Hoarding money isn't the same as building wealth and the mindset
that keeps you from growing your money It's the very thing that's keeping
you broke The news was filled with panic banks were
failing people were losing jobs The stock market was in freefall you
learn to fear money every time you think about investing a little voice
in your head whispers What if you lose everything? What
if it's all a scam? What if you make the wrong choice?
The first step is to have what's called a fun account, an account
that you put money in just for the process of seemingly
wasting it. I'm Lloyd James Ross, seven-figure investor and entrepreneur, and
I've helped thousands of business owners and professionals turn financial stress
into success. If you're stuck in old money habits, overwhelmed by
investing, or unsure where to start, this is for you. I'll
give you the mindset and strategies to take control, grow
your wealth, and achieve financial freedom. It's time to make your
money work for you. There's a disease spreading everywhere. It
doesn't care how much money you make, what job you have, or
how smart you are. It infects business owners, CEOs,
even self-made millionaires. You'd have a seven-figure
income and still suffer from it. And
the worst part? Most people don't even know they have
it. This disease keeps you stuck. It makes you work
harder while earning less. It convinces you that no matter
how much money you make, it's still never enough.
I see it every single day. If you're listening to this, chances are
you have it too. But here's the kicker. This mindset isn't
something you were born with. It was given to you, learned
from your parents, absorbed from your environment and shaped
by past experiences. And once it takes hold, it
runs your life. It controls how you spend, how
you save, how you invest or don't. So
how does this mindset start? Where does it come from? Imagine
this, it's 2008. You're a teenager, maybe
in your early twenties. watching the world around you
collapse. Your parents worked hard. They
did everything right. They bought a house, had
savings, maybe even a few investments. Life
was comfortable until suddenly it wasn't. The
news was filled with panic. Banks were failing.
People were losing jobs. The stock market was in free fall. And
then it hit your family. Maybe your parents lost their home.
Maybe your dad got laid off. And maybe your mum was scrambling
to keep the lights on. Maybe you remember the way they
whispered at night about bills, about
debts. about how they'd never let
this happen again. So what did they do? They
tightened their grip on every dollar. They stopped
spending. They stopped taking risks. They made sure that
every cent was accounted for. And you? You
learned to fear money. To fear losing it.
to believe that even when things are good, it can all come
crashing down in an instant. Now, as an adult, you
make money, but you never feel like you truly have
it. You don't invest, because what if the market crashes
again? You don't spend, because what if
you need that money later? You work harder, thinking that
more hours, more hustle is the only way to
stay ahead. But no matter how much you earn, that
feeling never really goes away. Because
deep down, you're still living like the crash is
just around the corner. Sound familiar? Well,
maybe your story looks more like this. You grew up
thinking your family was doing well. Your dad was smart with
money. At least that's what everyone said. He talked
about investments, had a solid job, maybe even dabbled in stocks
or real estate. Money wasn't something you worried about until
one day everything changed. Maybe it was a bad
investment. Maybe it was a stock market crash. Maybe it was a business
deal that went south. Whatever it was, the money vanished almost
overnight. You saw your dad go from confident to
crushed. You remember the arguments, the tension
in the house, the way he stopped talking about money altogether, how
the topic became off limits. Maybe he swore
off investing completely. Maybe he became obsessed with
never taking another risk, choosing instead to save
every single penny, convinced that playing it safe
was the only way to survive. And without realizing it,
you inherited that fear. Now, every time you
think about investing, a little voice in your head whispers, what
if you lose everything like dad did? What
if it's all a scam? What if you make the wrong choice?
So you avoid it. You play it safe. You hold on
to money like it could slip through your fingers at any
moment. But here's the thing. Hoarding money isn't
the same as building wealth. And the mindset that keeps
you from growing your money It's the very thing that's
keeping you broke. Or maybe you don't need to
look at your parents. You've lived this yourself. You built something,
you took a risk, started a business, maybe even made great
money, but then something happened. A bad
partnership, a failed investment, a market downturn,
and suddenly everything you built disappeared. And
every time you think about investing again, your stomach knots up.
The memory of losing money haunts you. You
hesitate. Second guess. You overthink.
You stick to what feels safe. You
don't invest. You don't delegate. You take full control,
convinced that if you just work hard enough, you can prevent another
failure. That's not how wealth is built.
