There are a lot of people who think that there is something evil about earning large sums of money. I think it isn't the money that is evil, but what you do with the money can be for good or for evil. That's your choice. All the charities and good causes on earth would be lost if there weren't for people donating money and how can you donate if you don't earn it. I think you have to address your own views on money, otherwise they can hold you back from achieving success.

Our views are a mish mash of everything we were told as a child and what we have learned since then via our education, what we read and what we watch on TV and so on. Especially if you grow up in a poor family (like I did) there is a general distain and cynicism that develops towards wealth and the wealthy. This can be very hard to overcome. But you really have to get out of "poverty consciousness", otherwise, you won't want to take risks with your precious money and often in business you have to spend money to make money. You will also always feel guilty at charging a higher price for your time or for what you produce. This can be really negative because often if you are too cheap your clients will think that what you are producing isn't good quality.

It has always helped me to take the approach that money revolves from one man to another like the wheels of wagon. I read this analogy once in some ancient Vedic literature and it has always stuck with me and I have found it a very good approach to take. You have to take a more objective approach. You have to realize that our whole economy is based on the flow of money and you have to go with the flow and accept when it flows in your direction. At times, you might also have to accept if it flows away from you. There is always give and take in business.

I think there is also a perception that people who run businesses are less intelligent. But I think it doesn't take long to work out that even if you have a triple PhD, you can't ever really generate a lot of wealth if you work for someone or run a service business. You are always limited by how many hours of work you can do a week and there is generally a limit (albeit this can be very high) of what your work will be worth per hour. So the people who run businesses, especially "product" based businesses, are really the smart ones because there is no limit really on how popular your products can become and how many of them you can sell.

Even though I have a degree in science and I was earning a good living as a technical writing consultant in Sydney, Australia, I realized that it would never make me a millionaire and that it would also mean I would always have to work in the city. So I started my business www.merrimysteries.com 14 years ago. I have written over 20 mystery party games and I sell them via the Internet to clients worldwide. I have automated my order forms and the delivery is as Adobe Acrobat files (pdfs) via email and download. There is no real limit on how many customers I could have per day.

As a child whenever someone made the usual sexist comment like, "Wouldn't you like to marry a millionaire", I would always reply with "No I want to make my own millions thank you". At one point I even had the chance of marrying a millionaire - thankfully it didn't work out for other reasons - mainly the fact that he was a workaholic. I haven't made my first million yet, but I am working on it. Now I also have a little bit of free time in which I can write articles like this one. I would like to help other people to realize that they deserve to receive all the riches that can shower upon them as long as they are prepared to use it for good causes and no one suffers in the process.