What type of human being are you?  Are you independent or dependent?  This article is an exercise where I encourage you to ask yourself this question with bold, powerful honesty:  “What type of human being are you?”

Why?  Because self-awareness and honesty with oneself are the two of the biggest qualities that can change your life and lead you to wealth.

Are you dependent on others for your lifestyle?   Or are you in love with independence, and have the strength, vision, and discipline to create a life that you dream about?  We all like to think we’re independent of others for our future, finances, and happiness, but are we really?

I believe it’s simple to discover your wealth-building potential over the next 10+ years by comparing yourself against these two basic rules of building wealth:

The more independence you have in your blood, the greater your wealth-building potential will be.

But the opposite is also true:

The more dependent you are on others for money, self-esteem, and happiness, the lower your wealth-building potential will be.

These thoughts came crashing together inside my skull recently.  The mental lightning bolts I felt inspired me to write this post after I watched the below two short videos.  The way the characters in the videos acted stuck in my brain.  As I thought about these characters, and compared them side by side, I found that even though they looked very similar, they acted very different and probably had very different futures ahead of themselves.

I’ve posted the videos below.  Let’s watch them together. As you watch them, ask yourself, “Who am I more like?”

This first video is a comedy sketch.  It playfully pokes fun at the millennial stereotype of being lazy, entitled, and selfish.   Enjoy it:

Now watch the second video.  The character in this second video totally breaks the millennial mold that the first video made fun of.  The character in this video introduces a bold new narrative that millennials can be financially wise, and responsible with their decisions to build wealth.

The characters in the video were strikingly different to me.  They were all the same age, and generally looked the same.  But they had two different attitudes towards life and money.  It is these drastically different attitudes that will probably lead them to experience very different futures, experiences, and financial outcomes in life.

A light bulb went off in my brain as I watched the videos:  Success doesn’t care about what generation, race, or economic class you live in or were born into.  Success only cares about what type of human being you are, and what type of attitude you have toward money, life, and the people you surround yourself with.  

Now ask yourself boldly and bluntly:  what type of human are you?  Which type of character do you most often portray in your financial decisions?  Do you think independently to find your own answers to life’s mysteries?  Or are you dependent on others providing you the answers to your greatest questions?

So who are you?  Are you a character out of the first video?  An entitled, selfish, lazy person who is dependent on others (maybe a job, family, or government) to solve your problems and provide your needs?  Or are you like the young man in the second video?  Someone who pushes themselves to think independently, freely, and is willing to challenge the norm to blaze their own way through life?

I am convinced that how you answer this question, will tell you who you will become in life.

Remember this:

Independence leads to freedom and wealth.

Dependence leads to feeling lost, confused, and trapped.

I’ve found that one of the best ways to predict where you will go in life is to ask yourself this question:

What type of human being am I?  Am I independent, or dependent?   Because once you know who you really are, then you can start finding ways to transform yourself into the successful human being you want to be.

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