with all the ‘reasons”. Learning not to blame . justify or to make excuses is a first step towards taking total responsibility for what happened, learning from it and moving on. Then the world of great financial abundance will be all around you.