One of the neat things about Fable is the ability to play either a good or an evil character. Good characters perform civic duties, protect citizens against bandits, support their families, and generally don’t break the law. Evil characters rob people, kill indiscriminately, take what they want from shops and stores, and wreak havoc on society in general.

As fun as all of that is, there is one thing illustrated very well in Fable that is a valuable insight to helping you make money. Several times in the game, you are forced to choose between morality and money. For instance, you may be hired by the city guards to go rescue some villagers that have been kidnapped by bandits. When you get to the bandit camp to free them, you find that the bandits will offer you more money than the guards are paying you to let them keep the villagers as slaves. So you’re faced with the dilemma of whether to do the “right” thing and and free the villagers, or take the money and let the bandits do as they wish.

There are several other examples of this in the game. If a shopkeeper has a fancy new sword that you want, but you don’t want to pay the full amount for it, you can threaten him to get a better price. If he doesn’t drop it low enough, you can even kill him and get a much better rate from the new shopkeeper that takes his place (who is inexplicably rather terrified of you). In another instance, you can buy properties in the game and rent them out to tenants. Raising the rent means more money, but it counts as an evil act as you are unduly burdening the townspeople.

So what does this have to do with learning to make money?

Here is the single most important thing you can ever learn about creating wealth: Your beliefs about money determine whether you will ever become wealthy or just be average. In fact, it’s bigger than that. Your beliefs about money determine your entire financial reality.

What does that mean exactly? Whether you realize it or not, your beliefs determine the large majority of your thoughts and actions. Have you ever put your keys down on a desk and worried that they would float away? Of course not. Your belief in gravity is unshakable. Do you believe that the only way to make money is to have a job and work for someone else? Then you will never investigate or seek out other opportunities for creating income.

Here’s where this ties into the examples from the videogame. If you believe that you are generally a good person (and nearly everyone does), and yet, deep down, you believe that money is evil, you will never create any sort of real, lasting wealth in your life. If you believe this sort of thing, then whether overtly or subconsciously, you will repel wealth and the things you need to create it – the people, the things, the knowledge – from your life, instead of attracting them to you. Why would a good person need or want something evil?

Let’s look at some negative beliefs you can have about money. Maybe you don’t quite believe that money itself is evil, but you might believe that, in order to make money, you will have to engage in activities that are morally shady or that violate your values. Do you believe that you’ll have to sell out or change who you are to make money? If you meet a wealthy person, do you assume that they will be stuck-up or arrogant? Do you assume that the wealthy acquired their money by exploitation and dishonest means? Do you identify with Robin Hood, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor, or do you see him as a thief who took what was not his and gave it to those who had not earned it?

The more you consider your beliefs about wealth, the more you will probably realize that you do have negative beliefs about it. That’s OK for now. Don’t try and change everything at once, just try and identify the beliefs as you come across them.