Escape the Middle (eBook)

Switch on Your Millionaire Mindset and Build Wealth That Outlives You

Todd Polke (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
286 Seiten
Wiley (Verlag)
978-1-394-30401-1 (ISBN)

Infos

The usual money rules lead straight to mediocrity. Don't settle for it!

You've probably done everything in life that you were told to do: get educated, secure a job, work hard and be careful with money. And where did that lead you? Straight to the middle! But weren't you made for more?

Escape the Middle is your roadmap to breaking free - free from financial stress, the nine-to-five grind and the monotony of the 'middle' way of living. Inside, investment strategist Todd Polke shares the tried-and-tested techniques he's used to help tens of thousands of people live a life unlimited by income. Escape the Middle reveals how you can grow the mindset you need to align your beliefs, thoughts and actions with your financial goals. You'll discover that the decisions you make and the money habits you master are the real difference between being stuck in the middle and going after something bigger.

With this step-by-step guide to building unshakeable wealth and turning on your millionaire mode, you'll find:

• practical strategies to take control of your personal finances
• efficient systems to smoothly manage your money flow
• tips and tactics for getting started with investing
• methods to build a financial moat and protect yourself while growing wealth
• the tools you truly need to take back your freedom
• a healthy money mindset, free of the stress and worry

True wealth and financial freedom demand a radical shift - a hard 'hell no' to the norms we've been conditioned to accept. This book gives you the step-by-step path to break free, build your financial fortress and leave a secure legacy for your loved ones and the planet. Are you ready to plan your escape?

TODD POLKE is an investor, entrepreneur and international educator in investing and wealth creation. A devoted husband, father, and philanthropist, Todd champions 'wealth with purpose', aligning financial success with meaningful impact.

Textauszug

CHAPTER 1
WELCOME TO THE MIDDLE

You may know this place … It's where most people tend to hang out in life. You may have arrived here just by following along with what everyone around you does, playing by the same set of rules and doing practically the same thing each and every day.

It can feel safe and certain in this place called the middle; after all, the path is well trodden. Yet the middle is also a place of unrealised potential.

You may find yourself feeling ‘middle happy’. Things aren't that great, but they're also not bad enough for you to feel the need to change course.

Maybe you feel trapped at a ‘middle income' level, exhausted, going round and round on the ‘work to pay the bills’ financial slavery hamster wheel. You know deep down there must be more to life than you can find in this space. But you have all these excuses and justifications for why it's too late or now is not the right time, or fanciful dreams around how you will do it one day when … (insert your excuse here).

Let's explore the pathway of the middle.

How did you get here?

Is this what you dreamed about when you were younger? Did you think to yourself, ‘YES! The middle is the place for me!’ Think back to when you were young … What did you then imagine was possible for you? Was there a limit to your potential? What did you dream life was all about?

Now think honestly about your current life circumstances. Look around you and consider for a moment, are you where you want to be in life? Did you hope to be further along in some way? More stable financially, having further progressed in your career? Experiencing more happiness and joy or a fulfilling relationship?

Ask yourself, how did you get here?

Middle comfort

Somewhere along the way on this journey called life we start to build walls around us to stay safe. These walls are based on all the experiences we have had in life, and our conclusions about what is safe and what is unsafe. These beliefs tend to confine us to a ‘safe room’ within walls we ourselves have built.

Imagine yourself in this space. By the time you read this you may have spent most of your life right here inside these walls. You know how high they are and how much room you have to move around within them. You know which rooms feel good and which feel less so.

As you stand there just noticing, your eyes settle on the first wall right in front of you. The wall is adorned with intertwined hearts; they seem quite beautiful. You notice there's a word etched on the wall, right in the centre. You look closer to make out what it says and you read the word ‘relationships’.

Your relationship wall signifies all the ways in which you hold yourself back in your relationships. Behind this wall you stick to what is a safe level of connection for you. You may block yourself from fully committing or expressing your true feelings because past experiences have left scars, and the fear of getting hurt again is overwhelming.

You settle for a middle level of intimacy or connection.

Turning to your right, your gaze settles on the next wall and again you notice markings, including currency symbols and pictures of things you relate to money and wealth.

Your money wall represents the fears you hold about money, debt and investing. Behind this wall, you stick to what you know: your spending habits, your savings account and perhaps even some safe investments. You avoid financial risks because the thought of losing money is daunting. You may dream of investing in a new venture or starting a business or creating financial freedom, but the fear of failure keeps you behind the safety of this wall. Here, your financial life tends to stay more or less on the same trajectory. For better or worse, it is fairly predictable, but you may be missing out on opportunities to grow your wealth and achieve the financial freedom you deeply desire.

