Money vs. Wealth: 5 Tenets for Creating True Prosperity

BEING WEALTHY MEANS MORE THAN JUST HAVING MONEY; IT MEANS SHIFTING YOUR MINDSET TO EMBRACE CREATIVITY, POSSIBILITY, GENEROSITY, AND GRATITUDE

We all imagine that we are choosing to have money, but is that true? If you are trying to make more money, if you are making it but aren’t keeping it, or if you have all the money you need but your life still seems empty, you may need to seek wealth instead of money.

The choice to have money is the beginning of becoming wealthy. 

As a wealth creation coach, investor and facilitator for the global Access Consciousness® Wealth Creators program, my own life journey has taken me from the depths of poverty to the luxury of substantial affluence. I still maintain, however, that all the riches in the world cannot fulfil you if you don’t understand the true spirit of wealth.

Growing up in a mining town in Scotland, we were so poor I had holes in the soles of my shoes. I walked three kilometers to school with plastic bags over my socks to keep my feet dry. When I was 10, I watched the film Oliver and realized that transformation was possible. That’s when I started making choices to ensure a different future for myself. 

At the age of 14, I started to make my own money by picking potatoes. At 15, I met my now ex-husband, and we began to create a different life together. By my late twenties, we had become millionaires and continued to create riches and luxury. But even with millions in the bank, something was missing from my life. I felt like I was dying inside. I also felt that I had a ‘poverty of being’ that could not be satiated by ‘things.’ 

Having been both a poor child and an affluent woman, I realized that wealth requires so much more than just money — it requires a wealth of being.

That’s why I call wealth the ‘energy of creation’. 

We tell ourselves so many stories about what it means to have (or not have) money. We convince ourselves that rich people are greedy and selfish; that if you have money you will have to share it; that you won’t be able to say no to people; that you’ll have to make responsible choices… yes, the list is endless. Yet every time we believe one of these stories, we diminish ourselves. We also stop ourselves from being a leader who uses both their wealth and money to make a difference in the world.

On my own journey from poverty to presence, I have learned that to be truly rich with plenty of money, you have to first learn to be wealthy. 

Here are 5 tenets for experiencing true wealth:

BE GRATEFUL

Imagine everything you have being instantly taken away. What would you miss? Are you grateful for those things every day? Or do you complain about what you don’t have? The first choice is a wealthy way of being; the second creates poverty.

Too often, people focus on what they don’t have instead of what they do. But gratitude is an essential element of creating wealth. Even though growing up we sometimes had little food and slept in a freezing-cold house, I was always grateful for the small things. I enjoyed the walk to school; I was grateful I had legs; I was grateful I could feel nature on my skin. The more gratitude I expressed, the more everything started to change for me. But gratitude goes beyond writing in a gratitude journal. It is about being fully present with what you have and having joy for its presence in your life. 

BE CONSCIOUS OF ABUNDANCE

I always knew I would create a more abundant life. I had no hesitation in asking for more or choosing to follow the path I knew would create a greater future for myself. To create a reality where I was no longer poor, I first had to remove the mindset that I was poor.

By changing my point of view, I invited a different set of choices that allowed my life to become more and more abundant.

The simplest way to change your energy from ‘not having’ to ‘having’ is to ask yourself three questions that open up energies of possibility and make way for different choices: 

• What can I receive today? 
• Is it possible for me to have that too? 
• What else can I ask for?

The point of asking these questions is not to seek an answer, but to be open to receiving what you may never have noticed before. Wealth never shows up how you think it will!

BE TENACIOUS 

All of my life I committed myself to creating the wealth I knew was possible. I also have lived by the mantra: ‘never give up, never give in, never quit’.

Being determined to change your situation is a direct result of your willingness to live a greater life. The more you have to live for, the easier it is to keep going. Whenever you’re on the edge of quitting, ask yourself: “What else is possible that I’ve never imagined could be possible?” Then allow yourself to make different choices. 

Every new choice creates a different future… and it’s never linear!

BE GENEROUS OF SPIRIT

To invite more money into your life, become more generous. Who you are is the catalyst for what you can have. As you are more, you receive more, contribute more, and can have more. This is the true magic of being wealthy. If you keep everything as if that is all you can have, you limit the creative momentum that could be available to you.

When you make choices from an energy of wealth, you create greater possibilities.

One day when I was young, a man in a pub heard that we didn’t have any food for Christmas lunch, so he left a hamper of food on our doorstep. He had 10 children of his own and couldn’t really afford to do this, which made his generosity even more of a life-changing moment for me. This example of a generosity of spirit is a key component of the spirit of wealth. To become wealthier in spirit, ask yourself where you can be generous. There’s always an opportunity to show up for someone, to share something with others — ways to be generous that go beyond an exchange of money. 

BE WILLING TO ENJOY MONEY

When I was 14, I befriended a girl from a middle-class family. Our friendship totally changed my life. They had a TV and a telephone. They took me to restaurants and the zoo and took me on Sunday drives. This was the energy I knew I wanted in my life, so I started inviting it into my life.

Being wealthy means knowing you can — and do — create your possibilities. How you think impacts your reality. Whatever you put your focus on is what you will end up with. If you are operating from need and lack, that is what will show up. If you keep saying “I can’t get more money”, then that is what will happen. If you judge money, it can’t show up for you, but if you enjoy money, you invite it to become your reality.