Why Your Mind Has a $100K Money Limit (And How to Break It)

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0:21Robert Kiyosaki:Ever notice how ads always pop up at the worst moments? When the killer's identity is about to be revealed. During that perfect meditation flow. On Amazon Music, we believe in keeping you in the moment. That's why we've got millions of ad-free podcast episodes, so you can stay completely immersed in every story, every reveal, every breath. Download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite podcasts ad-free, included with Prime. The rich don't set goals the way you are taught. They know something about the human mind that keeps poor people poor and broke people broke. I'm going to show you exactly what that is and why it changes everything about money.

1:12This is the Rich Dad Radio Show. The good news and bad news about money. Here's Robert Kiyosaki. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Rich Dad Radio. This is Robert Kiyosaki. Today is just you and me. And we're talking about what the rich are teaching their kids about money. What the rich are teaching their kids about willpower, goals, resolutions. 75 % of people who set New Year's resolutions fail within one week. One week. Not because they forgot how to do a push-up. Not because they suddenly got stupid. They fail because nobody taught them the real game. See, most people think goal setting is about the how.

2:03How do I lose weight? How do I make more money? How do I start a business? Wrong question. The rich don't ask how first, the poor do. That's the difference. And here's what's crazy. You already know how to do most of the things you want to do. You know where the gym is. You know how to save money. You know how to make a plan. So why don't you do it? I'm going to tell you something that's going to make you uncomfortable. something my rich dad taught me that completely changed how I looked at success. But first, you need to understand what's really happening inside your mind when you set a goal.

2:50January 7th. I know we are past that, but January 7th. That's when over 75 % of people have already quit their New Year's resolutions. Think about that. one week into the new year, and most people are done, finished, back to their old life. Now, here's the question nobody asks. Did they forget how to accomplish their goal? No. They didn't forget where the gym is. They didn't forget how to eat healthy. They didn't forget how to budget their money. What they lost was their why. They lost their will, their spirit, the reason they wanted it in the first place. Most goal programs will tell you to make lists, break big goals into smaller goals, be realistic, set deadlines, track your progress, all how stuff.

3:53And none of it works long term because they're teaching you function without will. Let me explain something my rich dad taught me. There are three components to every goal, three parts that have to work together. Function, being, will. Function is the how, is the content, the steps, the tactics. It's what everyone teaches because it's easy to teach. Being is the who. Who do you need to become to achieve this goal? Most people skip this part completely. Will is the why, the spirit, the context, the reason you're willing to do what you need to do. And here's what nobody tells you. Function is the least important of the three.

4:47I know that sounds backwards, but think about it. On January 7th, did people forget the function? Did they suddenly not know how to go to the gym? No, they lost the will, the why. My rich dad used to say, knowing what to do and actually doing it are two different things. The gap between them is where life is found. That gap is everything. Most people live in that gap their whole lives. They know what to do, they just don't do it. Why? Because function without will is useless. You can have the best plan in the world, the best system, the best how-to guide. But if you don't have a strong enough why, you won't do it.

5:40And here's where it gets interesting. Your why isn't just about motivation. It's not about getting pumped up or feeling inspired. Your why is actually determining your capacity. Stay with me here, because this is where most people's minds start to argue. Your why determines your capacity. Let me say that again. Your why determines your capacity. Think of it like a gas tank. A five-gallon gas tank can only hold five gallons of gas. No matter how much you want to put more in, it can only hold what it can hold. Your mind works the same way. If your why has a$100 ,000 capacity, that's all you can hold.

6:33That's your limit. You might say, I want to be a millionaire. But if your why only has a$100 ,000 capacity, you'll never get there. Not because you can't, because your mind won't let you. Your why acts like a filter. It screens out information. It rejects ideas. It limits what you can see. For example, if your why is limited by thoughts like, I'm not interested in real estate, your mind will reject everything about real estate, every opportunity, every strategy, every how-to. Your limited why screens it out. Even if real estate could make you rich, your why won't let you see it. This is what my rich dad meant when he said, change your environment, change your life.

