Why would anyone spend $300 on a Mont Blanc pen?
Let’s be honest. If someone wrote with a $300 Mont Blanc pen or a $3 BIC pen, you probably couldn’t tell the difference. They do the same job and both write.
And if you’re paying $300 only for a writing utensil, then you’re a fool.
…so why would anyone justify 100x the cost?
In 2017, Mont Blanc pulled $88,426,000 in revenue. So there’s definitely people buying these expensive pens. To me, it felt wasteful. Why buy a pen or pencil especially if they’re free? I just didn’t get it.
And I also didn’t understand why people would spend money on luxury cars and designer clothes. Not about that Gucci gang life. Sorry Lil Pump.
Like many of you guys, I didn’t grow up in a wealthy family. My parents worked their way into the middle class with multiple jobs. We weren’t broke, but weren’t lavish either; we lived within our means.
But here’s the thing. If it involved spending money, there would always be an argument… especially with my dad.
I still remember asking for things like internet, a cell phone, computer, and studying abroad in Hong Kong. Dad would just yell at me just for asking instead of working out a solution.
Even when I offered to pay, dad was still against it and yelled at me anyways. Over time, I built a belief that keeping money meant more than my own happiness.
Eventually I just stopped asking. I didn’t want to cause fights with the family. Instead I told myself… “I’m going to be rich so I won’t have to worry about this bullshit.”
How does money affect your life?
Look at the people around you. Maybe it’s your mom or dad. Or it could be your friends. How does money affect their life?
Do you want to go day by day fighting about money? Or living where you can never truly enjoy your hard earned money?
Earlier I told you about my dad, but my uncle was was trapped too. He was a multimillionaire and couldn’t spend a single cent. And of course, I grew up around other Asian families, who had the same money beliefs too.
I definitely didn’t want to live this way. Instead of spending all that time arguing, I’d rather spend it enjoying it. And that was why I wanted to go from middle class to the rich.
But there was a major problem. How could I grow a rich mindset and life that I wanted if everyone around me felt like there wasn’t enough?
Now ask… How does money affect your life?
When I made my first $130,000 with pharmacy, I had a poor mindset like my dad. As much as I didn’t want to be like him, I couldn’t part with my hard earned money even when I had enough.
I still felt poor all the time.
So I looked for solutions through books. Like most people I read Rich Dad Poor Dad. It was ok, but I felt like something was missing.
It wasn’t until I finished Dan Lok’s F U Money (free download) and finished his High Ticket Closer closer program. And I realized my BIGGEST problem.
I couldn’t understand how rich people thought. If I couldn’t think like a rich person, then how could I be fucking rich?
As my mentor Dan Lok says, “Napoleon Hill’s book is called Think and Grow rich, not save and grow rich.” And that was EXACTLY what I was doing.
The truth is you can never be rich with a poor mindset. A poor mindset is too worried about not losing. A rich mindset focus on playing to win and looking for opportunities.
Rich people buy expensive items entirely differently that poor people. And today I want to share with you the most life changing things I learned from the program.
Here’s what you’ll get by reading today’s article
You will not get some woo-woo spiritual shit about abundance or scarcity mindset. You will get real ass action steps on how to build a rich mindset as fast as possible.
Today you will learn the insider secret on…
- How rich people view luxury items differently from the poor and middle class
- The difference between a $3 and $300 pen
- Why it’s essential to have luxury items in your presence even if you aren’t materialistic
- My favorite book that helped change my mindset from a poor to rich mindset
So if you want to know how to build a rich mindset as fast as possible, read on.
This article isn’t for you if…
Are you going to complain that a $300 pen is wasteful? Are you one of those people who will do nothing and continue to bitch about not having enough money?
If you answered yes, stop here. If you aren’t open minded, you won’t actually reap the benefits of this article. But before you go, let me ask you. Is that your rich or poor mindset talking?
You have a choice. Stop here and continue to be miserable doing nothing. Or make the decision to keep an open mind with the possibility of being richer and giving more to others.
The choice is yours.
…still here? Good.
What was money like for you growing up?
Trash bags meant paper and plastic grocery bags. Eating out meant sharing a $1.50 Costco hot dog drink combo together and refilling it over again.
If there was one word I could describe how we grew up, it would be resourceful.
I’m not complaining. Those were some of my best childhood memories. And for awhile, I thought the roadmap to being rich meant…
- Buying a Toyota Camry and keeping it forever (The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley)
- Avoiding accidental spending by cutting up your credit card (The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey)
- Wearing free casino shirts so you could invest your way to millions (my uncle, the first multimillionaire I met)
The people around me and the books I read emphasized living below your means and prioritizing financial security over social standing.
I’m not bashing those habits. Living within our means took us from broke to middle class. But here was the problem…
When I made my first six figures with pharmacy, I did exactly that. I didn’t buy the BMW or designer clothes. Instead I invested most of my money and saved the rest.
Even though my bank account was growing, I still felt poor all the time.
The truth I was trapped in my own financial prison
I remember I wanted to see Thor back in the day, but couldn’t pull the trigger. I kept debating… Do I have enough money? Well if spend this money, is there something else I can spend it on?
