Tuesday Feb 13, 2024

Tom Corley: The Psychology of Money: Rich Habits

“Gratitude is the gateway to positivity,” says Tom Corley, CPA, financial planner and author of seven books about wealth building, including the original “Rich Habits.” And positivity, as it turns out, is the gateway to wealth. If there’s one trait self-made millionaires share, Tom has found, it’s a positive mindset.

When you take stock of what you have, rather than what you don’t have, you program your subconscious to deliver more abundance, including wealth. If it sounds “woo woo,” it’s actually a matter of neuroplasticity and part of the function of the brain’s reticular activating system.

Rich people engage in growth habits, Tom explains. Every day, consistently, they commit to an activity that moves them closer to their goals. Growth isn’t about breaking bad habits but rather forging one of the 10 “keystone habits.” Each keystone habit creates complementary habits which, in turn, vacuum up those bad habits, he says, like Pacman. You should also consider creating an idealized future self (Tom calls his JC Jobs, a character who appears in three of his books), and act as if you already are that person.

As Tom has figured in his years of research and interviewing people at both ends of the economic spectrum, there seem to be four paths leading up to wealth’s gateway: the saver/investor path, the big company/climber path, virtuoso path, and dreamer/entrepreneur path. He discusses which personalities are best suited to which path, and which tend to accumulate the most wealth and how quickly. He shares the minimum amount of money one would have to save to be able to retire based on standard of living and location.

The law of attraction is nothing without action. In this episode, you’ll learn how to create your own wealth mindset and atomic habits. Tom and Bart discuss what it was like growing up poor and in abject poverty (and the difference between the two), the common misconceptions that those outside of America have about its wealth, and who you should start hanging out with if you want to get rich.

Quotes

“Rich people engage in something called “growth habits.” I started out reading to learn from my research, about 20 minutes a day. I have to do a lot of reading as a CPA, a financial planner. But I used to bundle it and I would spend half a Saturday reading through everything. What I found out is that the wealthy people did this every day, for 30 minutes or more.” (3:57 | Tom Corley)
“You don't need to break bad habits. You just need to forge Keystone Habits. And the Keystone Habits create complementary habits.” (6:33 | Tom Corley)
“You can't break a habit. The only way to break a habit neurologically is if you don't engage in the habit for, they think, around 20 years. The glial cells in the brain start to tear apart or dismantle the habit synapse, the pathway, the neural pathway that’s sort of created.” (7:18 | Tom Corley)
I've talked about how you program optimism and everything from music to emotional states, to getting rid of toxic people in your life, to the belief systems, to journaling every day, opening your day with appreciation. There are dozens of ways to do it. You created these 10 Keystones. Are any of those designed specifically to create more optimism and more hope? (12:20 | Bart Baggett)
“Your reticular activating system. It's part of the thalamus system. The thalamus is the gatekeeper, gatekeeper to invite environmental, external stimuli. So when you set goals, or you have a dream that you're pursuing, it gets programmed into the subconscious, but more importantly, the subconscious and the thalamus and the reticular activating system, work in unison, behind the scenes, to try and seek out environmental stimuli that will help you reach your dreams and your goals.” (17:47 | Bart Baggett)

Links:

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https://richhabits.net

https://www.youtube.com/tomcorleyrichhabits

https://www.facebook.com/tomcorleyrichhabits

https://www.instagram.com/tomcorleyrichhabits/

Connect with Bart Baggett

https://instagram.com/bartbaggett

https://www.instagram.com/bartshowpodcast/

https://www.youtube.com/@bartshowpodcast

https://bartbaggett.com