7:26Your why is your mental environment. And most people are living in a very small environment, a very limited space. They want bigger results, but they're living in a tiny mental room. Here's the truth. A billionaire has a bigger why than a millionaire. It's not that they're smarter. It's not that they work harder. They have a bigger capacity. Their mental environment is bigger. So if you want to get richer, if you want to achieve bigger goals, you have to expand your why. You have to change your mental environment. Now, I can already hear some of you arguing with this. Your mind is probably saying things like, but I do want to be rich.

8:12I am willing to work hard. I already have big goals. Yeah, I said the same things, and I was broke. Because what I was really doing, what I didn't realize until I was sitting on a mountain in the middle of winter, nearly out of money, with the woman I love stuck in my mess with me, what I was really doing was arguing with myself. And that argument was costing me everything. New Year's Day, 1985. Kim and I were almost out of money. low on confidence, filled with doubt. We were sitting in a cabin on a snow-covered mountain with my friend Larry. And Larry says, Why don't we write a plan on how we can all become financially free?

9:02I heard the words, but they didn't fit my reality. Financially free. I had talked about it, dreamed about it, told myself that someday I would do it, but someday wasn't today. The moment I heard my own voice respond, I knew something was wrong. Financially free, I said. And I sounded like a wimp. That wasn't me. That wasn't the old me. Something had changed. Larry kept talking. He said, let's write down the goal, create a plan, and focus on the idea. Most people don't think about retiring until it's too late. I don't want to do that. I want to live. I want to be rich. I want to travel the world while I'm young enough to enjoy it.

9:51And as he's talking, I'm sitting down listening to this little voice inside my head, this little voice telling me why it wouldn't work, why it was unrealistic, why it was impossible. I tuned Larry out, and I started listening to that voice. And then I heard my rich dad, like he was sitting right there next to me. Rich Dad said, The biggest challenge you have is to challenge your own self-doubt and your laziness. It is your self-doubt and your laziness that define and limit who you are. He said, There is no one in your way except you and your doubts. I had just had this conversation with Rich Dad a month earlier, right before I left Hawaii.

10:42And now here I was, sitting on this mountain, feeling weak, vulnerable, insecure, listening to my best friend telling me the same thing. It was decision time. I could let my self-doubt win, or I could change. Okay, I said. Let's do it. Let's set the goal to be financially free. But here's what happened next. Larry kept talking about getting rich and retiring early, and I kept arguing. In my head, I kept arguing. Every time he said, let's set it as a goal, write it down, create a plan, I could hear myself saying, but we don't have any money. I can't do that. I'll think about it next year. You don't understand our situation.

11:37I need more time. And then I remembered something else Rich Dad taught me. He said, if you find yourself arguing with a good idea, you may want to stop arguing. He said, why would someone say, I can't afford it or I can't do it to something they want? Why would someone deny themselves the things they want? It makes no logical sense. And sitting there by the fire, I realized something. I was arguing against something I wanted. Why? Why would I argue against my own dream? I had planned to be rich by 35. That was my goal when I was 25 years old. But I had lost my business, my Velcro wallet business.

12:23And when that failed, my spirit got crushed. I lost my confidence. And now, sitting on this mountain at 37 years old, nearly broke, I was arguing against the very thing I wanted. Not because it was a bad idea, because I didn't want to fail again. I was protecting myself from the pain, the disappointment. I had dreamed big once, and I failed. So now I was arguing, not against the dream, against failing again. the little person inside me the scared person was arguing against the person who wanted to grow up okay let's set a big goal I finally said to Larry I stopped arguing the argument was still there but I wasn't going to let it stop me anymore because I found my why I knew why I was going to do it even though I had no idea how I was going to do it.

13:33See, the reason I decided to do it, the real reason, was because I got sick and tired of myself. I was sick of being broke, sick of struggling, sick of being average. But the most painful why? I had this beautiful woman in my life, Kim, my soulmate. and she was in this financial mess because she loved me. I was doing to her what my dad did to my mom. I was repeating a family pattern. And that, that was my real why. That was the moment everything changed. Not because things got better, they didn't. Things got worse after we left that mountain. Kim and I ended up living in our car for three weeks, but the why kept us going.

