What is wealth? Most people equate it with investments, with savings, with income, with real property. Yet we’ve all known people who got by quite happily on very little money. I’ve known others, by contrast, who seemed barely able to scrape by, even though they may have earned several times as much as the first group.
Who among these, then, was the more truly wealthy? It isn’t merely a matter of how much you have, but rather of how well you know how to use what you have. Wealth cannot be equated with some fixed quantity. If one is wealthy in his mind, or in his spirit, he may require very few material possessions to be perfectly satisfied with life. If, on the other hand, one considers himself wealthy only for his material riches, he may be convinced he is poor even if he has fifty million dollars, perhaps only because some former classmate of his has ninety million.
Wealth is the consciousness of abundance. And poverty is the consciousness of lack. Wealth and poverty are both states of mind. You are as rich, or as poor, as you believe yourself to be.
Essential to my theme in this book is the importance of the right mental attitude, not only for defining the parameters of happiness intelligently, but also for attracting wealth in the first place.
The purpose of this book is to help you to attract money in such a way as not to make it a burden on your peace of mind, but a doorway, rather, to genuine opportunity. It is to help you to learn how to use money wisely, in such a way as to acquire the greatest possible benefits for yourself and for others.