Keep in mind. I was debating over a $15 movie ticket when I was making 6 figures. Every time I stopped myself from actually enjoying money and couldn’t enjoy my hard earned work.
Whether it was going to Coachella or taking a vacation to Asia, I would stop myself every damn time because I kept thinking about cost.
As a result, I didn’t go on any vacations until working after 5 years. I didn’t visit my family for the holidays because it was too expensive to travel back.
The thing about cutting back is that it tells yourself… there isn’t enough money. It subconsciously builds a scarcity mentality and association with money.
I never asked… How can I get this or make this into an opportunity? Remember what I said earlier.
A poor mindset plays the money game not to lose. A rich mindset plays the money game to win.
Who the hell wants to live like this?
And more importantly, do we have to live like this to be rich?
I wasn’t poor because of my bank account. I was poor because of my mindset. If I didn’t get past this bullshit, then I could never be rich.
No lie. I appreciated all the lessons that my parents taught me. But the truth is sometimes what gets you here, can’t get you there.
Let’s see how a rich and poor mindset look at a big house with a 10 car garage.
- Poor mindset: “I can’t afford this!” or “That’s too expensive”
- Poor mindset: “How can I afford this?” or “How can this make me money?”
And this is what separates the rich from the poor. Am I telling you to go YOLO and buy a house with a 10 car garage? It depends. If you can’t turn it into an opportunity, don’t do it.
A poor mindset will look at the house and look it as a liability or money leaving your pocket. A rich mindset will look at that same house and find ways to turn it into asset or money going into your pocket.
What I’m saying is that we should be focused on making more rather than cutting back all the time. There’s always more money to be made.
Why work so damn hard if you can’t enjoy your money?
When I started working as a pharmacist, I spent every holiday working at the pharmacy away from home.
This meant I missed almost every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Chinese New Year with my family. Sometimes I would spend it with family. Other times I spent it alone.
My family understood why I couldn’t come back home, but I visited them whenever I could. After living like this for 5 years, my dad passed away.
And it wasn’t until then I asked myself… Why am I working so damn hard for? Like I’m getting this money, but what’s the fucking point if I can’t enjoy it?
The truth was I was scared. I was in a career that was supposed to be stable and guaranteed. But the only thing guaranteed never taking a chance, feeling trapped, and unhappy with my life.
I was depressed and jobless with no idea what I wanted to do with my life. My friend recommended Dan Lok’s book “F U Money”. Something hit me.
If I felt like there was never enough money, then how could I spend it on the things that I loved? If I really truly wanted to be rich, then I had to start with my mindset and I had to start surrounding myself around the rich.
Why I bought a $300 Mont Blanc pen
From elementary school to college, the only pens and pencils I used were…
- Crappy used BIC pens with the chewed caps that were on the floor
- Free college fair pens
- Viagra pens that always went missing in my pharmacy
Eventually I graduated pharmacy school. Every once in a blue moon, I would get the G2 gel rollers from a drug rep. Those were so smooth.
So one day I decided to go to Target, stood in the aisle, and debated whether I should buy it or not. Let me repeat.
I WAS MAKING $150,000 AND I WAS DEBATING TO BUY A $3 G2 PEN FROM TARGET. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
I eventually decided to do the G2 hack with the Mont Blanc refills. That way I could get a “baller” feel of a pen with only $12. I thought I was pretty slick, but honestly it was my broke mindset talking.
That is an exact example of how poor my mindset was. So what changed? How did I go from buying a $3 pen to a $300 pen?
It wasn’t because I suddenly became materialistic. Even to this day, I still don’t give a fuck about Lambos or Rolex watches. Even though that Tesla looks nice though.
It wasn’t an impulse buy. Buying a $300 Mont Blanc pen was 100% intentional. Simply I bought it as a wealth trigger to grow my rich mindset and change my environment.
Where are you spending most of your time?
Have you ever thought about how your environment makes or breaks your success?
Let’s pretend that you want to build a multimillion dollar business. You have two choices of where you want to start it up.
- Option 1: LA’s Skid Row, where most of LA’s homeless population are located in tents.
- Option 2: A Tiger 21 meeting, where richest people in the world are helping each other.
Where do you want to be? Where are you more likely to succeed?
Damn right you want to be at Tiger 21. And the truth is no one builds a multimillion dollar business from LA’s Skid Row. Why?
Your environment determines the type of people you hang with, the resources available, and the way you feel. It’s one of the reasons why it’s so hard to do homework in bed or why it’s almost impossible working out from home.
How do you think those things will affect your mindset? Is your environment growing your rich or poor mindset?
This is why you’re more likely to meet a MLM recruiter at a free meet up event. Millionaires? They don’t go to those events.
Am I saying never go to a meet up? Definitely not. I’ve met some of my best friends there. But ask yourself… Am I spending more time in rich or poor environments?
A wealth trigger around is an easy way to change your mindset and environment and is essential for growing a rich mindset.
