Why Working Harder Hasn't Made You Any Richer, And What Your Brain Has To Do With It

Money comes in, and a few days later it has gone again.

You work hard, often harder than anyone you know. You have read a budgeting book or two, maybe started something on the side, and for a weekend you felt sure that this time things would change. By Monday you were back in the same habits, and by the end of the month the money had gone wherever it always goes.

It is easy to decide that some people are born with a head for money and you were not. Dr. Steve G. Jones used to believe exactly that about himself, and his story changed the way I look at the whole problem.

The clinic in Beverly Hills and the couch in the back

Steve is a clinical hypnotherapist with a doctorate in education from Georgia Southern University. He has worked with actors, directors, executives and star athletes, and Forbes reported that he charges $25,000 for a two-hour session. His start in life looked nothing like that.

He was six when his mother died of cancer. His father took it hard, and before long most of the family's money went on alcohol. Steve grew up certain of one thing: money is hard to come by.

Years later he had a clinic in Beverly Hills and a list of wealthy clients. From the outside it looked like success. The truth was that he had $80,000 of credit card debt and slept on the couch in his office because he could not afford a room. He was already working sixty-hour weeks, so effort was never his problem. Then a man from the bank walked in with a letter: pay $30,239 within three weeks, or be sued.

A couple of days later Steve bumped into an old friend, Dan, an entrepreneur, and asked to borrow the money. Dan refused to lend him a cent. Instead he sat Steve down in the coffee shop next door and talked to him in a slow, sing-song voice until the fog of fear in his head cleared. Steve walked out with an idea for the small online business he ran on the side. By his account, three weeks later it had netted just over $59,920, and a year after that, he says, his accountant called to tell him he was a millionaire.

When Steve asked what had happened, Dan's answer was short: "You had the brain of a poor person. So I gave you a new one."

Steve tells the rest of that story himself, in his own words, and you can watch his free video here.

Why your brain treats a good opportunity like a threat

Steve is a doctor, and a friend's say-so was never going to be enough for him, so he went looking for the science behind what Dan had done. His explanation is worth knowing even if you never buy anything.

Your brain's first job is to keep you alive. It evolved in a world where threats were everywhere and leaving the cave could get you killed, so it still treats new things as danger: new ideas, new opportunities, new ways of earning. It is not trying to make you fail. It simply prefers what it knows, because what it knows feels safe, even when that means being broke.

That is why a list of money tactics so often fades by Monday. In Steve's words, most money advice hands a list of tactics to a brain that is wired to treat anything new as a threat. The advice was fine, but the brain receiving it never changed.

The hopeful part is that the brain does not set like concrete. Scientists once believed it did, but neuroscience research has since shown that you can change your brain at any age, and that includes the way it handles money.

A small exercise you can try tonight

One idea from Steve's book costs nothing and takes no talent, so try it before you read any further.

Most of us steer ourselves with fear. I don't want to be in debt. I don't want to be broke at sixty. It feels responsible, but your brain skips the "don't". Tell someone not to picture a pink elephant and the elephant is all they see. Repeat "I don't want to be in debt" and the word your mind locks onto is debt. Fear also switches on your survival wiring, and a brain in survival mode stops noticing opportunities.

So flip it. Rewrite each fear as a specific scene you would be glad to see, with a number in it, and say that sentence every time the old fear shows up.

You catch the fear, you flip the picture, and your brain goes looking for the new one. The book is full of moves like this, and the hypnosis sessions are there to train your mind to make them on its own, so you stop having to remember.

The book and the hypnosis sessions Steve built from it

Steve has spent more than 20 years as a clinical hypnotherapist, and he says he has watched the same pattern again and again: once a person's brain stops treating money as a threat, the way they earn, spend and save starts to change with it. He put his whole method into one program, called Total Money Magnetism.

It comes in two halves. The first is the book, Total Money Magnetism: The Secret Neuroscience of Millionaires, a 202-page manual in four parts. It begins with how "poor brain" programming gets built, then walks through five fundamentals (mindset, millionaire relationships, passive income, selling and leverage), ten principles the ultra-wealthy live by, and how to end up rich and happy rather than just rich.

The second half is what sets it apart from the money books already on your shelf. The Six Step Millionaire Brain-Building Audio Program is six guided hypnosis sessions, each 33 to 40 minutes long. You lie back, put your headphones on and play one track a day for 21 days, then move on to the next. The first three clear out fear of failure, fear of success and scarcity, and the last three build in the millionaire skills of programming, strategy and passive income.

You need no hypnosis experience, because Steve guides every minute of every session, and there are no worksheets to fill in. As Steve puts it, a book changes what you know, and the audio sessions change what you do without thinking.

Is it worth a look?

If you have already tried working harder, reading more and cutting back further, and you are still in the same place, your effort was never the problem. The programming running underneath it is a far more likely culprit, and that is exactly the part Total Money Magnetism works on.

Entrepreneur and author Marni Kinrys put it well in her endorsement of the program: "Total Money Magnetism not only tells you HOW to reframe but it actually teaches you how to train your brain so that it automatically does it for you."

It is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It is an 18-week program of daily listening plus the manual, and it suits someone who is ready to put in that time. It is a download, so you can start the same day, and every order is covered by a 60-day, no-questions-asked, 100% money-back guarantee. If it is not for you, one email to support within 60 days gets you a full refund.

What you get with Total Money Magnetism

• The 202-page manual, The Secret Neuroscience of Millionaires, as a PDF, an ePub and a Kindle file.
• Six guided hypnosis sessions of 33 to 40 minutes each, one a day for 21 days per track.
• A 32-page Kickstart Guide and the full manual as an audiobook, for the car, the gym or while you cook.
• Three bonuses: The Millionaires' Mindset interview with Winter Vee and Mark Ling, Mark Ling's video class The 3 Fastest Ways To Make Millions Online, and three hour-long hypnosis tracks for procrastination, creativity and motivation.

Show Me Total Money Magnetism →Backed by a 60-day money-back guarantee.

Whatever you decide, try the flip exercise tonight. It is a good first taste of how much of your money story runs on old programming.

To your success,
[Your Name]

Read more about Total Money Magnetism here.