The gurus tell us that we must act rich to get rich. I believe that, because I sure don’t know how to get a part without first knowing how to play the role. But just how does one do this in today’s tanking economy, especially if one is mired in debt?

You do this by playing a mind game with yourself. Release the emotions you experience about your money situation. Are you stressed or worried? Those emotions (remember that emotion = energy in motion) are radiating out from you and are actually attracting more of the same old problems.

First of all, emotions form chemicals that course through your entire bloodstream and attach themselves to opiate receptors in each cell of your body. Addictive drugs work on the same receptors. This means that people can literally become addicted to their emotions. If you’re worried and stressed all the time, you’ll eventually become addicted to that worry and stress. The chemicals produced by negative emotions are literally poisons that can shorten a person’s life span. The old expression “worrying yourself to death” is absolutely true!

If that’s not bad enough, it is very easy for people are you to pick up on your emotional state. During any face-to-face communication, the spoken word transmits 5% of the message. Your voice tone (pitch, rhythm, etc.) transmit 35%. The remaining 60% is totally nonverbal; it consists of your body language, gestures, and other “vibes” that you display whether you want to or not… and these signals are unmistakable to any observer. Have you ever interviewed anyone for a job? If so, then you’ve seen people who are desperate… and that desperation comes through loud and clear no matter how chipper and upbeat the person tries to act. Are you more or less likely to hire the desperate person or the one who is calm and enthusiastic? Apply this same concept to your life: If you’re desperate, worried, stressed, etc. then people will know, no matter how much you try to hide it.

Acting rich has nothing to do with spending money and everything to do with releasing your negative emotions. It’s that simple. All negative emotions stem from fear. So, whatever bad emotions you may have about your situation translate into your being afraid of where you are and/or what could happen to you. What exactly are you scared of? Boil down all of the consequences of your fears coming true and you’ll find that what you’re really scared of is losing control and/or acceptance. Losing control might be in the form of collection calls, bankruptcy, etc. and losing acceptance could be not keeping up with the Joneses or a dinged credit score. To recap, all negative emotions come down to fear and the only things to fear are loss of control or loss of acceptance.

Acting rich is as simple as losing the need for control and losing the need for acceptance. It also means accepting responsibility, both for your current situation and for your future. You must also own your full responsibility for both whatever is happening to you today and whatever will happen to you in the future. Accepting responsibility for creating your current situation means accepting the responsibility for improving your situation. In other words, if you own the fact that you did this to yourself, then you can own the possibility of creating a different reality for yourself.

So here you are, fully accepting of responsibility, having let go of the need to control and be accepted. And you’re still in the same situation. What now?

Now you learn to manage what you do have. It’s like learning to fly a plane. Nobody starts off flying big jets. Instead, you learn to fly simple little propeller planes and eventually work yourself up to the big time. Don’t have a lot of money? Learn to manage what little you do have and to get the most from every single cent. I don’t care how little you make, take the top 10% of that and sock it away somewhere where you can never touch it. Everyone else can fend for themselves. What if you don’t have enough to go around? Oh well. Take care of yourself first. Do that and I will hazard the guess that there will always be enough to go around.

Look at it this way: If you’re struggling to pay bills—especially debt—each month then you are literally working for other people and have every incentive to do as little as possible. Start paying yourself first by saving or investing that 10% no matter what… and you will suddenly have strong incentive to earn more money, which will help you pay down your bills that much faster. The best part is that this works both subconsciously and counter intuitively. You may feel like you’re doing wrong but you’re actually on the right track. Contact your creditors and work out reduced interest rates/settlements/etc. This recession is a golden time to negotiate a great deal for getting out of your debt for less. You may want to talk to a financial planner, read some books, or take some course on money management. Do whatever you need to do to make sure that you are managing your precious resources as efficiently as possible. As soon as you master managing your current amount of money, you’ll be able to manage more… and more… and more. This road ends in one place: with you being rich!

The next thing to do is come to terms with the fact that your days on this Earth are numbered. I hope you don’t die for a long time but die you will. So… what really matters to you? If there is nothing beyond this life, if it all fades to black, then every second that passes is a second gone forever and you literally have no time to waste. If, however, there is some form of continuity (as I believe there must be, for purely scientific reasons), then my analogy says that the better you do in first grade, the better prepared you’ll be to handle second grade.