Every wealth trigger MUST do these 3 things
Here are the 3 things that wealth triggers MUST…
- Be in your face constantly
- Make you feel rich
- Make you feel uncomfortable either having it, buying it, or being around it
Some people buy Lamborghini’s. Other people, like Joe, buy luxury watches like Rolex. Everyone is different.
Those things are nice, but driving a new Lambo in the Hollywood Hills doesn’t make me feel anything. But there’s one thing that I’ve always valued and makes me feel rich.
It’s education… or KNOWLEDGE as Tai Lopez would say. So it made sense for my wealth trigger was a Mont Blanc pen.
Let’s pretend these different scenarios.
How different would it feel using a $300 pen vs a $3 pen?
- You wake up watching the sunrise. With a cup of coffee in one hand and a pen in the other, you start writing your goals and all the kick ass amazing things you’re going to accomplish that day.
🖊Which pen would make you take your goals more seriously?
- You’ve been thinking about starting a YouTube channel since high school, but never pulled the trigger. Or maybe you’ve always dreamed about starting business you’ve always dreamed of. Maybe it’s a food or boba truck. You start writing your business plan…
🖊Which pen would make you take your business more seriously?
- Maybe you spent $120,000 to go to pharmacy school. Or you’ve paid $10K to go to a mastermind learning from from someone Dan Lok, Gary Vee, or Tony Robbins. You’re sitting in the crowd taking notes.
🖊Which pen would make you take your learning more seriously?
- Maybe your boba truck business takes off. You setup a multimillion dollar contract doing a joint venture with someone you’ve always looked up to. The only thing missing? They need a pen to sign the agreement.
🖊Which pen do you hand to them?
The rich mindset pays $300 for the mindset when you pickup the pen. Because we all know what a cheap $1 bic pen feels like. It cheap and disposable. Sometimes it writes and other times it doesn’t. When it does, it’s splotchy.
What happens when you write out a business plan with a cheap, disposable, unreliable, half assed pen? You bring those exact things to your business. Why the fuck would you want to do that?
But let’s be real. Is an expensive ass pen going to magically get you everything that you want? Of course not.
Luxury items aren’t important because of their cost. It’s essential to have luxury items in your presence even if you aren’t materialistic. Why?
What will get you there is the right mindset with the right action. A wealth trigger isn’t important because of it’s cost. Wealth triggers help us with growing a rich mindset.
So which pen do you want? The $3 bic pen? Or the $300 Mont Blanc pen? 🖊
Pick your wealth trigger
So maybe you’re like… Kevin do I need to buy a $300 pen? Of course not.
I recommend a Mont Blanc pen because everyone will need a pen at some point in their lives.
But if you do use my affiliate link buy your MontBlanc Meisterstuck Le Grand Platinum here with a Mont Blanc Fineliner refill. You won’t regret it 😎
Click here for your Mont Blanc Pen
Keep in mind everyone is different. Some people like designer suits. Other people like watches. The only thing that matters is what you care about.
But what happens if you don’t have enough money to buy a $300 pen? Easy. Start growing your rich mindset and be creative.
Here’s an example
If you’re broke then here is something you can do after school or work:
- Look up the most baller 5 star hotel
- Walk into the lobby
- Sit there for at least 20 minutes reading a book, watching Pornhub, or doing some work. If you’re up for it, “set up a business meeting” with a friend.
No lie. At first, it’s pretty damn uncomfortable. You might feel like everyone is watching you. Or that you’re being too bougie. But fuck that.
What you’re doing is subconsciously telling yourself that you’re comfortable with wealth. I mean if you aren’t comfortable now, then when?
As I’m writing this article, I’m actually at the InterContinental. That’s the thing. I’m not a “guru” telling you this shit. I’m a practitioner and actually do what I’m telling you.
Do three steps if you want a rich mindset
Step 1: Pick your wealth trigger
As a reminder it must…
- Be in your face constantly
- Make you feel rich
- Make you feel uncomfortable having it, buying it, or being around it
Be creative. What are some places that you’ve always imagined going to if you had a rich lifestyle? Or what’s something that you’ve been thinking about for years?
Can’t decide? If you need ideas I recommend…
- Buying a Mont Blanc pen with the Fineliner refill
- Find the closest 5 star hotel
Step 2: Reprogram your mind and read F U Money It’s free.
Chances are if I love this book, you will too. As one of Dan Lok’s students, I got a free copy for F U Money for you guys. All you have to do is click on the link.
I read this book in less than a day and it was one of the most life changing books. Also check out his free webinar here. Pro tip? Take notes.
Step 3: Leave a comment about this post
Contrary what people think you can’t be rich without giving value. Think about it. Would you just give money for the hell of it?
So start building your rich mindset by commenting and adding value for other Refugee Hustlers.
Let me know in the comments…
- What is your wealth trigger?
- Why did you pick it?
- Write about your experience (eg… how did it feel going into the hotel)
- What you thought about F U Money
- How do you feel about your new Mont Blanc pen with the Fineliner refill 😎
Isn’t it time that you start building a rich mindset? 💸
If you’ve made it this far, I just wanted to say thank you for reading this post in its entirety. My goal is to help us grow together. See you at the top.
Until next time,
Kevin the Refugee