Rich vs poor mindset
This is not rich people vs. poor people. There are many poor people with a rich mindset, financially poor due to circumstance. And there are many rich people with a poor mindset.
| Rich Mindset | Poor mindset |
|---|---|
| understands that the first goal is to gain a surplus of resources. Then, to use that surplus to accelerate things. Accelerate education. Accelerate a business. Accelerate the next generation. | immediately sees a surplus as an opportunity for consumption. |
| seeks to spend their time, resources, and energy on work that continues to pay off long after the effort has been invested. Rich mindset is all about getting a flywheel spinning. Building momentum. Creating systems that continue to generate value on their own. | is all about the short-term returns. Hours-for-dollars. Resources invested without an immediate return are resources wasted. |
| is willing to invest resources with seemingly no reward right away. | ’s immediate thought is, “What’s in it for me?”. “Why pay money to fly to that conference, pay for the hotel, and spend all the time when they’re not even paying you?” |
| seeks to build relationships based on trust, liking, shared values, and mutual respect. People with the rich mindset help others and cultivate relationships with no expectation of anything in return. | thinks “I scratch your back, you scratch mine”. |
| understands that its reputation is everything, that trust and respect is earned slowly, through hard-fought, bloody effort – and that both can be lost in an instant. | believes it can get away with compromising its reputation to make a quick buck. |
| knows that the world isn’t fair, and deals with reality swiftly, humbly, and practically. It knows the world owes it nothing, that the universe is indifferent to its existence, that the default for life is suffering and death. All successes are improbable and should be appreciated as such. | is consumed by the unfairness of the world, and wastes time complaining about it. It feels the world owes it something, and waits for it to be handed out. |
| celebrates the successes of others. It embraces the competition and often befriends it. | feels jealousy and bitterness about the successes of others. It looks at everything as a zero-sum game. |
| understands that it can never know everything, and that something can be learned from everyone. | deludes itself into believing it knows everything, and that opposing perspectives are wrong before even hearing them. |
| understands that it cannot do everything, and that even if it could, it would create greater value by focusing on its core strengths. It knows that the right team is greater than the sum of its parts. | deludes itself into thinking that it can do everything if it just works hard enough. |
| embraces competition, and knows that iron sharpens iron. | is discouraged by competition. It complains that “someone already got there first,” or that, “they’re obviously going to catch up to me, I might as well quit now.” |
| quits strategically. It plans to quit in advance, when it realizes the potential gains of a pursuit are either unreachable with current resources or aren’t worth the pain of the work involved. | Poor mind quits in reaction to pain and short-term discomfort. |
| sticks it out when the going gets tough, provided that the pursuit is worthwhile. It understands the idea of “The Dip” – that anything worth doing will be hard. It understands that the rewards are reaped by those who push through the difficulties of a pursuit precisely because the will to push through is scarce. | sticks things out due to stubbornness. It |