Of course, you are not.

You are not the kind of person who trips themselves up routinely. Or loves to blame the economy. Or tracks Powerball numbers the way Warren Buffett tracks the stock market.

Sometimes, your fears, ignorance or stuck behavior might stand in the way between you and wealth. You don’t see yourself as afraid of riches — but in reality, you might well be.

It’s unfamiliar You may need to increase your intellectual means to handle anything that’s unfamiliar — and that’s a documented phenomenon known as neophobia, “the tendency of an animal to avoid or retreat from an unfamiliar object or situation”

You don’t want to give up your non-necessities Identify your needs versus a want? Sounds like an easy question to answer, but many people don’t want to ask themselves that question — and diminish their investment potential as a result.

Manicures, landscapers and maids are not essential needs-Michael Chadwick, financial advisor at Chadwick Financial Advisors in Unionville, Conn.

Your thinking stinks Do not get hurt, but it is intimidating to drop that snarky anti-abundance stance. You must understand that your mind is a garden. … Uproot seeds of fear, frustration and defeat so you can change the harvest that you reap.

You’re reluctant to find allies to launch your big idea – Mastermind alliance: where one or more people help an entrepreneur reach their goals. If you’re reluctant to build a team, consider this.

·         Microsoft’s Bill Gates needed a Paul Allen.

·         Apple’s Steve Jobs needed a Steve Wozniak.

·         Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched Google together.

You agree that those companies did pretty

Fear of failure May be, we all are. Understand that fear of failing financially is primordial; It makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. How do you beat this? Get the fear out in front of you, rather than carry it around subconsciously, so that you take the first steps toward facing it.

You’d rather not be a target Money can inspire envy and jealousy from competitors, family members and friends. As the old proverb goes: ‘The nail that sticks up gets pounded down Then again, the other proverb says: ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained.'”

It’s too much to handle Money is congealed energy, and releasing it releases life’s possibilities. But for some, it has all the energy of a rabid pack of whack-a-moles. Solution: Build your wealth team as your investments grow — enlisting a planner, attorney, accountant or other helpers through rock-solid referrals, for example.

You’re into self-sabotage It’s hard to believe people on the road to riches would trip themselves up, but it happens. As Veland noted: “For some, reaching the pinnacle of success might trigger fears of ‘what next?’ Then, what to do next: Get support — from your business peers, trusted financial pros or, yes, a therapist — to stop the sabotage before it starts.

Rejection, rejection, rejection If you still pout about getting shot down for a junior prom date, you might loathe the thought of a venture capitalist or potential business partner dismissing your vision. There’re number of people with a great project proposal who never got anywhere because they were never quite confident enough to just take what they had and present it. So if you fear you have everything to lose, reframe it: You probably have nothing to lose.

Scarcity mentality To gain abundance, you must believe in and pursue abundance; it won’t simply fall in your lap. But it’s impossible to do that when you obsess about bills, obligations and the erroneous belief that there will never be enough. You can reverse this by taking stock of what you already have, expressing thanks for it and fixing your eyes every day toward the prize — one day at a time.

You hear your parents in your head While some parents teach their kids the financial ropes, others tie a noose around their money dreams. Families pass down enormous judgments, ideas and beliefs about money. Make sure your attitudes now are lining up with reality — not fears and traumas from the past.

You may not have set reachable goals — or any goals Achieving wealth is a goal in and of itself, which you can break down into a series of smaller actions. But do you know what those are? Or is getting rich a vague “wish” that “might” happen “someday”? Even if you take just the first small step on the journey, it will get you further than you are now.

You’re stuck in a rut Keeping the same yearly budget based on the same weekly paychecks can prove both oddly comforting and frustrating. That’s when it’s time to break the cycle, as Michael F. Kay, president of Financial Life Focus, noted in Psychology Today.                                                                                                     Dare to dream, set dates and dollar amounts to you milestones and celebrate your progress and your success. … Spend some time appreciating yourself and how well you are doing.”

You don’t want to revisit a past financial trauma If you’ve survived a bankruptcy, multiple layoffs or a financial scare, it can throw you into a survival mode where getting wealthy is the least of your concerns. It’s the idea that anything could happen and you could end up on the streets.

You don’t want to face the debt demon Is ignorance bliss — or the hiss of a money-sucking serpent? The average Gen Xer now carries an average credit card debt of $8,000, according to a July 2015 report by the Allianz Life Insurance Co. of North America. That could take you years to pay off, assuming minimum payments and a high annual percentage rate, and make the task of building wealth all the more hard.

You don’t know which financial pro to trust This might be more a question of confusion than fear — but either way, it’s sometimes hard to know whom to trust. So if you arrange a meeting with an advisor, ask your accountant, attorney or friend who’s knowledgeable about the investment world, to join.

You don’t want to look stupid Saving face at the expense of losing out won’t make you rich, but that doesn’t stop some of you. This can be especially true for women. In reality, you can understand the financial markets and investments — you just need to find someone who speaks your language. Read some books on investing that are simple and easy to understand.

Your friends will hate you You could say there are two ways friends are known to react to a peer who makes a fortune: Either they stick their hands out or their tongues out. No one wants to be left out of the clique, but look at it this way: If your friends don’t like you for who you are — rich, poor or otherwise — they weren’t your friends in the first place.

You don’t want to miss your favorite sitcoms — all of them OK, so “Seinfeld” reruns are funny. But spending nine lazy years of your life glued to the tube by age 65 is no laughing matter, according to Nielsen estimates. What if you dedicated just half that time to investing? Then you could, ahem, laugh all the way to the bank.

Please let us know if you want to know more.

 

Suresh Shah, Pathfinders Enterprise