Want to Be a Millionaire? Start Talking Like One

This is the first article from Loral Langemeier, a financial coach and author. Click here for a list of her articles.

Many Americans are having a conversation about money that needs to change if they want to become millionaires. In fact, just the phrase "manage your money" is thinking way too small.

Traditional thinking about money is a model that plans for poverty. And it's the wrong conversation. Instead of talking about "managing" our money, we should be talking about "growing" our money, about building our wealth. Christopher Columbus didn't come across to America just for people to get jobs and have 401(k)s; he wanted to have freedom!

Everyone wants to become a millionaire. It's the American dream. Unfortunately, the conversation about reaching financial freedom is usually around "conventional wisdom" and is driven by how we've been conditioned about money our entire lives. It's about scarcity-thinking and scrimping and saving for a future when there might be hard times and cutting back on the things we love -- like a $3 latte, for instance. This is thinking small and planning for poverty. Who wants that?

Now, if you're depriving yourself of a daily latte, then you're trying to save $90 a month. That's about minimizing, not creating and expanding. I have a better idea: Go create more money, learn to earn, so that spending $90 a month isn't even an issue. Let's make some cash!

I teach my clients how to use Wealth Cycle Investing. This is using your skills to build your own cash machines and then to invest directly in double-digit-return assets. Yes, assets with double-digit returns: We do it all the time. Most people do what I call "park and pray." They park their money in typical Wall Street stocks, IRAs or 401(k)s and pray for financial security down the road. Park-and-pray is not what I call a good investment strategy. And it's a lousy conversation.