Last year my biz did real well. I not only wanted to treat myself to a BMW but I also thought it would be a good move to showcase how well my coaching practice was doing. Sort of like a win-win. I could never have predicted the reaction of my community.

Naysayers

My entire family was against me buying a BMW. My Dad, the car buff and my husband, the Formula 1 enthusiast who revered his own red little sports car thought that BMW’s were garbage. In fact, all our friends who owned one said to get rid of it before the warranty ran out. Having been brought up on a steady diet of safe, reliable and high re-sale value Japanese cars, I was really nervous. So I did what any sane business woman would do: I asked my board of advisors at Groyourbiz. One successful wealth advisor told me to not even hesitate to do it. She said that her business had multiplied since she’d bought her Mercedes and that her clients often mentioned her car in a favourable light when talking to or about her.

Dream Comes True

Well, that was it for me. I had weighed the pros and cons and decided that the investment was really for my business. I picked out my gleaming baby and told my 5-year-old to keep his muddy feet off the beige seats. I was in a BMW euphoria. My husband complained it wasn’t peppy enough. The fan motor burned out in the first year and the supposed ‘never go flat’ run-flat tire shredded during our first 6 months on a long distance trip, almost leaving us stranded since the town we were in needed to wait 3 days to ship it in from a big city. But here’s the good news: the car got noticed and the business continues to grow.

The Haters

While all this was happening, I started to notice a very strange phenomenon. I started getting the finger a lot more often while driving. I got cut off in traffic more often. Large truck drivers would drive up close to me, establish eye contact and wave me off the road angrily. Now, you might be thinking that I might actually BE a bad driver who deserves all that but how did I so drastically change my driving habits  overnight after decades of driving without any major accidents, incidents or tickets? I had to conclude that it had to be the car that was getting different reactions.

The Why

I remember reading T. Harv Eker’s bestselling book ‘Secrets Of A Millionaire Mind’ and his description of how he would park his expensive convertible sports car in rough neighborhoods while delivering food to them. When he came back to his car, he’d find that people had filled it with garbage simply because they resented him having an expensive car. He then understood that people who have a scarcity mentality (who believe in eat or be eaten, there’s never enough of anything in the world, you have to fight for what you get etc.) are haters of rich people and expensive things. This is, in fact what keeps them from having money: their conscious or subconscious belief that having money or expensive things means that a person is bad or fundamentally flawed in some way.

In My Backyard

I was further reminded of this phenomenon when I saw a Facebook post last night in my stream. It was written by a local business development coach who I’ve met often at various trade shows and networking events.  This is what she wrote:

Saw a very expensive car in Mississauga today that had advertising on it promoting a personal training business. I would not hire them because I do not help people buy an expensive car. They can have an expensive car but do not remind me that I helped you buy it. Stopped being a graphic designer’s client in Boston when she walked in one day and asked to show off a new BMW.

It was no different from the people who were throwing garbage into Harv’s car or people giving me the finger in my new BMW.
So if you have feelings of resentment and are triggered by money and someone’s BMW, be assured that it’s the #1 reason why you don’t have more. It took me a lifetime of self-development to understand that and I’m still struggling with it every day as I grow my own small business.
Money is just a thing. You are the one who puts a negative or a positive emotion to it. It’s a thing that allows you to do more. Be more and give more. Once you can divorce yourself from the emotion, that’s when you will truly be free. At least that’s how it has been for me.
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