What I’m hoping to achieve by the end of this post is for us to have a rethink of some of the philosophies we have towards money. Growing up in our homes, there were lots of money myths that forged itself into a mindset that stops us even before we yearn to get wealthy.
I’m not a half glass full or half empty kind of guy, but I like to see myself as the one who pours the water…well, don’t judge me, I learnt that from Mark Cuban. Invariably, I like to see things for what they are and with a clear means of handling it.
So indulge me to spell out the 10 most held money myths from this part of the planet, that I had and I know most of you had as well:

1. To Have Money, You Must Have Belonged To A Fraternity
No matter how weird this concept is, you can bet that it is still held very highly by many. Rather than seeking to find what people do to gain wealth, this distorts a healthy thinking and paints money as bad. People do crazy things for money, but there is so much more that put in the necessary hard work, people who invent things, people who perform amazing sales, people who shine for whatever activity that they are passionate about that the other people that engage in weird circumstances for wealth become negligible.
Money follows a great idea and the necessary effort, so why not we associate our thinking with the right theory. Count most successful people and you can write a product to their name, so teach people to use their inner ability rather than put them down before they can stand up by throwing this myth at their faces.

2. Money Doesn’t Bring Happiness
What brings happiness? This is a question with a million answers. Most people who are prosperous today didn’t seek to be as wealthy as they are today, as people think. Reading through the autobiographies and biographies of the likes of Bill Gates to Larry Page, to a whole lot of others, you learn a vital lesson. They sort to provide the world with something unique; they sort to change the world as we know it by using their abilities. And doing that brought wealth.
We should guide people to shine and make impact in our society for where their passion lies. Feeding your passion brings joy and true happiness and when you stay idle, you end up complaining about lack of money to do the things you want.

3. Money Is The Root Of All Evil
Is this actually true? Is money truly the root of evil? But the Christian bible says that ‘the love of money, is the root of all evil’, and not money itself. My goal is for us to have a healthy understanding of money so we can escape a poor mindset that does us no good.
How to handle money is inarguably one of the key issues in life that people do not want to talk about.
Why so much negativity attached to this. I mean, it is an indispensable commodity in our world today and what we go to our daily work for, what we give as offerings in our many places of worship, what we use to achieve almost anything you can think of today.
My thought is this: why aren’t we talking about how to understand money, and how to use it in a great way, for ourselves as well as for others. We are raised with a poor notation about money, leaving us incapable to control our finances and invariably a life of misery as we struggle to get by.

4. Money Is For Only Those That Are Blessed
Can there be any better excuse for not working hard? Money is it truly for those that are blessed? You can see the laxity in this utterance and can well understand why people will complain about a whole lot of things when they can’t play their parts and build wealth for themselves.
Is building wealth as difficult as we think? The advent of personal finance teachings through books and other media is fast rising as a help to anyone who wishes to grow wealth by playing the role of taking responsibility over his finances no matter how much he earns. Yes! No matter how much you earn, you can apply finance principles and become financially free over the years. Live happy and make your kids better off. Flee from this excuse and begin to take control and you can well count yourself as blessed.

5. The More You Have, The More You Will Want
When the rich amass more wealth, people hardly associate it with the rich seeing more profitable business opportunities. Or pushing back the frontiers of their innovative competitiveness and broadening their reach, they ascribe it to greed most of the time. You could say I like to look at things a little differently.
But the truth is this, when you are rich from a profitable business, being man in creation it is a natural urge to improve, to expand, to grow. To change the world with ideas, and as we keep expanding, we take opportunities that lie waste.
It is better to have a true understanding and rather grow our ideas into successful businesses.

