I want, now, to briefly consider and destroy several great, erroneous ideas regarding the matter of money and money-making. The world, in its mistaken ideas about this phase of life, has built up several great mythical Giants of Mistaken Belief, which have stood with a drawn sword preventing thousands from coming into true success. There are seven of these great misconceptions which I wish to consider here:
1. There has been a belief that the way to get rich is to “work hard and save our money.”
2. The belief that when we get a dollar we take that dollar away from the rest of the world, and that the rest of the world is that much poorer.
3. The belief that our buying power lies in the dollar instead of in the great universal laws which underlie and are really a part of the great Law of Abundance.
4. The failure to understand that the Law of Growth applies to money, and to Prosperity, as well as to everything else.
5. The belief that the supply of money in the world is limited, and that hence our buying power is proportionately limited.
6. Ignorance of the great universal or spiritual laws which lie back of finance.
7. Ignorance of the difference between the earning power of money and the rental power of money.
Of course, a large book could be written upon the subject matter suggested in this chapter. Obviously, all we can do here is to briefly consider each one of the fallacies mentioned and see wherein the error lies, in order that we may come to the truth of the subject and so straighten out our own thought in the matter.
First: let us consider the fallacious belief that “the way to get rich is to work hard and save our money.”
This is the fundamental error peculiar to a large part of mankind. I leave it to any mechanic if I am not right when I say that a machine which is “working hard” is doing poor work and tearing itself to pieces. A machine which is working smoothly, efficiently, is not “working hard,” but working easily, without friction, without strain. The same is true of us. When we are “working hard” we are not working in the line of work for which we were intended, and we are not working smoothly nor efficiently. When we are in the work we love, the work for which we were intended by the Universal Mind, we may work long hours, we may work continuously and intensely, but we work joyously, lovingly, happily and successfully, and we will never do our best work nor our most successful work nor get the largest return financially for our work until we are in the work we love to do so well that we hate to stop working. Then we can make money.
Again, the way to get rich is not to “save our money” but to intelligently invest it. The rental power of money, which the bank gives us as interest for the use of our money, usually a mere 4% or 5%, is too small to ever do very much toward making us rich, but a very few hundred dollars properly invested, can make more for us than a man constantly employed at daily wages.
Someone has said:
“I can’t make much, working with my hands alone;
I can’t make much, working with my head alone;
I can’t make such an awful lot working with both my hands and my head;
But, when I get my money working for me, then I can make money worthwhile.” But, it is of the most tremendous importance that we learn how to Intelligently invest the money, because until we do know exactly the ground on which we stand and understand which investments are absolutely sound and safe and which are mere gambles, we had better far keep our money in the bank.
But, to the man or woman who will learn scientifically how to safely invest his or her money and know intelligently how to put his money to working for him, there is a great law of compensation and earning power undreamed by many. But, there are innumerable pitfalls for the man or woman who has not so learned to distinguish the natural and safe investment from the wildcat schemes which are being constantly offered to the public and in which such vast amounts of money are lost. We must KNOW the difference between the safe investment and the promotion schemes which are such a dangerous temptation to the average man or woman without the proper knowledge and understanding of how these schemes are carried through.
It is not “saving our money” which makes us rich, but wisely investing it. But, note, I say “wisely” investing it, and in order to wisely invest our money we must make a careful and comprehensive study of the matter of investment.
Second: When we make a dollar, we have not taken that dollar from the rest of the world nor made the world poorer. On the contrary we have made the world richer. Have you ever stopped to consider that every time a dollar changes hands it multiplies its buying power? A dollar may change hands a dozen times, and each time the person to whom it comes gets a dollar’s worth of buying power. Therefore, if that dollar changes hands a dozen times, it has had twelve dollars of buying power. If it changes hands a hundred times, it has had a hundred dollars of buying power. It is when money is circulating freely that we have prosperous times. When we begin to fear hard times, fear to spend the dollars we have, we take those dollars out of circulation; and the result of this, if carried very far, is that we have a money panic and hard times.
In our large cities the average amount which goes through the Bank Clearing House each day is more than fifty times as much as the actual money in the city. That is, each dollar of actual money has a buying power of at least fifty dollars, by the fact of its changing hands fifty times and each person having a dollar of buying power out of it. If it changes hands but three or four times, it has but three or four dollars of buying power and only three or four people have had the benefit of it, whereas at least fifty people should have been benefitted by each having the use of its buying power of one dollar for every person into whose hands it came, as it would if it had been kept in circulation.
Here we see the great Law of Prosperity: “Give, and it shall be given to you again; good measure, pressed down and running over, shall men give into your bosom.” Again, “There is that scattereth and yet increaseth, and there is that withholdeth more than is mete, yet tendeth to poverty.”
Third: The true road to wealth is to find some service which the world needs, either a new service not heretofore rendered, or else a new and better way of giving an old service, which will cause the people to gladly give you their dollars in return for that service, which will, in other words, cause the dollars to change hands once more. Then, when we have the dollars, invest them again, send them on their way to bless the world, taking in return the service which we want from others, and again rendering the service which continually keeps the dollars coming our way and continually sending them on their way to multiply and grow and return to us.
Many of us are familiar with the old chain pump. We know that there was an endless chain, and every few inches on this chain there were little discs which caught the water and drew it up through the wooden pipe, so that a continual stream was kept flowing into the trough; and as fast as the disc emptied its load of water it returned to the well for a new supply. This is a fine illustration of the money-consciousness. Continually drawing from the great Universal Supply through our disc of Service rendered, and continually carrying it to the top of the well to discharge its load and send it on its way, knowing that there is an abundant supply for all our needs in the well.
Fourth: The Law of Growth applies to money as well as to everything else in the Universe. The physical body grows by constantly throwing off the old cells and making room for the new cells, building new cells to take the place of the old cells, the law of Biology, dividing in order to multiply. When a thing ceases to be active, to move on, to grow, it stagnates and decays and wastes away, and money does the same thing when it ceases to flow on its journey of usefulness.
Fifth: If money multiplies its buying power every time it changes hands, then the only limit there is to money, or to the buying power of money, is the limit we set by not causing it to change hands in accordance with the great Law of Life which is, service rendered, service received; more service rendered, more service received. The river which stops flowing becomes stagnant and a menace to the community. Money, hoarded, becomes a curse to the possessor by reason of his failure to cooperate with this great universal law, and it works loss to others by its inability to circulate.
Money is limited as to the amount of its buying power at one turnover, but there is no limit to the number of times it can turn over and every time it turns over it multiplies its buying power, or more people have the benefit of its buying power. This is the secret of Capitalists making money. The secret of the poor man’s poverty is that he hangs onto his money instead of sending it on its errand of buying in intelligent investment.
Sixth: When we come to understand these great, stupendous, universal laws which lie back of the law of prosperity, we will see that the only way to prosper is to come into conscious cooperation with these great laws.
Seventh: It is up to us to learn the difference between the rental power of money and the earning power of money. We need to study the laws back of Finance. It is strange, when people the world over are giving their lives to the struggle of earning money, that so very few give any time or attention to the study of the laws which govern in finance and the handling of their money after it is so earned. So much time and work are devoted to earning our money and so little thought or attention to learning how to make our money work for us in safe channels.
The Money Bible
Excerpt From
