I just finished reading the book “Make the Switch to Being Rich” by Steve Capellini – a massage school instructor and author of a few other books on massage (The Massage Therapy Career Guide)
In this book, he tells the story of how he was once a member of the ‘Moonies’ group and was brainwashed. His father kidnapped him away from this group along with a guy named Ted Patrick who ‘deprogrammed’ him. The process is fascinating and his explanation of how our brain works is simplistic and very understandable. Basically we all have been brainwashed to a certain extent and live our lives in what he calls ‘a moneyless bubble’. Our family histories, society and culture define who we are to be. We continue the legacy by joining groups and choosing professions that think in similar ways and continue to prove our beliefs. We think that we would rather be good or do good than make money. We equate making money as somehow being bad. We think that money is the root of all evil. We think it is more noble to live in poverty and not want things.
He explains the process of brainwashing and how the brain works. When we think thoughts we think with every cell in our bodies basically. To change a thought and belief you can’t just say – I am going to change that thought. What needs to happen is that you challenge the belief enough to the point of non-belief and one day even just the simplest thing will make your mind snap -as he calls it. When he was describing his deprogramming process – there was one day that the guy just said – ok you are going home. And that was the moment that all changed for Steve. All of the thought challenging that went into him the few days before just clicked into place. That’s how your beliefs about money can change.
The way we learn the best is through experience. By trying new experiences we can develop a new way of thinking and change our beliefs.
All of reality is just our mind projecting what we perceive the world to be. He says :
It is through experience that our brains are hardwired into a specific pattern. You become through being.”
No matter how many books you read on making money or changing your beliefs, they won’t really make any difference until you are able to integrate the experience of having more money into your being.
He has a 30 day program for changing that has some interesting suggestions like take improv classes to learn how to project yourself differently to the world, find a money mentor and learn to speak in public.
My favorite paragraph in the book is this:
I’ve spent my career working as a massage therapist in the health spa industry. If there is an entire group of people who are almost all inside the moneyless bubble, it’s massage therapists. We want to help people and heal them. We want to ease their aching muscles and soother their unquiet souls. We want meaningful interactions with our clients. We do not for the most part, want to focus on the monetary aspects of our jobs.
He also talks about sacrifice and how massage therapists will often end up sacrificing themselves at the expense of others thinking that this sacrificing makes us feel good or it may even make us feel good. Most of these sacrifices may not be sacrifices at all. He says “they are attention getting devices”.