21 Ways Rich People Think Differently

21 Ways Rich People Think Differently

In summary [explanations removed for brevity and copyright]:

  1. Average people think MONEY is the root of all evil. Rich people believe POVERTY is the root of all evil.

  2. Average people think selfishness is a vice. Rich people think selfishness is a virtue.

  3. Average people have a lottery mentality. Rich people have an action mentality.

  4. Average people think the road to riches is paved with formal education. Rich people believe in acquiring specific knowledge.

  5. Average people long for the good old days. Rich people dream of the future.

  6. Average people see money through the eyes of emotion. Rich people think about money logically.

  7. Average people earn money doing things they don’t love. Rich people follow their passion.

  8. Average people set low expectations so they’re never disappointed. Rich people are up for the challenge.

  9. Average people believe you have to DO something to get rich. Rich people believe you have to BE something to get rich.

  10. Average people believe you need money to make money. Rich people use other people’s money.

  11. Average people believe the markets are driven by logic and strategy. Rich people know they’re driven by emotion and greed.

  12. Average people live beyond their means. Rich people live below theirs.

  13. Average people teach their children how to survive. Rich people teach their kids to get rich.

  14. Average people let money stress them out. Rich people find peace of mind in wealth.

  15. Average people would rather be entertained than educated. Rich people would rather be educated than entertained.

  16. Average people think rich people are snobs. Rich people just want to surround themselves with like-minded people.

  17. Average people focus on saving. Rich people focus on earning.

  18. Average people play it safe with money. Rich people know when to take risks.

  19. Average people love to be comfortable. Rich people find comfort in uncertainty.

  20. Average people never make the connection between money and health. Rich people know money can save your life.

  21. Average people believe they must choose between a great family and being rich. Rich people know you can have it all.

These two are probably true. To the first, only idiots think they can time the market, but it;'s an incredibly common belief that you can and should.

This one

Struck me as patently untrue. I know two people who have significantly wealthy parents. One’s parents had inherited wealth but chose to work for the government and lived a normal middle class lifestyle in DC, ignoring their inherited wealth except on rare, special occasions. My friend their son is a working professional and lives a normal, middle class lifestyle in Portland.

The other person I know whose parents are rich has no structure in their life and a lot of drug problems.

neither one of them is taking or has been taught any specific step to “become rich” except in the first case, they just leave the money alone. In the second case, but for her trustees preventing her from draining the accounts, she would living on the street blowing people for a living, IMHO.

As to this

When was this study done? There can’t be many averagely middle class people in America who don’t clearly understand the conenction between money and access to medical care. Seriously? Even if its as simple as “my kid has a toothache and I can’t afford the dentist,” this is something I think even the desperately poor understand.

I’ve always surprised by how greedy and emotionally driven angel investors are, particularly at investor events where you can see a bunch of them in action at once. They’re not professional investors by definition but they’re supposed to be good investors and generally speaking, most earned their fortune. Yet, in my experience the vast majority are very motivated by emotion and the chance to make big money rather than the fundamentals of the business. I guess that’s actually an example of rich people driving markets with their emotion and greed, sort of self-fulfilling their knowledge that it’s driven by emotion and greed.

I think this one rings particularly true at least for a subset of rich people. I recall a successful entrepreneur giving a speech about entrepreneurship myths. One was that entrepreneurs love risk. Not true, entrepreneurs are loath to put their own money in, and spend considerable time getting angel investors and venture capitalists to fund their ideas.

My own tech startup sadly didn’t make anywhere near the millions I envisioned but I also invested essentially $0 in it and got to live out my dream of running and owning a business for over 7 years.

That list seems a little smug to me. Twenty-one ways of saying “Rich people are just better than you.”

Average people aren’t stressed out by money. They’re stressed out by LACK of money. I guarantee you that if I woke up tomorrow to discover a million dollars had magically appeared in my bank account I would not find the experience the least bit stressful.

The overall message I get from that list is that rich people are really, really insecure.

Yeah, it’s like it is saying “if you don’t think that way or do those things, no wonder you are not rich yourself, loser”.

Then they should probably stop profiting from it.

That’s lovely.

Easy to do when you were born rich, like most rich people were.

Yes, born into the right circumstances, usually.

And foolish starving people let themselves get stressed out about food, while smart foodies think food is a fun topic to think about. Weird, huh?

I’m sure people with no medical insurance never do make that connection, no.

“7. Average people earn money doing things they don’t love. Rich people follow their passion.”

There are many “average” people who have tried to follow their passion, though. And then there are people like me, who follow their passion as a hobby on the side, apart from a job.

I guess that #7 makes sense if your passion is trying to get rich?

It’s got kind of an “e-mail forward glurge” vibe to it, don’t you think?

He should have spent more time interviewing average people. He seems to be reflecting what rich people think about average people. And I think some of his observances about rich people don’t make any sense. I’d ignore most of what he’s saying. Rich people ignore this kind of pop psychology.

Not really that. But there are passions that make money and passions that don’t.

If you happen to have the passion and talent to be a great doctor or great lawyer, you’ll make a lot of money following your passion. If you have the passion and talent to be a great teacher or a great poet, you’re not going to get rich following your passion.

You can’t profit from poverty. Poor people don’t have any money to give you.

The wealthy people think that I’m a hobo,
Lean and hungry, writin’ mournful songs.
And the poor, poor people think that I’m a rich man,
But really I’m just tryin’ to get along.

Yes, it’s funny I don’t fit,
Where have all the average people gone?

– Roger Miller

Profit is gross revenue minus costs. If you use something to keep your costs down you’re profiting from it every bit as much as if you use something else to raise your revenue.

In other words, I don’t really care if I sell a widget for $5 more or if it cost me $5 less to make, I’m profiting an extra $5 either way.

Word. I’ve had small windfalls, sometimes just a larger tax return than I was expecting, and It’s always made me feel very calm.

What does this even mean?

Exactly. In fact, the article was probably cut off.

  1. Average people read this shit and try to figure it out. Rich people ignore this crappy pop psychology.

Where the list of how upper middle class people think? I don’t want to be surprised at the next Wine Gourmand Meetup.

I’m curious if he’s taking it for granted that rich people have these attitudes BEFORE they get rich, and that’s why they’re now rich, or if he’s considered the possibility that the attitude follows the money. Because statements like these:

are dripping of a mentality that takes money for granted. It’s easy to say “you have to take risks to make money” when you have enough money to risk without endangering your ability to eat and pay the rent tomorrow. And the same goes for “comfortable” and “uncertainty.” Average person’s definition of comfortable may be “having enough money to pay for rent and food tomorrow.” Rich person might be uncertain that their $10 million investment will return a dime, but they’ll know they’ll still have their $800,000 home and eat steak tomorrow.

And this statement:

and this

are directly contradictory to this statement:

And this one:

Well, the average people wouldn’t be wrong then, wouldn’t they? You need money to make money, just not YOUR money. So all you have to do is get people to give you THEIR money. And what might help convince people to trust you with THEIR money? Perhaps the fact that you already HAVE money that you’ve proven you can handle? Hmm. Kind of a catch-22.

All in all, kind of a crappy list, filled with simplistic stereotypes that conflict with each other.

Jeez, how much BS can you squeeze into a list? I know many rich people, and the vast majority would cringe being described as being most of those things. In fact, most would describe themselves as simply being very fortunate.