Expressing Gratitude

The author with Gerald Ratner.


I've recently had a few emails and messages about the evils of money and some suggestions that I shouldn't be encouraging people to get into debt.

Let me take a minute or two to explain a couple of things.

1.  Money is not evil.  The love of money is not evil.  There are a lot of bad things that are done by people who have a lot of money, but the evil is done by the person with the money not the money itself.
Money is also used for good.  It finds cures for disease. It helps build wells for life saving water.

It's like saying cars or airplanes are bad because one crashed killing someone you know.

As the late, great author Ayn Rand said "Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver."

In other words, all money does is exaggerate whatever character flaws or strengths you already have.

So it's not at all even close to evil.

Even socialism only works if there are enough capitalists to pay for it!


2. Debt is neither good nor bad.  There is however, good debt and bad debt.

Bad debt is consumer debt.

Using a credit card to pay for a holiday or buying a car, sofa, new extension...even in some cases a mortgage could all be classed as bad debt.

Good debt is debt that creates an asset or a ideally a cash-flowing asset.

So if you have a mortgage on a rental property, that's good debt. You have purchased an asset and the tenant pays the mortgage.

What we do here is we only deal with company debt not consumer debt.  The people and companies we deal with raise money to buy investment property.


So what's that got to do with gratitude?

Well if you're grateful for something you tend to get more of it.

Expressing gratitude can also help to stave off sadness, feeling sorry for yourself or even depression.

If you're thinking about something else or someone else and a grateful for it or for them, you can change the chemicals in your brain.

Expressing gratitude tends to make you more positive and positive people can spot the opportunities that pessimistic people cannot.

Positive people with a positive attitude who express gratitude and energy tend to attract more money into their lives, either by more sales or through investors.