9 questions to help you overcome the misguided beliefs about money you inherited from your parents

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For most people money is a constant concern, whether they are discussing it or not.

Every time they go to the doctor, they fear the deductible. When they go to the grocery store, they have to make decisions about what they can and can’t buy. Every time they get a check they are reminded of the way they think about money.

But the lives of people who are barely making it financially cannot be fixed by just giving them more money. Most of us are brought up poor or middle class and then left to live the rest of our lives with the foundations and beliefs of the poor or the middle class. We emerge full of doubt and confused about our finances, because we grew up with overwhelmed parents, clueless teachers, and an irresponsible government. Still, even if we are dazed, confused, apathetic, and even resentful about money, each of us can work to overcome the money mentality we inherited.

Your job is to first get your own head right about money. Once you have that under control and you’re dominating your personal finances, you can work to remove all financial doubt from the heads of your family, friends, business partners, employees, and clients.

Answering these questions is an exercise that will reveal how money confident you are and whether you’re dominating your money:

• What is your money mantra?
• What do you think about money?
• How much is a lot of money to you?
• How much is too much money?
• How much is too little money?
• What are your negative ideas about money?
• Do you spend most of your time trying to save money?
• How much time do you spend connecting with new money?
• How do you act when you see the price of something in a store or at a restaurant?

There are no right answers in this test. Rather, my aim is to give you a sense of awareness of how you think about money and whether it’s a problem.

The key is to be honest with yourself. If you have a problem with anything in life, the rst thing to do is admit it. If you are constantly haunted by money, admit that. Only then can you switch your scarcity thinking into abundance thinking.

Don’t forget: What you are obsessed with will become a reality. If you’re obsessed with money problems, you’ll always have money problems. If you focus on understanding what money means to you, positively, you’ll figure out how to get more of it.

Early in my life my money mantras were phrases like “Money doesn’t grow on trees,” “A penny saved is a penny earned,” “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” “Getting rich is greed,” “Wealthy people are unhappy,” and on and on. These all pointed to why I didn’t have financial success. I would go to dinner and complain about the price of a steak-and-lobster meal that cost $57, go to the movies and complain about the price of $19 3-D tickets, and then go to the store and complain about $9 organic bananas.

Fifty-seven dollars is not a lot of money. Neither is $19 or $9. I don’t care what it is for — it just simply is not a lot of money in the big picture. No one on this planet just has a $57 dollar problem — no one. Why do I say that? Because $57 can’t solve any problem you or I have without leaving us with another similar problem soon after.

In 2008, after the economy crashed, I woke up big-time about money. A bank that I had three big real estate loans with defaulted. I watched the millions of dollars I had accumulated through hard work disappear overnight.

The fact that a bank defaulted made me realize that anyone who quits paying attention can bust out. I myself had quit being obsessed, backed off on my hustle, and become satisfied, fat, and lazy. I swore I would never do that again. And I got obsessed with digging my way out.

Republished with permission from "Be Obsessed or Be Average," by Grant Cardone. Copyright © 2016 by Portfolio/Penguin, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

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