When we’re building something, or becoming something – so in this case, we’re building our wealth – we start to allow our identity to be based on our finances. And it’s natural, because that’s who we’re becoming, we see ourselves growing and changing, becoming more successful or growing our wealth… We’re seeing ourselves as that person. But it can be dangerous, because that can all be stripped away from us. There are things that can happen outside of our control.
In fact, they say that most people on their journey to success will lose it at least twice. They’ll lose it in divorce, they’ll lose in market cycles, they’ll lose it from taking risks, they’ll lose it in a number of different ways. In fact, I’ve heard it said from people that are extremely successful, we’re talking eight to nine figure net-worths, oftentimes won’t do business with people that haven’t at least lost their worth once or twice. Because they haven’t gone through those really tough battles and they don’t want to do business with somebody that hasn’t gone through it because it changes them, they become a different person, they become wiser.
We don’t want our identity to be dictated by our finances, because that can be stripped awa or lost. The reason I’m talking about this is because it happened to me last year and the year before. In 2019 through about fall of 2020, that’s what I went through my divorce and essentially half of my finances were gone overnight. It took me 10 years to build it, and then six months to lose half of it. I’ve never gone through depression my entire life. I’ve always been a positive person. But then suddenly, everything I worked for, or at least half of what I worked for was gone and as a result I went through a depression for months, and couldn’t really figure out why. I was bitter and angry, lethargic, all the stuff that severe depression causes and it’s because I had all my identity wrapped up in my net worth, my balance sheet, my assets, etc. The reason why it’s so hard not to get our identity wrapped up in that is because that’s what people see. People see our results and that’s what we become known for. If we’re known as being a millionaire and having lots of assets, or an author with some classic novels, or an artist with some classic pieces of art… whatever it is, that’s what people see us as, people see those results and therefore they identify us as being successful. And whenever other people see us as something we often see ourselves in the same way. It’s very hard not to identify that way. It’s hard not to identify ourselves as something when other people see us as that.
So how do we change that? How do we identify as something different when everybody sees us as something else? The trick is to identify with what causes us to become wealthy or what causes us to become successful. We’re not successful when we become wealthy, rather we become wealthy from being successful. The things that make us successful are our habits, our discipline, our drive, our wisdom, our knowledge, our patience, our skill sets, our network, etc. and that’s what we want to identify with. Because even if our finances get stripped away, we still have those, and that’s the core of who we are. That’s the core of what makes us successful.
