Poor is a state of mind; broke is ‘I’m passing through.’
~ Dave Ramsey
A couple of nights ago, I hung out with a girlfriend of mine. I hadn’t seen her in awhile but our relationship is such that we always just pick up where we left off, as if no time had passed. She’s like me in that we are both driven to become the best versions of ourselves that we can. We’re readers; we consume information and wisdom from those who live the lives we want to live. We’re fine with doing things that some people find weird or difficult – like believing in the Law of Attraction and betting on ourselves.
Though we are alike in many ways, we’re very different in one surprising way. She takes issue with me referring to myself as “broke.” I, obviously, don’t take such issue. In our conversation, she pushed back twice, stating that she thinks the more appropriate statement is, “It’s not in my budget.” Well, yeah. Yeah. It’s not in my budget because I’m on a broke person budget, negative net worth person budget, no retirement savings-having, not even next year savings-having person budget. It’s not absent from my budget on account of some money magic hocus pocus that – voila! – kept the thing from making it into the budget. There’s a reason for why it’s not in my budget – a fundamental reason. The reason? You guessed it. I’m broke.
By the way, we weren’t even talking about a specific thing. She deemed the “it” to be anything at all. Anything. Her main concern was that I was employing the word “broke.” Her view seemed to be that the words we use are important and that, by using the word “broke,” I’m somehow convincing myself – either consciously or subconsciously, I’m not sure – that I am and will stay in a state of not having money to live the way I’d like to live. It became obvious to me that she and I have different definitions of the word. So maybe I ought to clarify.
As it turns out . . . I am broke. If you’ve spent any time on this blog, you know that I say it pretty frequently. Saying it doesn’t make me think that I’m sabotaging myself because I view my current position as temporary. Actually, I know that this is temporary. I see my current debt, account balances and negative net worth as a factual, current state of being, not as the place in which I’m destined to stay. To me, it’s like saying, “I’m in my 3rd year of undergraduate studies.” It’s not quite where I want to be (a graduate), but I recognize that I won’t be here forever.
After all, I’m not poor; I’m just broke.
Being poor would be a whole other issue. Poor would be a problem. If I was poor, my friend would have good reason for staging an intervention. Poor is not a mere state of being; it is a mindset. As I said in my last post, there’s nothing sexy about being broke. But it’s temporary. Being poor is a way of thinking and consistently doing – not simply a state of being, but a way of being. It’s a tendency. Though the dictionary defines “broke” and “poor” similarly – relating to the lack of money – I do not view them as the same. Despite their synonymous definitions, they have different connotations.
Mindset: (1) an attitude, disposition, or mood; (2) an intention or inclination.
~ Dictionary.com
Think about it. People who are rich believe that if they were to ever lose all of their money, they could get it all back. They know that, though they may be without money during a period of time, they are not without their other tools and resources that would allow them to rebuild.
Kim Kiyosaki illustrates this concept well in her post The Difference Between “Poor” and “Broke”. She says:
“Even when Robert and I were homeless, we did not consider ourselves poor, only broke. Even when we were $400,000 in debt, we did not think of ourselves as poor. We thought of ourselves as rich people who happened to be broke at the time. This attitude – along with hard work, perserverance, and creative thinking – propelled us forward so that instead of becoming stuck in the rat race we progressed from broke to wealthy.”
We’ve all heard the stories of lottery winners going from poor to rich, then back to poor again. The same is true of many athletes and entertainers who have earned millions of dollars, only to find themselves bankrupt. Why? Because it’s a part of who they are. Again, it’s a way of being. A way of thinking. This way of being causes them to do those things that land them back, literally, into the poorhouse.
“If you do rich people habits with money and have rich people mindsets with money, eventually you will be rich people. If you do poor people stuff with money and you’re rich, eventually you will be poor people.”
~ Dave Ramsey
Let’s be clear: I’m not talking about true poverty. There are some people who, because of where they were born or the government to which they are subject, will be relegated to a position of being economically unable to prosper. That’s not what I’m talking about here.
Whenever I use the term “broke,” I’m referring to my temporary state of being financially; unstable, of having no real savings (beyond my $1,000 baby emergency fund), of having a substantially negative net worth, and being concerned that I’m just one bad month from missing a mortgage payment. Am I destitute? No. Is this an acceptable, sensible way to live in this prosperous country of ours? Not at all.
What I’m not talking about is some ingrained belief that, because I don’t have what I want right now, I never will. Or, some self-sabotaging idea that I don’t deserve to be wealthy or live a life of luxury. I believe, wholeheartedly, that my tsunami situation will one day be a less damaging phenomenon. I look forward to the day that I can categorize my circumstances as a Category 2 hurricane or, eventually, just heavy showers. Ultimately, I dream of future days of clear, sunny skies. I’m willing to do what it takes to get there.
Even though I don’t describe myself as “poor,” I know that I need some money mindset help. I recognize that I have to make some shifts in my mentality and work on my identity. How do I know this? I know this because there’s a reason I’m not making more money. There’s a reason I allowed myself to not pay attention to my finances and make detrimental decisions. I realize that there’s something inside of me that has allowed me to be where I am. Though I know I won’t be here forever, I’m aware that there is something within me that got me here in the first place.
Ed Mylett refers to this as an internal thermostat. He says, “If you set your internal thermostat at 75 degrees of success, but then you start achieving 80, 85, 90 degrees of success, because you have exceeded the limitations of your internal thermostat, you will find a way to self-sabotage back down to a more ‘comfortable’ temperature.” As you grow in life, you’ve got to increase your internal thermostat. (See https://www.facebook.com/EdMylettFanPage/posts/2104983102896240).
That goes the other way as well. If my internal thermostat is set at 90 degrees of success, but my external success temperature is 70 degrees, it is inevitable that the external success temperature will have to rise to meet my internal thermostat. In the meantime, like Kim Kiyosaki says, I’ll think of myself as a rich person who just so happens to be broke at the moment.
