Can You Attract Money with Your Thoughts and Beliefs?

The reality of money and wealth is...the game is rigged.

Photo by Max Letek on Unsplash

The other day I watched a short discussion about wealth and money beliefs between a popular podcaster and a popular self-improvement author. 

The podcaster asked, “[What’s your] thoughts around the identity of money and the psychology of how it plays in our lives? Because a lot of people want to make more, want to attract more, but they are just struggling with the concept of it.”

What followed were classic talking points about wealth and money beliefs from mainstream self-improvement. The self-improvement author said, “If you heard ‘Money is the root of all evil.’ ‘Money is bad.’ ‘Only certain people are allowed to make money.’ ‘You have to work hard to make money.’ That becomes your foundation subconsciously…”

That discussion is an example of delusional and magical thinking about money and wealth. It’s detached from the reality about how money and wealth originate and flow. Your beliefs about money have nothing to do with how much or how little money you got. Your worldview and self-esteem, however, are partly shaped from your beliefs, but no matter what kind of money beliefs you have, money is not energy or something you attract. Money is an agent of our economic activity. 

The reality of money

Money is lent into existence with interest. Because of this structure, there is always more debt than money. Our entire economic activity is in service to this debt, which can never be paid in full. That is why we must continuously grow the economy and fixate our lives on economic activity. In other words, we must create more money and convert relationships and nature into capital, or else…BUST! 

The structure of our money system—the economy—is “rigged” by design. It’s much like the game of musical chairs. In that game, there are more people than there are seats; this structure builds scarcity into the game. Once the music begins the built-in scarcity forces us into competition. Everyone runs and scrambles for their seat, elbowing and pushing each other along the way. The fast and strong—wealthy and privileged—get their seats. The weak, unfortunate, compassionate, and disadvantaged—everyone else—have no seats and lose the game. In the real world, however, the stakes are much higher than “losing a seat.” Losing in our money system means going bankrupt, homeless, hungry, becoming destitute, or all and any of the aforementioned. It’s this fear that drives self-interest and the hoarding of resources and wealth. 

The notion that you can attract money and wealth through your belief system is unsubstantiated and nonsensical. If money was simply a function of beliefs or mindsets, nobody would be homeless or starving or marginalized or in debt or in poverty. Because honestly, who wants to see our fellow humans suffer? Deep in our hearts we don’t. But we are forced to choose between one’s self and other. This choice—which is forced upon us—shrinks our capacity to give. We unconsciously fear that “I” will be the one without a seat when the music stops. 

Despite the dysfunctional money system, you can change your relationship to money. You can ease the pain and fear around your money situation. You can have better congruency between your values and money. You can find your real strength, power, and safety regardless of your money situation. You can even have more money, if that’s what you want. It’s foolhardy, however, to expect money to magically flow into your life because of your thoughts and beliefs.

I commend you if you want more money. We all need our fair share and “enough.” I recommend focusing on your relationship with money. It’s a waste of time to focus on changing your money beliefs. Instead, discover the truths about how money actually operates in our society. Focus on bringing your income and expenses in alignment with your heart and values. Infusing Truth into your life will help you shed the delusions so you can make better and healthier decisions for your life and the world.