14:28Without the why, the how would have been impossible. My rich dad taught me something about passion that most people don't understand. He said, passion is a combination of love and hate. Not just love, love and hate. You need both. If you want something, you need to know why you love what you want and why you hate not having it. When you combine those two thoughts, that's where the energy comes from. That's what gets you off your butt. So I made a list, two columns, love, being rich, being free, buying anything I want, having other people do what I don't want to do, hate, being poor, being required to work, not having what I want, doing things I don't want to do.

15:20Simple list, but powerful, because it forced me to be honest. Most people lie to themselves about what they want. They say things like, money isn't that important to me, or I just want to be comfortable. That's not honesty. That's fear talking. When you combine love and hate, when you're honest about both, you find your real why. and your real why gives you power. Remember what I said earlier about the three components of a goal, function, being, will? Most programs teach you function, the how-to, but they skip the most important part, who you need to be to achieve the goal, and the will, the why, that drives you to become that person.

16:10See, achieving a goal isn't really about the goal. It's about who you become in the process. When Kim and I set that goal on the mountain, when we decided to retire young and retire rich, we didn't just set a financial goal. We decided to become different people. That's the shift most people miss. They want different results, but they don't want to change who they are. And that's why they fail. You can't have a million-dollar goal with a$100 ,000 identity. Your identity will win every time. So when Larry was talking that night and I was arguing with myself, what I was really doing was fighting between two identities, the old me, the broke, scared, self-doubting me, and the person I needed to become.

17:03The argument wasn't about whether the goal was realistic. The argument was about whether I was willing to change. My rich dad said, Most people choose to stay the same all their lives. If you will take on your self-doubt and your laziness, you will find the door to your freedom. That night on the mountain, I chose to change. Not because I learned some new strategy. Not because Larry gave me a better how-to plan. I changed because I found my why. and my why was strong enough to challenge my old identity here's what I discovered function tells you what to do being tells you who to become will gives you the power to actually do it without will without why you're just a person with a to-do list.

18:03And to-do lists don't change lives. Identity changes do. By 1994, nine years after that night on the mountain, Kim and I were financially free. Not because we were smarter than other people. Not because we had some secret strategy. Because we had a why that was bigger than our fear. We had a why that forced us to become different people. And once you become a different person, the how takes care of itself. That's what most people don't understand. They're looking for the easy road, the shortcut, the how-to. But the easy road usually ends in a dead in. The real road, the one that actually works, starts with why.

18:55So here's my challenge to you. Stop asking how. Start asking why. Why do you want what you want? Not the surface answer, the real answer. Not I want to be financially free. That's not a why, that's a what. Why do you want to be financially free? What does it give you? What does it mean to you? What are you sick and tired of? Who are you protecting yourself from becoming? These are harder questions, I know, but these are the questions that matter because here's the truth. You already know how to do most of what you need to do. You know how to save money. You know how to start a business. You know how to invest.

19:43The information is everywhere. What you don't have, what most people don't have, is a why strong enough to make them actually do it. That's the gap my rich dad talked about, the gap between knowing and doing. Most people live in that gap their entire lives. They know what to do, they just never do it. And the reason is simple. They don't have a strong enough why. So find your why, write it down, get specific, combine your love and your hate. Be honest about what you really want and what you really can't stand anymore. And once you find it, once you really find your why, you'll stop arguing with good ideas.

20:31You'll stop protecting yourself from your own dreams. You'll challenge your self-doubt and your laziness, and you'll discover something interesting. The how becomes easy. Because when you have a strong enough why, you find your own how. That's the difference between people who achieve their goals and people who don't. It's not talent. It's not intelligence. It's not even money. It's why. And once you see that, you can't unsee it. Thank you for your time. Thank you for caring about your future. Thank you for understanding that you are the only one who cares about taking care of you. Take care.