Secrets Of The Millionaire Mind book review

These are the rules: you get paid, you do the 50%, and then the five tens.

If you don't understand money, you have to understand that it really isn't your fault.

I'd never heard of this author before. I was watching a video by Cody Sanchez, who wrote Main Street Millionaire, and she mentioned something from this book. So I picked up Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.

It was not what I expected at all.

I love when I'm reading a book and the author quotes people I've already read, like Napoleon Hill, Neville Goddard, and Wernher von Braun. Those are names I'd already come across after reading Bob Proctor's Change Your Paradigm, Change Your Life.

But what I found to be the most important lesson in this book is Eker's idea that you need to expand your "file folders."

If you don't understand something, it's simply because you don't have the file folder for it yet.

"If you don't understand something, you just don't have the file folders for it."

That idea completely changed how I think about learning.

Why is it that when I sit down to deal with money, and something comes up that I don't understand, I just throw my hands up and quit?

Because I feel like I should understand money.

But understanding money and becoming a millionaire are two completely different things.

If you don't have the mental file folder, you literally can't pull that information up when you need it.

Let's say I decide I want to save $1,000.

One strategy is setting aside $10 every payday. It'll take a while, but it'll get there.

Another book might tell you to save every dollar of unexpected income.

Someone else might say to take the first $1,000 from your next cheque if you can.

Or maybe your strategy is simply to learn everything you can about saving that first thousand dollars before deciding.

Those are four completely different approaches to the exact same goal.

That's why you need to read more books.

The more you read, the more options you have. Then you get to decide what actually works for you, your house, and your life.

You'll always take what you need and leave the rest.

The problem is that if your only file folder is your own experience, it's probably pretty limited.

Books like this let you borrow someone else's experience until you build your own.

For the last couple of years, I'd been trying to create a budget, and it was driving me crazy.

Eventually I realized something about myself.

I'm a tracker, not a budgeter.

Instead of planning exactly what I was going to spend, I naturally kept track of what I'd already spent and adjusted from there.

That realization alone helped me stop judging myself.

Then T. Harv Eker introduced something that clicked immediately.

When you get paid, your money automatically gets divided into six buckets.

Half of your income immediately goes toward mandatory expenses. Your mortgage, your car payment if you have one, credit cards, medical bills, basically the things people would come after you for if you didn't pay them.

The remaining 50% gets split into five equal categories:

• 10% for long-term savings

• 10% for play money

• 10% for short-term spending

• 10% for investing

• 10% for gifting

The gifting category immediately made sense to me.

We have a five-year-old who's constantly being invited to birthday parties, so now there's already money waiting whenever another invitation shows up.

But the play money?

That completely changed everything.

Before, if I had an amazing day and wanted to celebrate, I'd think, "Kyla, you've been rocking it. You emailed all your clients, finished your tasks, hit your deadlines. Let's go get some macarons."

Then I'd spend $45 without really thinking about it.

Now that I have a play account, that money already has a purpose.

The funniest part?

I started getting to the end of the month looking for ways to spend it because the rule is that you have to use it within thirty days.

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I'm such an extreme person that if you tell me not to spend anything, I won't spend anything...until I binge.

But when you tell me that everything else is already taken care of and this money is specifically meant to be enjoyed, that urge completely disappears.

I had a new file folder.

I'd never budgeted this way before, but I trusted the author enough to give it a try.

And it worked.

The biggest lesson wasn't becoming "someone who budgets." It was realizing I'd added another place to pull knowledge from.

Now when I get paid, I actually look forward to splitting everything into the six buckets.

It became fun.

At one point I checked one of my accounts and was genuinely surprised by how much money had accumulated because I'd simply been following the system.

You get paid.

You do the 50%.

Then you do the five tens.

I've tried the envelope method. I've tried several other budgeting systems, and none of them resonated the way this one did.

That doesn't mean this system will be perfect for everyone.

It means it became another file folder I can use whenever I need it.

"You'll always take what you need and leave the rest."

If you've ever felt embarrassed that you don't understand money, this book is a great reminder that shame isn't helping you learn.

The truth is simple.

You either have the file folder or you don't.

Now you have another one.

I would absolutely read this book again.

https://youtu.be/lz8SDnWMt4Q?si=6P1yqx2AvYgKtbyJ

Until the next book review, 

Kyla