I was young, now I am old and I have come to realize that poverty indeed is a mentality.

The story is told of two men, one of them worked for an insurance company and the other, a commercial driver. The commercial driver started as an intrastate driver, making enough for his wife and three children.

Luckily, he was able to move to inter-state service and his earning increased drastically.

He was able to make at minimum #10,000 daily. His wife was a hairdresser, her shop wasn’t chic or anything close to that but she had great skills. Consequently, she was able to pull in about #5000 per day.

The man who worked for the insurance company, on the other hand earned #250,000 monthly, his teacher wife earned #60,000. They also had three children.

Both families sent their children to good but not pricey schools but while the insurance man lived in a two bedroom flat, the driver lived in a one-bedroom ‘face me, I face you’ house.

Some ten years later, the insurance man had been able to complete his own house which his family moved into while the driver still lived in the same house.

His constant excuse was that he was poor.

Now, I have never really been a fan of mathematics but I think I can see my way through a simple arithmetic. So I am compelled to calculate their income for accurate analysis.

The driver worked Monday-Saturday; that should be approximately 26 days in the month, rounding up his earning to about #260,000 monthly. His wife also worked same days and should in a month, earn about #104,000. Their family income as a whole in a month was therefore around #364,000 while the other family pulled in #310,000 monthly.

Now you see why I wonder.

The driver obviously earned more than the insurance man but still called himself poor. The major factors that contributed to his thought process were:

He underestimated his job.
He underestimated his income and most importantly,
He underestimated himself.

In his mind, he told himself he was poor and there was no way he could have accomplished much or improved himself till he had liberated himself in his mind first.

The other guy worked a white collar job and due to his environment probably, he thought rich and therefore accomplished rich things. He must have actually overrated his income and his income yielded much for him.

How long are you going to tie yourself down by how much you make? There is nothing you have that is too small, stop underestimating and limiting yourself. Your income will only yield for you what you expect it to.

You are what you think.

Till you liberate yourself and start thinking big, you will remain small, there is no miracle involved.

Poverty is more than lack of money, it is a mentality.