Money Myths You Must Stop Believing If You Want to Reach Financial Freedom

"99% of millionaires are men"

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How you think determines how you earn.

What destroys our earning capacity are false myths about money that are designed to keep us poor. We inherit these beliefs, often, from our parents.

They quietly direct our lives until we become aware of them.

Author Chris Hogan who wrote "Everyday Millionaires: How Ordinary People Built Extraordinary Wealth — and How You Can Too” did the research.

His 7 month study of more than 10,000 American millionaires can teach you more about money than a Harvard business degree. I’ve dissected Chris’s lessons for you to save you 10+ hours.

Here are the biggest money myths holding you back.

The #1 myth people believe about millionaires

Let’s get right to it.

People think millionaires inherit their money. The research says they are wrong. They are self-made.

Often they’ve overcome some sort of huge adversity to get where they are. Because as the old saying goes, once you’ve been dirt poor and had to think about money every waking hour, you never want to go back.

If you think about it, it makes perfect sense.

We’ve all met or heard of a trust fund baby that got access to mommy or daddy’s money and then lost it all.

The millionaire status is a mindset. If you get millions of dollars you didn’t earn you won’t appreciate it. So what happens?

You’ll waste the money.

• You’ll buy dumb stuff.

• Or think you’re a venture capitalist.

• Or invest all the money in a random crypto like Dogecoin because Elon Musk mentioned it in a tweet.

You don’t want millions of dollars. No.

You want to learn how to make millions of dollars. Because even if you lose all the money, you can always make it back again.

That’s what I learned when I lost over $1M. The pain didn’t last long because I knew I could do it all again.

Money is temporary. Skills and mindset are forever.

They’re accidentally millionaires

Becoming a millionaire is a habit.

You either practice a high-value skill that makes you rich every day, or you invest most of what you earn patiently for years. This is no accident.

What a lot of you don’t know is while millionaires may be doing great in the financial area of their lives – they suck in other areas such as health, relationships, or fitness.

Overcompensating in one area of life can have huge downsides in other areas.

What you want is a balanced life. Not loads of money with kids who never see you and a partner who wants a divorce, while you see a cancer specialist every week because your body is screwed from all the stress.

They all work in tech

Silicon Valley and tech companies more broadly have done a great job with PR.

They’ve promoted themselves as these kind humans, who practice effective altruism, who are building tech to help save humanity.

Over the last year that tech lie has been exposed.

• No profits.

• Fake valuations.

• Fake company culture.

• Rogue billionaire founders.

• Office perks that create elitism and cause workers to walk past homeless people in San Fran as if they don’t exist and deserve what they got.

Millionaires don’t all work in tech.

Some of the wealthiest people have basic businesses in hospitality, education, construction, and medicine.

Thinking tech is where all the money is made can force you to work in an industry you’re not passionate about to collect a paycheck. Don’t do it.

They live in unbelievable luxury (and drive a prestige car)

Brokies drive Lambos.

True millionaires know that cars depreciate. They’re a money pit that attracts outsized egos. I’ve earned 7 figures online and drive an 8 year old Honda. Most days if I need to go anywhere, I take a $5 train ride and leave the car at home.

Millionaires aren’t interested in looking wealthy. They want to actually be wealthy.

When you flash money around it’s a dumb idea. It’s how you attract scammers and fake lawsuits designed to extort you.

Ask most millionaires and they’ll say they are frugal.

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Quick story about looking rich

My in-laws moved to Australia.

I drove them around to look at homes to buy. They wear no-name brands and look broke. I noticed real estate agents talked down to them.

“Can you even afford this lovely home? What’s your budget?”

They never asked these questions to the fake-rich people who rolled up in BMWs and Mercedes Benzes.

I finally had enough…

Last week I said to one female real estate agent “Actually, see all these fake-rich people here. All of them are using bank debt to buy property, so higher interest rates make it hard. But these two [my in-laws] will be paying cash if they buy this home.”

She shut up after that. She stopped talking down to them.

They look poor but they’ve saved up their entire life and can buy a home with cash.

They went to an ivy league school

The data says 62% of millionaires didn’t go to a fancy school. And 10% never graduate from college at all.

Degrees are an elaborate, overpriced lie.

Artificial intelligence is making knowledge irrelevant, and wisdom gained from real-world experience worth more than gold.

Stop falling for higher education marketing. Wealth is possible no matter your education level.

They’re all men

You’ll never reach millionaire status with this “poor me” or victimhood mindset that’s so popular nowadays. Look, obnoxious rich dudes are insufferable. Agreed.

But the data says the balance between male and female millionaires is pretty even. Mindset over gender wins every time.

They’re lucky bastards

No, you make your own luck.

Millionaires often make money in a particular field because they enjoy their work. It’s less about how much they bank and more about making enough money to keep their obsession going.

That’s how I think about my career. My goal isn’t to get rich, it’s to earn enough money to keep writing online so I don’t have to go back to a job.

“Lucky” millionaires I know work their butts off.

They don’t have time to watch the news, complain, care about political hollywood actors who seek to make them angry, or consume “end of America” doombait on social media.

These so-called lucky people work hard, except you wouldn’t know that unless you could spend the day with them. To increase their luck they hang around other people with a high-quality mindset and don’t pollute their brains with junk food content.

To top it off, they let time and effort do their thing so financial success becomes inevitable. Research shows the average millionaire takes more than 10 years to get wealthy. No surprise there.

Luck is thrown around as an insult. It’s a word unpaid, jealous critics use to rob people of the success they’ve earned.

So … if you want to reach financial freedom then stop falling for the idea of luck.

Become the sort of person who looks lucky but is secretly a hard, patient worker.

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