Another wall represents your day job. Your work wall constitutes the professional comfort zone you've built for yourself. Behind this wall you follow a routine, sticking to tasks and roles you've become accustomed to over time. You may be driven only by job security, afraid to go after what you truly want in life because you feel chained to a regular paycheque.

But are you truly happy in the place where you spend the biggest share of your time? Are you earning what you are worth, given how many hours you sacrifice here?

This wall may provide you with security, but it does so at the cost of confining you to a career path that may not allow you to realise your full potential.

You turn towards the final wall, emblazoned with the Yin-Yang symbol. This is your health wall. It reveals all your physical, mental, and emotional habits and routines. Do you push yourself to burnout, sacrificing too much of your life in pursuit of greater financial success? Or are you coasting, living far below your potential?

Have you caused yourself anxiety, stress and overwhelm, but avoided supportive practices such as meditation? Have you neglected your physical health by consuming junk food and skipping exercise?

This wall is often built on excuses:

• I'm too stressed.
• I don't know how.
• I'm too tired.

And, of course, everyone's favourite: I don't have time.

As a result, you can be left with a ‘middling' level of energy, feeling dissatisfied about your body, with a mediocre level of clarity, achieving only a fraction of your health potential and watching this mediocrity affect other areas of your life.

You may be totally comfortable inside the walls you have built around you, because you feel like you can predict what is going to happen next and you have a semblance of control, so you feel safe. But these walls have become a prison, crushing your potential and greatest joy in life?

One of these walls may feel more relevant to you than another, but the truth is each of them has the potential to hold you back in the other areas.

Take your finances and wealth building. A mid-level health wall may mean you don't have the energy and confidence to go after your dreams and ambitions to grow your income and raise your value in the market.

A mid-level relationship wall may mean you lack the connection, trust and understanding you desire with your partner. Fights around money will emerge if your money lenses (more on this later) clash in an already charged area of life, and getting on the same page can be a real challenge.

A mid-level work wall may trap you with the promise of a steady paycheque, sacrificing your potential, day after day leaving you feeling unfulfilled and earning only a fraction of what you're worth.

Most people I meet want more out of life than they are currently experiencing: more happiness, experiences, joy, meaning, money and choices. But the biggest risk of all in life holds them back: they are trapped by fear.

It's not your fault

It might feel like I'm laying the blame squarely on your shoulders for where you are in life and how you're feeling, good or bad. I'm not, but I am a big believer in taking total and unequivocal responsibility for your own actions and results.

The truth is that most people have been trained to live within the confines of their walls and ‘the middle’ their entire life.

Family and friends

When you were young you felt like everything was possible. If someone asked you what you were going to be when you grew up, the sky was the limit!

Then, bit by bit, your dreams and imagination were tempered by experience. Was it your parents or caregivers who told you to ‘get your head out of the clouds’, ‘be realistic’, ‘grow up’, ‘be responsible’ and ‘no, you can't have [or be] that'? Or perhaps you simply modelled your behaviour on their example.

But slowly you began to form a belief — conscious or unconscious —  that maybe all those things you once thought possible were beyond your reach.

Education

The education system teaches us to colour within the lines, dress in a specific way, stand in a straight line, act in uniform ways and do what we are told. Every student is taught and graded in the same way, following the same standard curriculum, despite each of us being different. Hang on … what if we don't learn in that format? What if our natural skill sets lie in other areas, and we deliver best results in different formats?

We're programmed to believe in uniformity. We're rewarded for adhering to established rules and discouraged from thinking outside the box. As impressionable youths, we prioritise acceptance over exploring our unique genius and forging our own paths.

Society

You graduate and step into responsible adulthood — which you already know entails being a reliable, hard worker — and you fall into the ‘work to pay the bills’ financial slavery system. The rules are established and the entire pathway of your life is laid out before you, because that's what everyone else does so it must be right.

We do what we've been taught to believe is right and become just another...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 19.3.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Beruf / Finanzen / Recht / Wirtschaft ► Geld / Bank / Börse
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management
• Schlagworte: Australian personal finance • behaviours • Budgeting • build wealth • debt • Decision-Making • financial independence • financial stress • grow wealth • Investing • investing strategy • middle class • money mindset • personal finance • personal finance book • Proven strategies • psychology of money
• ISBN-10: 1-394-30401-3 / 1394304013
• ISBN-13: 978-1-394-30401-1 / 9781394304011