So… when your time comes and you review your life, powerless to do or change anything, what do you want to see? What do you want your life experiences and legacy to be? What exactly do you need to accomplish so that you can die without regrets? The last thought anyone should die with are “if only!” This question therefore gives you a very simple test that you must always keep in mind: If anything in your life (job, money, friends, etc.) is not contributing to your desired final vision for your life, then let it go and move on. This involves nothing less than finding and living your life’s mission. Every single person is alive for a reason and has a mission to fulfill in this lifetime. If you are not following your mission then is it any great surprise that you’re not rich?

Here I need to stop to state the obvious… that being rich has nothing to do with money and everything to do with attitude. For example, if your mission in this life is to hang from a tree and study exotic reptiles in a distant land, then do it! Your bank account will probably be next to empty most of the time but so what? You will be living your passion and thus infinitely rich. Get the huge bank account and fancy stuff without living your life’s purpose and you’ll be even more miserable than you are right now (or, more accurately, you’ll feel whatever negative emotions you currently feel, only far more strongly).

What this all boils down to is:

- Learn to manage what you do have.
- Pay yourself first
- Find out exactly(!) what matters to you in this life and embrace that with all you have.
- Let go of and forget about all else.

This is what it means to act rich. Act rich and I dare say you’ll find yourself becoming wealthy.

To jump-start your path to being rich, find and learn from rich people. By “rich”, I mean someone who has both a big bank account and a big heart. These people are rich in the truest senses of the term and are willing to share the wealth of their knowledge and passion. I have a college degree and am in grad school… and here I am learning from a high school dropout. Jim Britt (who leads the MOXXOR WORKS Team) had everything going against him and he turned that into a life that has touched over a million people while also making him financially independent. I had a lot more going for me than he did and here I am having never touched a million people’s lives nor been overly generous to my finances.

The simple truth is that what you know about money today just isn’t serving you… because you aren’t rich. So throw it all out! Then go out and learn from people who are where you want to be, both financially and in life overall. The best ones to learn from are (not coincidentally) the ones who will be most interested in teaching/mentoring/guiding you. Jim and I co-founded the MOXXOR WORKS Team along with Louis Volpe and Sid Smith to do just that.

I am practicing what I preach as a co-founder of the MOXXOR WORKS Team, and I can truly say that I have never had the door of opportunity opened wider than I do today. Yes I would love for it to all happen today… but I have to keep reminding myself to let go and let things flow as they will. This wonderful universe we live in is trying to give us blessing every day. Getting rid of our expectations and demands is the only way to receive those blessings in the manner they are intended. This lesson is also clear: Everything that happens, no matter how dire, is a blessing if (and only if) you choose to see it that way. It doesn’t matter if what happens is you going broke, a death in the family, disease, anything. You can interpret everything as a blessing and learning opportunity and be thankful for it… or not.

Let go!

Let go of your need to control and your need for acceptance. As I said, both of those stem from fear and fear is the source of all negative emotions. Fear really does snuff out your inner light, as you’ll learn when you read The Field by Lynne McTaggart (this book is a must read). The need to control stems from the fear of drifting along in the current and being swept out to sea. The need for acceptance comes from the fear of ostracism, which is the worst thing short of death that can befall a social animal like a human. Think about moments when you have surrendered… when you have acted without fear or in spite of fear. You exposed yourself with total faith. That took strength! That opened you up to receive a blessing far, far greater than any kind of expectation or fear ever could.

Recall how you felt in those moments, and learn to observe your feelings moment by moment. For every feeling, ask yourself if it is beneficial (moving you closer to what you want) or harmful (moving you away from what you want). If closer, fine! Experience the feeling and let it flow through you. If not, find a way to channel the energy you have built up (again, emotion is defined as energy in motion) into a more positive place. It takes practice, but you can do it. You can channel your emotions however you see fit. Reward yourself when you do well, and forgive and be extra good to yourself when you don’t. You’ll get there.

Your fear protects you against real or perceived dangers. Since everything is perceived, there really is very little distinction between “real” and “perceived” from an individual point of view. Your fear protected you from danger and thus helped save your life. Therefore, it is critically important to love your fear just as much as you love your “good” feelings. It has done its job of protecting you to perfection and now that job is done. Don’t ever resent your fear. You wouldn’t dream of resenting a delicious dinner once you finished eating it, so why resent an emotion that exists to protect you? You ate the meal of fear, you’re finished, and you can leave the table fulfilled and ready to move on. Acting rich really is that easy.

Anthony Hernandez

Anthony Hernandez is a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Business Association Coach and author of Guerrilla Marketing Success Secrets with over 20 years of successful self-employment experience. He is proud to be a co-founding member of the MOXXOR WORKS Team. Visit the MOXXOR WORKS Team Web site to learn more about the MOXXOR WORKS Team and our home-based opportunity.