6. You Lose Your True Friends When You Get Rich
This is an interesting one! There is a saying that failure is an orphan, but success is a child of many families, family relations, friends, friends with cousins to nieces of the uncle that is related to the in-law of the sister of the brother of the successful person. Lol
Invariably everyone wants to associate with success and there is a myth that when you do become wealthy, you become too busy. You become encumbered by new friends, new people that you lose touch with the people that matter in your life.
What this myth does to you is that it taints being wealthy as a futile and lonely journey. The truth is that when you grow; you become surrounded with people of like minds, people of success, people you wish to get motivation from, to get favor from and many other reasons. And these people do the same to you.
We should instead have an approach to manage success, to inspire those around us to be the best they can. We can still relate to our past before all the wealth, and still be our jolly good self as we have always been.

7. You Have To Work Too Hard To Get Rich
Here is one touching on hard work. This myth dwells on a passive attitude and seeks to dampen any will to get financial success. The idea is that if it is too hard, that means it requires so much of you and so you could just stick with your present state.
Do you really need to work too hard work to get rich?
There is great advice that can lift you from your current financial state into financial freedom. Success stories lie everywhere of people who practice ‘pay yourself first’, people who budget and take responsibility for their finances. These groups of people invest their savings into passive income streams and make their money work for them.
Knowing that money is a willing worker is one of the greatest philosophical shifts that have revolutionized the modern financial generation. Practice evergreen financial tips and learn to learn and keep learning, and you could be on your way to success.
Wealth lies greatly on ideas and backed by attitude. But wealth being too hard, well that would have to be shooting yourself in the foot so it becomes a cumbersome task and invariably leading you to not take the necessary steps required!

8. The Richer You Are The Bigger Your Problems
Oh yes! The statement about the Rich having big problems from serious medical conditions, to financial upheavals to even family related issues.
But let me ask! Does that measure up as a reason to be mediocre with our abilities, with opportunities that stare us in the face each day?
The people you can classify as poor, don’t they have issues pertinent to their circumstances too.
Why not understand how to adapt to life circumstances as we grow through life. While there isn’t a manual for happiness, there are habits and principles that have been tried over the years. You don’t have to necessarily reinvent the wheel to live a happy and fulfilled life even when you are rich.

9. You Can’t Have Money And Be Spiritually Pure
To most religious leaders who try in all honesty to grow a spiritual society, they have ingrained a view that with money comes the craving for carnal things. Having or striving for things that bring money is more of pursuing worldly things.It brings the temptation of greed and pride which are sins.
Rather than teach what exactly money is and how it should be used, the myth connotes an evil towards it. But remember that the Holy bible preaches that God gives wealth and seeks to bestow on his people material blessings.

10. Money Brings Pride
Money and Hubris!
When people become successful, the world celebrates them and when they fail, well you know the story. People who are wealthy from excelling in one thing or the other have gained proficiency in key habits that we fail to master. We view them as demigods, mentors and worthy role models. We want to take pictures with them to show our friends of our accomplishment. Well to many, taking pictures with these ones is an accomplishment worthy to celebrate. But know that these men are just flesh and blood like we all are, but set apart by their character and ability.
Having money also means you can afford a whole lot, and with this there is a myth that pride arises. But in all certainty, if you should take an interstate journey by road for a worthy visit, we know that an accident can happen while driving. So should you attribute driving with accidents? Instead you take the necessary caution and also advice others to do the same.

Here is my take;
There is a saying that there is a sovereign wealth in the heavens and it is poured as ideas to those men who think, that they may provide for the wellbeing of humanity while being blessed upon the earth through prosperity.
Money is a means to an end and not the end itself. Money is an indispensable part of our world. From having for your survival and that of your family, to giving to others to even the offerings in our many places of worship all require money.
So rather than have a negative mindset towards it, we should strive more to teach about putting our abilities to work and using our proceeds to live well, help others and better humanity at large.

The idea is to get rid of any myth that you can question, and that hinders your mindset from any real progress in your finances.

Have the right mindset towards money to enable you live happy with peace of mind.

for more articles you can visit www.everydayfinance.com.ng

Nice article Op, saying "money is the root of evil" is a serious misconception, because to me "being dead broke is the root of all evil"

maleeks:
Nice article Op, saying "money is the root of evil" is a serious misconception, because to me "being dead broke is the root of all evil"