 I grew up in a dark, poor village. When I mention poverty here, most people won't even have a picture in their heads to see what I'm talking about. So, let me try and paint a few pictures. Close your mind and imagine a village where only two people own a television. Close your mind in imagining a village where there was no single well water. Talk less of a borehole. Yes, we had to walk many kilometers to draw water. Civilization was so far from us that I never even thought it existed anywhere until I was about 13 or 14 years old. Now that you've seen some pictures of the kind of poverty I grew up in, let me try and show you how you can escape poverty if you were born by poor parents. If you're new here, don't forget to subscribe so that you won't miss other interesting videos like this. Poverty is not lack of money. Believe me, I know what lack of money is and I can give you some additional pictures. Take for instance, all my childhood, my father only bought me about two pieces of cloth and about two pairs of shoes. Even as a teenager, my father usually gave my mother about $2 to take to the market and eating fish or meat in our home was like eating gold. So, I know what lack of money is, but poverty is like an HIV and lack of money is like AIDS. HIV for the most part may not be visible for the outside world to see, but it is the real thing. Poverty is dipped down in the minds of those who are poor and it must have been there for a reasonably long time or from childhood before it can lead to lack of money. If you want to escape poverty, you have to understand and accept this truth because if you don't, there's no way you can escape poverty having to be from a poor family. So, how can we get the evidence to prove that lack of money isn't poverty? How can we prove the claim that poor people are first and foremost poor in their minds before they lack money? Again, I have practical experiences about this and here it is. I have two groups of friends. I have friends who are rich and I have friends who are poor. I only need you to follow me to meet these two groups and listen to our conversations and their words before you get what I'm saying here. So, it happens that whenever I meet with my poor friends, there are words and statements they make which I never heard any of my rich friends making. In other words, I do not doubt that poor people think in certain ways and rich people think in the opposite direction. This is the root of riches and poverty. I am convinced and I want to convince you. Growing up in a poor family comes with so many poisonous negativisms and I experienced this first hand, being the last child in a big family of 12 people. I had parents who told me Proverbs and Saints which came from poor minds. Some of those Proverbs and statements are, I don't harvest money on trees, meaning that money is scarce. Money is the foundation for more money, meaning that if you don't have money, you can't make money and the most poisonous sources of wealth are suspicious, which means that most people who are rich do evil things to get rich. Now, if you are raised by poor parents, I have no doubt you've been conditioned to be poor before you're an adult. This conditioning is slow but dangerously effective because it's a belief system. To add to this problem, if like me, you're from a big family and unfortunately the least in the family, what happens here is that your poor grandparents had successfully passed poor mindset to your parents, uncles, and aunties and those people have also succeeded in passing those mindsets to your elder brothers and sisters. Now, you have, like me, more than 10 adults who are older than you in the family. All these people expect you to come to them for advice and counsel. If you don't go to them, they are ready to dish that advice anytime you meet. Now, you see the problem? Your father always tells you that money is scarce, which by the way is a lie. Your uncle always tells you the story of how he became poor because he didn't study law at the university, which is another lie. Your brothers are telling you that the best way to get rich is to have 10 degrees, which is another lie. And your sisters always tell you that the reason why they are poor is that the government is bad. You're only 15 and everyone you look up to for advice simply tells you lies, even though they don't know they are lying to you. Tell me, how on earth do you want to become rich with that environment? So, the first thing to do to escape poverty if you were born by poor parents is to understand the source of poverty, which is how we think about money and the world around us. Little change in mind can lead to a big change in life. When I was around 20 years old, I read in a book that about four trillion dollars exchange hands in the world every day. That single fact changed the way I see money. You see, since I was a boy, I've always listened to my dad complaining that money is scarce and everyone else I knew from the society always uses different proverbs to say essentially the same thing. Now, at 20, I read that four trillion dollars exchange hands all over the world every 24 hours. Come on! That's a game changer for me because you can't possibly tell me that something so much that four trillions of it walk around is scarce. It just doesn't make sense, does it? If four trillion dollars exchange hands every day, then money isn't scarce. All I had to do is to learn how to make a tiny percentage of that amount to come to me every day. Today, a very tiny percentage of that amount comes to me every day. That's the power of a little change in mind. A little change in mind can, over time, lead to a big change in your life and that's what you have to focus on. Don't take any negative beliefs for granted because it can lead to reasonable poverty. If, for instance, you believe that money is scarce, though that single belief doesn't seem like a big deal, it will affect how you think about money. The size of your dreams and the courage you have in pursuing money. If you believe that the government or your employer is the reason why you're poor, though that's a simple belief, it will affect how you think about money, the size of your dreams and the courage in your daily actions. Because I believe so strongly that money is too much in the world, for example, I was curious to know how to make just a tiny percentage of the 4 trillion dollars that exchange hands every day to come to me. I threw away the TV. I have forgotten my negative friends and I read every book I could ever find about money. I simply wanted to know how to get a tiny percent of the trillions of dollars to come to me every day. And since I had believed that money is in fact too much in the world, every time I filled in the business world, I knew it's not because money is scarce for people to buy my products. It's likely because I don't know how to sell or my product sucks. It's always my fault and that's what a belief system does. Were you born by poor parents? Stop seeing poverty as a lack of money because it's not. In the real sense, lack of money is like AIDS. According to medical practitioners, HIV must have been in the body untreated for 10 years before it turns to AIDS. Take a break to think about this. HIV is not visible to the outside world. It's there, growing and gaining strength and it has to be there untreated for 10 good years before it turns to AIDS. The same thing happens with poverty. Poverty must have been in the mind for a long time before it manifest as lack of money. So if you want to escape poverty as someone who was born into poverty, your first duty is to undo every superstition, lie and dangerous belief you inherited from your parents and family members. But how can you do this? Like anything, I may not know how you can successfully throw away a poverty mindset but I sure know how I did it. I started by reading a lot of books, personal developments, finance, biographies, etc. Then I stopped spending much time with anyone who seems to have a poor mindset, including my family members. Yes, I like these people but because mindsets are contagious, I don't want them to infect me with their poor mindset. Yes, we can meet at a party and crack some jokes together. I can visit them for Christmas and eat chicken in their homes but I will avoid real or deep discussions that can get them to know my plans and goals because I know they will either tell me that it can't be done or that the economy is bad now. If you want to escape poverty having been born by poor parents, you have to check the route of poverty and uproot it. Poverty is like HIV. Lack of money is like AIDS. AIDS doesn't happen except there has been HIV for a long period. If this video makes sense to you, join our Money and Entrepreneurship channel in the description box. We call it Money TV. We love you.