Maybe you're the kind of person who believes that if you want something done right,
you gotta do it yourself. You don't outsource. You don't invest
in help. You don't delegate. Because no one can do
it as well as you can. But what happens? you
run yourself into the ground. You spend all your time on tasks
that don't actually build wealth. You trade time for money, working
longer, working longer, working longer, thinking that if
you just worked a bit harder or a bit longer, you'll
finally feel financially secure. But no amount of
hard work can fix this mindset. And the
mindset is scarcity. Just
quickly, if you're ready to take control of your finances but feel stuck on
where to start, I have a solution. My book, Money Bias Happiness,
simplifies investing and wealth building with practical steps to help
you achieve financial peace. Get your copy via the
link in the show notes and let's get your money working for you. Now back
to the episode. Where does it come from? How does it happen? But most importantly,
how do you move away from this scarcity money mindset? And
it reminds me of a story that my dad told me many times from
his past. He was a very successful insurance salesman. In
fact, he sold 100 insurance policies face-to-face in
a single week in his 20s. And so being
number one, he would always win awards. And he'd go to the awards night,
he'd be up at the top of the table, the best insurance salesman of the year. And
one particular year, there was another chap who was at the top
with him. And he said that at the event you get a trophy and
they give you a big bottle of champagne to take back to your table.
And he said one night he was observing this guy that, you know, for the first time he
sold some insurance policies and was at the top of the table. And he was getting
the same award as my dad. And he said he noticed something. He said
this guy went back to his table and
took the bottle of champagne and put it under the table. And
I asked my dad, I said, what did you do with yours? He said, I took mine back to the
table and I opened it up, popped it and
gave everyone a glass and shared it with everyone. I
said, dad, what's the lesson in this story? What are you trying to tell me here? He
said that he never saw that other guy again. It
was the only time he ever won top of the table. Why? Because
when my dad went back to his table, he shared it with everyone and
used the champagne, drank it because he knew he'd be back next year
and he'll get another one. Whereas the other guy, he thought this is the last time
I'll ever win this. I won't be back again and he never came back. So
when it comes to your money, you have to understand that you'll get it again. It's
free flowing. You'll find it. And most importantly, you
can't take it with you. So just like champagne, share
it, spend it and intelligently invest it. but
try not to hoard it because it will come back and it'll just, it'll
haunt you for the rest of your life. So what are some practical steps you can take
to actually get rid of this scarcity money mindset?
Well, I've got three practical steps for you to follow to do that. Step
number one, the first step is to have what's called a fun
account, an account that you put money in that you blow on
purpose. That's right, the account is designed for you to put money in it
just for the process of seemingly wasting it,
all right? You want to buy the champagne and pop it, go for it. But this will
prevent you having guilt and shame around spending money
that you feel you don't have. That's the first step, having a fun account. The second step
is to educate yourself about investing. Because
no one is going to care about your money more than you. But the only thing holding
you back from investing it and deploying it to grow it is the fact that
you don't understand the investing landscape. And the only way
around that is to put the knowledge in your head. So education must
come before you deploy the money into investments. Wisdom
before money. So someone once said to me, Lloyd, empty
your wallet into your head so your head can fill your wallet. Step
number three, delegate. You can't do
it all yourself. You've got to delegate, which means starting to delegate
some of the small tasks in your life that you think you're the only
one that can do it. You think you're the best at it. But let me tell you,
there are other people out there that can do it better than you. I know, it's crazy, but
they are. And so when you go and start delegating, it
means you can free up your time. And time is more valuable than money. So
the trick to building wealth is scaling your time. You
can work on higher value tasks. So the trick is to delegate the
tasks that are below your hourly rate. And that allows you to free up
your time and focus on wealth building instead of just being busy all the
time. And the most important thing for you to firstly delegate if
you haven't done it yet is to delegate the cleaning of your house.
One of our students, she came in, she was very clever. She was an engineer running a
team of 30 people, had four children, was building an app.
as a business, and she was still cleaning her own house. And
she said to me one day, Lloyd, I feel like I'm just, I've got no time left.
I can't build my wealth. I can't spend time on my business. I said, you're
still cleaning your own house. Of course you don't have any time.
And it was that moment that she decided that, well, maybe
there is someone better than me in this. Maybe I can actually trust someone enough to
do a job better than me. And she outsourced her cleaning and
that changed her whole life. And so that particular step will
allow you to scale your wealth and not cling to the fact that you're the only one
that can do it. So the scarcity money mindset is just one of
six money mindsets that is holding you back from
building wealth. You wanna know the other five? They're in my
latest book, Money Buys Happiness. So head to the description, click
the link, grab a copy and go and find out the next five money
mindsets that are holding you back because when you're aware of them and you know them,
you can get past them. All right, so hit the subscribe button, go check
out the link and I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to Money Grows on
Trees. If you enjoyed the episode, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts
and Spotify and subscribe to us on YouTube so you never
miss an episode. And if you're serious about building wealth, make sure to
check out the links in the show notes and follow me on all social media
platforms, at LloydJamesRoss for more. See